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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Put out of the synagogue
A Jewish community could punish a member by shutting him out of its life for a time or for good. Since the synagogue was the center of town life, expulsion cut a person off from neighbors and worship, and often from a living.
Being cut off from the only church in a small town means losing your friends, your customers and your place at every wedding and funeral. A synagogue was where a Jewish town prayed, studied Scripture, settled disputes and met. It could also discipline its members, and its heaviest punishment was to shut someone out of the community, for a short time, a longer one or for good. John's Gospel says that people who confessed Jesus as the Messiah faced exactly that.
Jewish communities had several kinds of discipline, beatings among them. They could also ban a member from community life for a short time, a longer one or for good. The cultural backgrounds notes find such bans in later rabbinic sources, before them in the Scrolls, at 1QS 6.24 to 7.25, and earlier still in Ezra 10:8. Keener calls excommunication one of the harshest forms of synagogue discipline, apparently rare and so very severe in Jesus' time. He describes it as the spiritual equal of a death sentence, used in place of the Old Testament death penalty, though a banned person who repented could be restored. It also shut people out of the community's meals. Under later rabbinic rules full excommunication treated a person as an outsider and put him under a curse, while lesser bans kept him inside the community. The Essenes also had levels of discipline. Wright stresses what was lost: "The synagogue was the focus of the whole community," and someone put out would probably do better to leave the area. The churches took over the synagogue's forms of discipline, apart from beatings. For John's first readers expulsion could be dangerous as well as lonely. Without recognized Jewish status, believers could lose the Jews' exemption from the imperial cult and face charges of disloyalty. Keener writes that synagogue leaders in Asia left Jewish Christians exposed by handing them to the Roman authorities as non-Jews. Rome let the Jewish communities of the Diaspora discipline their own members, and correction was to be private first and public only when that failed.
An analogy: being shunned by a close-knit religious community where the same families run the farms, the shops and the school. The door of the meeting house closes, and every other door in town closes with it.
Expulsion from the synagogue was the threat that kept people who believed from saying so, as in John 9:22, and the fear of it shows in more than one scene. Paul tells a church to remove an offender from its fellowship in 1 Corinthians 5:13, and 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 describes a milder ban that still treats the offender as a brother.
Not informal shunning. Shunning is social pressure with no law behind it. A synagogue ban was formal discipline, graded from a short exclusion to a permanent one, and Rome let the communities impose it. In Asia it could strip believers of Jewish status and expose them to Roman charges.
How formal the expulsion in John was, and when such expulsions began. Keener reads John 9 as the language of John's own day, the 90s, when his readers faced expulsion. He says excommunication was apparently rare in Jesus' time and its formality then unclear. The cultural backgrounds notes point out that forms of banishment already appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls, before Jesus. Wright treats the decision as already taken in Jesus' day by the Judaean leaders. Carson, Moo and Morris note that the theory of a ban on Christians agreed at Jamnia after AD 85 has been challenged at every point. The ESV and CSB Study Bibles say the way the man is thrown out in John 9:34 suggests an impulsive act rather than formal excommunication. Second, who was expected to do the killing in John 16:2. The CSB Study Bible thinks Jewish persecution most likely and says some rabbis believed killing heretics was an act of worship. The cultural backgrounds notes say deadly violence from fellow Jews happened but was not the norm, and that fatal persecution came especially from Gentiles. Keener says hostile synagogue leaders in Asia handed believers over to Rome rather than killing them directly.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1timothy-1-12-20\/","n":"1 Timothy 1:12-20, A blasphemer shown mercy, and two men handed over to Satan","s":"Paul thanks Christ for taking a former blasphemer and persecutor into his service as an example of mercy, then charges Timothy to fight the battle well, as the prophecies about him foretold, unlike Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom Paul has handed over to Satan.","r":"1 Timothy 1:12-20"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/titus-3-9-15\/","n":"Titus 3:9-15, A divisive person, winter at Nicopolis, and Zenas and Apollos","s":"Titus is to avoid foolish controversies, genealogies and quarrels about the law, and to warn a divisive person twice before having nothing more to do with him; Paul plans to winter at Nicopolis and asks Titus to send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way with everything they need.","r":"Titus 3:9-15"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/hebrews-13-7-17\/","n":"Hebrews 13:7-17, Foods, an altar and outside the camp","s":"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever, so the readers must not be carried away by strange teachings about foods. Believers have an altar the tabernacle priests may not eat from; as the bodies of the sin offerings were burned outside the camp, Jesus suffered outside the gate, and they must go out to him, bearing his disgrace, seeking the city to come.","r":"Hebrews 13:7-17"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-2-8-11\/","n":"Revelation 2:8-11, Smyrna, poor and slandered","s":"To Smyrna the risen Jesus says he sees their hardship and poverty and the abuse they suffer from local opponents claiming to be the true Jews, whom he condemns in harsh terms. Some will be jailed for a short time; if they stay loyal even to death he will reward them with life.","r":"Revelation 2:8-11"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-3-7-13\/","n":"Revelation 3:7-13, Philadelphia and the key of David","s":"To Philadelphia the one who holds the key of David sets before a weak but faithful church an open door no one can shut. Those of the synagogue of Satan will bow at their feet, and the one who conquers will be a pillar in God's temple, bearing the name of the new Jerusalem.","r":"Revelation 3:7-13"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on John 9:13, 9:22-23 and 9:34, on 1 Corinthians 5:2, 5:4, 5:11 and 5:13, and on 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on John 9:22 and 9:34
- N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, comment on John 9:13-23
- ESV Study Bible, study note on John 9:34
- CSB Study Bible, notes on John 9:18-22 and 9:34
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on John 12:42 and 16:2-4
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on John 16:2
- CSB Study Bible, note on John 16:2
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 1 Timothy 1:20 and 5:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Timothy 1:20 and 5:20
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 1 Timothy 1:20
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 5, John, Date
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article The Jews and Jewish Leaders in John's Gospel
