Acts 15 and the Three Cardinal Sins

I struggled for years with the various interpretations of the four commands given by James to the gentile believers in Acts 15. The main thing I struggled with was the “blood and things strangled”. The traditional teachings that it referred to kosher or to pagan practices never seemed to fit with the other two, Idolatry and Fornication.

Then one day I was reading some excerpts from the Talmud and I ran across the statement that the sages taught that since the First Temple was destroyed due to rampant acts of murder, idolatry, and sexual immorality, there were three things you could not do even under pain of death: Idolatry, Fornication and …Murder. As fast as my mind races, I was already excited before I got to the third one. Only to be disappointed that it said murder instead of blood and things strangled. It was so close that I looked up the word for blood and discovered that the Greek word aima can mean blood as in the liquid or bloodshed as in to murder! I have included the Thayer’s definition only because it is easier to read, but the Strong’s definition is the same.

G129
αἷμα
aima
Thayer Definition:
1) blood
1a) of man or animals
1b) refers to the seat of life
1c) of those things that resemble blood, grape juice
2) bloodshed, to be shed by violence, slay, murder

Here is the Sanhedrin 74a link:
http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_74.html#PARTb#PARTb

So now I had the three “Cardinal Sins” that the rabbis talked about. However, that still did not deal with the “things strangled” part. My assumption was that because you could kill someone without causing bloodshed, that maybe someone added “things strangled” to it to close the loophole. Ie bloodshed and strangling equals murder. This is arguable since the Greek word for strangled, pniktos, appears nowhere else in the bible.

So even though I was fairly confident that the original edict was for Idolatry, Fornication and Murder, I still had no proof. That was until I discovered the Western Version of Acts. If you are not familiar with the Western Version of Acts, it is an ancient manuscript dating back to the fourth century of the first 22 chapters of Acts that is different from the commonly used version called the Antiochian Version. Most scholars assume that the Antiochian Version is the original because there are older copies of it and because the Western Version is longer. However, believing that “because there are more copies makes it the original” is equivalent to saying the "world was flat" because they all believed it to be. Here are the links to the English translation and to an article for you to read:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/acts_long_02_text.htm Link to English translation
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/acts_long_01_intro.htm Link to article by translator

These are the specific verses I want to show you:

Acts 15:19 Wherefore my judgment is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles turn to God: but that we enjoin on them to abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, [and from what is strangled] and from blood: and that whatsoever they would not should be done to them ye do not to others. For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.

Please note that in the Western version above, the part “and from things strangled” is in parentheses because it is not in the Western Version. So the Western Version reads: abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from blood: In other words, the Three Cardinal Sins of the Rabbis. Also note the next part that is in the Western Version, but not the Antiochian Version : and that whatsoever they would not should be done to them ye do not to others. This is easily recognizable as Hillel’s version of the Golden Rule.

What a perfect combination to give to new believers! First you tell them the three things they are never to do under pain of death, then you give them the Golden Rule and finally you tell them to go learn the rest of Torah in the Synagogues every Sabbath!

This also ties in nicely with the Torah command to include the aliens among you during the Feast of Tabernacles which is also called the Feast of the Gentiles:

Deu 31:10 And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,
Deu 31:11 When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Deu 31:12 Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law:
Deu 31:13 And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.


I have since learned that many scholars agree with this view. To quote a friend in the Messianic movement: David Flusser, Shmuel Safrai, David Bivin (see New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus), and other scholars all hold to this view and feel the Western Version is more authentic. I believe that as more scholars begin to understand the Hebraic roots of the Christian movement, they will accept the Western Version of Acts.


Shalom,
Jeff