Ebionite Jewish Community

There are a number of internet groups which claim to be successors of the original Ebionites, such as the Ebionite Jewish Community, founded in 1995. The group's founder, Shemayah Phillips, had briefly been a member of the Assemblies of Yahweh in 1985, before becoming an Ebionite. The Ebionite Jewish Community is a part of the Sacred Name movement, and includes in its specific beliefs a denial of the divinity of Christ and a rejection of Trinitarianism, and sees Paul the Apostle as a false prophet. This philo-semitic community claims to be the legitimate revivalists of the authentic views and practices of early Ebionites, a sect of Jewish disciples of Jesus which existed from the 1st to the 5th century of the Common Era.
The Ebionite Jewish Community promotes Yahwism, the recognition of Yeshua (Jesus) as a Jewish prophet (rather than as a Messiah as he is portrayed in Christian writing), and claims that Christianity is not a biblically-based religion. Ebionites actively campaign against missionary work done by Christian groups, and encourages a return to a Tanakh-reliant approach to Judaism among Messianic Jews, Hebrew Christians, Gentile Christians and others.
Modern Ebionites are neither gnostic nor dualist, but strictly monotheistic. Ebionites believe that monotheism disallows a belief in a "Satan" that competes with God. Modern Ebionitism emphasizes the social justice aspect of the Tanakh, and Yahwism as a socio-economic as well as a religious idea. They also reject membership for those involved in occupations deemed to be "exploitive."

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu