Download Rome, Christians, and Jews

Rome, Jews, and Christians
Presented by:
Andrew Drenas, M.A.
Rome, Jews, and Christians
Our Agenda
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The Jews
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The Christians
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Jesus of Nazareth and the “Messianic Jewish” Community
The Fury of Rome
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Their Historical Identity
The First-Century Jews
Dealing with the Jews
The Persecutions of Christians
The Gnostics
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What did they believe, anyway?
The “Orthodox/Proto-Orthodox” Response
In Recent Scholarship
The Roman World
The Jews – Their Historical Identity

Ancient Israel
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13th or 12th Cent. BCE – 586
BCE
The Exodus from Egypt
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Moses
YHWH and the Shema
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The “Golden Age”
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“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is
our God, the LORD is one.”
(Deut. 6:4)
United kingdom under David
and Solomon; the First Temple
“Not-so-Golden Age”
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The Kingdom divided (Israel
vs. Judah)
The Babylonian Exile
Moses and the Ten Commandments
The Jews – Their Historical Identity
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Second-Temple Judaism
 Return to the Promised
Land under the Persians
(539 BCE)
 The Ptolemies and
Seleucids (323-167 BCE)
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The Maccabean Revolt
(167 BCE)
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Mattathias Slaying the Apostate
Hellenization – importation of
Greek culture
Antiochus IV Epiphanes and
the “abomination of desolation”
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1 and 2 Maccabees
Judas Maccabeus and Family
Hanukkah (164 BCE)
Jewish Independence
The Jews – Their Historical Identity
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Second-Temple
Judaism
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The Hasmoneans (16763 BCE)
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Family of priest-kings
Dynasty ends in power
struggle; Rome asked to
intervene
Enter the Romans
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Pompey the Great (63
BCE)
Palestine now occupied
by Rome
The Jews under Roman Occupation
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The Jewish religion tolerated
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An “obstinate” and “rebellious” people
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Religio licita (legal religion - exemption from pagan
sacrifices)
Antiquity appreciated…but…
Rigidly monotheistic (recall the Shema!)
 Romans very tolerant; Jews = exceedingly intolerant –
only one God, all others are false
Nationalistic, even racist at times…
Revolts crushed
Client-kings installed
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The Herods
Broadly speaking, who were
the Jews of the first century?
The First-Century Jews
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“The Big Four”
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The Pharisees
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The Saducees
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Aristocratic, high-priestly, focus on
the Temple
Supported Roman status quo
Seen as corrupt
No resurrection of the dead or
angels
The Essenes
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Prominent laymen, focus on the
synagogue and practical application
of Torah
Opposed to Roman presence, but
taught obedience to God’s law
would result in deliverance
Apocalyptic (the end is near!)
Withdraw from corrupt society and
the corrupt Temple system
Qumran
The Zealots
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Get Rome out by force!
The First-Century Jews
The Second Temple
The First-Century Jews
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The Vast Majority of Jews (95%)
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Farmers, fishermen, merchants, tradesmen =
struggling to make ends meet
Sought to obey major commandments of the
Torah and make the appropriate pilgrimages and
sacrifices their faith required
Hebraic Jews vs. Hellenistic (Diaspora) Jews

Major Jewish centers = Jerusalem (Hebraic) and
Alexandria (Hellenistic)
The First-Century Jews
John the Baptist
(c. 6 BCE – c. 30 CE)
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“Messianic Expectation”
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Messiah = “anointed one,” a
kingly title
Jewish “renewal movements”
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The Essenes
John the Baptist
“Messiah figures” crushed by
the Romans, per Flavius
Josephus

Josephus
(c. 37 CE – 100)
One Messiah…or two…or
none?
Jewish Antiquities and Jewish
War
The Christians
“And when the day of Pentecost had come…there came from heaven a
a noise like a violent rushing wind…and there appeared to them tongues
of fire…and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 2:1-4)
The Christians

Yeshua (Jesus) dmen Nazareth
(c. 6 BCE – c. 30 CE)
– Itinerant preacher/healer/
prophet of the coming
“Kingdom of God”
– Twelve apostles, other
disciples (Mary Magdalene, et
al.)
– Made messianic claims? (Palm
Sunday, etc.)
– Executed by Pontius Pilate by
crucifixion (“This is the King of
the Jews…”)
– Rose from the dead?
– Earliest sources = Mark,
Matthew, Luke, and John (c.
70-90 CE)
The Christians

The “Messianic Jewish”
Community/Christians
– Source = Acts of the
Apostles (c. 70-90 CE)
– Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4)
– Preaches “Gospel”
– Paul of Tarsus and the
“Gentile Mission”
– Christians at odds with “the
Jews”
Paul of Tarsus preaching at
the Areopagus, Mars Hill,
Athens (Acts 17:16-34)
 Stoning of Stephen (Acts
7)
 Disturbance in Rome
(Suetonius, Claudius 25.4)
The Fury of Rome

The Jews
– Jewish War (66-70 CE)
 Revocation of Jewish rights
by Nero and raiding of Temple
treasury = war!
 Christians refused to be
involved
 Destruction of Jerusalem and
the Temple by Titus in 70 CE
– Bar Kochba Revolt (132-35
CE) = Jewish last stand, a
failure…
– Banned from Jerusalem =
Aeolia Capitolina
– Formation of Rabbinic Judaism
– Disappearance of Jewish
Christianity
Titus (39-81 CE)
The Fury of Rome
A testimony to the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple may
still be found in Rome, in the Forum
The Fury of Rome
Arch of Titus,
c. 81 CE,
Forum Romanum
The Fury of Rome
The Spoils of Jerusalem, Arch of Titus, c. 81 CE
The Fury of Rome
Triumph of Titus, Arch of Titus, c. 81 CE
The Fury of Rome
The Western Wall,
“Wailing Wall,”
Jerusalem
The Fury of Rome
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The Christians
– Not initially persecuted, but…
– Became more and more distinct from Judaism
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Why persecute them?
–
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–
–
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Seen as a “novelty,” to which Romans were opposed
Christians met “secretly”
Christians cannibals and incestuous?
They obstinately refused to worship the emperor
Persecuted intermittently from the reign of Nero (r.
54-68 CE) until Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE); thereafter
granted toleration by Constantine the Great (r. 30637)
The Fury of Rome
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Martyrdom
– Martyr = witness
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The Martyrdom of Blandina (d.
177 CE)
– Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius
of Caesarea, V, chapter 1
 Suspended on a stake as if on a
cross – left to be eaten by wild
beasts
 Imprisoned
 Forced to watch her Christian
companions be martyred
 Attempted to make her swear to
idols
 Scourged
 Sent to the roasting seat
 Enmeshed in a net and gored to
death by a bull
 Remains burned; ashes tossed
into the Rhone
Blandina
The Fury of Rome
Any questions, comments, or concerns so
far?
 Changing gears…

The Gnostics
 “Gnosticism,” an alternative form of Christianity,
was in full force within the Roman Empire in the
second century…
 Broadly speaking, who were the Gnostics, who
have captured our imagination as a culture?
 Why did “orthodox” Christians respond to
hostilely to them?
 What are the current interpretations of
Gnosticism out there in academia?
The Gnostics
 Major sources for
Gnosticism:
 Nag Hammadi
scriptures, discovered
in Egypt in 1945
 Gospels of Thomas,
The Nag Hammadi Codices
Mary, the Egyptians,
etc.
 “Orthodox
heresiologists”
 Gospel of Judas
The Gnostics
 Broadly, what did
Gnostics (gnosis =
knowledge) believe?
 Creation
 Result of a defect, an
accident
 Matter and physicality are
inherently corrupt and evil
 God
 Creator god or Demiurge
of the Hebrew Scriptures
= a rebel, fool, arrogant,
ignorant – a lesser god
 The Father is unknowable, ineffable, but
good; not the creator
The Gnostics
 Christ
 Divine being, brings
revelation of the
Father and salvation
 May be distinct from
historical Jesus
(Docetism)
 Granted secret
knowledge to special,
chosen disciples
The Gnostics
 Salvation
 Gnosis – mystical
illumination of the
divine spark within the
self; self-knowledge
 Salvation of the soul
only, to return to the
Pleroma
 Salvation from the
body, the “prison,” and
matter
The Gnostics
 Did you notice any of these themes in the
reading for today?
The Gnostics
 Their “Orthodox” Opponents
 Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Epiphanius
 Responses:
 Creation is inherently good
 One God = the Father,
creator of all things
 One Lord, Jesus Christ, who
was incarnate and crucified
under Pontius Pilate to save
humanity from its sins
 Salvation of the
body/resurrection of the dead
 Gnostic “heresy” is to be
fervently rejected and refuted
 Irenaeus’s Against Heresies
Irenaeus of Lyons,
c. 120/40 – 200-03 CE
The Gnostics
 So what about in academia?
 Spectrum of interpretations…
 Simplistic = “New School” and “Conservatives”
The Gnostics
 The “New School”
 Proponents:
 Elaine Pagels (Princeton),
Karen King (Harvard), Bart
Ehrman (North Carolina –
Chapel Hill), et al.
 Claims:
 Gnostic Christianity and
“Orthodox/Proto-Orthodox”
Christianity two equally valid,
alternative claims to authority
 Diversity!
 Anti-hierarchical Gnosticism
suppressed by intolerant
orthodox bishops for political
and gender-related reasons,
besides theological
 Thomas = early
The Gnostics
 The “Conservatives”
 Proponents:
 N.T. Wright (Cambridge/Oxford,
Bishop of Durham), Darrell L.
Bock (Dallas Theological
Seminary), et al.
 Claims:
 4 “Orthodox” Gospels = first and
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more historically accurate
Gnostic Gospels = later, not
connected to “authentic” Jesus
tradition
“Orthodox” leaders not craving
power and control, but seeking to
hold their communities together in
the face of intense persecution
Thomas = later
Quest for “historical Jesus” has
become quest for an “alternative
Jesus,” one more fitting to our
postmodern zeitgeist
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Any questions, thoughts, comments, or
observations?