Dr Joseph Thondiparambil

Table of Contents

I.The Sources of New  Testament History

(the scope of this course – Josephus and his sources – The Greek  Historians – the Roman historians – Jewish sources – The Dead Sea scrolls – The Canonical  Texts – The Apostolic fathers – The Apologists – the Church Historians – The Apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha)

II.The Political Scene

(Egypt – Syria- Antioch and its importance – Antiochus IV Epiphanes – The Maccabean revolt – Hasmoneans – Antipater – The Herods – Herod the Great)

III.From Historical Jesus to Canonical Gospels

(the political scene of Palestine at the time of Jesus – Jesus’ response to the same – Economic situation – Jesus’ attitude – the social situation and Jesus – the religious situation)

IV.The cultural tensions

(Judaism – Hellenism – the Roman Imperialism)

V.The Jewish Heritage

(the Babylonian exile – the return to Palestine and its implications)

VI.The Pressure of Paganism

(the ethnic religions – emperor worship – the mystery religions – the Eleusinian mysteries – the worship of  Serapis – Attargatis – Mithra – the atmosphere of Paganism- astrology)

VII.Biblical Geography

(Abraham – the fertile crescent – Moses  and Egypt and the exodus route)

VIII.Geography of Palestine

(size and features – climate – transjordan – the rift valley – the coastal plains – the central zone of  Palestine )

General Bibliography

Bibliography

(only the most important titles are given below)

B.Metzger, The New Testament.Background, Growth and Content (Lutterworth Press:London,1969)

M.C.Tenney, The New Testament Times (Grand Rapids, Michigan:Erdmans Publishing company,1965)

Ben Withernington III, New Testament History : A Narrative Account(Grand Rapids, Michigan:Baker Academic,2001)

A.Samuel, The Environment of Early Christianity (New York:Scribner,1920)

C.K.Barrett, The New Testament Background. Selected Documents .Editied with Introductions (London:S.P.C.K.,1958)

Cambridge Ancient History.Eds. S.A.Cook,M.P.Charlesworth. Vol VII: The Hellenistic Monarchies and the rise of Rome. Vol VIII: Rome and the Mediterranean, 218-133 B.C. Vol X :The Augustan Empire, 44 B.C. – A.D.70. Vol XI: The Imperial Peace, A.D. 70-192, (New York: Macmillan, 1930)

C.Philip, The Early Church, Vol I (Cambridge:University Press, 1957)

G.Cornfeld, (Ed)Daniel to Paul: Jews in Conflict with Graeco-Roman Civilization. Historical and Religious Background to the Hasmoneans, dead sea Scrolls, the new Testament World, Early Christianity and the Bar-Kochba War (New Yorik: Macmillan, 1962)

G.E.Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinain Mysteries (Princeton,N.J.: University Press, 1963)

E.Schurer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 5 vols (London: Humphrey Mildford,1940)

G.W.Wade, New Testament History (London:Methuen,1922)

.

A.J.Toynbee, Hellenism (New Youk & London:Oxford University Press, 1959)

R.E.Brown, Biblical Geography in New Jerome Biblical Commentary,1175-1195.

Besides, one finds ample  bibliographic material in these works)

For the Geography of the Holy Land, Y.Aharoni, M Avi-Yonah, A.F.Ainey & Z.Safrai, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, (New York:Macmillan 1993).

The New Testament Background

Introduction

            It is the fundamental assumption of Christianity that God has intervened in history and made his will known to humanity, first through the history of the people of Israel, which implied their call starting with Abraham (Gen 12,1-4), and thereafter in the choice of Moses (Exod 3) and the covenant at Sinai (Exod 19) and then in the fullness of time in the Person of Jesus Christ (Gal 4,4) who is God’s definitive manifestation.  Because of this history is an important aspect of  theological consideration.  God has chosen history as the medium through which he has made himself known.  The historical events are meaningful and are moving according to God’s designs. It is not a cyclic evolution, but a linear movement which has an aim that is nothing but the realization of the Kingdom of God, (I Cor 15) which is called the new heaven and earth, or the new Jerusalem in the New Testament  (Rev 21.22). “Then comes  the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every  authority and power” ( 1 Cor l5,24) see also Rev.21,1-4).

            History is a series of events by which man as a social being moves towards the realization of his own self  through the interaction  of a given world which surrounds him and his freedom..  Events are not happenings; “History consists not merely of occurrences, but of events which are occurrences plus meaning” (D.S.Bailie) The significance of history has been understood mainly under Christian influence.

            The  pagan philosophers never cared for history.  In Greek Philosophy, mainly Plato, matter is the principle of change and appearance, whereas the spirit is the sphere of the lasting and essential (noumenon)  Truth  is only in the sphere of the eternal ‘eidos’  which has no history.  In Indian Philosophy, dualistic Samkhya considers prakriti the principle of  change and action; history belongs to the changeable world which has no meaning in itself, but only serves to eliminate itself so that the purusha, the spiritual subject come to its pure consciousness; there is no history in the realm of the spirit.  In advaita the principle of change is maya , which is either illusion, or reality of subordinate character; all action is excluded from the realm of the absolute and relegated to the sphere of the unreal which has to be transcended..

            Hindu cosmology knows the eternal samsara of the never ending world process, into which man is implicated in the chain of birth and death.  History is conceived in cycles, in analogy to the cosmos, in ever recurring kalpas, which in turn, again are developing in yugas (Gita 9,7).  There is no universal eschatology in Hinduism, no real end of history, but only moksha, which means the liberation from the bondage of the historical existence. (see J.Neuner, Theology of Revelation, 5.6) While speaking about the documents adduced to prove hisorical  statements, the noted Indian history Prof M.G.S. Narayan has this to say:

            “History aims at the study of  the past of society, but the society of the past is lost forever.  We have only the present before us today.  Some parts of buildings and a few fragmentary public and private documents from different periods have survived by accident, these and some oral traditions, highly distorted or exaggerated, help us to reconstruct the past with great difficulty.  The entire story of the past can never be recovered.  We have to be satisfied with inferences based on scanty evidence.  Therefore history is mostly arbitrary, incomplete, partial and subjective.  There is no last word in the discipline.  It is a continuing quest for facts, which will always remain inconclusive” (Paper presented at the Pontifical Institute of Religion and Philosophy, Alwaye, 12.7.2005) One has to keep in mind these statements, while trying to evaluate the evidences at our disposal.

            These observations about history and the meaning of history are added here to situate our course on the New Testament Background. In God’s plan it was not a coincidence that He chose Abraham and  his posterity to reveal his mind. The history of Israel ;the events and persons- all have a message for us.  God speaks to us through these events.  In the Hebrew language, dabar means not only word but only event. There is a mutual relationship between the word and event.  The word explains the action and the action illustrates the word.  The typical examples are the miracles of Jesus.  In fact in the Gospel  of John, the seven signs are illustrations of the discourses.. It is from these considerations, that the saying becomes meaningful, “reading the signs of the times” We will see in course of our treatise that  all what happened in the history of the people o f  God  has a relevance to the Christ event.  All what preceded was a preparation (preparatio evangelica, as the Fathers of the Church would call it).Further, as we await the parousia of the Lord, the church has the obligation and task to get involved in history  for the full realization of the Kingdom of God

I.The Sources of New Testament History

                We consider this subject here because from the point of view of faith, we hold that God had been preparing history and the various events and persons there for the coming of His Son.

            The student of new testament history has the task of collecting, interpreting and evaluating the evidences (sources)This task is colossal, because the evidence is scanty; expressed in unfamiliar idioms  with broken sequence of Chronology; containing unconscious and purposeful bias on the part of the student.  The prejudice can come also from the part of the original writer.  Was he truthful?  Or was he  a propagandist? did he know fully about what he wrote? Or did he depend on others who falsified the evidences?  Hence a historian has to discriminate between truth and error; objective fact and tendentious propaganda.

            As far as we are concerned, the events belong to history and the meaning  of the events belong to theology. It is possible that depending upon the particular perspective one approaches these materials, the  conclusions also differ. By giving a theological interpretation to the events, we are not saying that it does not have a meaning  in the rational order.  The rational order is  a vehicle to convey a supernatural reality.

            It is said that history is the autobiography of mankind, contained in inscriptions on monuments; about the bible, on the clay tablets of Babylon; the fragile papyrus sheets from Egypt; broken potsherds from the ruins of Palestine;  and the scrolls and manuscripts from monasteries.

The scope of New Testament History

            The New Testament chronicles events which cover a period beginning shortly before the death of Herod the great in 4 B.C.  and ending with the writing  of the book of revelation in A.D. 95.  Yet a  longer period  to understand the cause and effects of  N.T.events is needed as a background.. In fact Jesus’ entry in history is the climax of a process that started with the first promise in the garden of Eden, the selection, formation and continuation of the Jewish nation.  It is continuing through the ministration of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

            To provide a broader setting  for the events of the first Christian century, we have to look into the events from the rise of the second Jewish Commonwealth in the Maccabean revolt of 168 B.C. to the ends  until the end of the sub-apostolic  age, shortly after the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) The first gave birth to the renewal of the semi-independence  of Judaism and the growth  of the culture which formed the seedbed of the early  Church.   The reign of Hadrian marked the emergence of the Church as group publicly recognized by the leaders of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the conflict between Christianity and paganism on all fronts, religious, cultural  and political fields.  Hence our area of consideration will cover this period.

            Here below are  the important sources for the  New Testament History.

1.Josephus and His Sources.

We have the greatest amount of information from him.  He was born in Jerusalem  around 37/38 B.C. He had a thorough rabbinical learning, and visited the schools of the  Sadducees, Pharisees and the Essenes and has spent three years in the desert with the   Hermit Benias. On return he joined the Pharisees and went to Rome to obtain the release of some priests prisoners who had been taken from Jerusalem.  He was successful in this attempt and won the favor of the Romans In the Jewish war of 66 A.D, though remaining neutral at first he joined later and commanded the defense of Jotapata, which fell in 67 A.D.   He didn’t fulfill the pact with his companion to commit suicide, in case of being caught .He surrendered to the Romans who took him captive to Rome before the Emperor Vespasian. He predicted that the latter would become emperor and when it came true, Josepus was freed. Then he took up the name “Flavius” and accompanied the emperor to Alexandria.  Later on he was with Titus in Jerusalem, and during the siege, negotiated with the Jewish leaders He retired to Rome where Vespasian honored him granting him Roman citizenship and other such privileges.(Some more details about him will be given about sources dealing with the historicity of Jesus)

Josephus was in the good books of Titus (79-81); Domitian (8-96); Nerva (96-98); and Trajan (98-117). By and large the Jews considered him a traitor, and the Romans were not altogether too happy about him, though the leadership was.

            During his stay in Rome he wrote: 1) The Wars of the Jews, first in Aramaic and then in Greek.  It contains 7 books coving the history from the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (175 B.C.) to the capture of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) The first book contains  the period from Antiochus to the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC.; the second explains the origins of the Jewish Revolt in A.D. 6 and recounts the first year of the war; the third deals with the first year of the  war in Galilee; the fourth  carries the history  down  to the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem; the fifth and sixth deal with the siege and capture of the city;  the seventh concludes the story and describes the results of the war.

            b) Josephus’ second large work is The Antiquities  of the Jews  It was completed in the l3th year of Domitian (93/94) It is a sort of Jewish apology and deals with their history from the beginning to the outbreak of war.

            Josephus utilizes many other sources like Stabo (Geography), a Greek historian; Timogenes of Alexandra ( a Syrian) and Justus of Tiberias ( a Jew contemporary of Josephus)

2. The Greek Historians

            The following Greek historians give information about the Jewish people and their life.  Some of them  are very useful for  the biblical studies.

1. Polybius (203-120 B.C.) He has written a 40 volume work on the  history of the Romans. He was very much enamored of the Roman culture.
2. Diodorus of Cicily (+21 B.C.) He was a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Augustus.  He makes a historical survey of mankind. Egypt – Assyria- the conquest of Gaul by Caesar. He speaks also about the career of Antiochus Epiphanes.
3. Strabo (63-B.C. –21 A.D.) He has written 47 books of history and 17 of Geography In Geography he speaks of Palestine about events antedating Pompey’s conquest of Palestine in 63 B.C.
4. Plutarch (50 A.D.) live for 70 years. Lives, most important work.  He tends to moralize.  He gives sketches of Roman statesmen.
5. Dio Cassius (155 A.D.) He was a native of Bithynia and became a consul in Africa.  He has written 80 books on Roman history, and we have got  only 18 book  in complete form

3. The Roman Historians

1. Cicero (106-43 B.C.) He gives information about Syria.
2. Livy (59 B.C. to 17 A.D.) He gives details on the history of Rome and his informations are valuable for the early Maccabees
3. Tacitus (55-120(?) A.D.)His Annals deal with the Caesars from Tiberius to Nero; the History from Nero to Domitian; He makes allusions to the Jews and Christians
4. Suetonius (69-121 A.D.) He was a friend of Pliny and a beneficiary of Trajan and secretary to Hadrian. His Lives of the Caesars are biographies from Julius Caesar to Domitian.  Makes occasional references to N.T.events.  He is less prejudiced than Tacitus

4. Jewish Sources

            To cover the period from 175 B.C. to 135 A.D. 1 & 2 Maccabees. It deals with the revolt of Jews against Antiohcus IV of Syria under the leadership of the sons of Mathathias, the priest of Modin. 1 Mac. is the story of Judas Maccabeus to the reign of John Hyrcanus (103 B.C) 2 Macc also deals with the same theme, but only until the death of Nicanor (161 B.C.) Josesphus used this source very much.  It is quite useful  for inter-testamental period.  Originally written in Hebrew about 100 B.C. The 2 Macc is a digest of the work  by Jason of Cyrene, the original was in Greek, stressing the supernatural deliverance of his people.  It is qualified as “a typical example of rhetorical Hellenistic historiography”(Pfeiffer)

5. The Dead Sea Scrolls

            The casual finding of some scrolls of parchments in the Judean desert in 1947 by an Arab Shepherd, which was explosive as far as biblical textual knowledge is concerned  is called the Dead Sea scrolls. The complete  copy of Isaiah, Manual of  Discipline; Commentary on Habakuk; on Genesis; The War of the Sons of Light with the sons of Darkness and some fragments of  the so called deutero- canonical books plus the books (hymn books ) peculiar to a community etc.  The style of Hebrew letters corresponds to the one in 1 – 2 century B.C.  It bears similarity to the traditions of the Maccabeean period as far as the textual family is concerned The carbon test indicates a time around 33 A.D. with two hundred years before or after

            Further excavation of Roman fortification and the ruins  of a community, which proved decisively that it is the ruin of the Qumran community  and further studies in 1953 confirmed it

            Examination of coins  point to three distinctive  periods of dwelling there.  A) John Hyrcanus (135-104 B.C)  till the end  of the Hasmonean period in 39 A.C. Josephus speaks of a severe earth quake in the 7^th year of Herod; rifts in the buildings are seen, possibly the cisterns were damaged and for want of water the community must have moved out B) The reign of Archelaus, which terminated with the capture of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Some Roman coins of this period have been found. C) Coins during the revolt of the Jewish guerillas at the time of Hadrian (132-135 A.D) also are seen

Conclusion:

            There was  a community thriving in the Judean desert from the period of the Maccabeans till the Jewish revolt in 135 A.D.  There was a scriptorium there and the scrolls of  most of Old Testament books are found , some in its entirety, some as fragments.  There were also fragments from the deutero canonical books. The Old Testament was the basis of the life of this community.

6. The Canonical Text.

            It is the most important witness to the early Christian centuries. There are 13 letters by Paul, who was active from 45-65 A.D. 5 books are attributed to John, who must have ended his writing career by 95 A.D.  2 books are attributed to Peter; 2 by Luke who was a companion of Paul (60/62)  2 Gospels by Mt/Mk contemporaries of Jesus. Then there are James, Jude; The Hebrews reflect the 1^st century situation

            Luke. He provides consecutive historical date in the acts.  He  is a contemporary to the growth of the early church.; active from 50-60 A.D.  in the gentile mission (Col 4,14; 2 Tim 4,11)

            Paul. The earliest letter, (1 Thessanonians? )Around  50 A.D.  and 2 Tim the mid sixties.  His writings are an invaluable index to the expansion  and doctrinal  temper of 1^st century church.

            John. He is not so much a historian as a theologian  His purpose is more didactic and doctrinal

            The Gospels. They are not strictly speaking historical records, but contains references to historical characters and events

            As far as the remaining books are concern4ed. James. A product of the first half of second century and reflects the Jewish – Christian reaction to the extremists, who made salvation by faith an excuse for ethical indifference. Peter reflects the provincial church of the seventh decade after the first wave of missionary evangelism before the open conflict with Rome. Hebrews, the transition from Judaic Christianity to the full independence of the new faith and finally Jude, the theological unrest which agitated the church after the middle of the century.

7. The Apostolic Fathers

            They had personal contact with the apostles, though they did not belong to the immediate followers of Jesus Their writings stems from end of the first century and goes to the first half of the second. From the close of the Acts of the Apostles (62 A.D.) to the time of Iraneus, Tertullain and Clement of Alexandria, the period remains rather opaque and the apostolic Fathers are the clue to the development of the Church in the years between A.D.76 to 170

1. Clement of Rome

Contemporary with the last writing of the new testament.  Most probably he is the Clement  of Paul’s correspondence (Phil  4,3) or the Clement mentioned in shepherd of Hermas 11.4.3.  He was an active member of the Roman church and was familiar with Paul’s Corinthian letters.  The II Clement is not from him.

• Ignatius of Antioch

He was the Bishop of Syrian Antioch until his martyrdom under Trajan in 108 A.D.  he has written 7 epistles to the Ephesians, Magnesians; Trallians; Romans; Philadelphians; Smyrneans and to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna.  In him we find  the transition from the pioneer underground church of the I century, to the settled ecclesiastical organization of the second century.  He combines the doctrinal tenor of I John to the situation of the harassment and persecution

• St.Polycarp

In his letter to the Philippians we have some information about the situation of the church in the early second century.  He was the Bishop of Smyrna, and was martyred in 155 A.D.  Most probably he was a disciple of John

• Didache

It is also known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles It was discovered by Brennios, the Greek Metropolitan of Nicomedia, as a manuscripit written in 1056 in the library of the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem at Constantinople It is a handbook on church discipline, written about 60 A.D..There are the teachings about the two ways, death and life; the rituals of the church (fasting and prayers) and the leaders and officers of the church. We have the beginning of an institutionalized church.

• Epistle of Barnabas

He is not the friend of Paul because  the destruction of the temple is mentioned in 16,3. The destruction took place in 70 A.D. It refers also  to the letter to the Hebrews, so most probably writing between 80 – 150 A.D. It is a treatise on the errors of Judaism, which is  not the final revelation, but only a preparation

• Shepherd of Hermas

It is written around 140 A.D. by Hermas, a brother of Pius, the Bishop of Rome from 140 to 150. The church is seen as a distinct community in  the society. It speaks about sins committed after baptism

8. The Apologists

            They are the Christian writers like Justin Martyr, ;Iraneus etc. who were in conflict with the pagan culture.  They defended faith  against the pagan philosophies

9. The Church Historians

            Eusebius of Caesarea (260-340) with his Historia Ecclesiastica, is the best and most useful source of history.  Practically all the church historians have relied on Eusebius.

10. The apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha

            Their historical value is insignificant

Conclusion

            The sources for the New Testament background are scattered and enigmatic.  They took for granted that the setting was familiar to the readers. The New testament  writers did not tell all  what we want to know.  They gave only the facts which illustrated their meaning. We have to combine  theology with history because God’s purpose is involved in the cosmic process.

(points for discussion and personal reflection:  what do you mean by saying that Christianity is based on historical revelation? How does biblical history differ from secular history? Can you prove the claims of Christianity on the basis of historical evidences? What value is to be given to the sources of New Testament history?  How will you understand Hinduism and Islam as religions based on history as far as their tenets of faith are concerned? Discuss the historicity of Patriarchs of the old testament? What value is to  be given to the primeval  history in Gen 1-11?)

II. The Political Scene

            Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. It  effected a profound change in the political organization of the western world. He had conquered the known world of that day, but towards the end of his reign, there was an element of discontentment creeping among his soldiers due to incessant marches, continuous  fighting, and increasing distance from their homeland.  In the upper echelons of command there were jealousies and dissension, and after his death there was no one capable enough to consolidate the empire. So the kingdom was partitioned among his four generals.  Ptolemy took Egypt; Antipater, ;Macedonia and Greece; Lysimachus, Thrace; and Seleucus, Babylonia.  Antigonus, king of Phrygia, endeavored to carve an empire for himself in Asia Minor out of the remains of Alexander’s domain, but was opposed by the other successors and he was defeated at the battle of Ipsus in 301. The final division of the territories followed this battle.  Lysimachus retained Thrace; Cassander, the son of Antipater, became rule of his father’s kingdom;(Macedonia and Greece) Ptolemy, who assumed the title of Ptolemy I, and Seleucus claimed the sovereignty of Egypt and of Syria respectively. Of these the figures of Ptolemy and Seleucus are important for the biblical history.

Egypt and the Ptolemies

            The dynasty of the Ptolemies began auspiciously with Ptolemy I. He established the first extensive library of antiquity, the great Museum of Alexandria, which became the leading depository  for the literary wealth of the ancient world and the home of scholars who wished to engage in intellectual pursuits. It was the prototype of the modern university. He gained control of Cyrene, Cyprus and Palestine (in 313) He abdicated the throne in 285 B.C.  in favour of his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and died in d283 B.B.

            When Ptolemy I invaded Palestine, he did it on the Sabbath, and deported the Jews to Cyprus and the vast majority was taken to Alexandria They proved to be sober and industrious colonists and were granted a charter which made them semi-independent in  their own quarter  of the city. Morally superior to the Egyptians and Greeks, they obtained important government posts and prospered in business.  They learned the Greek language and absorbed Greek culture.

            The three succeeding Ptolemies, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246), Ptolemy III Euergestes (246-221) and Ptolemy  Philopator (221-204) maintained the tradition begun by Ptolemy I. The Alexandrian court was a cultural centre. Ptolemy Philadelphus enlarged the library of Alexandria and fostered the critical study of the Greek classics. Many of the manuscripts from which modern texts are derived were edited and preserved  in Egypt. Perhaps the most important heritage of his reign is the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, which probably made its appearance between 275 and 250 B.C. Traditions ascribes the translation to the work of seventy two scholars, sent by the Jewish commonwealth of Palestine to translate the books of the law and the prophets at Ptolemy’s request.  According the legend , the scholars were confined by pairs in separate houses and ordered to translate from Hebrew into Greek.  When  the results were compared, the manuscripts proved to be identical and were consequently adjudged to be correct since they could have agreed only by miracle. The legend is undoubtedly incorrect, for it is far more likely that the translation was made for the use of the Jewish colonists in Egypt rather than simply as a collector’s item for the library.

            By the first century A.D. the Septuagint had become the bible of the Jews of the dispersion and was widely circulated through the Roman world.  It became  also  the Bible of the early Christians who preached from it and quoted it in their writings.  A large proportion of the allusions to the Old Testament contained in the Gospels and in the Epistles are taken from the Septuagint. In the second century B.C. the decline of Egypt started.

Syria and the Seleucids

            When Egypt became weak Syria took over. The Seleucid king Antiochus the Great  was mainly responsible for it. The Seleucid dynasty had commenced with Seleucus I (312-280), another of Alexander’s generals. He had the Babylonian satrapy for his domain. In 316 he was forced to flee to Egypt, where he lived under the protection of Ptolemy I, but in 312 returned to Babylon., by defeating Antigonus in Asia Minor in 301 made himself master of Syria.

Antioch and its importance in antiquity and the early church

            The city was founded by Seleucus I  in 300, on the plain of Orontes river, and it became  an important center of learning and administration The location at the seaways to Egypt, Greece, and Italy was strategic.  Antioch became the capital of the Seleucid kings and  the foremost city of Syria.It was the opening to the Mediterranean world. There were the Macedonians, Greeks and the Syrians there with a massive population of Jews, who enjoyed citizenship. Antioch  was a meeting point of oriental philosophy and Greek culture

            The Romans occupied this city in 65 B.C. and then  on it became the provincial headquarters of Syria, to which also Palestine belonged.The Roman emperors especially Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius and later on Herod himself enlarged and beautified the city.  There was a huge network of roads and communication system there. Also the sea port was much developed.  All these structures helped the early Christian missionary movements very much Then there was the  security and police protection there, the so called Pax Romana, the Roman peace, and the rule of law.  This too gave the Christians and the missionaries relative peace.

            The gentiles were attracted to the Jewish faith because of the high level of ethical life and teaching of the latter and their strict monotheism.  The oriental religions on the other hand were  propagating some sort of moral laxity.  There were many Jewish proselytes there, e.g. Nicholaus of Antioch in Acts 6,5. On the whole there were no Jewish fanatics there as in the other  cities of Palestine. One can only think about the terrible oppositions which Paul had to meet with  while preaching in those cities.

            Another factor was the  popularity of the mystery cults. The idea of salvation due to death and regeneration was known already.  To a large extent this helped the message about Jesus Christ. There was an eclectic intellectual spirit and interest in religious inquiry. This met with a welcome  for the followers of the Way.

            It is to such a city that the Christians fled  when they were persecuted in Jerusalem (Act 11,19).  There the followers of  Jesus were called Christians (11,26). The community there included many Jewish Christians and gentile converts. The apostles sent Barnabas to Antioch and  he stayed with Paul there for about an year. Peter himself was in Antioch, the tradition says that it is from Antioch that he moved to Rome. We find a flourishing Christian community there at the beginning of the second century, with St.Ignatius as its Bishop. Thereafter in the history of the Church, Antioch served as the seat of a Patriarch and to this day there are at least 4 Patriarchs including a Catholic one, who claim to be the Patriarch of Antioch. Until the spread of Islam Antioch did exercise a powerful influence in the development of Theology and liturgy.

            With the Ptolemies there was constant fight. As the strife between  the Ptolemies and the Seleucids increased, the Jews found themselves in the unenviable position of being the buffer between two rival powers.

For approximately  two centuries following the victory of Antiochus the Great they were under the domination of gentile kings who made and unmade the high priest at will, and who at times persecuted them severely. From the conquest  of Palestine by the Seleucids to the Roman capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Jewish people were the political football of alien rulers. Their heroic struggles to gain independence from foreign domination were only partially successful, and their tenacious ;attempt to keep their faith in spite of persecution and martyrdom ended in tragedy.  That struggle formed the matrix in which Christianity originated and gained its initial strength.

            Antiochus’ successor, Seleucus IV Philopator, inherited a realm comprising Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Media, and Persia.  After a short reign of eleven years he was assassinated by his prime minister Helidourus.  Since the sone of  Seleucus IV  was at that time a hostage in Rome and unable to take over the kingdom, his younger brother, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, succeeded him in 175 B.C. and eliminated Heliodourus  who had tried to  usurp the throne.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes

            His reign was a turning point in Jewish fortunes. In 181 Ptolemy V of Egypt died, and his kingdom was left to an infant son Ptolemy VI Philometor.  As long as mother Cleopatra lived, who was the daughter of Antiochus the Great, peace reigned.  At her death war broke out again over the claims to Palestine.Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Egypt ( 170 B.C.) and captured the young King.  He ;made Ptolemy VI regent.  A few years later (168) Ptolemy rebelled against Antiochus, who promptly invaded Egypt a second time and threatened to take over the kingdom.

            In Egypt, Antiochus was confronted by the envoy of Rome, C.Popilius Laenus. Laenus informed him that there would be no negotiations until he relinquished all claims to Egypt. When Antiochus replied that he would consider the matter, Laenus drew a circle around him with his sword and told him to make up his mind before he stepped out of the circle.  Unwilling to risk a major war with the rising power of Rome, which had already defeated Carthage and which was fast obtaining control of the Mediterraneans, Antiochus sullenly withdrew, leaving Egypt to Ptolemy.

            Seething with frustration, Antiochus retreated  northward to Palestine, where he vented his spite on the Jews.  He was an ardent Hellenist, having been educated in Graeco-Roman culture  in both Rome and Athens.  He determined to unify his realm by compelling his subjects to adopt Greek ideals and customs.  To the rank and file of the Jews the Greek culture was odious, since it involved the worship of foreign deities and partaking of food which they deemed unclean and participation in games which they regard as indecent.  Among some of the younger and more sophisticated priests Antiochus found willing collaborators, however.  They were enamoured of the physical culture whicht the Greeks promoted, and they requested permission to build a  gymnasium in Jerusalem.

            Antiochus plundered the Temple.  He stripped it of its furnishings and confiscated its treasures. He massacred many of the inhabitants and carried away a large group of captives, estimated by Josephus to be about ten thousand. He demolished the walls so the city was defenseless, and having built a tower of his own  overlooking the temple site, he garrisoned it with Macedonian mercenaries.  His worst offense was the desecration of the Temple, which he devoted to heathen worship by sacrificing a sow upon the great altar.  He compelled the Jews to erect shrines to the Greek  deities in their villages and to sacrifice swine on the altars.  His officers seized and burned all copies of the books of the law and executed their possessors.  Circumcision was forbidden and women whose infants had been circumcised were strangled together with their children.  Many complied with the kings’ regulations, but a large  number resisted them and paid for their convictions with their lives.

            The Samaritans complied with  the king’s regulations.  They even denied their Jewish antecedents by claiming to be Sidonians. They declared that their temple should be called “The Temple of the Jupiter Hellenios” – the god of the Greeks.  Naturally this wholesale capitulation to heathenism  aroused the enmity  of the Jews who had risked martyrdom rather than abandon their loyalty to the law and  so widened the breach between the two peoples.

The Maccabean Revolt

There were some among the Jews who supported the Hellenizing move, but the large majority revolted against it. Once a group of officials visited the city of Modin, north west of Jerusalem, and asked Mattathias, a preist of the order of Joiarib ( a priest who had returned  from Babylon with Zerubbabel, Neh 12,6.7) to sacrifice to the gods.  When he refused another Jew of Modin completed the sacrifice.  Enraged by this Mattathias and his sons killed that man and the king’s officials. They tore down the altar and called to take up arms against the Syrians.(thus began the official revolt against the Seleucids)

            Mathathias with his sons John, Simon, Judas called Maccabaeus, Eleazar, and Jonathan fled to the wilderness accompanied by a large number of people.,  After one year he made Simon as administrator and Judas as the general. Judas was challenged by Apollonius, the commander of the Samaritan army and  Judas dispersed him The Maccabees were bitterly opposed to the Samaritans, because they had in course of time given up the true Yahwishtic faith and adopted the pagan ways according to the orthodox Jews. This animosity continued even to the time of Jesus..  Judas won a victory also against Saron, the general in charge of Coele-Syria; then Antiochus had to go to Persia to collect taxes and he put Lysias in charge of the kingdom Lysias organised an attack under the command of three generals, Ptolemy, son of Dorymanes, Nicanon, and Gorgias. But Judas with cleverness defeated them. Lysias attacked a second time, that too ended up in failure, and so he returned to Syria. Then Judas restored the temple in Jerusalem. The heathen altar was removed and the sacrifices started on the twenty fifth of Kislev, 165 B.C. The people declared that this day should be remembered for ever ,as the annual festival of lights (Hanukkah) Judas rebuilt the city walls (2 Chr 11,7)

            In two campaigns he defeated the Amonites and  the Edomites  Antiochus was shocked by this defeat. He summoned Philip, one of his associates and invested him with royal authority, including a commission to rear his son Antiochus  and to estabilish him on the throne.  Lysias, however, announed the king’s death and elevated his own son to the throne, giving him the title of Antiochus V Eupator. However Lysias proposed  that Philip should  conclude a truce with the Judeans, allowing them to maintain their own worship without interference.  The plan was acceptable and the treaty was signed. Lysias returned and Judas purged Jerusalem of  all the hellenizing elements.

Antiochus V and Lysias were executed in an army uprising, and Demetrius the  brother of Antiochus IV took over the reign. The Hellenizing party approached him  And requested him  to avenge the actions of Judas, (this shows that there was always a party within Judea, who opposed the official Jewish policies and who sided with the enemies; it is the main reason for the weakness of any nationalist movement) He deputed Bcchides to recover Judea for the Syrian empire.  The former high priest Menelaus was executed by Antiochus V, so Demetrius confirmed Alcimus  as high priest.  Alcimus was a hellenist in orientation.He sided with Bacchides who was following a policy of stealth.

            Demetrius dispatached Nicanon, one of his ablest officers to Judea with orders to dispose  Judas. Nicanon was greeted  peacefully by the priests, but Judas had no trust in him Both of them confronted in the battle and Nicanon was killed by the Jewish guerillas.Judas asked for the help of Rome and the latter made some sort of treaty, but one wonders how seriously they considered it, because for about 100 years  the Romans did not do any thing about it. The treaty gave Judas a sense of security.  Meanwhile Bacchides and Alcimus  attempted a second attack against Judas and the latter was killed. Jonathan and Simon recovered his body and buried him  in the family tomb at Modin.

            Bacchides followed a policy of repression. In the mean time Jonathan was made the leader and they followed  the guerilla warfare The Amorites  killed his brother John, but Jonathan and Simon revenged his death Alcimus demolished the  wall of the inner temple that separated the court of the gentiles from the inner court but died of a stroke. (Alcimis was the high priest and he was supposed to maintain the purity of the cult, and remove all traces of pagan worship.  But it  is now he himself who takes the steps to please the gentile rulers.  Probably he was motivated by considerations all too worldly. Bacchides returned to Antioch, but a rebel group brought him back, and Jonathan executed the vast majority of Bachides’ men.,; being fed up with the tactics of Jonathan Bacchides made a treaty with the latter and peace reigned for some time. The retreat of Bacchides to Antioch ended the first stage of the Maccabean struggle which freed the Jews from Hellenistic domination and gave to them the opportunity of developing their own culture.

            In the mean time Alexander Balas, who claimed to be a son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes  took possession of the Ptomemais, and the army too largely supported him(now the struggle in Syria was between the uncle and the nephew)  Demetrius and Aleaxander tried to win the favour of the Jews. Demetrius promised Jonathan that he could rearm himself and that he would free all the prisoners of Bacchides.  On hearing this Alexander made Jonathan the high priest and sent him a resplendent purple robe and crown.. Demetrius tried to outdo Alexander in generosity. So he freed Judea from tribute and salt tax; declared complete religious tolerance for the Jews; donated 150000 drachmae for repairing the temple and offered to pay for restoring the  walls of the city. But Alexander fought with Demetrius and killed him(in other words, the nephew killed his uncle).. Thus Alexander became the ruler of Syria and strengthened  his alliance with Egypt by marrying the daughter of  Ptolemy Philometor He treated Jonathan also with respect. Alexander was challenged by one Demetrius Nicator, the son of Alexander’s predecessor. When Alexander left Ptolemais and went to Antioch to confront Demetrius II his lieutenant Apollonius, the governor of Syria, challenged Jonathan to battle, and Jonathan defeated him. Yet Alexander maintained his friendly attitude.

            Ptolemy VI Philometor, Alexander’s father-in-law came to his aid against Demetrius II.But Alexander plotted to assassinate Ptolemy, and the latter came to know about the plot of his son-in-law He withdrew his support to Alexander and gave it to Demetrius II, taking his daughter from Alexander and gave her to Demetrius. Then Alexander fled to Cilicia, and Ptolemy was crowned king of Antioch by the inhabitants. He refused this title and transferred it to Demetirus. Though Alexander made a vain attempt to invade Syria, it was unsuccessful and he was killed.

            In the mean time, Jonathan secured the good will of Demetrius II by offering him handsome gifts. One of Demetrius’ officers, Trypho, joined with Antiochus, the son of Alexander Balas with the help of part of military who had been delayed in payment. But Jonathan came for his assistance. The city was burnt down but Demetrius II later on turned against Jonathan. Since Trypho continued to make trouble and again with the help of discontented army expelled Demetrius  II from Antioch

            Trypho put Antiochus VI Dionysius (145-143 B.C.) on the throne. He confirmed Jonathan  in the priesthood and made Simon the general in charge of the troops in Palestine. Jonathan became the ally of Antiochus to make war on Demetrius He promoted Antiochus’ cause in Palestine and met Demetrius in battle and killed him.

            Now Trypho turned against Jonathan since he had become the ally of Antiochus He was invited to come  to Ptolemais.  When he entered the city, the gates were shut .Trypho captured Jonathan alive and butchered his soldiers. Then he invaded Judah. Trypho offered to release Jonathan for  a ransom of a hundred talents of silver and the surrender of two of the sons of Simon, Jonathans’s brother. Knowing well that Trypho would not keep his word, Simon agreed. Trypho executed Jonathan  at Gilead. Then Simon captured the citadel of Jerusalem which was for long under the Hellenists. Trypho murdered Antiochus, and at the beginning the soldiers supported him, but when the pay was not regular, they deserted to Cleopatra the wife of Demetrius II  She appealed to her brother in law (the brother of her husband) Antiochus VII Sidetes (138-129) to take the kingdom and offered to marry him. He drove Trypho to Phoenicia  with the help of Simon and executed him. Having deposed Trypho, Antiochus turned  upon Simon. The latter was treacherously murdered by the son in law of Trypho, a certain Ptolemy, and the wife of Simon and two of his sons were arrested. The third son John Hyrcanus escaped to Jerusalem, where he was protected by the people.

            John Hyrcanus besieged Ptolemy. Ptolemy tortured  Hyrcanus’ mother and brothers to compel him to raise the siege, but to no avail.  He finally killed them and fled to Philadelphia (now Amman) on the east of the Jordan.

            Antiochus attacked Jerusalem. John Hyrcanus was not able to resist, so he agreed to an indemnity of 400 talents of silver. Antiochus agreed having broken down the fortifications of the city. Antiochus was killed in a fruitless campaign against the Parthians.  Demetrius II his brother, succeeded him. The people despised him, and so invited Ptolemy Physcon of Egypt to send them another scion of the Seleucidae to take the kingdom. Ptolemy sent Alexander Zabinas, who defeated Demetirus.  When the latter took refuge with his wife, she abandoned him to his enemies  who tortured and killed him.

            The death of Antiochus and the rise of John Hyrcanus marked  a new era in the affairs of Palestine.  The dynasty of the Seleucids perished in confusion, while the Hasmoneans,, as the descendents of the Maccabees were known, flourished independently until the invasion of Palestine by Pompey in 63 B.C.  Syria had eleven kings in 62 two years, no one of  whom was strong enough to salvage the kingdom nor sufficiently eminent to deserve special mention.

            Once notices the power struggle among the Seleucids.  The Jewish leaders supported now on and then another, forgetting that their very stance of the purity of law and the observance is what gives them legitimacy. In this struggle the high priests were shamelessly serving the cause of Hyalinization.

Hasmoneans

            The name “Hasmoneans” (142-63 B.C.) derived from Hasmon, the great-great-grandfather of Mattathias of Modin, (Josephus, Antiquities, XVI,vii.1.) the progenitor of the Maccabees, was applied to the dynasty founded by Simon and continued through his son,  John Hyrcanus.. Simon was the first to assume the prerogatives of a  king. The ascendancy of this family procured for the Jewish people a sixty five year period of peace and freedom, between periods of Greek and Roman supremacy. With the decline of the Seleucids, and under the friendly patronage of Egypt, which was already  strongly influenced by its Jewish population, Simon and his descendents were able to maintain an independent rule for a century. Simon consolidated  his kingdom and issued a separate coinage.  His son John Hyrcanus I, reigned for 31 years (135-105) He was exercising civil power as well as the office of the high priest. When Antiochus VII died in l29 B.C.  he became free. Upon the death of John Hyrcanus his son Aristobulus became king.. Aristobulus imprisoned his mother and starved her to death, then killed his brother Antigonus. Aristobulus died within an year and was succeeded by his wife Salome Alexandra.

            Salome freed Aristolubus’ brothers from prison and married the oldest of them, Alexander Jannaeus and he became king (104-78 B.C.) He put out of the way  one of his brothers, who was a rival and allowed the others to live in retirement. Alexander Jannaeus attacked Ptotemais, but the citizens appealed to Ptolemy Lathyrus of Cyprus who had been  driven from Egypt by Cleopatra, his mother. P.Lathyrus landed in Palestine with 30000 men In the meantime Alexander Jannaeus tried to please Ptolemy and Cleopatra. But P.Lathyrus came to know about this duplicity, he overran the country and captured Ptolemais. Cleopatra made an alliance with Alexander. Ptolemy did not remain long in Palestine but retired to Cyprus and Cleopatra to  Egypt; So Alexander was once again in possession of Palestine. But the people were very much against him, and he continued in power with the help of the mercenaries from Pisidia and Cilicia.. The people appealed to Demetrius Eucerus of Syria, who came to their rescue .  Demetrius attacked Alexander and drove him to the mountains. Then some 6000 Jews joined him and defeated Demetrius, and when Alexander returned, he mercilessly suppressed his people, and once he crucified  800 of them., and while they were still alive he slaughtered their wives and children before them There can be scarcely any excuse  for the frightful brutalities he perpetrated upon his countrymen.  They exceeded even the miseries that Antiochus IV Epiphanes had inflicted on Alexander’s ancestors.

            Alexander reigned for 27 years leaving the kingdom to his widow Alexandra. Alexandra was a fair  ruler. She appointed her older son Hyrcanus as high priest. The younger son Aristobulus was left in private life. The pharisees became her counselors, and they enjoyed all privileges of ruler ship The advisors of Alexander were all rounded up, and then Aristobulus entered politics. When Alexandra became ill, he seized the fortress and proclaimed himself king. Alexadra took her daughter in law and grand children as prisoners, but before she could take vengeance, she died. Though Hyrcanus was the rightful heir to the throne, Aristobulus seized the kingdom. The brothers  got themselves reconciled. Aristobulus retained the title of  king; Hyrcanus relinquished the throne but retained the other honors.

Antipater

            Antipater was an Idumean by birth and he persuaded Hyrcanus to seek the alliance of Aretas the king of the Nabateans. And they attacked Aristobulus Meanwhile Scaurus, who was the lieutenant of  Pompey threatened Hyrcanus to withdraw. Aretas immediately  withdrew and Aristobulus pursued Hyrcanus’ army killing six thousand or more.  Hyrcanus and Antipater made overtures to  Pompey and they pursued Aristobulus. Pompey took him a prisoner and battered the city 12000 of the defenders were killed. Pompey reconstituted Hyrcanus as high priest, and took Aristobulus and his family to Rome as prisoners.

            Alexander, a son of Aristobulus escaped on his way to Rome, returned to Judea and threatened the security of Hyrcanus; he was almost successful; then Gabinius, the succesor of Scaurus opposed him.  Gabinius’ troops together with those of Antipater, the ally of Hyrcanus defeated Alexander  and drove him out of Jerusalem. Gabinius divided Palestine into five sections, which were placed under the rule of an aristocracy..

            In the meantime Aristobulus escaped from Rome; he recaptured Alexandrion. The Romans captured him and his son Antigonus and took them back to Rome as prisoners.

            The arrival of Pompey in Palestine ended the real rule of the Hasmoneans.  Although the titular  priesthood remained with Hyrcanus, his power steadily diminished before the rising strength of  Herod the Great.In 65 B.C.  Pompey ended the Seleucid dominion in Syria and annexed the territory as another province.  Judea also was taken by the Romans and added to the general domain.

            From the time of Pompey Palestine was under Roman domination.  Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian, who became Caesar Augustus , successively took an indirect interest in the province of Judea. The rivalry between Julius Caesar and Pompey ended in the exile and death of for the latter in 47 B.C.  shortly before Caesar reached Egypt in pursuit of him. Antipater, who was the de facto ruler of Judea, quickly attached himself to Caesar’s cause, and by his aid Pompey’s supporters were speedily crushed. As a recompense, Caesar supported Antipater against the Hasmoneans by  making him procurator of Judea. When Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. Cassius took over Syria and Palestine. Herod, the son of Antipater quickly obtained the favour of  the Romans and his rule was firmly established. In 42 B.C. Cassius and his partner Brutus were defeated at Philippi by Antony and Octavian. Antony assumed command of the eastern provinces. And made Herod and his brother tetrarchs of Judea, despite protests from the Jews. When there was  a revolt in Judea, Herod fled to Rome and there he befriended Antony and Octavian who formally declared Herod king. Aided by Roman troops, Herod regained possession of Galilee and Judea. Then deserting Antony he joined Octavian When Octavian invaded Egypt, Herod provided him with funds and supplies, receiving in return the cities of Jericho, Gadara, and  Samaria with the territories of Gaza, Joppa and Strato’s Tower, which later became Caesarea.

            Through the co-operation of Herod, Rome’s gradual encroachment on the East finally crystallized into complete control.  Although Palestine remained nominally independent until his death, its real sovereignty lay in the hands of the Roman legate of Syria, and later in the command of the procurators.  Throughout the period of the New Testament the shadow of Rome fell over the land, and under its oppression and protection Christianity was born and flourished.

The Herods

            The active rule of the Hasmoneans came to an end with Alexandra and her sons. At her death Antipater  returned to Edom.. He supported Hyrcanus against Aristobulus. So upon his request, Aretas, the king of the Nabateans attacked Aristobulus. But Scaurus, the Roman questor came for the rescue of Aristobulus. Then Antipater approached Pompey and impressed him.Aristobulus was opposing Pompey. So Pompey put Jerusalem under siege. Finally Aristobulus submitted and he was taken prisoner to Rome.

            Antipater remained loyal to Rome and helped Mark Antony when he attacked Egypt. Antony became a close friend of Antipater’s son, then only 16years old.. In the struggle between Julius Caesar and Pompey, Antipater was clearly on the side of Julius Caesar. The Caesar spent the vacation with Cleopatra the Egyptian queen, and when he returned to Antioch, made Antipater procurator.  He confirmed Hyrcanus as the high priest.

            Antipater as the virtual king of Palestine increased taxation (1/4 of wheat and the tithe for priesthood) rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Since Hyrcanus was old, Antipater proposed that his son Phasel be made prefect of Jerusalem, and the next son Herod the governor of Galilee. Hyrcanus consented and thus the rulership of Palestine passed officially into the hand  of an Idumean.

Herod the Great

            Herod  was only 26 years old when he assumed office.  He was a skilled athlete and soldier; charming in manners and capable in statecraft subtle diplomat; a passionate lover and ruthless enemy. The Sanhedrin accused him of acting ‘ultra vires’ and so was put to trial, when they were almost on the point of condemning him to death, Hyrcanus intervened and adjourned the court and he advised Herod to leave the country. Herod took refuge with Sextus Caesar, the Roman Procurator.  He made him governor of Coele-Syria and Samaria and cemented Herod’s connection with Rome.

            Herod co-operated with Cassius who murdered Julius Caesar in the Roman forum, and raised the tax for him.  Hyrcanus and Antipater were rather slow to respond. Hyrcanus was afraid of Herod and so desired to establish an alliance. Herod also was fearing a come back of the Hasmoneans.  So he was happy to enter a marriage alliance. Therefore he married Mariamne, a grand daughter of Aristobulus (executed by Pompey at Antioch).  She was the grand daughter of Hyrcanus on her mother’s side.  Thus Herod tried to get the support of the Hasmoneans and  Hyrcanus.

            Cassius and Brutus were defeated by Mark  Antony and Octavian  at the battle of Philippi.  The Jews expected Antony to denounce Herod.  But Herod bribed Antony. So he confirmed  Herod and Phasel as tetrarachs, giving them jurisdiction over Judea.  When Antigonus attacked Judea, Herod took refuge  in Egypt.  He went to Cleopatra.  The queen offered him generalship of an expedition but he sailed to Rome and begged Antony for help.   Antony supported by Octavian presented Herod to the Roman Seanate  and they made him King over Judea and sent him back.  He regained Idumea, Samaria, Galilee and helped Antony to capture Samosata.  Upon his return to Jerusalem he captured it from Antigonus.

            In the meantime tension arose between Antony and Octavian.   Cleopatra helped Herod from a dilemma as to whom to support.  She put him  at the head of a war with Arabs.  He won the battle and when he returned  he found that Antony and Cleopatra had been beaten at the battle of Actium.  Soon he surrendered to Octavian.  Herod  entertained him on his visit to Egypt.  Octavian confirmed him as king and added to his realm the region of Trachonitis, and the districts of Batanea and Auranitis Ten years later, he made Herod Procurator of Syria and gave him also the territory between Trachonitis and Galilee So with Herod the territorial expansion reached its highest point.

The construction work of Herod.

            In 20 B.C. ( 18^th year of his reign) he  reconstructed the Temple.  He added a fortress adjacent to the Temple and named it Antonia (in honour of Antony). Then he built a palace with two buildings more beautiful than the Temple.  Samaria was enlarged. Then he built a temple to Augustus Caesar and a marble shrine at Panium, near the source of Jordan. He constructed a summer palace in Jericho. He built the city of Caesarea and an artificial harbour there. The  city had also an amphitheater even.  He undertook works also at Antioch, Rhodes and Pergamum.It was customary those days to engage in construction works and dedicate them to the emperors to gain their favour. Herod knew that he was hated by the Jews; and so to please them and win their support, he undertook the renovation of the temple.  It is this temple that was magnificent and stood at the time of Jesus.

In spite of every success Herod  was, an unhappy man

            Because of jealousy, he sent  away Antipater, his son from his first wife Doris and retained Alexander and Aristobulus, the sons of Mariamne.  But Mariamne hated him because he had caused the death of Hyrcanus her grand father and Jonathan, her brother. These were the rightful heirs to the Hasmonean dynasty.  While leaving for Rome, he had asked Joseph, his uncle to kill Mariamne if he does not return.  Joseph disclosed it to her.  Mariamne chided Herod for it when he came back But his mother Cypros and sister Salome hated Mariamne and accused her  of adultery and for having sent a picture of hers to Antony.  Herod ordered Mariamne’s execution.  Though there was some public protest, the order was carried out. Out of remorse he fell victim to insanity.  Alexander and  Aristobulus did not like him for what he did to their mother. Then Herod recalled Antipater who exploited the situation to his advantage. Herod took Alexander to Rome in court accusing him of trying to poison him, but Caesar acquitted him, and there was some sort of reconciliation So Antipater, Alexander and Aristobulus were  paraded as princes. But Herod instituted a spy system against his sons which only confused the situation.  Herod arrested Alexander and tortured him Then Archaelaus the father in law of Alexander rescued him.

            A certain Eurychas, a Greek visitor  came to Herod’s court and discovered the situation and exploited it.  Pretending friendship with Alexander and Aristobulus ( in exchange  for pay from Antipater) he got all grievances  from them. Then he reported them to  Antipater and Herod himself. Herod put them in chains and asked Caesar for the right to execute them A trial at Berytus (Beirut) took place and there was no clear verdict Finally the officers were beaten to death and Alexander and Aristobulus were strangled. at Caesarea

            Antipater was sure to succed Herod.  But the death of Pheroras, Herod’s brother was open to suspicion.  They suspected poisoning. Upon investigation it was found out that Antipater, his mother Doris and Pheroras himself had suspected that they would be the next victim.  It was also found out that Antipater  had secured  some very strong poison from Egypt.  He had forged letters to incriminate his brothers Archaelaus and Philip  So Antipater was put on trial and remanded in prison.Herod was mad with suspicion and grief. He was almost seventy years of age, broken in spirit, racked by disease, and tortured with doubts and remorse.  A low fever, accompanied by dropsy, inflammation of the abdomen, and asthma afflicted him; death was not far distant.  He attempted suicide but was restrained by his cousin.  Thinking him dead the  retainers of the palace began to wail.  Antipater, hearing the sound in his prison and thinking that Herod was dead, endeavored to bribe the jailer to free him.  The jailer reported Antipater’s action, and Herod in a final fit of rage ordered his execution.  He amended his will by appointing as his successor Archelaus, his elderst son,  and by making Herod Antipas tertrarch. Five days later he died.

            Few men of his era had greater potential for good, or a darker record for evil.  Herod was an outstanding athlete, soldier, and builder.  He was passionately devoted to his family, yet unspeakably depraved and cruel.  He was responsible for the death of his favorite wife Mariamne ;of her grandfather;, and for the execution of threee of his sons, to say nothing of the large number of lesser persons who fell victims to his suspicion or anger.   He changed loyalties with the change of political fortunes and succeeded in making himself thoroughly mistrusted and hated by the general populace.  The temple which he built, the cities which he founded, and the political system which he organized under the aegis of Rome became the cradle of Christianity; for Jesus of Nazaraeth, its founder, “was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king “ (Matt 2,1)  Matthew’s account of Herod’s reaction to the visit of the Magi is quite in keeping with his known temperament, and the butchery of a few infants in Bethlehem by Herod’s guards  would, in comparison with his greater crimes, have passed almost unnoticed.

            With the death of Herod a new era was born  Although  Rome had been the real ruler of Palestine since Pompey’s invasion in 63 B.C. for practical  purposes the Jews could manage their affairs, and the Romans were not intervening in the religious affairs. But from now nowards, ie. after the death of Herod it  asserted  its sovereignty more directly and  as the Gospels declare, the Jewish people were compelled to admit that they had no king but Caesar.

Archelaus, the son of Herod the great

            Herod had divided his kingdom among his sons as follows: Archelaus got Samaria; Judea and Idumea.  He was acknowledged as the ethnarch. Rebellion broke out at the death of Herod and Archelaus had to resort to violence to contain itAbout 3000 Jews were killed and so Archelaus earned a name for creilty right at the beginning of his reign  This is the reason why Joseph was afraid to go back to Judea from Egypt and settled down in Galilee (Mt 2,22) The Jewish leaders sent a delegation against Archelaus to Rome and he was deposed in AD 6 and banished to Vienne in Gaul and  his territory was put under the Roman governor.

Philip, another son of Herod the Great

            Philip got the northern and north eastern part of Palestine. (Iturae; Trachonitis; Gaulanitis; Auranitis and Batanea) He was given the title of tetrarch and his reign was mild and peaceful. He rebuilt the city of Panias, named it Caesarea in honour of Caesar Augustus.  Jesus went there once (Mt 16,13).  It is there that Peter confessed him to tbe Messiah.

Herod Antipas, the third son of Herod the great who got a share in the reign.

            He is simply called Herod in the NT. He was the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea.  Jesus spent most of his time in his territory.  Herod Antipas married a daughter of Aretas king of the Nabetean Arabs, and Petra was the capital of this king.  While visiting his half brother Philip, he became enamoured of Philip’s wife Herodias.  Then he divorced his lawful wife  Resenting the injury inflicted upon his daughter, Aretas declared war gainst Herod and eventually defeated his army in A.A.36  Herodias was largely responsible for the death of John the Baptist because he was opposing this marriage (Mk 6,17-29)

            On one occasion, Jesus warns his disciples of the leaven of Herod (Mk 8,15) and apparently  the Pharisees gives a hint to Jesus that Herod is seeking to kill him (Lk 13,31), probably because Herod was thinking of eliminating Jesus due to remorse, since he thought that Jesus is John the Baptist brought back to life. (Mt 14,1-2)  At the time of the trial of Jesus, Herod was present in Jerusalem and that is why Pilate sent Jesus to him (Lk 23,6-12)

            Herod was an ambitious man.  Upon the instigation of Herodias he went to Rome and requested Caesar Caligula to make him king, but meanwhile  Herod Agrippa I had sent a letter to Rome accusing him of conspiracy with  the Parthians, the traditional enemies of Rome. So the emperor banished him to  Lyons in Gaul (a.D.39) Herod’s domain was given to Herod Agrippa I

Herod Agrippa I

            He was the son of Aristobulus, one of the sons of Herod the great, but killed by his own father. In A.D.37 he became king over the territory of Philip. In 39 Caligula gave the territory of Herod Antipas and in 41 Claudius gave Judea and Samaria to him.  So all in all Herod Agrippa I had a territory equal to that of Herod the great

            According to Acts 12,1-3, Herod Agrippa I killed James the brother of John and it was pleasing to the Jews and so proceeded to arrest Peter also . Not long after wards (A.D.44) he died, and his death was considered as a punishment for his pride (Acts 12,1-23; Josephus, Antiquities, XIX.viii.2) Josephus in Antiquities  XIX.viii.2 says that while at Caesarea he saw an Owl  sitting on awning of the theatre, was seized with abdominal pains, taken to the palace and died there after five days.

Herod Agrippa II

            He was only 17 years old when his father Herod Agrippa I died. So Claudius transformed Palestine into  the status of a Roman province. But in Ad 53 Agrippa II acquired the tetrarchy of Philip and in 61 Nero added Galilee and Perea to his Kingdom.  Paul  pleaded his cause before Herod Agrippa II and Bernice his sister when they made a visit to Festus the governor in Caesarea (Acts 25,13-26,32)

            Not much is known about him; but it is said that he was living in incest with Bernice (Josephus, Antiquities, XX.vii.3) When rebellion broke out against Rome in AD 66, he supported the Romans In 67 he entertained the general Vespasian. He went to Rome with Vespasian and Titus in 68 to greet the new emperor Galba But before he reached Rome Galba had been murdered and Vespasian was elected emperor Agrippa II was given more  territories after the war of 70. He and Bernice moved to Rome in 75 AD and Bernice became the mistress of Titus (Tacitus, History, II.2) He made some correspondence with Josephus. He must have died in AD100, apparently without children. With the death of Agrippa II the Herodian dynasty came to an end.

The decisive fall of Jerusalem to the Romans.

            The Jews were always dissatisfied with the Roman occupation. In 66, the governor Gessius Florus demanded 17 talents of gold from the temple treasury, and the leaders and the people thought that it is a violation of the sanctuary. When the demand was refused Florus came with an army to Jerusalem, and the people blocked the way Some leaders and Herod Agrippa II tried to mediate. Florus retreated to Caesarea

            There were fights between the Jews and the Gentiles in other parts of Palestine.   In 66 they could chase the enemy and some thought that the Almighty is fighting for them But Vespasian came with an army and subdued Galilee in AD67. Herod Agrippa II helped him as we have seen. In early 68 Judea was  also conquered .Since the emperor Nero died in the meantime, Vespaian had to return to Rome and the Jewish war was suspended for an year. Then in the year 70 in spring the besieging of Jerusalem started under Titus It lasted for 5  months The horrible situation that ensued is described by Josephus in  his History of the Jewish War, books 5 and 6. and the city fell in September 70.  Thus a break in Jewish history occurred.

            The country was made into an imperial province. It was governed by a legate who stayed in Caesarea. A legion was stationed in Jerusalem. The name of the country was changed from Judea to Palestina (the land of the Philistines) to symbolize the utter extinction of  the Jewish nation. A rethinking on Judaism and Christianity was necessitated due to the cessation of temple and worship  Greater importance was given now to the Jews outside Palestine (the Diaspora) and  the predominantly gentile character of the Christian church became increasingly more pronounced.

            There was a last attempt on the part of the Jews to get back their independence under the leadership of Bar Cochba The immediate occasion was when Hadrian (Ad 117-138) wanted to reorganize Jerusalem as a Roman colony After a bitter struggle in 135, the rebellion was crushed and Hadrian carried out his plan. The devastated city was rebuilt  on a Roman plan; It was called Colonia Aelia Capitolina (Aelia after the family name of Hadrian and capitolina in honor of Jupiter Capitolinus, the Roman god  Jupiter as worshipped  in his great temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome.  On the site of the ancient Jewish temple a pagan temple was erected to Jupiter Capitolinus, and all Jews were forbidden under pain of death to set foot within Jerusalem.

Conclusion.

             Ptolemies Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Herods, and Caesars – all made their contributions to the prologue of history that introduced the coming of Christ.  Greek culture and language had permeated the Jewish and Aramaic world, bringing a new familiarity and linkage with the  Western  life and thought.  The Hasmoneans, descendents of the valiant and patriotic Maccabees, had revived dreams of Jewish independence, had infused a warrior spirit into the nation that had been in subjection since  the Exile, and had promoted zeal for the Law.  The Idumean Herods, alien by blood but Jewish by religion, had re-established the Temple with its ritual and sacrifices, and the Roman suzerainty had given Palestine comparative peace  after the bitter strife under the Hasmoneans.  Greek culture, Jewish nationalism and  Roman justice prepared the way for the New Testament revelation.

The Roman Provincial system.

            Because of her peculiar genius for law and government Rome was able to maintain a more or less stable civil order for nearly half a millennium. The secret was largely its ability to give differing kinds of local supervision and control.  The emperor was the effective head of the state, but under him were many aides to whom he delegated certain of his own powers and prerogatives.  Newly subjugated territories  were brought under Roman jurisdiction as provinces or subject kingdoms.  In 27 BC the emperor Augustus divided the thirty two  existing provinces into two categories.  The senatorial provinces (11 in number) continued to be governed by ex consuls and ex-praetors, appointed by lot under senatorial supervision.  The imperial provinces (21 in number) were under the direct control of the emperor, to which he sent his  own agents who were responsible to himself alone.

            The senatorial provinces were, on the whole, the older, richer and more peaceful territories, which had long since been subjugated and where there was no danger of an uprising.  Such a province was governed by a proconsul,  that is, one acting for the consul.  He was appointed to serve for one year, though occasionally the appointment was renewed.  The proconsul had no legionary troops under his command and was attended by quaestors, who collected the revenues and paid them into the treasury managed by the senate.

            On the other hand, imperial provinces were usually the newer, frontier areas that had been recently added to the empire and within whose boundaries were many revolutionary elements, seething and ready to assert themselves.  Such a territory was kept under the surveillance of the emperor himself, who appointed an agent to serve for as long or as short a  time as seemed good to the emperor.   There were two kinds of imperial provinces.  The larger ones were governed  by a legate (his full title was legatus Augusti pro praetore), who served in the capacity of both military governor and chief magistrate.  The smaller imperial provinces were ruled by a governor who bore the title of praefectus; from the time of the Emperor Claudius (A.A. 41-54).  However it became customary to call such a governor the procurator Augusti. When  Archelaus was deposed by the emperor Augustus in A.D. 6, Judea, samaria, and Idumea wre formed into a division of the prefecure of Syria; it was called  the province of Judea.

The Languages current in Palestine.

            At the time of Jesus, there were three languages in use in Palestine.(the inscription on the cross of Jesus in Latin, Hebrew and Greek  points to this fact.see Jn19,20) Latin was the official language of the conquerors .  It was used by the governors a well as by the soldiers of  the Roman army of occupation.  Very few Palestinian Jews knew more than the most common of every day Latin words which had been, so to speak, naturalized wherever the Roman garrisons had been stationed.  These words  such as “centurion, legion, denarius, praetorium, colony,” and the like appear in the New Testament..  The trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate would obviously have required the use of a an interpreter.

            The Greek language, on the contrary, was widely understood in Palestine,, particularly in the north, which was commonly called, ”Galilee of the Gentiles”. Here, more frequently than in Judea to the south, Jews would come into contact with Greek speaking Gentiles, and, in order to hold one’s own  in the market place, bilingualism was an economic necessity.  Bilingualism had its historical roots in the second century before Christ, when the Seleucid rulers promoted the deliberate policy of Grecizing the Jewish  population of Palestine.  Though the Maccabean reaction had temporarily delayed the process of Hellenization, inevitably more and more of Greek culture and language permeated Palestine.

            The third language in common use  in Palestine was Aramaic, the mother tongue of the great majority of Jews.  Though the rabbis and learned scribes still had a fluent command of  the classical Hebrew of the Old Testament, for the ordinary Jewish populace Hebrew was approaching the status of a dead language.  During the exile in the sixth century the Jews had begun to  use Aramaic, a Semitic language related to Hebrew somewhat as Tamil is related to Malayalam .  At the beginning of the Christian era, in the synagogues of Palestine as well as of  Babylon, the text of the Old Testament  was read  not only in the original Hebrew  but also  in an Aramaic paraphrase (called a Targum) for the benefit  of those Jews in the congregation who knew little or no Hebrew.  At least two dialectical forms of Aramaic were current in Palestine.  The dialect used in Galilee was recognizably different in pronunciation from the southern dialect spoken in and around Jerusalem (Mt 26,73)

            It is altogether probable that Jesus grew up in his home at Nazareth using Aramaic as his mother tongue.  In later life he doubtless acquired some facility in speaking Greek and in reading Hebrew.  His teaching and preaching to the common  people  would have been carried on in Aramaic; but debates with the learned scribes  may have been conducted in Hebrew.  When he occasionally conversed with non-Jewish  persons (for example, the Roman centurion and the syro-Phoenician woman), he probably used Greek, the lingua franca of the Greco-Roman world.

(points for discussion and personal reflection: more immediately the biblical history starting with  the conquest of Alexander the great was a preparation for the coming of Jesus and the spread of his message in so far as the background is concerned, do you agree with this statement? The influence of Hellenism and Roman culture paved the way for a universal outlook  in Christian religion which has its roots in Judaism, substantiate this statement. The power struggle among kings and priests and leaders has lead to terror and bloodshed and  untold misery among the people of God, show this from the history of Ptolemais; the Seleucids; the Hasmoneans; the Maccabees; the Herods; and the Roman generals; Priesthood that has forsaken its primary duty has degenerated to the maximum, show this from the history of Old Testament priesthood)

III.From Historical Jesus to Canonical Gospels

            After having spoken in various ways, God has at last spoken to us through His only Son Jesus Christ (.Heb 1,1)  Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies, the full and ultimate manifestation of God on earth.  He entered the world at a particular geographic location, at a particular moment in the history of humanity, as the member of a particular society.  The Son of God became Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew. He was born at Bethlehem, lived mostly in Galilee, and met with violent death in Jerusalem.  However, his story does not end with death.  He rose from death and appeared to the disciples.  They believed in His Resurrection and proclaimed the Good News  all over the world.  Eventually their testimony was written down and thus the four canonical gospels came into existence.

The sources for our knowledge of the life and teaching of  Jesus Christ

            The sources for our knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ fall into two categories, those written by non-Christians authors of the early centuries of our era, and those written by Christian believers about their Lord.  Before the historian can utilize these materials, however, he needs to examine them critical; that is, he must inquire into such matters s their date and authorship, the oral and written sources utilized by the authors, the modifications of the material during its oral transmission, the special interests or bias of the authors, and similar questions.

1. Non Christian sources – Jewish and Pagan

The non-Christian source materials concerning Jesus, though scanty in extent, are definite in their testimony concerning his historical existence and the basic facts of his public ministry and death under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea.

Jewish sources which refer to Jesus

            The earliest non-Christian witness to the historicity of Jesus Christ is the Jewish histoian, Flvius Josephus.  Born about A.D. 37 or 38, he was the son of a Jewish priest named Matthias and calaimed kinship with the Hasmonean dynasty.  Furing his late teens Josephus spent three years in close association with the Essenes and under the spiritual guidance of a hermit-like ascetic named Bannus.  At the age of nineteen he joined the party of the Pharisees, remaining, at least nominally  member of this group until his death, about A.D. 100.  Josephus’ personality was far from attractive.  A member of the priestly aristocracy whose  opportunism accommodate itself to the Roman yoke, he was vain, self-satisfied, and far too obsequious.  In his autobiography he includes, with naïve vanity, nay laudatory details about himself; for example, that while still a boy at the age of fourteen he was so advanced in learning that the chief priests and the leading scholars of Jerusalem used to come regularly to him for precise information on some particular in the Jewish laws. 

            During the Jewish revolt which resulted in the fall of Jerusalem in A.A. 70 Josephus counseled his people to surrender to the Romans.  Unable to dissuade them from pursuing their fanatical  and futile resistance, he went to Rome where he settled down as friend and pensioner of the Emperor Vespasian, whose family name, Flavius, he adopted.

            While at Rome Josephus occupied himself  with literary endeavors, and about A.D. 77 published his History of the Jewish War against the Romans.  Some sixteen years later he finished his get work, the celebrated Antiquities of the Jewish People.  This is a lengthy account in twenty book of the Jewish people form the earliest times; in fact, Josephus begins his narrative with the creation of the world and traces the fortunes of the Jews down to his own day (A.D. 93).  Besides his autobiography, which he issued shortly before his death, he also wrote a treatise entitled Agaisnt Apion, in which he defended himself and his countrymen against the anti-Semitism of such Gentile antagonists as Apion, an erudite literary critic who had made slighting references to the Jews in his History of Egypt.

            Such in brief, is a thumbnail sketch of the author who supplied the earliest non-Christian testimony concerning Jesus and his followers.  In the Antiquities of the Jews to passages refer to Jesus; the longer one (xviii.iii.3) is the following.

About this time (namely, after an altercation between Pilate and the Jews over using temple funds for the building of a n aqueduct in Jerusalem) arose Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be right to call him a man.  For he was a doer of marvelous deeds, and a teacher of men who gladly receive the truth.  He dew to himself many persons, both of the Jews and also of the Gentiles.  He was the Christ.  And when Pilate, upon the indictment of the leading men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at the first did not cease to do so, for he appeared to them alive on the third day – the godly prophets having foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things about him.  And even to this day the race of Christians, who are named from him , has not died out.

            Elsewhere in the Antiquites Josephus refers to the trial of James, a leader of the Christians, before the Sanhedrin (xx.ix.1) In this passage Josephus identifies James by calling him the :the brother of Jesus, the so called Christ”

            For the past century the significance of these two passages has been hotly debated by historians.  On the one hand, it is pointed out that the bald statement, “He was the Christ”, and the references to Jesus’ resurrection and to his being more than human are totally contrary to what one would expect a non-Christian to report, furthermore, though Eusebius, a church historian of the fourth century, knew and accepted Josephus’s testimony to Jesus as the Messiah, another ecclesiastical writer, Origen, who lived in the first half of the third century  does not seem to have known the passage, since he says specifically that Josephus remained a Jew and did not believe Jesus to the Christ,.  Many scholars therefore conclude that sometime prior to the fourth century the passage was interpolated into the Antiquities by Christian scribes while recopying Josephus’ works.

            On the other hand other scholars point out that the literary style of the account is precisely like that of Josephus, and that the most that need to be assumed is that an original, shorter account about Jesus was somewhat embroidered by a Christian scribe who added several clauses in order to make Josephus’ testimony still more explicit.  Moreover, it is also conceivable that Christian omissions as well as Christian interpolations may have taken place, and that Christian copyists, adding material in praise of Jesus, may also have omitted whatever they thought derogatory to his person.

            The present status of the debate over the value of Josephus’ testimony to Jesus is that most scholars regard the shorter passage in the Antiquities (xx.ix.1) as undoubtedly genuine, where the reference to Jesus is introduced in a casual almost offhand manner and where Josephus speaks of him as “the so-called Christ”.  On the other hand, it is probable that the longer passage has been considerably expanded ,if not totally interpolated, by an over-zealous Christian scribe.

            Another Jewish witness concerning Jesus and his followers is the Babylonian Talmud.  Though reduced to writing in the fifth century, it contains an accumulation of much earlier materials, some of which go back to the first Christian century.  Amidst this vast collection of Jewish traditions, there are half a dozen references to Jesus.  Some of these are much distorted and reflect the slander and animosities which unhappily characterized both Christians and Jews in their relations to each other.

            The Talmud makes the following statements about the founder of Christianity. (1)Jesus, under the name of Ben Pandera (that is, Son of Pandera), is said to have been born out of wedlock, his mother having been seduced by a paramour named Pandera. (2) He is said to have been in Egypt, where he learned magic, whereby he was able to perform many marvelous works in order  to deceive the people. (3)He called himself God. (4) He was tried by the Sanhedrin as a deceiver and a teacher of apostasy. (5) He was executed on the eve of the Passover, either by crucifixion or (as an alternative tradition states) by being stoned and then hung.  (6) He had five disciples, whose names are given as Matthai, Neqai, Neter, Buni and Thodah.

            It is commonly agreed by both Jewish and Christian scholars that these Talmudic traditions add nothing new to the authentic history of Jesus contained in the gospels.  In general they confirm early Christian tradition by giving independent – and even hostile – testimony that Jesus of Nazareth really existed.  It is noteworthy also that the Talmud refers to Jesus’ power to perform miracles (though it attributes them to his knowledge of magic) and to his claim to be the divine Son of God.  The defamatory account of his birth seems to reflect a knowledge of the Christian tradition that Jesus was the son of the virgin Mary, the Greek word for virgin, parthenos, being distorted into the name Pandera.

• Pagan sources which refer to Jesus.

The earliest Latin author who refers to Christ is Pliny the Younger (c. A.D. 62-c.113) While Pliny was governor of Bithynia, a Roman province in Asia Minor, he consulted with the Emperor Trajan concerning the line of action he should take  with the Christians, who had been increasing in number throughout his province in Asia Minor.  He consulted with the emperor Trajan concerning the line of action he should take with the Christians, who had been increasing in numbers throughout his province.  A serious economic consequence of their growth was the falling off of the sale of sale of animals designed as sacrificial offerings in pagan temples.  In a letter written to Trajan about A.A. 112 (
Epist. X.96), Pliny states that the Christians are accustomed to assemble together regularly on a certain day, and “to sing responsively a hymn to Christ as if  to a god” (Carmen Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem)

            The evidence from the Roman historian Tacitus (c.A.D. 55-c.117)is still more explicit.  In his celebrated Annals, a vivid and tersely phrased work drawn up about A.D. 115, Tacitus describes the persecution of the Christians at Rome.  He relates that Nero, disturbed  by a rumor accusing him of having deliberately started the great fire that  destroyed half the city of Rome in A.D. 64, tried to throw the blame for the catastrophe on the Christians, and he delivered  them up to the most appalling tortures – such as having them dipped in tar and then setting them on fire to illuminate his race track at night, or turning ferocious animals upon them in the amphitheatre.  “Their name,” Tacitus adds, “comes  from Christus, who in the reign of Tiberius as emperor was condemned to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate” (Annals,xv.44)

            The importance of this pagan testimony to the historicity of Christ is hard to exaggerate.  Tacitus is universally acknowledged to be one of the most reliable of Roman historians, whose passion for sober and accurate reporting  was joined with a critical sense rare in his time.  It is significant that he fixes the date of Jesus’ death in terms of the reigning emperor as well as the procurator of Judea.

            A third Roman writer who refers briefly to Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (A.D.c.10-c.160).  While secretary to the Emperor Hadrian,and hence having access to the official achieves, Suetonius wrote a popular history under the title The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.  Published about A.D. 120, this work is biographical in style, containing many gossipy sidelights concerning the foibles of the emperors.  In the section which deals with Nero (c.xvi) Suetonius says that this emperor “inflicted punishments on the Christians, s sect which professes a new and mischievous superstition.”  In the section  concerning the Emperor Claudius (c xxv) he makes reference to the expulsion from Rome of the Jews, “who had been continually stirring up trouble under the influence of Chrestus.” (see also Acts 18,2) The disturbances were probably the result of agitation and rivalry between  Jews and Christians; the misspelling  of the name “Christus” is understandable on the part of a pagan author who obviously had very little interest in or sympathy for the new sect.

            The Total testimony concerning Jesus which is preserved in early non-Christian authors is not extensive, yet the scantiness of evidence should occasion no surprise.  Sophisticated  Roman authors of the first Christian centuries  had not our reasons for being interested in Jesus.  What had happened  in a remote corner of the empire among  the despised race of the Jews appeared relatively unimportant in comparison with other more congenial topics.  As for Josephus, there were special considerations which kept him from enlarging on the history and significance of Jesus.  In writing books which were intended to exalt and defend  his people in the eyes of Roman readers, it is natural that he would say as little as possible about messianic agitators, whose activities only served to disturb the status quo and to bring a reproach against the Jewish nation.

            On the other hand, the early non-Christians testimonies concerning Jesus, though scanty, are sufficient to prove (even without taking into account the evidence contained in the New Testament) that he was  a historical figure who lived in Palestine in the early years of the first century, that he gathered a group of followers about himself, and that he was condemned to death under Pontius Pilate.  Today no competent scholar denies the historicity of Jesus.

The gospels are not biographies of Jesus in the ordinary sense; they are proclamation of the Good News, a written witness to the faith of the apostolic church. However, they contain authentic historical information about the life and activities of Jesus. In order to understand and appreciate the person as well the life of Jesus it is important to situate Him in the historical context in which that life was lived out.  Hence, we shall next try to give a brief picture of the first century Palestine, its political, economic, social and religious particularities  and see how Jesus reacted to those realities.

1. The political situation of Palestine.

Palestine was a Roman colony since BC 63 – Herod the Great  ruled from 37-4 B.C.; after Herod’s death, the country was divided into three with Archelaus, Antipas and Philip as the rulers. When Archelaus was banished in A.D. 6, his territory, Samaria, Judea and Idumea came under direct Roman rule.

Herod the Great BC 37-4, King of the entire Palestine

Archelaus, BC 4-AD 6, Tetrarch of Judea, Samaria and Idumea, banished in AD 6

Herod Antipas, BC 4-AD 39, Tetrarch of Galilee, banished in AD 34

Herod Agrippa I, AD 37-44, The territory of Philip and later also that of Antipas and the procurators

Herod of Chalcis, AD 44- 48, Territory of Agrippa I

Agrippa II, AD 48 – 66 Parts of Galilee and Perea

Roman Procurators, AD 6-66

Jewish War AD 66- 70

Jerusalem Captured and destroyed, AD 70

Second Revolt, AD 132-135

Jerusalem renamed “Aelia Capitolina”, temple of Jupiter,  and the Jews were banned, AD 135

            Jesus was born during the last days of Herod the Great.  He lived mostly  in the territory ruled by Herod Antipas, and His public ministry as well as death occurred during the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate.

            Rome’s major interest was domination, and taxation.  The Pax Romana gave certain advantages to the Jews, such as possibility of migration, trade etc.  However, taxation  was heavy, repression of any opposition was bloody and brutal.  Roman legion was stationed in Syria and the legate in Damascus, whereas the procurator usually resided at Caesarea Maritima and during the major festivals in Jerusalem.  Roman garrison always present in the fortress of Antonia in Jerusalem.  Some of the procurators were exceptionally cruel and ruthless.  Pilate was one of them.  After several petitions from the Jews the Roman Senate finally called him back to Rome.  The rule of Antipas in Galilee was not any better.  His building enterprises and taxation was much resented.  He was especially in trouble during  the public life of Jesus.  The Nabatean king Aretas was preparing for war against him because he married Herodias and repudiated the former wife, the king’s daughter. 

            The attitude of the Jews to the colonial power varied:  The priestly aristocracy collaborated with the Romans.  Many citizens worked with and for the Romans, tax collectors for example.  The tax collectors had to pay a fixed amount to the Roman treasury, but they could collect more than that amount. If some one refused to pay the taxes, they could get  the help of the Roman army. Thus, the tax collectors were hated on two counts, first as collaborators of foreign rulers and then as merciless exploiters.  The common people as a whole hated and despised the Romans as gentiles, foreign overlords.  The insignia of the Roman army was considered an idol and its presence in the country  was resented and opposed.

            All the people awaited a Messiah who would liberate them from the foreigners and reestablish the Kingdom of David.  Most of the Messianic prophecies were  interpreted politically, and the coming of the Messiah was thought to be imminent.  In the first century AD several figures appeared claiming to be the Messiah and all of  them were brutally dealt with.  Some radicals in Galilee organized themselves into a guerilla movement to evict the Romans from the country through armed conflict; they were known as Zealots, called also Sicari because of the dagger they carried.  This movement seems to have originated in AD 6, as an opposition against a census  organized by the Romans.  The protagonist is known as Judas the Galilean.  This guerilla movement appealed to the youth of Galilee.  There was revolution in the air when Jesus appeared on the stage.

            The people as  a whole, especially the Galileans, looked upon Jesus as the political Messiah or the prophet like Moses who would liberate Israel from the Roman yoke (Jn 6,14-15; Mk 6,14-16; Mt 21,11) The disciples also had entertained such hopes (Lk 24,19-21).  The confession of Peter, at least in the  original Markan version, implies such an understanding (Mk 8,39).  Herod Antipas had come to a similar conclusion and wanted to kill him (Lk 13,31-33).  The Roman authority looked upon Jesus as  revolutionary and finally punished him as  such.

Jesus’ response to the political situation.

            Jesus did not hate the Romans.  He healed the centurion’s servant, visited the tax collector’s homes, and accepted one of them as an apostle.  People wanted to make him king but he did not comply  with their demand (jn 6,14-15).  He considered worldly power and domination as a diabolic temptation (Lk 4,5-8).  He did not want his disciples to aspire for such  worldly power (Lk 22,25-27).  When the disciples acknowledged him as the Christ, he asked them to keep quiet especially because of the political implications of that confession (Mk 8,29-30).  He did not subscribe to the violent policy of the Zealots, on the contrary he demanded, ”love your enemies”.  However, he accepted them as his disciples.  At least one of the apostles is explicitly identified as a Zealot (Lk 6,15).

            However, Jesus did not give unconditional obedience to the political authority, neither to Herod Antipas (Lk 13,31-33) nor to the procurator Pilate (Jn 19,10-11).  His words and deeds could be easily interpreted as having political implications.  In the tricky question, concerning the legitimacy of Roman taxation, Jesus did not unequivocally demand or object to paying taxes  to the Romans.  He affirmed that the political power is subjected to God’s authority and hence priority is given to the latter (Mk 12,13-17).  From this, the questioners concluded that Jesus was advocating a revolution, refusing to pay taxes (Lk 23,1-2)

            His solemn entry into the city, on a donkey, during the festival of Passover was considered by the people as his affirmation of being the Messiah and accordingly they acclaimed him as the king, Son of David (Lk 19,38; Mk 11,7-10).  When Pilate asked him point blank “are you the king of the Jews”, he did not deny it, but gave an interpretation which Pilate did not and probably could not understand (Jn 18,33-38)  His teaching about the Kingdom of God could also  be  interpreted as a rejection of earthly kings and kingdoms.  Jesus expected that he would be executed in Jerusalem and had prepared the disciples for that event.  They too were asked to be ready to carry the cross and be crucified  if they wanted to be his followers (Mk 8,34)  Finally, it was as a political criminal, a revolutionary, that Jesus was crucified, between two revolutionaries.

            Did Jesus in reality reject all political authority or was he misunderstood?  There was a great misunderstanding about the person and teaching of Jesus on all levels.  He never  wanted to be a political king, nor did he want to establish an empire.  What he proclaimed was the Kingdom of God, or rather the Rule of God that entered into this world with him.  However, the values of the Kingdom of God  such as  justice, equality, brotherhood, liberty of all human beings, when accepted  in its full sense, there would  be no room for an imperialism that places human beings on various levels and allows a few to exploit and lord it over the many.  Thus his teaching was undermining the very foundations of imperialism.  Death on the cross was the price he paid for the arrival of the Kingdom of God. But ultimately, after three centuries of opposition and persecution the empire itself was  vanquished by the Kingdom of God.

• Economic Situation of Palestine.

As in any society, the population of Palestine in Jesus”  time could be divided into three    

Classes: rich, middle class and poor.

1. The rich: big landowners, bankers, big business men etc. both Jews and gentiles.  The

high priest was one of the richest of the land.  The priestly aristocracy, as well as many of the other religious leaders also belonged to this class.  The rich lived in big cities like Jerusalem, Tiberias, Damascus, Caesarea etc.  they had their estates in the countryside, which were often managed by overseers. Even though the Jewish law forbade, the moneylenders used to charge  exorbitant interests.  Those who failed to repay the debts  were prosecuted, their property confiscated and sometimes the entire family sold into slavery.  The rich could indulge themselves in all sorts of luxury: could have luxurious mansions, summer homes and winter homes, sumptuous banquets, frequent divorce and polygamy, etc.

b The middle class:  The vast majority of the people belonged to this class.  Small farmers, artisans, small business holders etc., in short all those who had the possession of the means of production and a house for themselves belonged to the middle class.  They were the most exploited group.  Taxes, both civil and religious, were a heavy burden for them.  They were also at the mercy of the money lenders and tax collectors.  Many of them were gradually reduced to abject poverty and some times to slavery.

c.The poor: All those who did not possess any property nor had any steady income from any occupation whatsoever, were considered poor. They  mostly depended on the charity of the rich.  The poor, as a whole were virtually reduced to begging.  Their number was steadily on the increase.  Material poverty was generally considered a curse of God, not a virtue. However, there was a kind of religious movement, especially among the Essenes, that considered spiritual poverty, an attitude of total dependence on God, as a virtue.  They called themselves the poor (anawim) of Yahweh

Jesus’ attitude: Jesus and his apostles originally belonged to the middle class, but when he entered upon the public ministry he voluntarily accepted the life of the poor and asked  his followers to do the same.  He recounted the means of livelihood and became dependent entirely on the Providence of God and the charity of others.  The poverty Jesus chose was absolute.  He was born in a manger, had no place as his own and was buried in another man’s tomb.  The teaching of Jesus on wealth and poverty has to be understood from his words  as well as from his life.

            He called the poor blessed, as the special objects of  God’s preferential love and promised them the Kingdom of God (Lk 6,20).  Material poverty he saw not as a curse of God, but as the result of injustice and exploitation.  Hence the poor are not to be despised nor hated but helped with sympathy.  They are the special guests to be invited at every banquet (Lk 14,13) By helping the poor one is helping God Himself. Whatever you did for one these little ones you did it for me (Mt 25,40) The Kingdom of God that Jesus promised the poor is not exclusively otherworldly, but something that is already present in the life and work of Jesus.

            Jesus considered accumulated wealth, that is not shared with the needy as an obstacle to enter the Kingdom of God.  It makes one heartless and Godless.  Wealth makes one blind to the need  of the poor and of one’s own need for God (Lk 12,13-21; 16,19-31) Money can take the place of God  and greed becomes equivalent to idolatry.  The rich young man was invited to donate everything to the poor and to follow Jesus (Mk 10,17-22)  By calling money mammon Jesus unmasks the real nature  of greed  and the dangers it involves (Mt 6,24).  The parable of the camel and needle’s eye (Mk 10,25) make this point very clear.  Jesus did not hate the rich; in fact he did not hate anybody.  He accepted the invitation of the rich  for banquets, but told them of their duty  of sharing the riches  with the poor and warned them of the consequence of not sharing  (Lk 6,24; Mt 25,41-43).  Jesus demanded a total conversion of heart and change in attitudes that would enable one to depend on God’s Providence alone “for one’s life does not consist in  possessions”(Lk 12,15).

            The call to share the wealth provoked the enmity and contempt of the rich (Lk 16,14)..The parables of the rich fool (Lk 12,11-21), of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16,19-31) and the advise to share the wealth with the poor (Lk 12,33; 16,9) all these point to the futility of trusting in wealth and to the need of a new attitude and life style that is demanded by the presence of the Kingdom of G0d.  However, most of the rich and the mighty did not accept this call, but joined hands with the opponents of Jesus and plotted against his life. By and large the rich had an attitude of contempt for Jesus and his teachings, though some of them were his disciples in secret. Jesus’ meeting with the rich and the powerful was also an occasion for their conversion.

• Social situation

People were divide into various classes on the basis of the economical status, political and religious influence and above all the religious laws concerning ritual purity.  People were considered either pure or impure, both of which could be of various grades.

Pure: Only those who could prove their direct descendents from Abraham and Sara and were without any ritual impurity were considered absolutely pure.

Impure: Impurity could be of various kinds; temporary, permanent, by reason of birth, health situation, profession etc.

Temporary impurity. Those who touch any thing impure, such as a dead body or a pig will be impure for a day. Those with any kind of bodily discharge will be impure as long as the discharge continues.

Permanently impure

By birth; all gentiles, half Jews, bastards.

By health situation, physically handicapped such as blind, deaf, mute, lame, mentally ill, possessed, those with incurable illness such as lepers.

By profession, any profession that demands a physical contact with another human being or that provides an opportunity for stealing;  e.g. prostitutes, physicians, tax collectors etc.

Women as a whole were considered impure just because of the fact that they were women.  They were equivalent or even inferior to gentile slaves. Sterility was the fault of only women; if the husband died a premature death that was the wife’s fault.  Marriage was arranged by the parents of the bride and groom; women could be divorced for trivial reasons, but they had no right  to divorce a husband.  Women could not plead a case, be a witness in a court, or enter the synagogue.  In the temple of Jerusalem the women were restricted  to the special area called “women’s court”.

All this impurity was considered sin and the impure persons as sinners.  The concept of sin was external, physical and ritualistic, a blemish rather than internal and spiritual failure or offense.  Any contact with the impure will make the pure also impure.  Hence the pure kept a safe distance from the impure, looking down upon them with contempt.

Jesus’ attitude.

Even though Jesus is a descendant of David, there is “impure blood” in his veins. Four women in the genealogy of Jesus were gentiles; Thamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba.  He could not claim the absolute purity by reason of birth.  He did not pay any attention whatsoever to the laws of purity that divided human beings into various levels.  In fact, he made it a point to challenge these laws and traditions by breaking them.  He touched the blind in the their eye, the deaf in their ears, the dumb on their tongue, touched the dead body, and embraced the lepers.  He accepted the hospitality of the hated Samaritans and accepted tax collectors as his disciples.  He did not hesitate to hold a long conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well, to lay his hands on a crippled woman in the synagogue; or to allow a public prostitute to anoint and kiss his feet at a dinner party in the house of a leading Pharisee.  His attitude towards women as a whole was quite revolutionary. He took many of them as his disciples and allowed them to go around with him on the preaching and healing ministry.  His table fellowship with the impure and outcastes of the society  was a sign of his position in this regards Eating together indicates a fellowship, a close union of family members,   By sitting at table with the ritually and socially impure Jesus was indicating that all sorts of people belong to the same family.  In the common meals, he saw the presence of the Kingdom of God and in many a parable he explained the nature of the Kingdom as a banquet.

Both by his deeds and by his words, Jesus was undermining the structure of the Jewish society  that had divided people into various classes.  He was turning upside down the value system of the society in which he lived.  His life style, attitudes, deeds and words, all pointed to a social revolution.  The Jewish authority saw  the threat and right from the beginning  tried to deal with it.  They accused Jesus of being in bad company, a glutton, a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinner (Lk 7,34). Standing with the marginalized,  Jesus himself  became marginalised and finally had to bear the consequences.

• Religious Situation

God had called Abraham and promised him that through his descendants the whole world would be blessed.  This promise was repeated through the prophets.  However, the people of Israel  were not so much concerned about universal salvation as about their own political liberation.  They considered themselves as the elected people of God, a privilege that was exclusively theirs  Religions itself had degenerated into formalism  and ritualistic.  Great importance was given to the literal observance of the Law, but the spirit of the Law  was  often ignored.  The religious leadership had become very worldly and could neither understand nor accept Jesus as the promised Messiah. It was the  religious leaders who condemned Jesus to death and handed him over to the Romans.

Leadership: In matters  that concerned religion, the people of Israel at the time of Jesus were governed  by the Sanhedrin that consisted of 70 (72) members  presided over by the High priest.  It  included the High Priest, Chief Priests, Levites, Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees and Elders of the people.  The High Priest were appointed by the political authority, either Roman or Jewish. 

Chief Priests: Those in charge of the various departments of religious life and activities, such as liturgy, maintenance of law and order in the temple, treasury, etc.

Priests: Only those who belonged to the Tribe of Levi, but not all Levites were priests.  The priests were divided into 24 groups and each group had to serve  in the temple for a week; they were chosen by lots.

Levites: non-priests of the Tribes of Levi, they were to assist the priests in the liturgical activities.

Pharisees: the name derives from the word Perushim, which means separated.  The Pharisees were a group of ;people who had taken the vow of obeying all the laws and traditions of the people with extreme fidelity without counting the cost.  They were distinguished by their “holiness” deriving from the literal observance of the law and were respected by the people.

Scribes: or Lawyers, people who could read and write and were well versed in the Law of the Jewish religion.  They were the successors o Ezra, the great Jewish reformer of the post-exilic time.

Sadducees: The priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem.  The name derives from Zadok, the High Priest of David and Solomon.  They were rich and worldly in their attitudes and life style.  They were noted for their lack of faith in resurrection and in the existence of angels and spirits.  The High Priest as well as the  chief Priests belonged to the Sadducees

Elders: These were the lay representatives of the chief families in Jerusalem.  Representatives of all the above categories formed the highest religious body of Judaism, the Sanhedrin.

Essenes: It is a religious group that lived at Qumran, on the western bank of the Dead Sea.  The origin of this religious movement is attributed to a priest from Jerusalem whom the community calls the Teacher of Righteousness.  He seems to have abandoned Jerusalem, towards the end of the second century BC, in protest against the High Priest who had taken upon himself the political authority as well and called himself king.  This group lived in the desert, strictly observing the Law of  Moses and preparing themselves for the coming of the Messiah.  They copied the biblical books and wrote commentaries on many of them.  The Roman army destroyed  this group in AD 70.  Their writings have been discovered from the caves in the nearby mountains and are known as Qumran Scrolls.  These include various books of the bible, commentaries, and writings pertaining to the life and beliefs of the sect.

The Temple: was the nerve center of Judaism.  There was only one temple, and that was in Jerusalem.  Throughout the country they had prayer houses known as Synagogues, but sacrifices were offered only in the temple. Pilgrims from all over the world came to Jerusalem. For the major festivals, such as Passover, Pentecost and Feast of the Booths.  The temple area was divided into various quarters, and gentiles were allowed only to a restricted area.  This area was often taken over by businessmen  who sold sacrificial animals and birds etc. as well as money changers who exchanged the Roman coins for the temple coins of Shekel.  The Liturgical objects were sold at very high prices making a great profit for the  establishment as well as for the individual businessmen.  The entire business was under the High Priest and most of the profit went to him.

The Law: The religious authority exerted their influence on the people through the Law of Moses that was considerably augmented by the various interpretations and traditions through centuries.  Law concerning ritual purity and Sabbath were the most important ones.  God had given the Law at Sinai for the protection of all the members of the  people, but in the course of time, it had become an intolerable burden for the common people while those in authority used it as a mans of domination.

Jesus’ attitude:

 Jesus did not belong to the priestly tribe of Levi, but to the tribe of Judah.  He did not have any formal religious education nor did he have any official approval as a teacher.  Therefore, he did not enjoy the support of  the religious establishment.  He was just a laymen, a village carpenter from Nazareth.  He ;participated in the religious activities of his people and obeyed the religious laws, went  to the prayer services at the synagogues and made pilgrimages to the Jerusalem temple.  However, he did not approve of all the pious traditions and practices of the religious leaders.

            Jesus interpreted the religious laws giving importance to the spirit and pointing out the meaning  intended by God.  His attitude towards the law of Sabbath (Mk 2,27) law concerning food (Mk 7,14-23), fasting (Mk 2,18-22), ritual purity (Mk 7,1-11) etc. was quite radical.  He called attention to the inner attitude rather than to the external practice and concentrated on the essential aspects of the law such as justice, mercy and fidelity (Mt 23,23).  Religion is a matter of relationship, of hearts with God and fellow human beings, and its influence should be visible in the life of the society (Mt 23,23-24).  The same is true concerning prayer.  Prayer for Jesus was not a recital of certain formulas and texts but an intimate communion with his Father.  For this he chose lonely places rather than synagogues and the temple.  He taught this disciples to do the same (Mt 6,5-13; Jn 4,21-24).  Jesus’ teaching about God and His rule was quite original.  Calling God Abba expressed an intimacy and familiarity with Him that was unheard of among the Jews.  The God Jesus is the merciful, forgiving and loving Father who waits for the return of the prodigal son (Lk 15).  Jesus explained the Kingdom of God as a banquet at which all the outcastes of the society participate while those who considered themselves the heirs of the Kingdom  but refuse to accept the call, are excluded (Lk 14,15-24)

            Though he was not an approved teacher, Jesus claimed an authority that was far beyond any human could conceive of.  The way he interpreted the Law surprised the audience and scandalized the leaders.  The contrast with the old laws and traditions expresed in the teaching (“you have heard that it was said… but I  say to you..´Mt5,21-48) points to an authority  greater than that of Moses.  The emphatic formula, “Amen amen, I say to you” goes beyond the authority of a prophet.  His word was powerful; it effected healing of the sick and brought the dead back to life.  Natural forces such as storm and sea  obeyed  his command; water turned into wine and bread multiplied  in his hands.  The demonic forces were afraid of him and withdrew at his command.  There was an implicit claim of equality  with God, especially in forgiving sins and miraculous healing substantiated that claim.

            All these brought him into direct confrontation with the religious leaders of his time.  They observed him closely, questioned him, accused him of breaking  laws, tried to discredit him  among the people, and challenged  his credentials and plotted against his life (Mk 3,6).  Jesus’ attitude towards the leaders was not that of obedience and compromise.  He challenged them to open the eyes of their hearts and understand the new reality that has entered with him into this world.  He gave them enough of signs to make the conclusion that he is the Son of God,  the expected  Messiah  and  with him the Kingdom of God, which they had been waiting for, has become a reality.  However, they only closed their hearts and became more and more obstinate in their unbelief.

            Through many a parable (Lk 10,29-37; 18,9-14; Mt 21,28-32; 21,33-46) Jesus exposed their hypocrisy.  His out right denunciations of the Pharisees and Scribes ( Lk 11,37-54; Mt 23) brought the confrontation to a climax.  However, it was the cleansing of the temple that brought the already tense relation to the breaking point.  His action was interpreted as an attack  on the entire religious structure of Judaism, and his answer about destroying and rebuilding the temple ( Jn 2,19) only aggravated the conclusion.  Chasing the merchants from the temple was a symbolic action pointing out that the house of God desecrated by the malpractice  was doomed to destruction.  It was corroborated by the cursing of the fig tree (Mk 11,12-21) and finally explained by the prediction of the destruction of the temple and the city (Lk 21,5-6).  The religious authority finally took extreme measures; the Sanhedrin was convened, they put Jesus on trial, condemned him to death and handed him over to the political authority.

            Jesus was condemned by the religious court for blasphemy.  The supreme authority of the Jews judged the revelation of the truth  that Jesus is the Son of God a crime deserving death.  Those who were accustomed to the rigorous monotheism could not understand the meaning of this new revelation.  They could not accommodate the divinity  of Jesus in their  traditional faith.  However, God vindicated the claim of Jesus by raising him from death.

            Jesus was born in a concrete historical situation with its particular problems and challenges.  It was a cruel society in many ways.  The rights of the ordinary people were not much respected.  The  human rights about which the modern society speaks was hardly an issue. To a large extent the might was the right. Slavery was simply taken for granted. Though in Israel the ideal brotherhood  was  taught, the practice was very much to the contrary. The priesthood and religious life in general supported the rich and the powerful. Religious practices had become very mechanical and they had lost the original spirit.

            It is some times asked, why Jesus did not attack these unjust social structure.  On the contrary he seems to be tolerating if not supporting the system.  But once we deeply look into the teachings of Jesus, we can find the real force of change and conversion there.  It is not by means of armed conflict or class struggle that real  and lasting change is brought about. It requires an inner transformation, a metanoia, and this is what Jesus had called for.  The history shows how in all those places and cultures where the message of Christ found acceptance, the social situation did change.  This is how Jesus changes human history.

            In the contemporary world, many of the so called Christian countries are Christian only in their names and  looking at their way of life, we shall not judge Christianity.

(For personal reflection and discussion: How would you respond to some one that the whole question of Jesus and his gospel is  a myth with little support from purely historical sources; early Christianity is nothing but a developed form of the oriental cults and hellenstic thinking, coupled with some legal ordering from the Roman world.  How would you explain Jesus’ reaction to the existing socio political  and religious situations of his time?  Was he a pacifist or anarchist?)

IV.The Cultural Tensions

            The world of the first century was a welter of conflicting cultures. The many peoples comprised within the constantly expanding domain of Rome brought into it all their cultural contributions. Africans, Teuton, Greeks, Jews, Parthians, and Phrygians mingled in the provinces and cities and shared their national heritages with the Latin people. This combination of social and religious forces under one political rule produced a unique setting for the birth of Christianity. Although the gospel is essentially independent of any human origin, the media through which it was expressed and the influences that affected its interpretation can be traced back to the philosophies and theologies of the contemporary period.

            Three great types of culture prevailed in the empire: Judaism, Hellenism, and Roman imperialism.  Judaism provided the roots of Christianity; Hellenism, the intellectual soil in which it grew; and imperialism, the protection that opened the field of its growth.  Paradoxically, these three cultures became Christianity’s bitterest enemies, for Judaism regarded it as a pernicious heresy, Hellenism as philosophical nonsense, and Roman imperialism as impractical weakness.

Judaism

            Until the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 the focus  of Judaism remained in Jerusalem, although the Dispersion had carried Jews into almost every city of the empire. The Temple, with its organized priesthood and regular ritual, provided the center to which all devout Jews gave their  allegiance and to which they made their pilgrimages at Passover and Pentecost. There was large Jewish population in other cities as well.

            The Jewish people, despite severance from their ancestral land, retained a solidarity of religion and culture that preserved their distinctive quality. Though deprived of an independent state and common center of worship after A.D.70,  their Law and tradition   provided them with a body of teaching  that fixed their theology and  their customs. Though they adapted the language and dress of the land in which they stayed, they perpetuated their worship through the synagogues and their racial identity through the careful education of their children. They were never absorbed by the Roman world. In every sizeable city a colony of Jews existed and wherever they gathered they constituted a block of resistance to polytheism and a center from which Jewish lore and ethic were disseminated among  the population.

            The exiles who returned from Babylon valued their homeland more than their own ease and comfort They became the defenders of  law.  The Maccabean revolt is an expression of the same. The Seleucids had tried to introduce paganism (Hellenism) among them. The Hasidim, the pietistic element in Judaism, remained suspicious of any attempt to introduce alien philosophies into their society, and  they obstinately resisted all tendencies towards Hellenization.

            However there were also those who  were not so strictly devoted to the Temple, the Qumran community maintained a strict worship and obedience to the Law quite separate from the rest of Judaism, and they paid little attention to the official national religion. Then there was another group who had adopted the Greek ways. Some even wanted to do away with the outward  signs of Judaism. Those who were only loosely attached to the Temple may have been attracted to faith in Christ. Stephen and his colleagues, among whom were some of the strongest early evangelists, may have belonged  to this group (Acts 6,1-6) Stephen’s speech indicates that he hid not conceive of God’s presence as restricted to a building, and that he laid greater emphasis on obedience to God than on ritual (7,44-53). Besides these, there were also the Samaritans, who had accepted the Torah

The God of the Old Testament is the God of  the New Testament – holy, just, merciful, self-revealing, and loving.  The great doctrines of the Old Testament such as creation, the fall of man, holiness and the coming of a Messiah were incorporated into Christianity and were more fully developed.  The synagogue was the platform for early evangelistic preaching, and many of the first converts came from the Jewish attendants  and from the proselytes who had abandoned their original paganism in  search of a purer and more satisfying faith.  On many of these proselytes the legal system of Judaism had only a slight hold, for they demurred at circumcision and full commitment to all the ceremonial requirements that accompanied the observances of the Law. The sentiments of these people were probably reflected in the controversy over circumcision that arose in the Christian church  late in the first half of the first century, and that precipitated the council of Jerusalem in A.D. 48/49.  While the majority of Christians who reacted against legalism may have been direct converts from paganism, it is equally probable that some of them had first become acquainted with the gospel through the medium of a Judaism which extended to them a positive revelation that was lacking in the vague and irrelevant legends of their gods..

Judaism, however, was in certain respects irreconcilable with the predominant cultures of the early empire.  Fiercely intolerant of polytheism, it seemed ridiculous to men who believed that a multiplicity of gods insured safety; for if one god could protect a devotee, two gods would be even more potent.  The Jewish adherence to the Ten Commandments stamped them as morally different from the rest of the world a who regarded them as intransigent fanatics.  To the gentiles a pinch of incense offered on the altar of some god was insignificant; to a Jew it would be blasphemy, since only God is worthy of worship.   The rigid  loyalty of the Jews to God and to the Law impressed their contemporaries as foolish intolerance, and their peculiar habits of  life separated them from the general current of civilization

The Jew differed sharply from the Greek in mental attitude as well as in religion.  His thinking was channeled by the Law and was largely confined to a development of the Torah’s implications.  The Greek maintained a spirit of free inquiry stimulated by an insatiable intellectual curiosity which impelled him to probe all aspects of the world and to offer new hypotheses concerning its nature and laws.  The Jews were religious, the Greeks, scientific in their outlook; and despite mutual tolerance, they never found a lasting union of faith.

Hellenism

            As a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. Hellenism prevailed east of Greece. The lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean world was Greek, the cities were built according to Greek plans, and the rulers descended from Alexander’s generals and officers were also Greek.  Hellenistic thought and learning had penetrated the West also.  The better educated Romans used Greek as a second language and sent their sons to Greek universities, such as Athens and Rhodes.  Greek literature, drama and art became the models for their own production.  In the field of philosophy th Greek tradition prevailed, for the Romans did not posses the speculative type of mind that produced abstract systems of thought.

            The Greeks, being individualists, never built  a cohesive commonwealth.  The city-states of the Peleponnesus and of Asia Minor were incapable of federating in permanent alliances or of combining into a single enduring empire.  Insofar as the domain of Alexander seems to be an exception this principle, one must concede that he, though Greek by education and ideals, was a Macedonian by temperament His dominion might have crystallized into another Rome had he lived to administer it, and had his successors been as able as he.  Although the Ptolemies and the Seleucids created kingdoms that lasted for several centuries, they did so because they possessed the military power to dominate their subjects  rather than because they evoked from them a co-operation based on patriotism.  Hellenism was not endowed with Rome’s organizing  power.  The Greek democracy was brittle and even in the heyday of  Athens, it could not build a structure that would outlast two generations.  The reason for this lack of cohesiveness was the essential independence of the Hellenistic mind, which lacked both the religious unity of the Jew and the military discipline of the Roman. Whereas  every Jews, insofar as he was  loyal adherent to the Law of Moses, held the same essential view of God that his neighbors did, the Greek might worship one deity in his home city and another elsewhere if he changed his residence.  Even if the same god were worshipped in both cities, its characterization might be different in the two places.  Conflict  in religion did not trouble him; he overcame it by syncretism, which allowed for a maximum of variety within the general concept of religion.  The result was that each city-state was a little island, both religiously and politically.  Interested chiefly in pursuing the welfare  and concerns of their immediate group, the Greeks never bound themselves together either by a common religion or by a common enterprise.

            Although the Romans differed little from the Greeks in their religious diversity, they developed a consciousness of empire and that served to unite the varied peoples of  their realm.  The civil wars of the two centuries before Christ had exhausted the resources and the nerve of the republic, and the inhabitants longed for peace.  The emergence of the principate under Augustus, with the accompanying deification of the emperor by many of the provincials, created a sense of oneness in a common cause organized around one central leader.  Despite the dissatisfaction with subsequent emperors and the turbulent centuries in which the throne was sold to the highest bidder, the sense that Rome was one was never abandoned.  The contending factions strove for control of the one state rather than seceding to form a new organization.  Hellenism thus differed from both Hebrew and Roman culture in its insistent individualism

The influence of Hellenism, however, did not depend on political sovereignty but upon the penetrativeness of its ideas and the lure of its culture.  The Greek conquest of the Near East left an ineffaceable imprint upon  the nations from the Aegean Sea to the Indus River, even though the Macedonian empire did not long survive the death of its founder.  The influence of Hellenistic art affected the contemporary Brahman and Buddhist sculpture and painting of India and can be traced in some of  the early Buddhist art of Japan,  Greek words were incorporated into the vocabularies of the Indian and Persian people; Alexander’s name is disguised in the syllables of cities like Secunderabad and Kandahar, and the legends of his conquests are still common tales in Oriental lore.  In  Palestine the Greek language obtained a firm foothold, and under the rule of the Seleucids Greek customs, Greek buildings, and Greek habits of thought became common..

            The spirit of Hellenism underlies much of the New Testament.  In spite of Jewish origin, the earliest members of the church were deeply imbued with Greek culture.  Eleven of Jesus’ twelve disciples had spent most of their lives in settlements near the Sea of Galilee, around which lay the Greek cities of the Decapolis.  They had constant contact with Gentiles who had immigrated from the West, and they must have been familiar with the language and customs of these residents.  The construction which Herod the Great began at Caesarea and Tiberias, incorporated much of Greek art and architecture.  The inquisitive Hellenic mind was reflected in the request, ”we would see Jesus” (John 12,20.21), reported by John and spoken by the Greeks who had come to Jerusalem to participate in the Feast of the Passover.  The record does not stipulate whether these were proselytes who had adopted the religion of Israel or whether they were merely casual visitors. In any case, they were distinctly Hellenic in viewpoint.

The wide dispersion of the Jewish people had led to a partial Hellenization of their thinking.  Living in the midst of a Greek-speaking populace who scorned to learn their language, they were compelled to become adjusted to the surrounding world if they expected to pursue their business acceptably.  Many of them dropped their Jewish names and customs and became thoroughly Hellenzied except for their religious faith.

            The cities to which the Epistles of Paul, Peter, and John were addressed owed their culture more to a Hellenstic than to a Roman background.  For that reason the teaching of the Epistles bears traces of conflict with the general trend of contemporary thought.  The materialism of Corinth, the speculative intellectualism of Athens, the superstitious  idolatry and demonism of Ephesus, the mysticism of Colossae, the smug indifference of Laodicea are all expressive of some  aspect of the Hellensitic attitude.  Investigative in disposition, broad in interests, intellectual in its approach, it nevertheless, lacked the depth and stamina to create an enduring civilization.  Hellenism could not maintain its independence against the hard practical force of an armed state and was consequently absorbed by the military civilization of Rome.

            Absorption, however, was not extinction.  Within the framework of Rome’s superior organization Hellenism persisted and contributed to its hardhearted conquerors the larger part of their aesthetic  heritage.  Their music, painting, history, literature, poetry, oratory, and sculpture were borrowed from or based on Greek models.  The vigorous cadences of  Vergil’s Aeneid were  a Latin copy of Homer’’ flowing hexameters; the numerous temples that filled the Roman cities were built on the models of Athens and Ephesus; and the modes and manners of the patricians were softened  by the Greek influence much as the rugged and sometimes crude American manners of the colonial period were affected by the Gallic influence that crept in from the writings and diplomatic contacts following the French Revolution( M.C.Tenney, The New Testament Times,74).

Roman Culture

            The Roman culture, though inferior to the Greek and largely dependent upon it, was not entirely imitative.  In literature the Roman writers developed a terseness and a factual precision that was less ornate than Greek rhetoric but more concise. Latin became the language of barristers and theologians because of its clarity and definiteness; Greek was the tongue of philosophers, historians, artists, and merchants.

            Roman sculpture lacked the symmetrical and idealized beauty of Greek carving but was far more realistic and rugged. The Romans excelled in engineering.  If the baths of Caracalla lacked the studied grace of the Parthenon, they possessed a massiveness that is almost equally impressive.  The roads that traversed mountain and plain in every direction from Rome to the utmost frontiers of the empire were so well drained and paved that the remains of many of them are still visible, and some are still in use.  The aqueduct in Segovia, Spain, functioned for eighteen centuries and only recently was retired from active service.  Rome’s practical genius was memorialized in her buildings.

            Roman efficiency and resourcefulness became a part of the missionary procedure of the church, and its policy of extension was patterned on the Roman strategy of conquest.  As time went on, the church absorbed the organizational pattern of the empire until its papal hierarchy became  the logical successor of the absolutism of the Caesars.

            To each of these three cultures the Christian church owes some of its characteristics, though its genius is not the product of any one of them.  Judaism  provided the revelation in the scriptures, through which God made Himself known, and gave the initial training to men like Saul of Tarsus, who, after their conversion, interpreted the Law and the Prophets in terms of Jesus, the Messiah.  The morality of Judaism was perpetuated in the standards of conduct upheld by the church.  The assiduous study of the Law which Judaism maintained was by the church turned into the study of their own scriptures.

            The Greek ability to build a philosophic system from an axiom by means of deduction supplied the means of constructing a theology out of the doctrinal teachings of Jesus and the prepositional declarations of scripture.  The order and system of Rome permeated organization and direction.  The warring cultures found a common  ground  in Christ.  No outward change was visible in the faces, practices, or dress of the Christians, yet there was a perceptible  alteration in their behavior, for they began to build a culture of their own almost as soon as they professed conversion.  Hebrew theology, Greek speculative thinking, and Roman jurisprudence united in the new society which the gospel created.

(For Personal reflection and dissussion: God had been preparing Judaism, Hellenism and the roman culture to be fitting ground for the Gospel.  Do you agree with this statement?  Would you find something similar in the ancient Indian culture and religious  atmosphere?)

V.The Jewish Heritage

            The four centuries which elapsed between the time of the Exile (606-586 B.C. ) and the rise of the Maccabees (168 B.C.) brought a radical change in the religious life of the Jewish people.  Prior to the Exile the fundamental monotheism taught by Moses (Deut 6,4ff) and the essential ethic  of the Ten Commandments had been obscured by the infiltration of foreign cults.  The introduction of foreign shrines into Jerusalem by the alien wives of Solomon (1 Kgs 11,8), the establishment of bull worship in the northern kingdom under th revolt of Jerobaom ( 1 Kgs 12,28-33), and the later corruption from the propagation of Baalism by Jezebel of Tyre ( 1 Kgs 16,31-34) and by Manasseh of Judah ( 2 Kgs 21,1-8) had perverted the uniqueness andpurity of the revelation of Jahweh. Although the reformation under Josiah  just preceding the Captivity had checked the declension and had renewed to some degree the knowledge of the Law, it came too late to arrest the downward trend  of the national life, or to reverse the current of doom ( 2 Kgs 22,14-20).  The invasion of Palestine by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in 605 B.C.  and the final destruction of the city twenty years later swept away the old culture with its evils and compelled the people to seek a reaffirmation of their national faith.  They were confronted with the choice of revival or extinction.

            The conquest of Palestine began at the battle of Carchemish early in 605 B.C.  when the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar the crown prince, defeated the Egyptians and their northern allies.  Nebuchadnezzar’s campaign was interrupted by his father’s death, which recalled him to Babylonia, so that his subjugation of the land was probably hasty and incomplete.  Shortly afterward in September of 605 B.C.  he was appointed king and received tribute from the rulers of Palestine, including Jehoiakim of Judah.  The Babylonians occupied Judah briefly and deported  a few of the well-educated scions of the royal house whom they intended to make into liaison officers ( 2 Kgs 24,1; Dan 1,1-7)

            The Babylonian Chronicle records that in 601 B.C. the Egyptians inflicted severe defeat on the Babylonians, which encouraged Judah to rebel against  Nebuchadnezzar and to ally itself with Egypt.  In 598-97 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar again invaded Palestine because of Jehoiakim’s  revolt, captured the city, plundered the Temple, and removed ten thousand captives, including the aristocracy and all of the skilled craftsmen in the land ( 2 Kgs 24,1017).  He deposed Jehoiachin, the reigning ruler, and took him captive to Babylon, placing the rule of the country under Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, whose name he changed to Zedekaih.  Nine years later Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, who took swift vengeance.  He besieged Jerusalem again and after a year and a half overcame it resistance.  He burned the Temple, broke down the fortified walls, and deported the citizens, leaving only the poorest of the rural population to cultivate the land ( 2 Kgs 25, 8-12). The nation ceased to exist politically.

            The termination of the independent commonwealth did not mean the extinction of the people.  Sobered by the calamity that had overtaken them, and stimulated to new zeal by the competition of surrounding paganism, the exiles resisted assimilation into the culture of Babylon.  They had been given freedom to settle in communities where they could maintain a social and religious life of their own, so that they were able to perpetuate their own customs and faith.  Although some probably abandoned their separatism and were absorbed into the Babylonian population, the majority persisted in the worship of Yahweh and renounced completely the perversions which had prevailed in the latter days of the divided Kingdom.  When permission was given by Cyrus of Persia for the captives to return to Juda, not all of them availed themselves of the privilege, but those who removed to Palestine perpetuated their national traditions and contributed in large measure to the creation of the theological literature found in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds.

The Return to Palestine

            The main body of Judaism that affected the rise of the Christian church descended from the exiles who returned to Judea in 536 B.C., under the leadership of Zerubbabel, a lineal descendant of the kings of Judah.  Sheshbazzar, possibly Zerubbabel’s uncle, was appointed governor of the colony (Ezra 1,8.11; 5,14); Joshua, the high priest conducted the ritual worship; the prophets Haggai and Zechariah became the popular preachers.  The rebuilding of the temple was begun in the second year after the return from Babylon but was not completed until the twentieth year,  Its reconstruction gave back to the nation a center of religious life which persisted until the final  destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  This group that  repossessed Judea together with their descendants constituted the stable core of Judaism for almost six hundred years.  Ezra, the scribe who in the reign of Artaxerxes pf Persia ( c. 458 B.C.) led another expedition back to Judea (Erza 7,1-10), helped to consolidate the work which had been begun by those who first returned.  He was probably the author of the book of which bears his name and also of 1 and 11 Chronicles.  He interpreted and applied the Law publicly for the people (Neh 8,1-8).  Ezra’s teachings and reforms of Nehemiah which renewed the tithes, checked the abuse of the Sabbath, and prohibited mixed marriages (Neh 13,10-30) renewed the strict observance of the Law which characte4ised the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

The Babylonian Exile

            Severed from the Temple and from the environment of their own culture, the exiles in Babylonia were compelled either to conform to the ways of the peoples around them and so to be absorbed into their life, or else steadfastly to reject the Gentile’s standards and to shape a community of their own.  For the most part they chose the latter alternative and stubbornly adhered to the Law and to the traditions of their fathers, making only such adjustments answer necessitated by the circumstances.  Instead of the Temple they developed the synagogue; instead of sacrifices they substituted observance of the Law; in the place of the priest, the scholar, scribe, and teacher became prominent.  Even at the time of their Restoration under Zerubbabel there were already many who had settled into the new mold and who refused to leave it.  Judaism survived not only among those who returned to Judea and reconstituted the ancient commonwealth, but also among those who chose rather to become part of the permanent Dispersion.

(For Personal reflection and Discussion: Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Illustrated this statement.  Show the similarities and differences. There are those who say that we do not require the Old Testament.  How would you respond to that?)

VI.The Pressure of Paganism

            The Christian church was born into a world filled with competing religions which may have differed widely among themselves but all of which possessed one common characteristic – the struggle to reach a god or gods who remained essentially inaccessible.  Apart from Judaism, which taught that God had voluntarily disclosed Himself to the patriarchs, to Moses, and to the prophets, there was no faith that could speak with certainty of divine revelation nor of any true concept of  sin and salvati9on.  The current ethical standards were superficial, despite the ideals and insights possessed by some philosophers, and when they discourse on evil and on virtue, they had neither the remedy for the one nor the dynamic to produce the other.

            Even in Judaism revealed truth had been obscured either by the encrustation of traditions or by neglect.  Paul’s arraignment of the  Jew in the second chapter of Romans charged him with the inconsistency of disobedience to the Law in which he professed to rest his hope (Rom 2,17-29).  In the same section of Romans (1,18-32) Paul depicted the degeneration of paganism which began with alienation from God and the inversion of all ethical values.  Paganism is the human attempt to satisfy an inner longing for God by the worship of a deity which will not obstruct one’s desire for self satisfaction.  The gods that men worship are of their own making, whether visible or invisible.

            Paganism is a parody and a perversion of God’s original revelation to man.  It retains many basic elements of truth but twists them into practical falsehood.  Divine sovereignty becomes fatalism; grace becomes indulgence; righteousness becomes conforming to arbitrary rules; worship becomes empty ritual; prayer becomes selfish begging; the supernatural degenerates into superstition.  The light of God is clouded by fanciful legend and by downright falsehood.  The consequent confusion of beliefs and of values left men wandering in a maze of uncertainties.  To some, expediency became the dominating philosophy of life; for if there can be no ultimate certainty, there can be no permanent principles by which to guide conduct; and if there are no permanent principles, one must live as well as he can by the advantage of the moment.  Skepticism prevailed, for the old gods had lost their power and no new gods had appeared.  Numerous novel cults invaded the empire from every quarter and became the fads of the dilettante rich or the refuge of the desperate poor. Men had largely lost the sense of joy and of destiny that made human life worthwhile.

The  Ethnic Religions

            During the civil wars that plagued Rome in the first century before Christ the older state religion fell into decline.  The shift of population from the country to the city and the replacement of the free native citizens by foreign slaves diminished the number of the worshippers of local and village deities.  Among the educated classes a growing skepticism decreased religious leadership, though many maintained an outwards allegiance to the ancestral  gods for the sake of public relations.

            When Octavian became sole ruler in 27 B.C. he began a campaign to rehabilitate the old Roman religion as a means of promoting the solidarity and integrity of the state.  In the Monumentum Ancyranum he stated that he rebuilt eighty two temples of the gods in obedience to a decree of the Senate and that in addition he subsidized them with costly gifts.  He purged the current religious literature by burning more than two thousand books written by anonymous or unimportant authors, and by retaining only  the oldest and best of the Sibylline prophecies,  which he enshrined in the temple of the Palatine Apollo.  He recruited new candidates for the priesthood and for the Vestal Virgins and increased their stipends and privileges.  Some of the ancient rites and festivals were restored, such as the Lupercalia and the Compitalia, annual games which celebrated  respectively fertility rites and the honour of the spirits  that guarded the homes of the people. It  would be inaccurate to  say that the old religion of Rome was dead  when the temples of the gods still maintained their ascendance in civic life and commanded the allegiances of a considerable part of the population.

            Roman religion in the days of the Republic was already losing its integrity.  But under the empire we find a steady crumbling of nerve and will, which was a great factor in the Roman’s inability to survive.  Even Augustus, despite his organizing genius and vast authority, could not check the transition  which had already begun from the unemotional obeisance to the ancestral gods, many of whom were adopted from subjugated nations, to the more vital personal cults that sprang up on every hand. His efforts to revive the ancient worship were in large measure artificial, though among the Roman aristocracy there persisted some nostalgic affection for the glories of the past.

            Whatever may have been the individual  attitudes of the populace toward the ancestral pantheon, ranging from cool skepticism to hysterical devotion, the massive temples and gilded shrines that adorned the heights and highways of every city and town exercised a powerful though silent influence.   They may have been  the monuments of a moribund faith, but they still marked the highest aesthetic and religious achievement of the past.  In Athens, the cultural center of the Hellenic world, Paul, gazing  at the magnificent buildings dedicated to the Olympian deities, exclaimed, ”I perceive that in every way you are very religious” (Acts 17,22).  The entire religious culture of the past was represented by the buildings and rites of pagan worship; its legends and ethics were ingrained into the people; and as Christianity slowly penetrated the fabric of society, it met the resistance of these antecedents.

Emperor Worship

            Because of the decline of the state worship it was a less formidable rival of the new faith than were some others.  Among these, emperor worship was perhaps the most prominent.  In the Roman regime it began in the rule of Augustus, although the divinity  of royalty had long been  a concept of the Hellenistic world.  Both the Ptolemies and the Seleucids had been worshipped by their subjects, and the noun kyrios, or “lord” when  applied to the ruler, had definite connotations of deity.   It may be said with certainty that at the time  when Christianity originated “Lord”  was a divine predicate intelligible to the whole Eastern world. 

            Augustus refused the title because it contravened the principle that he was simply the first citizen (princeps ) of the commonwealth, not a divine ruler; in fact, he considered the title to be insulting. Nevertheless, the eastern Greek-speaking provinces, where kings had long been regarded as gods, insisted on  deifying him even before his death.  The plebs of Narbo, a city of Gaul, erected an altar to numen Augusti, the genius of Augustus, and in 12 B.C.  Drusus built an altar at Lugdunum (Lyons) to Roma and Augustus.

            In Palestine Herod the Great named his new city of Samaria Sebaste, the Greek equivalent of Augustus, and dedicated the temple, its most imposing structure, likewise to Roma and Augustus.

            Augustus’ reluctance to claim divine honor was not prompted by theological considerations.  He himself had inaugurated the custom of deifying the ruler at death by building a temple to Divus Julius Caesar in the Forum.  His unwillingness  to be worshipped sprang from political caution, for he did not wish to assume the mien of an Oriental autocrat so soon after the fall of the Republic.

            Tiberius, his successor, restrained the popular impulse to worship the imperial statues. He scarcely allowed his birthday to be noticed  and prohibited the voting  of temples, flamens, and priests in his honor.  He allowed his image to be erected in public only if it were not to be classed with likeness of the gods, nor would he allow anyone to address him as “Lord” In  23 he did permit the province of Asia  to build a temple at Smyrna to himself, Livia, and the Senate, but two years later forbade the people of the Spanish province   of Baetica to do so.

            His successor, Caius Caligula, broke with traditions.  He had proposed that Tiberius should be deified, but the Senate had refused.  In A.D. 40 he began to seek worship for himself.  He ordered  that a statute of Zeus  with his features be placed in the Temple in Jerusalem, and demanded also that he be worshipped at Rome.  His obvious insanity and sudden death postponed the crisis that he had  almost precipitated, but the concept of emperor worship had been injected into the minds of the roman people, and it remained  there.

            Claudius (A.D. 41-54), who followed Caligula, declined to accept a high priest and temple dedicated to him.  During his lifetime, however, writers spoke of him as “our god Caesar”, and after his decease he was exalted to the company of the gods by vote of the Senate.

            Nero followed the example of his predecessors by refusing to allow the dedication of a temple in his honour built as public expenses.  Later he placed in front of his new palace a colossus of the sun god with his own features and represented himself with a radiant crown, the emblem of the sun god, in the coins of the  realm.

            Vespasian, whose dour practicality kept him from illusions of grandeur, is reported to have said when he was dying, ”Alas! I think that I am about to become a god”.  He second son, Domitian (A.D.81-96) was the first emperor to demand public worship while he lived.  He insisted that he be hailed as Dominus  et Deus, “Lord and God”

            With the exception of madmen like Caligula, or egotists like Domitian, none of the emperors seems to have taken his putative divinity very seriously.  Politically, however, emperor worship was a very effective bond of unity.  Whatever gods the several peoples of the empire may have worshipped, they could unite on the adoration of the ruler who was the visible guardian  of their peace and prosperity.  There were  some who refused to participate in such worship, Political opponents of the empire, particularly those who had mourned the demise of the Republic, would not endorse any such claims  The Jews  would not elevate any man  to the place of  God, nor would the Christians.  As Paul said, “For us there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ” ( 1 Cor 8,6).

            Emperor worship was a political rather than a religious cult, though it eventuated in the worship of the state.  Evidently it was not uniformly enforce; it seems to have  been much more prevalent in the provinces than in Rome, particularly in the Middle East.  Christians were place in the irreducible dilemma of being compelled to apostatize by token worship of Caesar if they would save their lives, or of appearing unpatriotic because they would not conform to  sate requirements.  Irregular and perfunctory as emperor worship was, it symbolized the desire for protection by some visible power that was more real than the older gods who had proved ineffectual.  The Romans felt that their security was personified in the head of the state, who was responsible for their food, their pleasures, their safety,  and their future.  The result was a state cult which set the emperor in the place of God and created an atmosphere of man-worship.  Such an attitude was hostile  to Christianity, which was as rigidly uncompromising toward idolatry as Judaism  had ever been.  The constant pressure of the sate was unremitting threat to Christianity even under those emperors who did not take it seriously and who consequently did not promote any active persecution of dissidents.  On the other hand, the very name “Christians” became synonymous with subversion and in the eyes of the general public Christians came to be classed with criminals (1 Pet 4,15.16).

The Mystery Religions

            The lack of personal involvement with deity in the ritual of the state religion and the obvious humanistic and political character of  emperor worship engendered an intense desire on the part of many for some religion that would satisfy the individual quest for peace and immortality.  Immediate contact with deity, giving assurance  of present protection and of future bliss, was a chief desideratum.  Because the traditional ritual of the state religion was largely irrelevant to the immediate personal needs of the average citizen, and because  the worship  of the emperor was a political tool rather than  an intimate, faith, neither of these satisfied the spiritual cravings for personal reality.  The ancestral gods were distant and unreal, capricious in their attitude and often less ethical than their  worshippers.  The emperor, for all this power, was only a man, even though a fictional godhead  was ascribed to him by the Senate at  his death or by popular adulation during his life.  Neither of these could intervene supernaturally in the individual  life or satisfy the desire for salvation and immortality.

            The conquests of Alexander the great in the fourth century B.C.  had established new contacts with the Far East and had facilitated the syncretism of western organized religions. With the eastern mysticism.  When the armies of Alexander returned to Europe, they brought with them a new attitude and new teachings.  Religion became increasingly the affiar of the individual rather than of the state, and the gods of the Western pantheon were identified with the eastern deities, who promised direct revelation to their devotees and who might be approached personally through mystic rites.  Because of the esoteric character  of their worship they were called “mystery religions”.  Some were attached to particular localities which were visited by pilgrims, similar to the worship of  the Lourdes of  today, while others were conducted wherever a shrine could be erected in honour of the gods.

The Eleusinian Mysteries

            The oldest of the popular mysteries was the cult of Eleusis, a town not far from Athens. It originated before the time of Alexander and attracted visitors  from all parts of the known world.  A  truce was proclaimed among the Greek states so that travel would not be endangered and so that all might participate in the celebration without distraction.

            Early in the fall, usually in September, the pilgrims gathered at Athens.  The directors announced that only those who were pure and who spoke an intelligible language could participate.  The sacred objects, emblematic of deity, were brought from Eleusis and placed in the Eleusinium at the foot of the Acropolis.

            The candidates for initiation went down to the harbor to wash themselves in the sea and then, after a formal sacrifice in the late afternoon, formed a procession on the way to Eleusis, twelve miles from Athens.  As they marched towards their destination they sang hymns and choruses to Iacchos, the Infant Dionysus, god of wine.  They stopped to bathe in the sacred lake outside of Athens, and at midnight arrived at the Telesterion, or Hall of Initiation, at  Eleusis.

            The initiation was conducted in the darkness, illuminated  by the flickering of torches.  After more sacrifices, a sacred banquet, and a consecrated drink, they witnessed a sacred  drama, enacted by the priests of the shrine.  The nature of the drama  is not known exactly; probably it reproduced the rape of Persephone, daughter  of Demeter, whom the god of the underworld snatched away to his cheerless abode beneath the earth and was later compelled to restore to her mother.  The legend  may have originated in an ancient fertility rite which personified the death of vegetation in the fall and its reappearance from the earth in the spring.  For the participants at Eleusis it probably signified an entrance into life after death, or a taste of immortality.

            A second act of the drama was probably the union of Zeus and Demeter and the birth of the divine Iacchos or Dionysus, originally a second stage of the fertility worship.  The initiates were conducted on a pilgrimage through a dark passageway to represent the cheerless wanderings of the dead in the underworld, and then were brought back to the upper air and light, where they were shown the sacred objects of the cult.  The vision of these objects was the culmination of the initiations, for they represented the personal revelations of deity to the individual.

The Worship of Serapis

            The cult of Serapis, popular in the first and second centuries, was derived from Egypt.  The name was a Hellenization of the Egyptian Asor-hapi, the appearance of the god Osiris in the guise of a bull.  A serepeum, or temple, existed in Rome about 80 B.C. and the temple of Isis, the consort of Osiris, was a popular resort in the days of the early empire.  Although Augustus on one occasion expelled the priests of the cult for complicity in  case of flagrant immorality, worshippers still persisted in Rome.  Under Nero the cult was recognized by the State and ultimately appeared in every province.

            Serapis, called “the Lord of Totality,” was identified with the sun-god.  He was the protector of his worshippers, the savior of men, who could be approached through sacred ritual.  In essence, the worship of Serapis was monotheistic pantheism.  The nature of the god was not clearly defined, but it was opposed to polytheism and asserted the  pervasive power of his deity through  nature.  Serapis was called a healer, and his temple became a clinic for the ailing  and a refuge for the hopelessly ill.

            Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris, who was killed and dismembered by his brother Set,the god of darkness and of evil.  Isis assiduously searched for the pieces of Osiris, and when she had assembled them, brought them back to life.  She became the mother of Horus, the god of culture and of wisdom.

            The worship of Isis had long flourished in Egypt, but began to penetrate the Mediterranean world in the third century B.C. Augustus, in 30 B.C. destroyed the temples of Serapis and Isis, and two years later the Senate debarred the cult from building an official temple within the city limits of Rome.  Later it obtained a foothold in the city, but in A.D.19 Tiberius destroyed the shrine and crucified the priests.  Caligula, however, introduced the worship of Isis into his palace and took part in celebrating the mysteries.  The Flavian emperors also favored the cult.

            The mysteries of Isis are dimly known though Apuleius’ work, The Golden Ass.  He described the experience of Lucius who was metamorphosed into an ass by a witch but who was restored to human semblance by the aid of Isis.  Her devotees held a ten-day festival of ascetic preparation, sacred lustrations, and public processions to celebrate the grief caused by Osiris’ death and the joy of finding his body.

            The cult of Isis had a strong attraction for women.  The colorful processions, the magnification of her womanly grief over the death and dismemberment of Osiris, her unremitting quest for his body, and her joy in the child Horus gloried the sorrows, sacrifice, and satisfaction of the ideal wife and mother.

Attargatis

            As Isis was the gift of Egypt, so the cult of Attargatis was the legacy of Syria.  Together with her consort, Baal-hadad, she was worshiped throughout the Middle East as the fish goddess.  The first part of her name is related to the  names of  the goddess Ishta, Astarte, or Astoreth, who was likewise the  deity of fertility, love and life.  Her worship was accompanied by ritual prostitution and by human sacrifice until it was outlawed by Hadrian.  Her priests were eunuchs who on fast days danced in her honour and scourged each other in orgiastic  frenzy.  Immortality was not stressed in this cult as in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the worship of Isis, but greater attention was paid to astrology and  its concomitant teachings of good fortune guided by the stars and planets.

Mithra

            Probably the strongest rival of Christianity in the first and second centuries was the cult of Mithra.  Mithra was the sun-god, the apotheosis of light, purity and righteousness, who gave mastery over darkness and evil.  His followers underwent an elaborate initiation, proceeding step by step from the first rudimentary rites to the final test which presumably prepared them for immortality.  It was less  tainted by sexual  indulgences than the other mystery religions and appealed strongly to the more heroic qualities of human nature.

            Mithraism entered Roman civilization in the first century B.C. during the Mithradatic wards in Asia Minor (88-63 B.C.).  Again, in the early second century, when the armies of Trajan invaded Mesopotamia, they came in contact with Mithraism in Parthia.  Through the returning veterans  and the Oriental travelers and businessmen who visited the West it became a popular faith, particularly in the army.  Mithraic shrines abounded in the Rhineland  of Germany, and the ruins of one were unearthed in London after the bombings of World War II.

            Mithraism began to become popular during the reign of the Flavians.  The oldest Mithraic inscription found in Italy belongs to the time of Vespasian and the first Roman writer to mention the worship  is Statius , who lived in the same period (A.D.40-96).  It is not mentioned in the New Testament, possibly because the latter reflected generally the life of the church more than contact with other religions, or perhaps because the influence of Mithraism was weak until the end of the century when the canon of the New Testament closed.

            No literature of this religion has survived; its ritual is known chiefly from the temples and sculptures it has left.  Its chapels were underground caves in which a perpetual flame burned, symbolizing the light of truth.  Water for ceremonial purification was supplied by a system of aqueducts. The entrance was usually a small colonnade from which a stairway descended to the vestibule of an oblong assembly hall seating fifty to one hundred persons. The participants sat on benches around the sides of the room; the center was reserved for the performance of the ritual.  Usually at the end of the hall there was a sculptured representation of Mithra slaying the bull.  The god was depicted as a youth wearing a Phrygian cap on his head and a cape flung over his shoulders, crouched on the back of the bull while thrusting a sacrificial  knife into its throat.  Attendants  stood beside him holding inverted torches.  By slaying the sacred bull Mithra proved his strength.  He ascended to heaven with the sun, there he continued the struggle against evil.

            Little if anything is known of the ritual, since it was observed secretly.  The followers  of Mithra were pledged  not to reveal the mysteries  of their faith.  There seems to have been a series of grades or degrees through which initiates passed, corresponding to the seven celestial spheres attained by the soul  in its final pilgrimage; the raven, hidden one, the soldier, the lion, the Persian the messenger of the sun, and the father. Masks and costumes representative of the various degrees were worn on appropriate occasions.

            Trials of strength  and endurance  accompanied promotion to such degrees.  Tertullian (c.A.D.200) said that the soldiers of Mithra , when presented with a crown at swords’ point were supposed to reject it saying,”Mithra is my crown.”  For some degrees, candidates were pased through flames while bound, or plunged in water, symbolic of death.

            Mithraism had no sacerdotal class supported by the cult; its ritual was conducted by those who had reached the highest degrees. In contrast  to the other mystery religions, women were excluded from Mithraiac worship.  Its seems to have been free from the sensuality and orgiastic excesses of the other cults.  Its tremendous  popularity in the army can probably be attributed to its emphasis on the virtues of fidelity and courage; it was predominantly a soldier’s faith.

The Atmosphere of Paganism

            More influential than the specific cults was the atmosphere of paganism which they all shared and utilized.  Fear of the supernatural pervaded idolatry in general, however the mythology of any one cult might express it.  Astrology professed to find in the physical process of the universe the controlling powers of life.  Magic and demons that offered occult means of ensuring disaster to one’s  enemies and good fortune for oneself  were real though  sometimes undefinable forces that determined the background of popular thought.  Although these cults can scarcely be called religious, they permeated all religious thought and were connected with the worship of all existing deities.  There was a close relationship between the occult practices and the mystery religions and the worship of the ancient pantheon of the state.  Behind the colonnaded shrines, the sculptured images, the smoking altars, and the  precise ritual was undefinable something that could  only be felt, but was none the less real.

            The papyri, the poetry, and the drama of the first century bear insistent witness to this fact.  Vergil’s great epic the Aeneid, written to glorify the achievements  of Augustan Rome and to predict the high destiny of the reconstituted commonwealth, acknowledges the support of the gods and the overshadowing power of divine destiny.  Among  the papyri recovered from the sands of Egypt  were a  large  number of amulets, charms, and formulas of exorcism revealing that the common people lived in constant dread of malevolent powers that might harm them. And whose malice must be averted or whose power must be restrained by magical charms.  Even  the Jews were not immune to such superstitions ; on the contrary, many Jews were deeply involved in magical practices, in spite of the strictures of the Old Testament which forbade them (Deut 18,1012.20); Micah 5,12).  The pagan world took for granted that men were under the influence of invisible forces of evil which continually  sought their destruction.  Only by obtaining an ascendance over these powers through  magical arts could they retain their freedom.

            The writers of the New Testament recognized these numinous powers. Paul speaks of the “the rudiments (elements) of the world” under which the Galatians  had formerly been held in bondage (Gal 4,3), and then added, “you were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods”(v8), the powers that cannot legitimately be called deities, but that were worshipped by the world.  After  stating that a sacrifice made to an idol is nothing because the idol itself is nothing ( 1 Cor 10,19), he affirms that the things which the Gentiles  sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God”(v 20) The Apocalypse, which probably reflects the periods of the Flavian (A.D 69-96) says that “the rest of mankind…repented not of the works of their hands  that they should not worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood”(Rev 9,20).  The oppressive darkness of idolatry and demonism is amply recognized  in the New Testament, yet is counteracted by the positive faith in a living god  that has rendered superstition ridiculous and occultism ineffective.

Astrology

            Having noted that the seasons accorded with the movement of the heavenly bodies, which were also identified with the gods, or at least assumed to represent them, the ancients concluded that the stars and planets controlled the destinies of the world. Their  varying positions in relation to the signs of the Zodiac, would therefore establish the fortunes of men and consequently the future  welfare or disaster of any person could be predicted by calculating the motions of the planets and stars in relation to his birth date and biography.

            The fallacy of this reasoning is obvious, for several persons having the same birth date will differ widely in character, social station, activities, and experience, whereas if they were all governed by the same influence their personalities and careers would tend to be identical.  Nevertheless the concept that fate is determined by the physical powers of the universe was so widespread that astrology became a popular fad. Oriental soothsayers migrated westward into the empire in large numbers and were eagerly welcomed.  Tiberius, suspicious and superstitious as he was, had his horoscope cast regularly and leaned heavily on the advice of astrologers for deciding the affairs of state.  Nero  also consulted astrologers in his major  decisions.  The effects of the widespread faith in astrology appears even on the money of the empire.  Augustus imprinted on one of the coins issued in his name the sign of Capricorn, under which he had been conceived.  When Domitian’s little son died, a coin struck in his memory depicted him seated on the earth, exalted as a young god among the seven planets.  The symbolism indicated that he had been translated to a celestial sphere where he assumed the power of deity to rule over the cosmos.

            Although the intelligentsia of Rome rejected the spurious pretensions of astrology and on  several occasions expelled the mathematici, or ;professional soothsayers, from the city, they invariably returned and resumed their practices.  Their teachings filtered down into the popular consciousness so that the deterministic concept of a fate controlled by the stars was largely taken for granted. There is a possible reflection  of this in Paul’s declaration that “neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8,39), “Height” and “depth” were terms used technically of the celestial spaces, above and below the horizon within which the stars move and from which they rise, or possibly their rising and setting.  The belief that human life was controlled by the heavenly bodies led to a dual consequence; the oppression of a fatalism that left no room for human choice, since the destiny of every man was settled by the star that dominated his birth, and superstitious practice of magic that invoked demonic powers to free man from the tyranny of the planets.

            The mood of fatalism predominated especially in the first century.  Manilius, a poet who flourished in the reigns of Augusts  and Tiberius, wrote, ”fate rules the earth and all things stand firm by a fixed law…the moment of our birth also witnesses our death, and our end depends upon our beginning.”

            Vergil depicted the wanderings of Aeneas as controlled by a formless but irresistible power that led  him on to new adventures and that subordinated the individual will to ineluctable destiny. Less articulate  than the Stoic  philosophy, but equally deterministic, this concept of fate appeared in all the literature of the Augustan age and to  a large degree  created its emotional climate.

            Into such a superstitious and materialistic  world Christianity was born.  Fate, demons, and gods of every description haunted the atmosphere; spells, incantations, and magic were the means by which the individual could fend off the dangers that encircled him.  Security was  obtained by bribing the deities, or by ascertaining from horoscopes what course of action to purse, or by discovering some potent charm to keep the threatening powers of darkness at bay.  The uncertainty of the future a held the masses of  mankind in mental and spiritual bondage.  Not until the light of the gospel of Christ  penetrated   to the gentiles did men begin to lose their dread of the unseen powers and to achieve a true freedom.

(For personal reflection and discussion: Paganism and the mystery cult was a possibility and a challenge for the growth of Christianity – explain this statement.  What would you answer those who say that the sacramental system of the church has been copied from the ancient mystery cults?)

VII.Biblical Geography

Abraham – the Fertile Crescent

            Biblical geography begins not in Palestine but in the Euphrates valley ( in the present day Iraq).. The earliest identifiable place – names of the Bible are those connected with Abraham in Gen 1,31 viz., Ur and Haran.  Ur is near the S and Haran near the N of a broad arc  by the Euphrates valley. We can complete the name arc  from Haran W toward the Syrian coast, the S as far as Egypt.  This gives us a crescent with the tips resting in the Persian and Suez gulfs, and the middle running along the modern border of Turkey.  This narrow strip is called the Fertile Crescent because it happens to coincide with a spring of water sources that make food production possible around the edge of a vast desert.  The water supply determined not only the “sedentary” or farming centres but also the trade routes used for shuttling back and forth from one of the great export areas to another.  We shall find that the movements of Abraham coincide with the major caravan route from Babylonia to Egypt, i.e., from one tip of the Fertile Crescent to the other.

            At the Babylonian end of the  crescent stood Ur, which the Bible identifies as Abraham’s homeland (Gen 11,28-31) This region of the Tigris-Euphrates basis bear the Persian Gulf is called  in Gen 10,10 the land of Shina or Senaar.  This means the land of the Sumerians, the ancient non-Semitic occupants of the region. Near Ur was Uruk, the Erech of Gen 10,10 (modern Warka) whose king Gilgamesh (ca.2800BC)  became the hero of a flood story (cf.Gen6-9). From the excavations of this site have come the earliest known examples of  writing, and therefore this momentous cultural advance may have been made in the region.

            Canaan, the promised land, was small and off to the SW corner of the Fertile Crescent.  Yet it was in a strategic mid position between the rival merchant states; Arabia to the S, Egypt to the SW.  Hittites to the n, Babylon to the E..  Hence if the lines of traffic and population  density are set in proper perspective, Canaan may be considered the “hub” of the whole Fertile Crescent.  Indeed , it was the hub  of the whole universe known from Abraham’s day down to Alexander the great.

            The Abraham clans, migrating from Mesopotamia, made no immediate claim to the land of Canaan.  But Abraham personally is portrayed as getting a foothold  in Canaan by the important experiences he had at the major centres of worship: Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, and Beersheba.  In reality, his sojourn in the Holy Land is no more than a nomadic stopover on the grout to the natural terminus of the journey, viz., Egypt.

            In fact, Abraham does go on immediately to visit Egypt according to Gen 12,10.  But the migration to which he has given his name may be justly regarded as taking place in successive waves over several generations.  In this light it completion is attained only with the descent of the Jacob tribes  to join Joseph in Egypt (Gen 46,7).  Thus, the latter part of  the Abrahamic migration turns out to be a part of what the historical records outside the Bible recognize as the movement of the Hyksos.  “Hyksos” is an Egyptian word meaning “foreign rulers”  It refers to Asiatic immigrants who installed themselves in the NE Delta at Avaris and from there ruled Egypt  between 1700 and 1560.  In the eyes of some modern scholars, they were not an invasion but more a horde of peaceful infiltrators.  They were mostly Semites, probably with Hurrians as their ruling caste, who were in turn masterminded by a small, powerful group of “chariot-warriors”.  It was in  the NE Delta, then in the land that Gen 47,6 calls Goshen, that Joseph’s relatives settled.  Here at the SW tip of the Fertile Crescent the Bible sets the stage for the exodus.

Moses – Egypt and the Exodus Route

            The Nile river had determined the history of Egypt. A five mile fringe of intense cultivation runs along both the sides of the whole length  of the river which flows northwards. This region is extremely  valuable for biblical research. In the  south at the first cataract   stood Elephantine, a site  of a 5^th-cen.BC Jewish colony.  Aramaic papyri discovered here have thrown light on the period of Ezra Nehemiah. Some 100 miles to the N. was Thebes (Luxor or Karnak) with its magnificent temples, capital of Egypt under the famous 18^th Dynasty (1570-1310) whose rulers drove out the Hyksos and established Egypt as a world empire. The Assyrians destroyed this great  seat of power in 663 BC. As the Nile continues its flow N ca. 75 miles from Thebes, there is the great bend of the Nile  Pachomius had his monasteries of Pabau and Chenoboskion (near Nag Hammadi) where in 1945 important coptic gnostic documents were found. About 125 miles N is Amarna – ancient Akhetaton, capital of monotheist Pharaoh Akhenaton (1364-1347 BC). From his archives, we have the Amarna Tablets On the opposite side of the Nile in the N. was Oxyrhynchus, where numerous papyri of NT times have been discovered.

            At the vertex of the Delta where the Nile splits into branches (still 100 mi. from the Sea) stood Memphis (the Moph of Hos 9,6; Noph of Isa 19,13; Jer 2,16; Ezek 30,13), which was the earliest Egyptian capital. Nearby to the N was On, or Heliopolis, home of Joseph’s father-in-law (Gen 41,45) Between Memphis and Heliopolis  we have a vast stretch of cemetery land and  the world famous Pyramids and sphinx stand here. Only after the Muslim invasion did Cairo rise here, over a Roman fort named Babylon and near the place that legend Maude  the terminus of the light of the holy Family into Egypt (Mt 2,14) In the time of Alexander the Great  (332) the great metropolis and seaport of Alexandra was built in NW tip of the Delta , and this soon attracted the Jewish colony that produced the LXX.  The Rosetta Stone, unlocking the Egyptian language, was discovered near Alexandria in Napoleon’s time (1799).

(for personal reflection and discussion: Judaeo-Christian revelation is historical. How far is the geography of the holy land helpful to understand the message of the bible?)

VIII.Geography of Palestine

( for this section, I am heavily indebted to  R.E.Brown,”Biblical Archeology” New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1175-1195. One finds ample bibliographical material there for further reading)

Size and Features.  The land we shall be considering is a narrow strip that measures in length some 200 – 250 miles from Dan in the N to the Sinai border in the S (Dan to Kadesh-barnea = 200; Dan to Elath = 250). This measurement includes the vast stretches of the Negeb desert, an area that figured importantly in Israel’s history but was not the land of Israel in the proper sense.  If one measures the land by the classic dimensions of  Dan to Beer-sheba, the length is only 150 miles.  The width  from the Mediterranean coast to the Rift (Jordan) Valley would be about 30 miles in the N, and about 50 miles  in the area of the Dead Sea. Strictly speaking, the 20 miles of Transjordanian mountainous plateau to the E  of the Rift Valley would not be considered part of Israel.  Thus Israel proper covered some 7000 sq.miles and was somewhat smaller than the districts of Wayanad,Cannanore and Kozhikode put together. The biblical story  was enacted on a small stage –  the capitals of the Divided Monarchy, Samaria in the N and Jerusalem in the S were less that 35 mi. apart, the distance between Trichur and Chalakudy.

Here we shall discuss the Negeb and Transjordan, as well as Israel proper.  This larger area lends itself to a division of four roughly parallel strips running N to S. From E to W these trips are: (1) the Transjordanian mountains; (2) the Rift valley; (3) the Palestinian or Cisjordanian mountains; (4) the Mediterranean coastal plain.  The two mountain ranges, Transjordaian and Palestinian, are the continuations respectively of the Antilebanon and Lebanon ranges of Syria. Originally one, these ranges were cleft in two from N to S by the folding of the earth’s crust ; in the Palestine area this cleft took the form of the great Rift Valley through which the Jordan River now flows from above the Heleh Basin in the N to the Dead Sea in the S.  This great cleft  which descends to 1300 ft. below sea level at the Dead Sea, continues S of the sea as the barren valley of the Arabah that opens into the Gulf of Aqabah

Climate. The climate of Palestine varies according to the main natural features of the land; the coast, the mountains,  and the Rift Valley.  Basically there are two seasons, the hot dry summer and the cool, wet winter. The temperature in the Palestinian mountains is about 10 cooler than that of the coast.  The summer in the mountains at Jerusalem for instance, brings hot sunny days and cool nights.  Uncomfortable weather in the mountains is not caused by humidity as it is on the coast but by windstorms, whether it is the wind that drives rain in from the Mediterranean or the burning wind  that blows in from the desert in May and Oct. (Is 27,8; Jer 4,11).  Jesus knew both (Luke 12,54-55) and in the wintertime he circulated in the only porch of the temple that offered protection from the prevailing wind (John 10,23).  The part of the rift valley that is far below sea level, e.g., at Jericho, bakes in intense heat in summer (over 100  degrees F) but serves as an ideal winter resort – the Palm springs of Palestine.

The rainfall on Palestine also varies according to region.  The Mediterranean has had an enormous impact on all the countries that surround it.  In Palestine the land nearer the Mediterranean tends to get more rain, for the Palestinian mountain range in its higher spots acts as a barrier to storms coming in from the sea, forcing them to dump their water on the W side of the mountains.  Correspondingly, the E slopes are much drier.  In addition, many other factors cause variation  A good year in one in which the autumnal or early rain falls in Oct. at seed time,  and the late or spring rain falls in March and April. Just before harvest.  Biblical  references to these two rains are numerous (Deut 11,14; Hos 6,3; Jer 5,24; Joel 2,23).  Yet one must remember that in general  the rain is not concentrated in these early and late periods but in the  time in between.  The summer months from June to Sept tend   to be very dry except for occasional rainstorms on the coast. The rainfall made an extraordinary impression on the Israelites when they were fresh from Egypt, a land where water comes from the Nile and not from the heavens (Deut 11,10-25).  Snow is not unusual in the Palestinian mountains, e.g., in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or Hebron; and in the Transjordanian mountains snowfalls sometimes block the roads.

The seasonal character of the rain means that water has to be stored in cisterns for the dry season, unless  a town is fortunate enough to be near a spring and thus have flowing or “living “ water (whence the imagery in Ezek 47,1; Zech 13,1; John 4,10-14).  Characteristic of Palestine is the Wadi, i.e., a valley that is dry in the summer but becomes a channel of flash floods and strong streams in the rainy season.  When dry these wadis serve as roads from the valleys into the mountains.  There are far fewer valleys that carry permanent streams.

Now we are considering the geography of Palestine under its four main divisions. They are north south strips. We will be referring to the important places in these distinct areas starting from South to North.

i. Transjordan.The Transjordanian mountains are higher than the Palestinian mountains..  They are cut across E-W by a series of tremendous canyons or gorges – radial faulting of the earth fanning out from the great N-S Rift fault, like branches from a tree trunk. These gorges contain perennial streams are from S to N ; the Zered at the S end of the  Dead Sea; the Arnon, halfway up the sea; the Jabbok, halfway up the Jordan Valley; and Yarmuk at the S end of the Lake of Galilee.  Often the gorges supplied the ancient occupants of Transjordan with natural frontiers. 

The  Transjordanian mountains, which formed the domain of ancient Edom, begin some 20 mi NE of Elath (the Gulf of Aqabah) The route from the gulf follows the Wadi Yetem, which is a pass through the granite mountain of Midian.  Then one crosses the Hama toward the Edomite mountains.  This is truly a fantastic place, more worthy of the lunar than the earthly surface – a broad sandy plain  form which sandstone mountains arise as isolated peaks, with forbidding precipices.  The most famous region of the Hasma is the Wadi Rum where peaks tower one-half mile above the valley floor

The places like Edom, Moab, Ammon, Gilead  and Bashan come here.Many of the places associated with the history of early Israel, the development of their cultic life and the preaching of the prophets are associated with these areas.

ii. The Rift Valley. The N frontier of Israel is now marked by the dramatic locale where the Biqa falls off into the great Palestinian Rift, a drop of 1300 ft. to the Heleh basis.  In antiquity this northernmost territory of Israel belonged to Dan, and the phrase “from Dan to Beer-sheba” stood for the limits of Israel.  Dominating the scene is snow clad Mt.Hermon, the 9100 ft –high S. Shoulder on the Antilebanon range – the peak the Arabs call “the Sheik” because its snowcap (even in summer) resembles a white burnoose.  In antiquity it was called sirion by the Phoenicians and Senir by the Amorites (Deut 3,9) and Israel looked upon it as a sentinel guarding the northern frontiers (Deut 4,48; Cant 4,8)

            In the shadow of Hermon the Jordan river is born of four streams fed by the drainage of the Lebanese mountains. It is in this region that the Lake of Galilee is found .It was the central stage of Jesus’ ministry It is  a heart shaped lake, 12-13 miles long and 7-8 miles wide at its broadest, called in Hebrew Chinnereth (“harp”, whence the plain of Gennesaret in Mt 14,34; the Lake of Gennesaret in Luke 5,1; and the lake of Gennesar in Josephus). “The Sea of Galilee “ is the name given to this body of water by :Mark and Mt., but Luke more correctly designates it as a lake.  Only John (6,1; 21,1) speaks of it as “Tiberias”,the name  it took on later in the lst cent. after Herod Antipas had built the town of  that name on the SW shore in flattering homage tot he Roman emperor.

            Jesus’ disciples were fishermen on this lake; more than once he felt the violence of its  sudden storms as he traversed it in their boats. The warm winters  of the sheltered lake favored this outdoor preacher, who often lacked shelter (Mt 8,20).  He found his audiences in  the busy occupants of the commercial towns  that dotted its N shores, in the merchants who traversed the road to Syria that ran along the W of the lake, and in the host of government officials who controlled the broader crossing along the Jordan, separating Herod’s Galilee from Philip’s Gentile tetrarchate in Bashan, Capernaum on the NW shore was Peter’s home (Mk 1,21.29) This town became Jesus’ headquarters  and its synagogue heard his preaching (Lk 4,31); 7,5; John 6,59). Some 4 miles away across the Jordan on the NE shore may have stood  Bethsaida, connected with the multiplication of the loaves (Lk 9,10; John6,1), and according to John 1,44, the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip.  Mary Magdalene, once possessed by seven demons (Lk 8,2) seems to have come from Magdala on the  W shore of the lake, while the demoniac of Mk 5,2 prowled in tombs on the E shore of the lake (near Gergesa) on the Decapolis  region. 

             Jordan  valley. Between the Lake of Galilee and the Dead Sea, a distance of 65 miles,the Jordan falls from 675 ft. below sea level to 1300 ft and more above the valley formed by the rift that once tore them apart. This basic rift valley, called in Arabic the Ghor, is quite wide in the N (for some 20 miles down from the Lake of Galilee) and again in the S where it is 20 miles  just above the Dead Sea.  In the centre of the strip we are considering, however, the Rift valley is constricted into a narrow waist.  When water is available in the valley – through rain in the N or through irrigation – the valley floor yields itself to productive cultivation.

            Roughly through the center of the Rift valley rush the Jordan River, a narrow stream  only 60-80 ft wide at the traditional spot for Joshua’s crossing to  Jericho.  Little wonder that that Naaman the Syrian found the rivers of Damascus more impressive (2 Kgs 5,120.  As it twists and meanders, especially midway down from the Lake of Galilee and toward the S, the Jordan has worn into the Rift Valley floor a deep bed of its own, called the Zor.  In places the zor is a mile wide and 150 ft deep.  Flooded in springtime where the melting snows of Hermon engorge the Jordan, the Zor is often a impenetrable thicket of shrubs and stunted trees, which in antiquity offered a habitat to wild animals, including lions (Jer 49,19; Zeh 11,3).  Wisely does Jer 12,5 stress the danger to those who fall down in the jungle of the Jordan (49,19).  Where the floor of the Rift valley (the Ghor) breaks away toward the riverbed (Zor) the ground consists of desert “badlands”, i.e. ash-gray marl hills with barren, crumbly soil called qattara.  The treacherous qattara and the jungle like Zor, rather than the width of the stream, were what made the Jordan a divider.  In the N where fords were more frequent, there were better communications, not always pleasant, between Palestine and Transjordan, especially Gilead (Jud 8,4; 12,1-6; 21,8-12; 1 Sam 31,11-13)

            About 8 miles N of the Dead Sea , on the W side set back from the river, stood the pearl of the s Jordan valley , the city of Jericho, one of the oldest cities on earth. The Jordan river comes to  an end in the Dead sea, the most dramatic feature of the rift valley. Fringed by mountains on both sides, roughly 50 miles long by 10 miles wide, the Dead Sea  which is also known as the Sea of the Arabha, Salt Sea, Lake Asphaltitis, is the lowest point on the earth’s surface. 1300 feet below sea level with a water depth of another 1300 ft.  in the North. The Dead Sea,  can claim to be the world’s most unusual body of water. Over 27 percent of its composition is solid chemical matter (salt, chloride, and bromides) its salt content increases constantly because the seven million tons of water that flow into it daily have no outlet, and the constant evaporation leaves residual  solids.  The 45 billion tones of chemicals it contains are an attraction for the chemical-extraction  industry both in Israel and on Jordan.  No fish can exist in such water Neither the intense heat  nor the parched terrain in this area is conducive to large-scale settlement.

            On the NW shore, near the spring called Ain Feshkah, stand the ruins of Qumran, the settlement of the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the southern end  of W shore stands the great salt mountain Jebel Usdum, whose names recalls biblical Sodom and Gomorrah and the three  other cities of the plain (Gen 18,16).  It is generally thought that Sodom and Gomorrah and the three  other cities of the plain (Gen 18,16ff) lie under the waters at the southern of the sea.

            The southernmost section of the Palestinian rift is known as the Araba. It is 100 miles from the Sebkha salt marshes to the Gulf of Aqabah. The north part of the Arabah is quite wide The biblical import of Arabah is due two grounds. It served as one of the routes  in Israel’s advance from Kadesh-barnea to Transjordan.  It was the focal point of Solomon’s copper industry

iii..The coastal plains.  From Philistine Gaza in the S to Phoenician Tyre  in the N, this coast is about 130 miles long.  For the convenience sake  we may divide it into three sections, each 40-45 miles in length, viz, shanor Philistia, and the Dor-Carmel –Asher  region. The Philistia and the Shephelah were invaded by the “Sea Peoples” an amalgam of Indo-Europeans from Crete,Cyprus, Sardinia, Sicily and other inland in the Mediterranean That was around 1200 B.C. Within a few years, ca.1170 -1150, and probably with Egyptian approval, these people who became known as Philistines, were in full control of the coast and had formed a pentapolis or five-city league (1Sam 6,4), with Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod on the cost and Gad and Ekron farther inland.

iv.The  Central zone of Palestine. As far as Biblical history is concerned this was the most important area of Palestine.  The region from the N border of the Negeb to N Galilee was the “essential Israel”, from Beer-sheba to Dan. In the southernmost area of Palestine, we have the Negeb. It is also known as the wilderness of Zin (Num 20,1) The two most important biblical sites in the Negeb are Kadesh-barnea and Beer-sheba.  Kadesh was the site of a 38 year stop of Moses and the Israelites on their way between Sinai and Transjordan (Deut 1,46; 2,14). Miriam, Moses’ sister died and was buried there   About 50 miles N of Kadesh barnea was Beer-sheba, of Abraham and Isaac fame (Gen22,19; 26,3)

Territory of the House of Judah. The hill country of Judah or Judea is a strip of mountains or high plateau averaging 10 miles in width, rising just N of Beer-sheba and continuing to just N of Jerusalem.   To the E, where the plateau fall away into the Dead Sea and the rift valley is the barren “Wilderness of Judah” (Josh 15,61; Mt 3,1)   In this region is Hebron, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is known as “the holy  mountain, fairest of heights, joy of all the earth” (Ps 48,2).  Only at the time of David it came into the possession  of the Israelites (ca.1000 B.C). In a stroke of genius, after capturing Jebusite Jerusalem  (2 Sam 5,6-10), he moved his capital from the provincial  and clearly southern Hebron to this border city with no northern or southern  affiliations.  We read of its Canaanite prehistory as a shrine of El Elyon and perhaps of Zedek in Gen 14,18; Josh 10,1)

The mount covered by Jerusalem in its era of greatens is set off on three sides by valleys. On the E there is a sharp decline into the Kidron (Cedron), a wadi that has a swift stream when rainfall  is plentiful.  This valley separates Jerusalem from the higher Mt of Olives, from which one gains a splendid view of the city (2 Sam 15,30; 2 Kgs 23,6; John 18,1)  Despite its narrowness, the Kidron is traditionally  identified as the valley of Jehoshapat where Joel 3,2-12 places the gathering of all nations for judgment. On the W  of Jerusalem is the Valley of Hinnom (Jos 15,8; 18,16), swinging around the southern end of the mount to meet the Kidron on the SE at Haceldama (Akeldama of Acts 1,19) This valley Gehenna acquired an unpleasant reputation because it was used for the burning of garbage and the worship of  pagan gods ( 1 Kgs 11,7; 2 Kgs 16,3; 23,10), whence the derived meaning of Gehenna as “hell” (Mt 5,23).  The mount itself was split into two hills, W and E, by a much shallower valley, scarcely visible today, called the Tyropoeon (cheesemakers). The Canaanite (Jebusite ) city fell to David was on the southern end  of the E hill where the Kidron and the Tyropoeon gradually come together to a point, meeting the valley of Hinnom.

Territory of the House of Joseph. Running N some 40-45 miles from the border of Judah in Benjamin to the plain of Esdraelon is the mountainous strip that was dominated for five centuries (1220-720) by the house of Joseph, i.e.,  the two Joseph tribes of Ephraim and half of Manasseh (Gen 48) this tribal group was  the chief rival lof the house of Judah for power in Israelite Palestine. In this region we have the territory of Ephraim, Bethel, Shiloh  and Shechem.

Galilee.  When we cross the Plain of Esdraelon , we come to an area which figures surprisingly little in OT history but which for Christians was to crown the expectations of that history; for on the N side of Esdraelon rise the hills of Galilee, and just 3 miles into these hills stands Nazareth, the home of Jesus.  Situated between Esdraelon and Dan , Galilee extends some 30-40 miles from  S to N, and some 20-25 miles from E to W.  On the W is the coastal Plain of Asher; on the E is the rift valley with the Lake of Galilee and the upper reaches of the Jordan.  There is a S or lower Galilee and a N or upper Galilee; the division line is an E-W fault running roughly form the direction of Acco (Ptolemais) to just N of the Lake of Galilee.

South Galilee This area consists of gentle hills not exceeding 2000 ft.in height; in parts it is rather like the Shephela of the S.  In the OT times  the larger part of lower Galilee was occupied by Zebulun, with Asher to  the W  on the coast, Issachar  to he SE, and Naphtali to the N and E.  Galilee fell to the Assyrians after the Syro-Ephraimite war of 735 (2 Kgs 15,29) yet Isaiah (9,1-2) speaking of the land of Zebulun  and Naphtaili as “Galilee of the Gentiles”  promised that the people there who walked in darkness would see  great light (Mt 4,15-16).  In Hellenistic times there was a heavy population  of Jews in Galilee (1 Macc 5,9-23).  However, during the period of Jesus’ ministry when Galilee was ruled by Herod antipas, it was still treated with disdain by the “pure Jews” of Judea (John 7,52) which was under the control of the Roman governor (lk 3,1) Two towns of S Galilee mentioned in the NT are Nazareth and Cana. Galilee gave birth both to Christianity and to post biblical talmudic Judaism. The rabbincal school of Beth-shearim in the plain of Esdrelon was moved to Sepphoris and the rabbi  Judah the Prince spent 17  years  there codifying the Mishna.

North Galilee.  Here the terrain is quite different, much higher (3000-4000ft), and truly mountainous.  Heavy rainfall and strong winds are characteristic of this region, which is the beginning of Lebanon mountain chain to the N.  this land of Naphtali had little recorded importance  in either the OT or the NT, except as a place of refuge where inaccessible heights offered the possibility of resisting stronger armies. It was a center of renewed  Jewish colonization ca. AD 1500, and here a Jewish school of mystics produced the Shulhan Aruk and some important expositions of the Cabala.  Safed mysticism is the most recent flowering of the zeal  for God of which this small land of Palestine has been a unique witness for so many centuries.

(for personal reflection and discussion: The geography of Palestine has influenced its history considerably. Explain. The Rabbis and the Moslems consider Jerusalem as the center of the world.. Can you in some way justify this statement?)