By Anne-Christine Hoff (July 2026)
The first Jewish believers could not have anticipated the conflict their belief in Jesus would create for their Jewish identity. Believing in their Messiah created practical questions, like whether the pilgrimage to Jerusalem continued to be necessary and, if so, whether a Temple sacrifice was still needed now that, according to them, Jesus died for their sins and rose again.
Conflicts like this pale in comparison to the growing strife created by the larger numbers of Gentiles joining the Jesus movement throughout the Hellenistic cities of the eastern Mediterranean world. These new converts brought about practical considerations for the Messianic Jews. One of which was, “Can we sit at the same table together and eat with Gentiles?”
Galatians 2:12 describes a situation which may or may not be the same one discussed in Acts 15 where Peter does not dare eat with Gentiles. Whether Galatians 2 describes the same meeting as Acts 15 or a closely related event, both texts reveal the same underlying issue: how Jewish and Gentile believers could belong to the same community without requiring Gentiles to become Jews. Paul writes of Peter, “For, until some people came up from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself because he was afraid of the circumcised” (Galatians 2:12). That these visitors from Jerusalem to the Hellenistic city of Antioch make Peter shy away from eating together with Gentiles reflects the difficulties of bringing Gentiles into Judaism. What requirements should be made of the new converts? Peter’s discomfort indicates that the issue of fellowshipping with Gentiles has not yet been hashed out into policy, and that lack of language to describe the problem becomes precisely the point of the Jerusalem Council.
This issue is important enough to require a meeting in Jerusalem because, according to Acts 15, some Jewish believers from Judea assert that “Unless you are circumcised according to Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved” (15:1). Others like Paul and Peter dispute this claim. Regardless, the question of how or what may be needed for Gentiles to become part of God’s kingdom remains. A second consideration was preserving the unity of the Jesus movement. The goal of the meeting was first, to regain some clarity from the religious center of authority, Jerusalem and secondly, to find a compromise so that Jewish believers could eat with Gentile believers while maintaining their Jewish identity.
The Council argument put forward at their meeting in Jerusalem is still on record in Acts 15. The questions being discussed are 1. Must Gentiles be circumcised? and 2. Must they become Jews? The council, made up of Barnabas, Peter, Paul and James (all Jewish), among others, decides that circumcision is not necessary, and not only that, but the new converts need not necessarily become Jews. Instead, the Gentiles can be accepted without full conversion. Yet even after this decision, the problem of eating together remains.
Peter and James’ arguments in favor of not requiring circumcision are included in the text. Both arguments indicate a secondary priority of the meeting beyond establishing whether Gentiles need to convert. The apostles were also concerned with encouraging new Gentile believers in their faith, showing them the way to salvation, and at the same time acknowledging the importance of the law to the Jewish believers.
Jesus’ brother James cites the prophet Amos, “After this I will return and I will rebuild the tent of David; from its ruins I shall rebuild it and raise it up again, so that the rest of humanity may seek out the Lord, even all the Gentiles on whom my name is invoked” (Acts 15: 16-17; Amos 9:11-12). He then describes God concerning himself with the Gentiles and Gentiles turning to Israel’s God, not becoming Jews. The Council’s four requirements stem from Leviticus 17 and 18. They are:
- Abstain from food sacrificed to idols.
- Abstain from blood. (Don’t consume blood as food).
- Abstain from meat from strangled animals. (Animals killed without draining their blood, closely related to the prohibition on consuming blood).
- Abstain from sexual immorality.
Three out of four of these requirements concern what happens at meals. All four involve the sanctity of blood and sex. Two out of four relate to requirements to distance oneself from the overwhelmingly pagan practices of sexual immorality and idol worship.
Peter’s argument takes the opposite position, contending that God gave the Gentiles the Holy Spirit just as he gave Jewish believers the Holy Spirit (Acts 10-11). Since these events occurred before the Gentiles’ formal conversion, God has accepted Gentile believers as equals in the kingdom of God. He further explains that the Law was a burden even for Jews, “Why then are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10) According to Peter’s line of reasoning, since Jews and Gentiles were saved in the same way, then, God has already accepted Gentiles before they became Jews.
Dating the Council of Jerusalem draws primarily from Paul’s own account in the Book of Galatians. Paul’s conversion is typically dated between 33 and 36 CE. In Galatians, after his conversion, Paul says, “After three years, I went up to Jerusalem…” (1:18). This puts Paul’s first post-conversion Jerusalem visit at approximately 36 to 39 CE. In Galatians 2:1, Paul writes, “Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas…” Assuming that this “then after fourteen years” references his first visit to Jerusalem, Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem is likely 14 years after his first visit in 48-49 CE.
This date is corroborated by the known date of Gallio’s term as governor of Achaia mentioned in Acts 18. Gallio is short for Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus. He is not only a well-known Roman public figure in his own right, but he is also the brother of Seneca the philosopher and proconsul (governor) of the Roman province of Achaia. In Acts 18, Paul appears before Gallio. Similarly, an inscription from Delphi places Gallio’s term in Achaia around 51-52 CE. This means that the Gallio inscription places Paul’s stay in Achaia’s capital city of Corinth to approximately 51-52 CE, providing a secure reference point. Counting back from that event produces a chronology that closely corroborates the intervals Paul describes in Galatians 1-2.
The Jerusalem Council writings in Acts 15 and Galatians 2 show that Christianity was still primarily Jewish in nature in 49 CE. This is shown through the concern of Jewish believers like Peter in continuing to eat separately from Gentiles (Galatians 2:12). This is also reflected in the nature of the Jerusalem Council meeting, which is meant to explore the question of how and to what degree a non-Jew can become Jewish, and if it is possible, whether it is even necessary.
The compromise of the four abstentions (abstaining from blood, abstaining from food sacrificed to idols, abstaining from meat from strangled animals, and abstaining from sexual immorality) reflects the concern of the Jewish believers with the Gentiles’ salvation. All these abstentions concern the outward actions that could draw the new Gentile believer back to the Hellenistic culture of the eastern Mediterranean world. For those in attendance at the Jerusalem Council, these Gentile believers needed guidance as to how to follow the God of Israel, and yet, according to them, becoming Jewish was no longer necessary to follow the Jewish God.
*All quotes from Scripture come from The New American Bible.
Anne-Christine Hoff is an associate professor of English at Jarvis Christian University. She lives with her daughter and her two dogs in Mineola, Texas. Her work has appeared in LifeSite News, American Thinker, Middle East Quarterly, The Barcelona Review, and New English Review.
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