Joel Heller

Neither Yavne nor Antioch Joel Heller

When Rome flattened Judea in the late first and early second centuries of the Common Era, Rabbinic Judaism regrouped and reorganized at the Academy in Yavne, Greek-speaking, gentile proto-orthodox Christianity headquartered in Antioch, Syria, and the Nazareans, the original, Jewish and ""God-fearer,"" Hebraically minded ""Followers of the Way,"" escaped to Pella. Rejected by both the rabbis and the bishops, the Nazareans have often had to go underground, but they have never gone extinct. They have resurfaced from time to time throughout the succeeding two millennia. Now, at the beginning of the Third Great Awakening, in what some believe will be the last Reformation before the Second Coming, the Nazarean movement is experiencing a renaissance. Neither Yavne nor Antioch: Recovering Nazarean Judaism celebrates that new birth.