7.1 The Origins of Christianity
Augustus had been ruling for over 20 years when, sometime between 8 BC and 4 AD, in a small town called Bethlehem near Jerusalem, in the province of Judea, a Jewish couple named Joseph and Mary registered their first child, Jesus, who had just been born while they were in town for a tax census. Today the Christian world celebrates the birth of Jesus in December and calls it Christmas, but his birth was most likely in the spring of the year since the shepherds were “abiding” in the fields with their sheep, which they did not do in the winter months. Most of what we know about Jesus comes from the Bible and there are a few references to him in the historical writings of Flavius Josephus (circa 37 -100 CE), a Jewish historian who wrote about this period in history.1
Thirty years later Jesus began his meteoric 3 year ministry. He was a sensational speaker with the capacity to teach the undereducated with simple storytelling, metaphors, and parables. Miracles were attributed to Him. Above all he proclaimed that he was the son of God. His followers declared him to be the Messiah, who the Jewish people had traditionally expected to come, to bring them prosperity, and to save them from their earthly Roman captivity.
In 29 CE he led his followers into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the feast of Jewish independence from the pharaoh in Egypt. In the superheated climate of an overcrowded city the nervous Jewish Sanhedrin tried him, disobeying many of their own judicial laws, and found him guilty of blasphemy and deserving of the death penalty. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate agreed to his death and Jesus was crucified by Roman occupation troops on a hill Golgotha just outside of the city of Jerusalem. Christians believe that on the third day after his death Jesus rose from the tomb and began a 40 day ministry among his disciples. At the end of his forty days he ascended into the heavens, leaving behind representatives to carry the message of Christianity to the world.
There are many influences on Christianity that come from Jewish traditions and beliefs. The Jews were monotheistic, and believed that no other God should be worshiped beside Him. They also believed that they were God’s chosen people and that there was a kingdom of heaven toward which they were striving. The Jews had always believed in the coming of a Messiah and that he would save them from the oppressive domination of the Romans who occupied their land. They believed in receiving rewards for good works or punishment for disobedience to God’s commandments. They also met privately in synagogues to read the scriptures and listening to a discussion about their meaning. These beliefs carried over into the new Christian faith and were taught by Jesus to his followers, called disciples.
In addition to these beliefs which can be found in the five books of Moses and were the first five books of the Old Testament in the Bible, Christ added new doctrine. He taught that all individuals are important in God’s eyes. He taught that men should love one another and forgive one another, seventy times seven. He taught charity (pure love, not donating money to the kettle). He believed a person should learn self-control. In essence, Jesus taught that a person should learn to go beyond the outward laws of Judaism and learn to control his thoughts, feelings, anger, and emotions. For instance Jesus said that it was not enough to refrain from killing, but men should not even get angry at others. It was not enough to refrain from committing adultery, but even looking at a woman with lust was wrong. He also taught that men (and women) should develop humility and be willing to turn the other cheek for offenses they thought others had done to them.
In addition to learning to be personally humble, forgiving and thoughtful, Jesus taught that His Father had allowed him to die to redeem the world from sin, and that belief in Jesus was necessary for this promised redemption. Ethics was not enough, there had to be commitment to Jesus. So after Jesus was crucified on the cross he returned to the leaders of His church and commissioned them to go out into the world and preach this new gospel. Many early Christians felt compelled to proselytize and teach others what they knew about Jesus. It was not easy to be a Christian during the first 250 years of the Christian Church. Various Roman emperors outlawed the new religion and tortured and killed its followers. It was not until Constantine that things began to change.
The Bible is a Greek word for biblia which means the books, and refers to the collected works of the Christian faith. It is divided into two main sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the national literature of the Jewish people. It is written almost entirely in Hebrew with a few passages in Aramaic.
Hebrew can be difficult to translate because it does not use vowels. So, a given group of consonants with one set of vowels may mean one thing, whereas with another set it may mean something entirely different. Often spacing was eliminated between words or even between lines of prose. This made it difficult to read. Also, much of the original Hebrew text was lost or destroyed because of wars and the fact that the Hebrew people were often taken captive and lost their written texts. The Old Testament is God’s covenant with the Jews through the prophet Abraham. Through the Abrahamic covenant Israel felt a special destiny to be his people if they would obey his laws.
The New Testament is a multinational collection of writing to a limited group of people.
Just as the Abrahamic covenant and the laws given by God to Moses were central to the Old Testament, Jesus is central to the New Testament. The theme of the New Testament is Jesus’ nature as Christ, the Messiah. The New Testament begins with the four Gospels. They were written years after Jesus died by some of his disciples.
- Matthew, written ca 85 CE
- Mark, written ca 68-72 CE
- Luke, written ca 85 CE
- John, written ca 95-100 CE
Matthew, Mark and Luke are synoptic, interwoven stories which tell many of the same stories in different ways. John was written later and reflects the developments of the first century of the Christian church. The book of The Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke about the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys. The epistles are a collection of letters to specific churches or to the church as a whole. The Book of Revelation was written by John to encourage Christians during the persecution under Domitian (81-96 AD) The Book of Revelation predicts a new heaven and a new earth for the faithful.
There are also additional Biblical writings that are not in many standard modern Bibles. These works did not “make it” into the Bible for various reasons. The Apocrypha were those sacred books not included in the Hebrew Bible, such as The Books of Esdras, Tobit, Judith or Esther. Or there are additional non-canonical writings said to be sacred writings of the ancient patriarchs, though their dates do not match the dates of those said to have written them, so they have not been included. Some of these were written in Greek and Ethiopic and are legends about characters in the Bible.
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