The Oxford History of the Biblical World (87 page)

Some scholars do not agree with this reconstruction of the interrelationship of the Synoptic Gospels. They argue instead that Matthew was the first Gospel, that Luke expanded on Matthew, and that Mark is a conflation of Matthew and Luke. Consequently, the dating of the sources differs, the sayings source, Q, disappears, and the reconstruction of Jesus’ own life and teaching necessarily changes. Thus, even within studies of the Synoptic Gospels, scholars do not see eye to eye; the picture of Jesus therefore remains blurry.

Offering a substantially different vision of Jesus is the Gospel of John. Here Jesus speaks more about himself than the kingdom of God. He identifies himself as the true vine; the bread of life; the way, the truth, and the life; and he teaches primarily by means of extended speeches rather than short parables or pithy sayings. And even the Synoptics offer distinct portraits: Matthew has Jesus’ earthly mission restricted to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15.24; see also 10.5–6) and emphasizing obedience to and preservation of biblical law. Mark, however, opens the mission to Gentiles and suggests the abrogation of the dietary regulations mandated by the Torah. And Luke, whose work is supplemented by a second volume called Acts of the Apostles, emphasizes Jesus’ innocence in the eyes of Rome. As for chronology, all four Gospels begin Jesus’ public career with an encounter with John the Baptist. The Synoptics then depict teaching and healing activities in Galilee, a trip to Jerusalem marked by an incident in the Temple, and crucifixion on the first day of the Passover holiday. John, however, locates the Temple incident very early in Jesus’ career, depicts several trips to Jerusalem, and dates the crucifixion to the “day of preparation,” at the time that the lambs for the Passover meal were being sacrificed in the Temple.

In current Jesus research, some view Jesus as a reformer prophet in the tradition of Jeremiah or the Teacher of Righteousness known from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and perhaps John the Baptist. They see him as exhorting the fellow Jews with whom he comes in contact to strengthen their adherence to traditional practices and beliefs even as they await the inbreaking of the rule of God. Other scholars, however, see Jesus more as a sage interested less in the end of the world and the rituals of Judaism than in the creation of a new community. This Jesus advocates solidarity with peasants and open-table fellowship, with an attendant disregard for biblical dietary regulations. Anything in the Gospels that suggests apocalyptic warning or division between those to be saved and those to be damned is by this interpretation usually assigned not to Jesus but to his early followers, who are reacting against the rejection of their original message. Equally debated are questions of Jesus’ own messianic self-consciousness. Did he think he was the messiah, and if so, what sort—political/Davidic, eschatological, or social? Did he anticipate or plan his death? Did he anticipate his return from the dead? Was there a resurrection?

How we interpret Jesus’ message in turn influences how we view the lives of his earliest followers in Jerusalem and Galilee. For example, when they prayed (probably originally in Aramaic) what has come to be translated as “Give us this day our daily bread,” were they asking for the bread of the heavenly kingdom and thus the end of the world, or were they asking for shared food, or both? When they spoke of not
serving both God and
mammon
(Aramaic for “wealth”), were they speaking from a position of poverty or of riches? Did they take a this-worldly focus and add an emphasis on the end of the world, or did they take an apocalyptic message and deemphasize it once the end did not follow directly upon the cross? Or was there some of both?

Similarly problematic is the attempt to determine how Jesus’ earliest followers viewed him. Considering the number of messianic views prevalent in first-century Jewish culture, Jesus would have evoked a variety of responses, even from those who knew him. Some saw him as a political figure who would liberate the land from the Romans; some perhaps saw him as a priest who would restore the Temple; some saw him as a prophet and others as a sage; still others saw in him the promised return of Elijah or the new Moses. Some first-century Jews may well have regarded Jesus as a divine figure (for example, Wisdom incarnate), others as a human being divinely anointed. Thus, even in the proclamation of Jesus as “Messiah,” one still needs to ask what that term connotes.

After the crucifixion, Jesus’ followers did not disband. To the contrary, they began to teach that after three days in the tomb he had been raised from the dead. Since the idea of resurrection was current in Judea and Galilee, in part because of Pharisaic teaching, the message was not entirely anomalous. Luke’s second volume, the writings of Paul of Tarsus, and various non-Christian sources provide some indication of the church’s organization in Palestine in the years prior to and during the First Revolt against Rome.

According to Luke, Paul, and Josephus, the leader of the Jerusalem church was James, the brother of Jesus. How he attained this prominent position is unclear. He is not depicted in the Gospels as one of his brother’s disciples. Both Paul, who disagrees with James (see Gal. 2.12), and Josephus, who appears to have respected him, suggest that James was interested in preserving the practices enjoined upon Jews by the Torah—as, apparently, was the predominantly Jewish group of Jesus’ earliest followers. Thus, for example, they participated in Temple worship and retained Levitical dietary practices. In Acts 15, Luke presents a mediating position, assigning a speech to James in which he successfully proposes that Gentiles in the church need not conform to such practices; they need only behave much like the “resident aliens” of Leviticus 17–18: avoid unchastity in any form, not consume animals that had been strangled, not eat meat that had been offered to an idol, and not eat anything with blood in it.

Acts records that the leaders of this early Jerusalem-based movement included, along with James, also Peter and John. Acts 6.1 also mentions groups to which Luke refers as Hebrews (local, Aramaic-speaking Jews) and Hellenists (probably Diaspora Jews who spoke Greek). The comments on the local leadership are confirmed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, but apart from a reference to the “poor” there he does not describe the social situation of the Jerusalem church.

Acts of the Apostles also provides the most detailed evidence for the organization of this group of Jesus’ followers. But as with the story of Jesus itself, the evangelist’s presentation of the early church has historical gaps. For example, although Acts
describes the persecution and dispersion of the Hellenists, it does not explain why the Hebrews were left in peace. Luke has particular emphases, demonstrated already in the Gospel, that continue in this depiction of church history. For Luke’s Jesus, the possession of riches is not conducive to entry into the kingdom of God. This model holds as well for Acts, where Luke depicts the Jerusalem community as sharing property.

Others among Jesus’ followers may not have been based in Jerusalem. The Synoptic Gospels suggest that some took to the road as wandering preachers. Jesus tells his twelve disciples: “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money” (Luke 9.3), and he exhorts seventy more followers (Luke 10.1; only Luke recounts this mission) to bring neither sandals, nor bag for provisions, nor purse. These missionaries are to leave their families and travel from town to town, finding welcome and support where they can.

When representatives of the early Jesus movement left the borders of Judea and Galilee and ventured to Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch, they found there a vibrant Judaism represented by Jewish neighborhoods, civic associations, and schools. Distinct in varying degrees from their Gentile counterparts in terms of ethnic identification, religious practice, and participation in local civic and cultural practices (such as the refusal to offer sacrifices to the emperor and to worship local or imperial gods, for which non-Jews accused them of “atheism”), Diaspora communities often formed individual semi-independent governmental structures. It is unlikely that the majority of Jews had Roman citizenship (as Paul of Tarsus did). On occasion, however, privileges were given to them; for example, Julius Caesar exempted Jews from military service, given the impossibility of their complying with either dietary or Sabbath practices when in the army.

Not infrequently these distinctions led to social intolerance. From 38 to 41
CE
in Alexandria, Antioch, Asia Minor, and Rome, civil disturbances between Jewish and Gentile residents erupted. Alexandrian propagandists such as Apion published extensive tracts delineating the Jews’ ostensible ignominious beginnings, silly superstitions, and heinous practices; in rebuttal, Josephus later wrote his
Against Apion.

On the other hand, conversion to Judaism was not uncommon even though for men this required circumcision. Josephus recounts the story of Helena, the queen of Adiabene, who along with her sons and many in the royal court converted to Judaism in the first century
CE
and even made pilgrimage to the Jerusalem Temple.

Along with converts, many in the Hellenistic and Roman periods admired the Jews’ ethical norms, ritual practices, and ancient roots. Some, known as “Godfearers,” did not take the step of conversion but practiced affiliation with Judaism. From this group Christianity may have found its earliest members both in the Diaspora (see Acts 13.16,26; 16.14; 17.4; 18.7) and in Palestine. God-fearers participated in various Jewish activities, from Sabbath observance to attending synagogue to worshiping the Jewish god. It remains debated whether Jews actually engaged in any organized, formal missionary efforts to attract Gentile affiliates (as Matt. 23.15 may suggest) or whether the proselytizing effort was more passive—through the public presence of Jewish institutions such as synagogues and prayer houses, through literary
products, through explanation of Jewish practices, through occasional individual initiatives, and the like.

Records of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, responses to anti-Jewish propagandists, and explications of Jewish history, philosophy, and practices are most fully known today from writings preserved not by Jews but by Christians, the works of Philo and Josephus. Philo provides the major source for the various forms of Judaism thriving in Alexandria in the first century
CE
. These include the Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, men and women living celibately, in communal fashion, dedicated to philosophical and spiritual exercises. For them Philo has nothing but compliments, so much so that some scholars even question their existence. They also include the group Philo refers to as “extreme allegorists,” who proclaimed that the various biblical instructions concerning such physical matters as circumcision and dietary regulations were meant only as metaphors and therefore need not be practiced (comparable are the Hellenizers, against whom the Maccabees struggled, as well as some members of early Christianity). For them, Philo has nothing but condemnation. Finally, among the Jews in Alexandria was Philo’s nephew, Tiberius Julius Alexander, who renounced his Jewish background for a career in politics, became procurator of Judea, and finally was an aide to Vespasian. Ethnically Jewish, his case demonstrates the possibilities for assimilation as well as the flexibility of the term
Jew.

Philo himself, a member of one of the most prominent and wealthy Jewish families in Alexandria, sought a synthesis between Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition, between Plato and Moses. For example, Philo suggested that the
Logos,
God’s “reason” or “speech,” served as a mediating principle between divine transcendence and the material world. Similar to the figure of Wisdom in Proverbs 8—which he specifically cites—the
Logos
for Philo is actively present during creation. A similar construction may be found in the opening of the Gospel of John, where the Christ is identified with the
Logos,
who was “with God, and… was God” (John 1.1).

While Philo was dressing Judaism in the clothing of Greek philosophy in Alexandria, so Josephus, his slightly younger counterpart, was doing the same in Rome. Josephus, although more a politician than a philosopher, similarly presented Judaism as philosophically based, compatible with if not superior to the best of Greek and Roman culture and ethics. When in 39
CE
the Greek citizens of Alexandria began to persecute the local Jewish population, which was also seeking citizenship rights, it was Philo who led the Jewish delegation to Rome. The emperor at the time was Gaius Caligula.

The political and economic situation in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee became increasingly intolerable by the middle of the first century. In addition to the problems caused by famine and occupation, more difficulties sprang from Rome itself. At first, the ascension of Gaius Caligula in 37 looked promising for the local population. Not only did Caligula early in his tenure entrust to his friend Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great and Mariamme, the tetrarchy that had been held by Philip, but two years later he added the territory of Antipas. Thus two parts of Herod the Great’s massive holding remained, nominally, in Jewish rather than imperial hands. Agrippa also received the right to appoint the high priest.

This friendship did not, however, lead to the emperor’s appreciation for Jewish sensibilities. In 40/41 Caligula determined that his statue would be erected in the Jerusalem Temple. The action may have been one of many signs of his increasingly erratic behavior, or Caligula may have wished to punish the Jewish population for their refusal to allow Gentiles to erect a statue of the emperor in Jamnia. Even though they recognized the potential for mass slaughter, the Jewish population of Judea mobilized to protest this desecration. Caligula was killed before the order could be carried out. Agrippa, who had attempted to keep the population of Judea calm during this crisis, and who then had worked toward the accession of Claudius, was fittingly rewarded: the new emperor severed Judea and Samaria from the province of Syria and so from direct Roman rule, and he appointed Agrippa king over the whole area once held by Herod the Great. To Agrippa’s brother Herod, Claudius granted Chalcis in Lebanon.