CHAPTER THREE
The World around the New Testament
In the previous chapters we discussed what it means for the New Testament to be called Scripture and how this influences our reading of it. We have also talked about the idea of the New Testament as a book, or a library of assorted letters and biographies with its own history that has been arranged, copied, and preserved for two thousand years. Before diving into the content of the New Testament books, we must explore one more aspect of reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture: the world around the New Testament.
Why Should We Study the World around the New Testament?
The New Testament is more than a historical record; it aims to teach eternal truth and transform its hearers. But the New Testament comes from and to real people living in a real world. Unlike many other mystical religions claiming supernatural insight, Christianity is rooted in real history and sees this history as valuable. The Bible doesn’t avoid historical realities and act like it is disconnected from them. Therefore, understanding some things about this world enables a rich and thoughtful reading of the New Testament.
Of course, it is possible to read the New Testament without knowledge of the ancient world, and much of its message will still be very clear. However, some parts of the New Testament won’t make much sense, and many aspects will be easily misunderstood. Our reading will always be enhanced through understanding the culture, history, people, and society that the New Testament came from and first addressed.
Cultures in every time and place have their own values, expectations, symbols, ideas, and influences. But some moments in history are particularly complicated. Some periods of history involve major upheaval and the clashing and meshing of varied people groups. In times like these, the stakes are high, and many cultural values are highlighted and challenged. The world of the first-century Mediterranean basin, a corner of which contained the ancient land of Israel, was particularly complex because it was embroiled in a lengthy conflict of different empires, religions, and philosophies.
Early Christianity was born at the crucial juncture of two intersecting cultures: the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds. Christianity subsequently created a new society that would soon transform Western civilization.
Our task in this chapter is to explore the symbolic world of the New Testament. We are interested not just in facts and figures—influential kings or revolutionary movements—but in the cultural world of the New Testament. This is because cultures have elaborate systems of meaning that provide a framework for how people understand their lives individually and corporately. We call this the “symbolic world”—the system of values, habits, and beliefs that operate at a conscious and subconscious level. Historical facts are insufficient, and the typical modern “historical-critical” approach to the New Testament is too shallow to enable a meaningful reading.
Rather, we need a method of reading the New Testament that is sensitive to historical facts but, most importantly, understands that individuals live within cultures, not just historical events. To read the New Testament well, then, we need to understand something about the complex, conflicted symbolic world in which early Christianity found itself. In this chapter, after offering a historical overview of this period, we will discuss the symbolic worlds of Judaism, Greco-Roman society, and early Christianity. For each of these overlapping worlds we will explore the same series of topics: literature, beliefs, people, and culture.
Problems with Reading the New Testament Only through Historical Criticism
The History of the Second Temple Period
The history of the Jewish world in the first century AD goes all the way back to Genesis 1:1. The Hebrew people have always understood their identity as rooted in God’s creation of the world and particularly the story that starts with Abraham (Gen. 12). This story includes the twists and turns of the accounts of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and the subsequent history of Israel, from their slavery in Egypt to their sojourn to the promised land, to the rise of King David and the precipitous fall of the kingdom into disarray and eventual destruction and exile to a foreign land.
The Term “Second Temple Period”
The Judaism that birthed Jesus and other first-century Jews is called Second Temple Judaism. In 586 BC, only remnants of the once-great kingdom of Israel were left: the two southern tribes of Benjamin and Judah, centered in Jerusalem. But Babylonia (roughly modern-day Iraq), the world power of the day, attacked and easily conquered Jerusalem, desecrating the glorious temple, killing and enslaving the Hebrews, and taking into exile any whom they thought useful. This Babylonian exile is recorded in the biblical accounts, predicted by several prophets as God’s judgment on unfaithful Israel (Jer. 25; Ezek. 12–24), and gives us stories such as those of Daniel and his friends (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, renowned because of the fiery furnace), Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah.
After seventy years, some faithful Hebrews desired to return and reestablish Jerusalem and the temple, which they did with great difficulty (see the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). The cleansing and rebuilding of the temple and Jerusalem that began in earnest in 515 BC gives us the name for the subsequent period that we call Second Temple Judaism. This era goes from 515 BC until the devastating destruction of the temple by the Romans in AD 70. It is this period that provides the complex background to Jesus and early Christianity.
BC and AD
The events of Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament occurred in the corner of a much larger world stage. In the centuries that followed the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, power began to shift from the Middle East to Europe, particularly Greece. In the fifth century BC the powerful Persians had reached from the Middle East all the way to Athens, attacking the city and desecrating the temple of Athena, only to be defeated in an important sea battle in 480 BC. This set the stage for the Greek states to organize, eventually unified by military victories under the Greek king Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC). His son Alexander received training in the thriving military and intellectual world of ancient Greece, including tutoring from the great philosopher Aristotle. Building on his father’s success and armed with a vision for a Panhellenic people, Alexander the Great (as he came to be known) concentrated power around his new kingdom.
Alexander set out on a campaign to spread the superiority of Greek language and culture. He departed Greece in 334 BC and headed east to capture and transform all the lands of the once-great Middle Eastern empires, taking along with him not only an army but also a retinue of philosophers, artists, and historians. Alexander’s project is called Hellenization—the spread of Greek culture. Though his mission of Hellenization was very successful, Alexander never returned to his homeland; he died in Babylon in 323 BC.
Upon Alexander’s death, a power struggle ensued among his various generals who controlled different parts of the vast empire he had created. This was an empire that ran from Greece in the west all the way to India and the Himalayas in the east, from the Black and Caspian Seas in the north to Egypt and the Arabian Sea in the south, with Palestine as a crossroads. Over the next century various post-Alexander kingdoms were established, while constant fighting triggered ever-shifting borders and alliances. By the beginning of the second century BC there were two great kingdoms throughout this area, the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic, with the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III rising to power and taking over more territories, including Palestine.
A number of events occurred at this time that would shape Judaism and thereby Christianity. The next Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV, who took upon himself the name Epiphanes (“divine manifestation”), aggressively deepened the project of Hellenization. For most of the populace this was not a problem—Hellenization had certain benefits, and the Greek gods could be incorporated into existing practices. But for the Jewish people, certain aspects of Hellenization violated core beliefs and practices, especially when forced on them by a foreign ruler. Antiochus Epiphanes taxed, murdered, and plundered the Jewish people, ultimately breaking into the holy of holies in the temple and sacrificing a pig on the altar there in December 167 BC.
This act—the “abomination of desolation” that Daniel had prophesied (Dan. 9:26–27; 11:31; cf. Matt. 24:15–16)—combined with centuries of oppression, galvanized many of the Jewish people to rise up and throw off the shackles of foreign leaders and their culture and idolatrous religion. The spark that lit the Jewish flame was the resistance of an old priest named Mattathias. When Antiochus tried to force the worship of Zeus on Mattathias and his sons, they rose up and killed the king’s agent (1 Maccabees 2:19–26) and then fled to the hills. They joined forces with other pious Jews who were in rebellion against the Seleucids and began a guerrilla war throughout Judea and beyond. One of Mattathias’s sons, Judas, became the leader and took the nickname Maccabeus (“the hammer”). Remarkably, the Maccabees were successful in defeating their oppressors, and after some key battles in 165–164 BC they recaptured Jerusalem. Almost exactly three years after Epiphanes’s sacrilege in the temple, the Maccabees cleansed and rededicated the temple with an eight-day festival that the Jewish people still celebrate today as Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication/Lights).
Kingdoms and Empires of the Second Temple Period
Figure 3.1. The Roman Empire [© Baker Publishing Group]
During the years 63–37 BC some of the descendants of the Hasmonean dynasty served as priests and rulers in Jerusalem, but ineffectively and only under the appointment and rule of the Roman government. It was a tumultuous time that increased and hardened the conflicts within the Jewish community that was fractured into various allegiances. The year 37 BC is significant because it marks the end of the Hasmonean period and the establishment of the Herodian dynasty. Rome was experiencing its own civil war with intrigue, assassinations, and wars involving Julius Caesar, Brutus, Antony, and Octavian. This affected Palestine because the Romans awarded rulership of that area to loyal subjects. Herod (the Great) had conquered Jerusalem in 37 BC, and although he was an Idumean (not a Jew), he married into the Hasmonean line to establish his claim to be king. The Romans authorized Herod, who expanded his power with an iron fist, killing any whom he suspected of opposition, including his wife and mother-in-law, and any potential challengers to his throne—like the newborn Jesus (Matt. 2:1–18). His tyrannical rule did, however, provide a kind of stability in Palestine for the Jewish people, including his rebuilding and expansion of the temple, though pious Jews like the Pharisees did not support him.
After Herod the Great’s death in 4 BC, the Romans granted three of his sons portions of their father’s kingdom to rule, with mixed success. Archelaus was notoriously brutal and feared. His failed leadership resulted in the Romans taking his lands and ruling them directly through a series of Roman governors, including Pontius Pilate (AD 26–36), who ruled during the end of Jesus’s life. Another son, Herod Antipas, appears in the Gospels because he ruled over the areas of Galilee and Perea, where Jesus ministered. His immorality was called out by the prophet John the Baptizer, whom Herod Antipas eventually beheaded (Mark 6:17–29), and he was involved in the arrest and trial of Jesus (Luke 23:6–12). One of Herod the Great’s grandsons, Herod Agrippa I, also appears in the New Testament (Acts 12:1–4). In AD 37 he was given the title of king by the Roman emperor Caligula, and over the following years he gained more and more of the regions of Palestine, eventually controlling almost as much as his grandfather had. His son Herod Agrippa II ruled during the years AD 44–66 and was the ruler whom Paul appeared before when he was imprisoned in Caesarea (Acts 25:13–26:32), around AD 60.
One more historical moment should be mentioned as part of the background to the New Testament and early Christianity. In AD 66, worn down by oppressive Roman rule and the tyranny of the Herodian dynasty, many Jews finally revolted. The strong religious convictions of the Jews led them to seek once again to establish freedom as under the glorious days of the Hasmoneans. But it was not to be. The Jews had some successes, but the loss of life and the destruction were devastating. Over the course of a few years the Romans systematically slaughtered any who opposed them, culminating in the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. The city was leveled and its citizens tortured, enslaved, crucified, and killed. This event would forever change both Judaism and Christianity. Judaism no longer controlled the city of David or had control of its holy place, resulting in a temple-less religion, focused instead on the study and practice of Torah in synagogues. The center of Christianity shifted as well, becoming more widely established throughout the Roman Empire in city churches.
This brief survey of the historical events of the Second Temple period gives some insight into the radical changes that were occurring during this very unstable time. The actions of kings and governments inevitably affect the lives of individuals, but this only scratches the surface of the question of what people believe and why they do what they do. We must move beyond historical events to explore the interrelated symbolic world of people’s experience.
Figure 3.2. Administrative regions during the time of Jesus. By Jesus’s day several administrative districts existed. On the western side of the Jordan River were Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. On the eastern side of the Jordan River, a collection of smaller districts ruled by Herod’s son Philip and the Decapolis were in the north, and to the south was Perea, ruled by Herod Antipas (who also ruled Galilee). [© Baker Publishing Group]
The Jewish Symbolic World of the First Century AD
Although we often think of Judaism and Christianity as two distinct world religions, it is important to remember that Christianity was born out of Judaism and shares much of its worldview, holy writings, and history. Christianity has always understood itself as the fulfillment, or end goal, of the story of God’s work that begins in Genesis, not as something entirely different. For Jesus, the apostles, and all the writers of the New Testament books, “the Scriptures” refers to the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians would later call the Old Testament. Therefore, the primary context and world behind the New Testament will always be the Scriptures of Israel (both Hebrew and Greek versions) and the story of Israel.
Literature
Both Judaism and Christianity are faiths rooted in beliefs and practices guided by writings—books understood to be revelations from God himself. For the Hebrew people, the foundation of this collection of holy writings is the Pentateuch—the five books of Moses that tell the story from the creation of the world to Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt and to God’s establishing of a special relationship with his people in the promised land. The remaining thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures consist of a wide variety of genres: the ups and downs of Israel’s history, poetry, songs, instructions in wisdom, and the writings of many prophets sent by God to instruct, rebuke, and encourage God’s people. All of this was written in the Hebrew language, with the exception of a few small portions written in Aramaic (a related language). Every Hebrew child learned and memorized the stories and songs of the Hebrew Scriptures to shape their understanding of the world.
In addition to these central writings, the Hebrew people produced many other texts, especially during the Second Temple period. These included the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, a collection of stories and prophecies ascribed to famous people from biblical times, such as Enoch, Solomon, and Abraham. We have many such writings in full or partial form, often translated into later languages, and many of these books circulated in their day but are now lost.
Also during this period various subgroups within Judaism produced writings that reflected their own way of interpreting the Scriptures. Over time the role of the rabbi, or teacher of the law, became fixed within Judaism, and the sayings and particular interpretations of these rabbis were memorized and eventually written down. This occurred over several hundred years and was codified into two major collections called the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmuds consist of the teachings of various rabbis called the Mishnah, with later expansions and sayings called the Gemara. Even though the final form of these collections dates from the fourth and fifth centuries AD, they contain many sayings and interpretations dating back to the Second Temple period.
This is also the case with a large body of texts called the Midrash, which comes from the Hebrew word meaning “to seek answers.” Midrash seeks to answer contemporary theological and practical questions by investigating the Scriptures. It consists of two categories: halakah, which inquires about laws and religious practices, and haggadah, which interprets biblical narratives. Writings from this time also included sectarian works like those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a wide collection of writings that came from a community of Jews who had separated themselves from the rest of Judaism. This diverse library of some eight hundred writings includes copies of the biblical texts, commentaries on and paraphrases of the Bible, pseudepigraphal writings, devotional material, and instructions about the community’s life together.
One of the most important developments during the Second Temple period was the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into other languages. This was necessary because an increasing number of Jews lived outside Israel and spoke other languages. Even within Palestine, as the generations progressed, the Hebrew language became less well known outside the specific study of Torah. The need for a translation of the Scriptures into contemporary languages was necessary for the continuation of the faith. Translations into Aramaic (the language commonly used in Palestine and probably what Jesus spoke) were called Targums. The Targums not only translated the Hebrew Scriptures but also provided paraphrases and various explanations. Even more significant was the massive translation project of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, called the Septuagint (often abbreviated as “LXX,” the Roman numeral for seventy, because of the story of its original seventy [or seventy-two] translators). This translation began with the Pentateuch probably around 250 BC and was completed in various versions over time. The Septuagint is significant because it enabled Jewish people living throughout the Greco-Roman world, where Greek was the common language, to read and understand the Bible in their own everyday language. This Greek translation also enabled Judaism to interact with the broader world of religious culture, including many gentiles who were attracted to Judaism, called God-fearers.
The Septuagint contains all the books of the Hebrew Scriptures plus an additional fourteen or fifteen books (depending on how portions are calculated) in Greek that were produced during the Second Temple period that we now call the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha consists of additions to some of the Hebrew books (additional parts of Esther and Daniel); some prayers and psalms; instructions in wise living; enjoyable novellas like Susanna, Tobit, and Judith; and the four large histories of the Maccabean period (1–4 Maccabees). The Septuagint was not only convenient for non-Palestinian Jews; it was also highly influential as the Old Testament of many early Christians (at least half of the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are from the Septuagint), especially as Christianity evolved from being a Jewish sect to its own increasingly gentile religion throughout the ancient world. The Septuagint continues to serve as the Old Testament for the Eastern Orthodox branch of the church. The Roman Catholic tradition continues to consider the books of the Old Testament Apocrypha as part of the canon, while the Protestant tradition emphasizes the Hebrew texts over the Greek and sees the Apocrypha as informative but not authoritative.
The symbolic world of first-century Jews was rich with many writings and ideas. Jews of this period were very aware of their own history and identity as distinct from others. Ideas and their consequences were not just the purview of an elite group of scholars but were influential for the everyday lives of the Jewish people.
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
Beliefs
As we have noted, Second Temple Jews inherited a world full of texts and ideas. As a result, their symbolic world was driven by many deeply held beliefs, some very ancient (even in their day) and some developing through circumstance and need. We will briefly discuss some of these core ideas, but we must first note that for the Jewish people, “theology” was not a set of abstract propositions that can be ground down like garlic powder from a bulb. Rather, the primary theology of the Old Testament and Judaism is a story—the story of God’s creation of the world and his activity to care for and rule over his people. That is, while there are core beliefs that we can identify, Judaism is a worldview and practice, a way of seeing and being in the world under submission to God, rooted and explained as a historical story.
Mindful of this, we can identify some core beliefs within that story. Scholars David Wenham and Steve Walton helpfully list “Five Key Marks of Second Temple Judaism”:2
1. There is one true God.
Foundational to Jewish understanding and daily life is the Shema: “Listen, Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). This radical monotheism, belief in only one true and superior God—not just henotheism, the worship of one god among many—means that the gods that other people worship are truly only idols, creations not creators. Jewish monotheism includes the belief that this one true God created all that exists, that this God is still actively involved in the world, and that he makes relationships with his creatures through covenants.
2. God has chosen Israel.
God relates to his creatures through covenants—contractual relationships—and he has chosen one particular people group, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who was renamed Israel). This covenant shows God’s character and is the means through which he will redeem and restore the world. God loves his creation and will eventually bless all nations, as promised to Abraham. This will come through his chosen people Israel.
3. God has provided a way to live.
The God of Israel is not a distant deity who simply demands sacrifices to appease his anger. He wants his covenant people to flourish, and so he has given them wise instructions on how to worship, to work, and to relate to him and one another. This is Torah (best understood as “covenantal instructions” rather than “law”). The other parts of the Jewish Scriptures reinforce and apply these instructions throughout Israel’s difficult history.
4. God has given his people a land, focused on the temple.
Central to the covenant that God established with Abraham and that he renewed at the exodus from Egypt was the promise of a land that Israel would possess and flourish in with God as their king. After God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, they did eventually enter the promised land under the leadership of Joshua. The height of this kingdom realm was under David and Solomon, resulting in the building of Jerusalem and the temple. The subsequent centuries-long decline and the eventual loss of sovereignty over the promised land explain much of the Jews’ fervency and devotion to this land, as seen even today in the Middle East.
5. God has given hope for the future.
At the time of Kings David and Solomon, God promised a future when their descendants would reign over God’s people in joy. The Old Testament prophets continually reiterated this message throughout the dark decades and generations that followed. This great hope centered on a future Messiah/Christ, one anointed as a king, who would return to restore Israel’s glory, to bless all the nations of the world, and to consummate a perfect relationship of peace with God himself (see especially Isa. 40–66). This would create a time and place of forgiveness, purity, joy, and shalom called the kingdom of God. During the Second Temple period it seemed that this was happening with the Hasmonean dynasty, but it too ended in corruption and destruction. By the first century AD, under the heavy hand of the Roman Empire, the Jews were desperate for God’s kingdom to come through the promised Messiah.
Each of these core beliefs can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. During the Second Temple period some of these beliefs became more or less important based on the changing political and social world the Jews lived in. For example, the vision for Israel to become a blessing to all nations goes back to Abraham’s story and was repeated by the prophets. However, the centuries of oppression inflicted on the Jews by countless foreign nations meant that few Jews saw their relationship with outsiders as one of priestly grace; rather, they saw outsiders as enemies whom God should destroy. Also, certain practices prescribed in the Torah—such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, and strict kosher food laws—received even greater emphasis. These became marks of what it meant to be a faithful Jew in the Second Temple era because the worship practices of the temple were either unavailable (when the temple was destroyed or controlled by others) or far-removed for Jews living throughout the world. Additionally, these practices marked devout Jews as distinct from the surrounding dominant culture and even from other Jews who they felt had compromised their faith by accommodating too much to those around them (see below on Hellenism).
Also during this era additional Jewish beliefs and practices developed from other biblical teachings. Many of these are reflected in the additional writings of this period. For example, the Second Temple period saw the rise of the practice of Jewish people centering their lives on meeting in synagogues and the custom of rabbis gathering disciples to teach them how to interpret and live by Torah. During this period Jewish thinking about heaven, hell, demons, and angels became much more detailed.
What is the significance of all of this? Understanding the symbolic world of these Second Temple beliefs, values, and commitments makes sense of much of what we read in the New Testament, which is part of this same world. Specifically, this backdrop of beliefs explains why Jesus said and did the things he did concerning the kingdom of God. It also explains why he encountered so much opposition by the Jewish leadership of his day. On every point Jesus shared these core beliefs but also transformed them through his teaching and actions. This does much to explain how early Christianity is simultaneously rooted in Judaism and also in conflict with it.
At the most foundational level, in the Jewish mind there have always been two groups of people in the world—Jews and non-Jews/gentiles. This is rooted in the Jewish self-understanding of their being the elect of God. But even within a culture such as Judaism, which is racially and religiously homogenous, there is some diversity of views and practices among the people. In times of upheaval and transition even more variety is found. First-century Judaism was remarkably varied, with many subgroups that often contended with one another.
Outsider Designations
The most well-known subgroup from the pages of the New Testament is the group called the Pharisees. These were the Jewish conservatives of the day who focused on the strict study and practice of God’s commandments in the Torah and the rabbinic traditions that developed along those lines. Their name derives from the idea of being “separate” from others, and their focus was on purity or ritual cleanness. Their roots are from the Maccabean period, with its fervor for rediscovering and defending traditional Judaism. As the Hasmonean dynasty became more political and corrupt, this movement of pious people arose, often running into conflict with the Jewish rulers and sometimes earning persecution for their strong stance. Many of the professional class of experts in the law (scribes or lawyers) were Pharisees, as were many rabbis or teachers of the law who gathered disciples around themselves and achieved high social status. By Jesus’s day the Pharisees exercised great influence over the mass of poor, rural, less-educated Jewish people, the Am ha-Eretz (“the people of the land”), because they were seen as the reliable authorities in the many details of how to live faithfully as a Jew in relation to complex issues such as Sabbath observance and keeping pure in the midst of a world of non-Jewish people.
On the other end of the spectrum are Jewish people who were part of the religio-political establishment in Jerusalem. Chief among them was the group called the Sadducees, who typically were from the families that controlled the priesthood and political power going back to the later generations of the Hasmonean dynasty. Members of this group usually were wealthy, controlling taxes and temple activities, and in political relationship with the Roman government. They were followers of Moses and honored the Torah as binding, but not other writings such as those of the prophets, or other beliefs that had developed in the Second Temple period, such as the bodily resurrection and angels. As those in control of wealth and power, they had little interest in the hope for a messiah to come and overthrow the government to establish a new kingdom. Similar in sentiment was a smaller group called the Herodians (Matt. 22:16; Mark 3:6; 12:13), who supported the Herodian dynasty and were therefore part of the Roman imperial establishment.
Other Jewish people found their identity in their opposition to the corruption they perceived around them, both religious and political. One such group that was even stricter than the Pharisees was the Essenes, a priestly group that focused on asceticism (typically including celibacy) and the rejection of the current priesthood as fraudulent. Some Essenes apparently lived in villages and others in a portion of Jerusalem, while yet others isolated themselves completely, living in communes in the wilderness. The community at Qumran, which produced and maintained the library that we call the Dead Sea Scrolls, may have been Essene, following their own strict laws and a separate holy calendar and having their own “Teacher of Righteousness.” Another group, the Zealots, focused on Jewish political independence from their Roman oppressors, often engineering assassinations, kidnappings, and Robin Hood–like attacks and thefts on Roman caravans. In Roman eyes, these revolutionaries were terrorists best beaten down by torture and crucifixion.
Another group from this period, who also appears several times in the New Testament, is the Samaritans. Samaria, the area north of Judea and south of Galilee in ancient Israel, was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC. There were centuries of conflict and hatred between the Samaritans, who considered themselves Jews, and the other Jewish people of the surrounding areas. The Samaritans had their own version of the Pentateuch, along with their own temple on Mount Gerizim. By Jesus’s time the Jews avoided the Samaritans completely (cf. John 4:9), even traveling a long distance to avoid going through the Samaritan region.
Finally, we should mention a couple individual Jews from this period who are known to us because of their large and influential writings. The first is Josephus (AD 37–100), a Jewish general who surrendered to the Romans in AD 70 and ended up living in Rome, where he wrote several important works, including the lengthy History of the Jewish War, and from whom much of our information about Second Temple Judaism comes. The other is Philo (20 BC–AD 50), a highly educated Jewish philosopher in Alexandria, Egypt—the intellectual capital of the world at that time. Philo integrated the Greek philosophical system and methods of interpreting texts with Jewish thought and study of the Old Testament. His extensive writings were influential not only for Jews but also for many early Christian theologians.
Philo of Alexandria provides a good segue to a discussion of the culture of Second Temple Judaism, because he is a prime example of the cultural effect of Hellenization on Jewish thought and life. As mentioned above, “Hellenization” refers to Alexander the Great’s project of spreading Greek culture throughout the lands he conquered. Unlike many other conquering rulers, Alexander did not seek to destroy the cultures he subjugated. Instead, he encouraged a transformation of the occupied societies with what he understood to be the superior language, architecture, military, and form of government—Greek.
This resulted in a pervasive and lasting impact of Greek culture because it was integrated into existing societies, like leaven spreading through a lump of dough. Greek architecture, sports, temples, public baths, schools, hairstyles, philosophies, and statues popped up all over Asia Minor, Palestine, the Middle East, North Africa, and India. And most notably, an amalgamated form of the Greek language became the lingua franca, or universal language, that enabled a wide variety of people to communicate with one another, like Latin in later Europe and English throughout the world today.
The significance of Hellenization on the Judaism of this period cannot be overstated. Hellenization affected Judaism (and thus Christianity) at a level deeper than politics or ideas, at the layer of the symbolic world itself—the way people think and interact with the world. Of course, the roots of Judaism are God’s revelation and the story of Israel, but from the time of Alexander through the rise of Christianity, the history of Judaism is the story of Judaism’s interaction with Hellenism. This interaction varied radically—from full adoption of Greek culture to utter rejection—but in every case it is Hellenism that defines the issues and shapes the debates and practices.
Figure 3.3. Buddha statue in Greco-Roman clothing (first to mid-second century) from Pakistan. One striking example of the pervasive influence of Hellenism is the thousand-year tradition of Greco-Buddhist art. When Alexander and his entourage established a Greek presence in modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Indian subcontinent, they generally had a favorable relationship with Buddhism. Very quickly the architecture, coins, carvings, and statues within Buddhism reflected Greek themes, hairstyles, clothing, and gods. The result was that even the mainstream depictions of the Buddha that became standard down to today show the influence of Greek culture infused into their tradition. [The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Muneichi Nitta, 2003.]
In fact, it is largely the various reactions to Hellenism that created the diversity of groups within Second Temple Judaism. Many Jews such as Philo deeply integrated Jewish theology with Greek philosophy. Countless Jews learned to read their Bibles only in Greek (the Septuagint), and Hasmonean Jewish rulers gave their children obviously Greek names such as Alexander and Aristobulus. On the other side, it was the extreme promotion of Hellenism over Jewish practices (Antiochus Epiphanes) that caused the Maccabean revolution and resulted in a renewed emphasis on Jewish piety over against foreign influence (the Pharisees), with some Jews withdrawing from society altogether (the Essenes). At the level of ideas, we see in the Septuagint ways of speaking and concepts that reflect interaction with Hellenism. The fact that it is a translation into Greek is the starting point, but Greek education also affects the development of the wisdom and apocalyptic traditions as well as the modes of interpreting texts; even the rabbis’ principles of interpretation are easily traceable back to Greek principles coming from Alexandria, Egypt.
During the Second Temple period most Jews lived in rural-agricultural or village economies, often poor and on the precipice of disaster. In Palestine some Greek-style cities were developing, along with trade and industries such as fish oil and fish pastes. For all Jewish people the culture was rooted in the local family and clan and more broadly in their ethnic and religious identity as distinct from the world, chosen and set apart by God. They maintained this identity across generations by a careful and diligent observance of holidays that rehearsed the history of Israel—the Sabbath, Passover, the Feast of Booths, Hanukkah, and others. Thus, Jewish culture during this period can be understood as founded deeply on their religious story, worked out differently by varying groups in the complex new world of Hellenism.
Epispasm
The Greco-Roman Symbolic World of the First Century AD
So far we have explored the Jewish world during the Second Temple period to understand the historical backdrop of Jesus and early Christianity. We have seen that while Jewish identity was primarily rooted in the history of Israel, the intersection of this story with Greek culture had a major impact.
When we talk about the first century, typically we add another bit to the description of the culture of the day: it is not just Greek but Greco-Roman. This is because, as we saw in the history above, the mighty Greek empire went through an inevitable decline and eventually was taken over by the next world superpower, Rome. The Roman Empire came to control the vast area that Alexander had carved out and expanded its reign in every direction. By the first century AD it is the Romans, not the Greeks, who are taxing, governing, and oppressing the Jewish people. Despite this political change from Greece to Rome, Hellenistic culture persisted. In fact, much of Roman culture was born of an adoption and mild transformation of Greek life: the Greek gods got new names (e.g., Zeus became Jupiter), the Roman philosophers were translating Aristotle, and Latin poets were Romanizing the stories, plays, and songs of Athens. Eventually, the Romans’ own language, Latin, became the dominant mode of speech (at least in the West), but in the first century Greek was still the main way people communicated (hence, the New Testament was written in Greek). Thus, when talking about the first century, it is best to describe this symbolic world as Greco-Roman.
Literature
The literature of the Greco-Roman world was diverse and sophisticated. Works of philosophy, histories, politics, plays, songs, epic poems, education, religion, and moral teachings were ubiquitous. Much of this literature is still foundational to Western thought and forms the base of classical education. Examples include the poetry of Homer such as The Iliad and The Odyssey, philosophical works such as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which is designed to teach people to live virtuously, and Plato’s Republic, which casts a vision for how to structure society so that people can experience human flourishing. Greek playwrights wrote works that are still performed today, such as Sophocles’s Oedipus the King and Antigone. Historians such as Herodotus (considered the father of history writing) and Thucydides produced detailed accounts of wars and journeys and great figures. Building on the Greek heritage, the Latin author Virgil produced the epic national poem for the Romans, The Aeneid, while Ovid mastered love and mythological themes in works such as his influential Metamorphoses. The Romans also continued the Greek tradition of moral philosophy, as can be seen in the prolific and influential works of Seneca, who continued the ideas of Stoicism through hundreds of letters and philosophical works.
We’ve only scratched the surface of the rich literary heritage of the Greco-Roman world and its abiding influence on Western civilization. More directly, we can see the influence of this literature on the New Testament. The New Testament documents are written within and to people living in the Greco-Roman world. The New Testament consists of types of literature that are adopted from this literary sphere, such as the biography of a great leader (the Gospels), the history of a movement (Acts), wisdom exhortation (James, the Sermon on the Mount), and letters written to influence people’s lives (the Letters).
Beliefs
Even though it was not monotheistic, the Greco-Roman world was just as religious and interested in big ideas as Judaism was. Both Greeks and Romans cared about questions concerning the meaning of life, how to live and die well, and how to be truly happy. The Greco-Roman tradition of philosophy provided a sophisticated number of ways of answering these questions. Nearly every philosophical system focused on learning to live intentionally with certain virtues such as courage, justice, and temperance, so that one could experience a good and beautiful life. Beyond this there were different schools of thought, such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Cynicism.
Varied Philosophical Systems in the Greco-Roman World
The Greeks and the Romans also had a rich religious culture. Going back deep in their history are the stories of the gods still known to us today from Greek and Roman mythology, such as Zeus/Jupiter, Aphrodite/Venus, Artemis/Diana, and Apollo. There were temples to many such gods, and multitudes in the first century believed in them and participated in rituals related to them. Others saw these ancient gods more as symbols of ideas but still participated as part of the societal structure. Over time, the Roman emperors were divinized and came to be honored and worshiped, with statues that devotees bowed to in allegiance. Many people also participated in what are known as mystery religions—secret societies with rituals surrounding food and sex and furtive actions. In the second century AD a related set of beliefs and practices called Gnosticism developed, which often syncretized with Judaism, Christianity, and other religions.
People throughout the ancient Mediterranean world were deeply spiritual. They believed in spiritual beings, in divine oracles and prophecies, and in the importance of interpreting dreams. These varied religious and philosophical beliefs are part of the world of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, sharing some beliefs but also offering elements against which the Judeo-Christian worldview distinguished itself.
People
We have already mentioned a smattering of the many important philosophers, historians, and poets who populated the Greco-Roman world of the first century. More directly intersecting with the New Testament, there are several notable groups and individuals. In the realm of government, the Roman Empire provided many characters who make appearances in the New Testament, including the emperors of Rome (Luke 2:1; 3:1; Acts 11:28; 18:2; 25:11) and various levels of appointed officials such as governors/vice-regents, such as Herod the Great and his sons (Matt. 2:1; 14:1–12), proconsuls such as Pontius Pilate (Matt. 27:11; Luke 23:1), Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7), Gallio (Acts 18:12), and Felix (Acts 23:26), and tribunes/judges such as Claudius Lysias (Acts 23:26). Several Roman soldiers also appear in the pages of the New Testament, including some centurions, a class designation for an important captain of one hundred soldiers (Luke 3:14; 7:1–10; Acts 10:1; 27:1).
From the perspective of the Jews, all of these people fell into the primary designation of “non-Jew” and therefore were seen as outsiders at best and enemies at worst. An important subgroup of these non-Jews was the God-fearers (Acts 13:16, 26; 17:4, 17; 18:7)—gentiles who revered the God of the Jews, often attaching themselves to synagogues as secondary citizens. These God-fearers sometimes followed the commands of Moses and donated financially to Jewish communities (Luke 7:4–5; Acts 10:2), though they were not proselytes (full converts to Judaism). Many of the early converts to Christianity likely came from this group who heard the preaching of the gospel in the synagogues by Paul and others and learned of Jesus’s own welcoming of gentiles (Acts 10:1–48). The benefactor Theophilus, to whom the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are dedicated, may have been a God-fearer (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1).
Figure 3.4. Head of the Greek god Zeus (AD 69–96) [Ephesus Museum, Turkey. © Baker Publishing Group.]
Culture
The culture of the Greco-Roman world shared many values with the Jewish people and myriad other subcultures in the Mediterranean basin. There were distinctives among the groups—maybe especially with the Jews and their radical monotheism and long heritage—but there were many cultural aspects that inclined these people groups to see and experience the world in certain ways. This can be compared to the unity and diversity within American culture today: there are many differences and subcultural values, yet commitments such as freedom of speech, the possibility for financial advancement, and legal rights are valued by every American.
Many of the cultural elements that are shared by both Jews and non-Jews in the Greco-Roman world stem from the pervasive influence of Hellenism on everyone in the first century, as discussed above. Beyond this we can identify several key cultural values:
1. Honor and shame
Sociologists and anthropologists have long recognized that, unlike most modern Western cultures, many societies in the ancient world functioned with the central social categories of honor and shame. “Honor refers to the public acknowledgment of a person’s worth, granted on the basis of how fully that individual embodies qualities and behaviors valued by the group.”3 That is, honor is like a currency that gives people status in society (much like money does in modern Western societies). Honor is granted according to what the society values. Conversely, one receives shame by not conforming to the established standards of good and bad. Shame is not the same thing as personal guilt, but is a recognizable social value that determines one’s success in society. Honor-shame cultures use a lot of language concepts such as reputation, glory, name, boasting, and “face.” Honor-shame cultures tend to be more cohesive and collective than individualistic; group identity is dominant, with honor and shame as the primary means of social behavioral control. Understanding these dynamics deepens our understanding of much of the language and many of the ideas in the New Testament, especially the ways in which Jesus challenges what his culture deems as honorable versus shameful: the first become last (Matt. 19:30), the persecuted and ridiculed are honored (Matt. 5:10–12), the lame and blind and poor are welcomed and lifted up (Luke 14:15–24).
2. Patron-client relationships
Overlapping with the honor-shame dynamic, the ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman world was structured economically very differently from Western societies today. A small percentage of the population—determined almost entirely by birth—owned nearly all the wealth and resources, and typically these persons served as rulers. Nearly everyone else in these ancient societies lived very meager lives, always potentially on the precipice of disaster, with little safety net except their family relationships. This was not a period with a large middle class, free-market economies, government welfare, and the possibility of social and financial upward mobility.
Instead, the social structures and economy worked together in a strongly hierarchical system of patrons and clients, or benefactors and dependents. Everyone had a clearly defined place in society. Most were dependent on those above them, because the majority of resources were controlled by a few people. Patrons might provide money, grain, employment, land, or social advancement. In exchange, the client was obligated to express gratitude to publicize the favor of the patron and thereby contribute to his reputation. Naturally, giving thanks and showing honor became one of the highest virtues, while ingratitude was a great vice. Thus, the honor-shame culture contributed to and perpetuated the patron-client relationship, with goods and resources flowing down the ladder and with honor flowing up in response.
This deep-seated cultural reality is manifested in the New Testament in many of the stories that reflect this kind of socioeconomic system, often in the form of agricultural and financial parables. There is a very real sense in which God himself can be considered the good and perfect patron, providing for his dependent creatures all that they need, with their proper response being honor and gratitude (Rom. 1:18–25). At the same time, we can see through Jesus’s teachings and actions that he often challenged certain aspects of this patron-client structure, emphasizing God’s exorbitant giving while also encouraging those with power to become lowly, his own sacrificial death being the prime example (Phil. 2:5–11).
3. Family and kin
Many aspects of family life are universal across all cultures—and many are not. Societies have varying customs about marriage, parenting, children, siblings, and extended families. The Jewish and the Greco-Roman worlds overlapped significantly in how families functioned in their societies. These were often more similar to each other than to how families function in the modern era. Biblical teachings and the Greco-Roman moral philosophers said much the same things about life together as family.
Much more so than in the modern West, a person’s family of origin and ancestry formed one’s primary identity. To be the “son of” someone—either positively or as a vulgar criticism—was the starting point for one’s place in the world. Individuals were first a part of an extended family or kin group before they were individuals; one’s reputation and standing in society were primarily determined by one’s ancestry, unless one greatly shamed or distinguished oneself. Ancient households typically consisted of extended relations, all of whom worked together in some trade or industry, sharing their resources and their reputation, and seeking to protect and promote their own kin before anyone else. One difference in marriage practices was that Jewish people tended to marry within their extended kin group to preserve inheritances and lineage, whereas Romans often sought to marry outside their kin for strategic and economic reasons.
The Christian Symbolic World of the First Century AD
To everyone’s surprise (except Jesus’s), the tiny group of “Nazarenes” or “Christians” that started as a persecuted sect within Judaism would expand and transform both Jewish and Greco-Roman societies. Rooted in the intersecting point of Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, Christianity created its own symbolic world that eventually would affect world history. Early Christianity inevitably overlapped with both symbolic worlds, but it is also original and makes its own contribution to a new symbolic world centered on the man Jesus, the Christ.
Literature
At its beginning Christianity had no holy writings beyond the Jewish Scriptures. When the New Testament quotes the “Scriptures,” it refers to the Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint. The same set of additional Second Temple texts (Septuagintal Apocrypha and other writings) was also part of the early Christians’ conceptual world. The big change for Christianity came in oral and then written traditions about Jesus’s teaching and actions. These Jesus traditions were transmitted through storytelling and preaching during Jesus’s day and served as the foundation of early Christian understanding. Eventually they were written down in the form of biographies called the Gospels. Key to this process was the testimony of eyewitnesses to the events, especially from Jesus’s disciples who became apostles, with Peter as their leader.
The apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42) then became the authoritative way to understand and transmit the stories about Jesus and, importantly, the way to interpret Jewish Scriptures anew in light of Jesus’s coming. Apostolic teaching and preaching consisted of a combination of rereading the Jewish Scriptures Christianly and applying Jesus’s own teachings. Eventually these apostles began to write letters to explain the orthodox way of reading the Scriptures and understanding Jesus and to combat moral and theological problems. These texts were circulated throughout the fledgling early Christian communities and, based on their apostolic source, were recognized as authoritative. Eventually the combination of Jewish Scriptures with apostolic teaching formed a two-part Christian canon of Scripture that we now call the Old and New Testaments.
As within Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity also produced many other texts that were circulated and became influential, and were representative of the ideas of the time, even if not having the same universal authority as the apostolic teachings. This body of literature included many other Jesus sayings and stories, additional accounts of what various apostles did beyond the book of Acts, letters to instruct the churches, and apocalyptic visions (see chap. 2 above). The following generation of the disciples of the apostles continued the tradition of teaching, preaching, and writing, from which we have many texts, often gathered together under the group known as the Apostolic Fathers.
Apostolic Fathers
Figure 3.5. Byzantine tile with Ignatius of Antioch (tenth century) [Walters Art Museum. Partial museum purchase with funds provided by the S. & A.P. Fund, 1956, and partial gift of Mr. Robert E. Hecht Jr., 1957.]
Beliefs
As with the theology of Judaism, Christianity’s belief system is primarily a story, composed of historical events in which God revealed himself and acted to change the world. Based on this story, certain ideas can be articulated in the form of doctrines (especially when wrong understanding and applications appear), but doctrines can never be divorced from the larger narrative framework from which they derive their meaning. For Christians, this narrative framework is the story of Israel coming to its end goal through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. A number of these narratively embedded beliefs became central to Christianity’s symbolic world and can be articulated in the form of worldview statements:
1. The God of the Jews is three in one, with Jesus as the incarnate Son of God.
Central to Jewish understanding, there is only one God. Christianity affirms this fully but must also account for the fact that Jesus claimed to be divine, performed actions that only God could do (such as forgiving sin directly and controlling nature), and was vindicated as righteous through his resurrection and ascension. Additionally, God’s own Spirit is at work in and through Jesus and his disciples. Rather than dismissing the Old Testament’s revelation, Christianity holds to this radical monotheism, explaining that this one God has always existed in three persons—Father, Son, Spirit—and has now been revealed in a clearer way than ever before through the incarnation of the Son, Jesus (Heb. 1:1–2). The New Testament and early Christianity are full of such trinitarian language (e.g., Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:13), though it took several centuries, and a number of missteps, for orthodox Christianity to find the best ways to articulate this complex reality.
The Apostles’ Creed
2. Jesus fulfilled all of God’s promises and work in the world.
Starting with the first book of the New Testament canon (Matthew), Christianity understands Jesus to be the fulfillment of all that God has been doing with his creation since Genesis 1. Jesus’s own teaching, and the apostolic teaching that follows, focuses on understanding the whole of God’s revelation in light of Jesus’s actions. Every promise that God made concerning the future restoration of humanity, and his reign on the earth through the Davidic Messiah, has now been set into motion through Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20). The promise of a new and perfect covenant between God and humanity—with forgiveness of sins and the transformation of people into godlikeness and through which people from every nation become God’s children—is central to Christianity’s self-understanding. Jesus is the authoritative teacher and Lord, and his life, death, resurrection, and ascension become the epicenter of history itself. In other words, Christianity’s understanding of who Jesus is requires a total commitment to Jesus only; Jesus cannot be simply added on to other beliefs or practices.
3. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, now reigns with God, and will return to consummate God’s reign on the earth.
The claims about the history-changing reality of Jesus are founded on his miracles and power, but ultimately they are rooted in the fact that Jesus was resurrected by God after his death, honored and glorified with a new physical-spiritual body, and then taken up into heaven to reign with God over all the world. Countless other people have taught with authority, gathered followers, and even performed miracles. But Christianity stands or falls based on the historical claims of Jesus’s bodily resurrection and ascension, which vindicates that Jesus was speaking the truth and was both human and divine in nature. Jesus’s resurrection inaugurates the new messianic/kingdom era, serving as a foretaste of humanity’s resurrection and transformation. This is a cosmic event that initiates the redemption of all of creation. Jesus’s current ascended place at the right hand of the Father means that he plays the ongoing role of priest, standing in the place of humanity, having borne the penalty for our sins. Jesus’s position as king, or as the ruling Son of God, means that he reigns and controls the world from heaven. Christianity then becomes forward leaning, anticipating the time when Jesus as prophet, priest, and king consummates his reign with a wedding feast, bringing justice, peace, blessings, and shalom from heaven to earth, for all who submit to his kingship. The church is his bride, awaiting this future time.
4. The Holy Spirit sent by God is at work in the world, especially through the church, which is the body of Christ in the world.
The Spirit of the three-in-one God was at work in the world from the creation (Gen. 1:2) and was manifested powerfully through Jesus’s ministry. After Jesus’s ascension, God sent the Spirit to be his witness in the world, filling and empowering all Christians to be agents of the kingdom. It is only through the Spirit that people can follow and see Jesus for who he is. Jesus’s Spirit-filled authority is transferred to his disciples, the church, the body of Christ. The Spirit-filled church individually and corporately is the primary means by which God continues Jesus’s work in the world as his followers await the return of the king.
5. Jesus is the Full Human who teaches the true philosophy of the world.
In addition to all the other claims about Jesus as divine and his priesthood and kingship, the New Testament makes clear that Jesus also completes God’s creative project with humanity itself. Jesus is the second and perfect Adam who not only succeeds where Adam and Eve failed but also brings humanity to its intended telos, or end goal. Jesus embodies and models what true human flourishing looks like, and he teaches others to follow his way of being in the world so that they too might enter this fullness of life. Jesus teaches not just doctrines and morals but rather a whole way of seeing and being in the world—what people in his time meant by the term “philosophy.” The New Testament and early Christianity claimed that Jesus was the True Philosopher of the world and that Christianity should be understood as the true philosophy for all humans, individually and corporately.
People
The first Christians were not created out of thin air but were real people living in the Second Temple period, complete with their own hopes, personalities, and worldviews. Obviously, most of Jesus’s first disciples were Jewish people, as Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, traveled around Palestine teaching and preaching in synagogues, quoting and explaining the Jewish Scriptures. The early church continued this pattern, centered in Jerusalem at first and then, as it spread beyond Judea, within synagogues and Jewish communities (Acts 1:8). Yet from the beginning some gentiles sought out Jesus (Matt. 8:5–13; 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30) and found healing and grace—Roman centurions, Samaritans, and Syrophoenicians. Many of these likely were God-fearers, as discussed above—gentiles who had some knowledge and interest in Judaism but not full knowledge. Judaism and Jerusalem continued to be the epicenter of Christianity until around AD 70, with James, the biological half brother of Jesus, as leader. But the apostles and disciples scattered far and wide so that the Christian church was soon composed of both Jews and gentiles together (Eph. 2:11–22), was more urban than rural, and was larger outside Palestine than within.
The New Testament speaks of many different people and roles within early Christianity. First are the apostles. The original apostles were the twelve that Jesus called out of the multitudes of disciples following him (Matt. 10:2; Luke 6:13), with Peter as the head. After Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, the apostles appointed Matthias to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:26). These twelve apostles are described as the foundation of the church, of which Jesus is the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14), and are said to be “first” in the church (1 Cor. 12:28), though this “firstness” means primarily the most persecuted and suffering, even unto death (1 Cor. 4:9). At the same time, some other leaders are also called apostles, most notably Paul (Rom. 1:1; Eph. 1:1), but also James (Gal. 1:19), Barnabas (Acts 14:14), Andronicus and Junia (Rom. 16:7), and others.
A second group of people in the church is prophets. Prophets were people filled with the Spirit who spoke words of direction and encouragement (Acts 15:32; 21:10; 1 Cor. 14:29–32; Eph. 3:5). There were prophets in the Old Testament whose writings became part of the canon. Prophets in the New Testament play an important role (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11), though it seems that the role of Old Testament prophet is more comparable to New Testament apostles. The apostle Paul also mentions the role of teachers in the church (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11; cf. James 3:1)—those who are skilled in explaining the Scriptures, like Apollos (Acts 18:24–28). Those who are responsible for overseeing the church in general, including the preaching of the word, are called elders, pastors, or shepherds (Acts 11:30; 15:2; 20:28; Eph. 4:11; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Pet. 5:1; 2 John 1). Helping with the practical service needs of the church were deacons/deaconesses (Acts 6:1–6; Rom. 16:1; 1 Tim. 3:8–13). One of the most striking things about early Christianity is that within its congregations was a wide mix of men, women, and children from all strata of society—the wealthy, slaves, Jews, Romans, Greeks, barbarians, soldiers, widows, orphans, the educated, the lowly, and the powerful—all welcome and all of equal rank and worth (Gal. 3:25–29). Together they are called the body of Christ, with different gifts and abilities but all united as one people (1 Cor. 12:12–31; Eph. 4:1–16). This body must be vigilant, because the potential for false apostles, false prophets, and false teachers is always present (Matt. 7:15–20; 24:24; Acts 20:28–30; 2 Cor. 11:13; 1 John 4:1–6; Rev. 2:2).
Culture
Because early Christianity was rooted in Judaism and existed in the Hellenized Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds, we should not be surprised to learn that its cultural habits overlapped with both worlds. Yet there was a newness within the Christian community, a transformation of many cultural values, that created a new kind of society. Indeed, Christianity’s culture can be helpfully understood by how it stands in contrast with much of the society around it, both Jewish and Greco-Roman. For example, the experience of honor and shame was still central to the Christian worldview (as it was for both Jews and Romans), but it had been turned upside down. Christians honor and worship a man who was lowly, shamed, and crucified, and who by any worldly standard was unworthy. As a result, Christians embraced this same posture for themselves, not seeking their own glory and honor but boasting in Christ crucified (Gal. 6:14), being willing to be considered foolish and lowly in society—“The last will be first, and the first last” (Matt. 20:16). Additionally, the lowly and “lessers” of society (both Jewish and Roman)—such as orphans, widows, the poor, the sick, women, slaves, children—were valued, and even exalted, as equal members of society (Eph. 5:22–6:9; Col. 3:18–4:1; James 2:1–13).
Christian culture also took a different view of family and wealth. Early Christians, following Jesus’s model, began to call one another “brother” and “sister,” which reflected a radical new view of family and kinship. For Christians, one’s biological family became of secondary importance compared to their new identity with one another in Christ (Matt. 12:46–50; 19:29; Luke 14:25–27). Regardless of ethnic origin, social status, or moral background, anyone following Christ became part of a family, the family of God. Similarly, the patron-client cultural-economic system was transformed by the Christian vision: God himself is seen as the great benefactor who gives abundantly, with his creatures as the recipients who in turn should help those in need by sharing wealth (Acts 2:44–46; 1 Tim. 6:17–19; James 1:27; 1 John 3:17).
Early Christianity adopted the Greco-Roman vision of paideia—educating people intellectually and morally for individual flourishing and to build a society of peace, with Jesus as the Philosopher or Pedagogue—but many of the values were transfigured. Instead of justice as the greatest virtue, or rhetorical ability as the greatest skill, Christians taught the highest virtue of love and compassion toward others, while rhetorical skill was supplanted by empowerment from the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22–23)—became the measure of what it means to be a Christian.
All of this means that New Testament Christianity comes from and sits within the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds but creates its own society and culture centered on the revelation of Jesus the Christ. Early Christians eventually talked about themselves as a third race, a new humanity, not because of their own greatness but because of their identity with Jesus. The writings of the New Testament make much more sense when read with this complex symbolic world as their backdrop.
Rescuing Infants in the Roman Empire
Christian Reading Questions
- How does understanding the “symbolic world” of the New Testament influence your reading of the New Testament? Give a specific example of a particular passage that opens up when you understand it within its “symbolic world.”
- Read Matthew 2. How does learning about the background of the Herodian dynasty in the Second Temple period help you to understand the situation behind the visit of the magi and Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt?
- This chapter mentions many texts written within several hundred years of the Bible (the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the Talmuds, the writings of Josephus and Philo, Greek philosophy, etc.). Why do you think it is important to have knowledge of these texts in addition to the Bible?
- Read the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16) in light of the cultural values of honor-shame dynamics and patron-client relationships. How does this cultural information inform your reading?