Transcripts For KQED Frontline 20131225

choir singing the Angel Gabriel was sent from god to a city of galilee named. Narrator every sunday, in every corner of the world. The virgin, betrothed to a man whose name. Narrator . People gather to hear a story. And the virgins name was mary. Narrator for more than 2,000 years, that story has been told and retold. And to bear a son. Narrator along the way, each generation has found in its telling its own meaning and interpretation. . You shall call his name jesus. narrator that story, of a man called jesus of nazareth, a man who became jesus christ, was originally told by his first followers. . And be called the son of the most high. narrator . And then retold in accounts by later believers in the gospels. The gospel according to st. Luke. Narrator so began the building of a religion. Now it is our turn, with the help of scholars and historians, theologians and archaeologists, to return to that time and use our best efforts to understand that story. Of a man born in obscurity in whose name a faith was made. Narrator we know so little about him that he was born more than 2,000 years ago, and that he lived in palestine. We know he was baptized and became a preacher. And we know that he was publicly executed. dramatized what manner of man is this that even the winds and the seas obey him . Narrator with so little evidence to go by, archaeologists must sift the clues, and scholars decode the stories told by the first followers of jesus. The problem for any historian in trying to reconstruct the life of jesus is simply that we dont have sources that come from the actual time of jesus himself. The historians task in understanding jesus and the Jesus Movement and early christianity is a lot like the archaeologists task in excavating a tell. You peel back layer after layer after layer of interpretation, and what you always find is a plurality of jesuses. History isnt made to record the deeds of a person like jesus. Jesus is very much like most people, statistically speaking, who have ever existed in the world poor, obscure, no pretensions to royalty or distinction of any kind. They live under less than desirable conditions, and they die that way. There is nothing historically remarkable about that. Billionsioio opeople pass throuh this veil of tears in exactly that way. We can tell the story by looking at the way the earliest christians themselves thought about jesus, by the way they kept his memory alive, by the way that they told the story. Narrator central to the story is the fact that jesus was born a subject of the roman empire. dramatized and in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. Jesus was born during the reign of the Emperor Augustus in the sort of a booming economy of the pax romana, the roman peace. And on every coin that augustus had were the words, divi filius, son of the divine one Julius Caesar son of god. This is on every billboard in the mediterranean world. He is the savior of the world, and he brings the peace. Now, you may have scruples about how he brings the peace, but he brings peace to rome. And as the saying goes in latin, peace to the rome and quiet to the provinces. dramatized this is he, augustus caesar, son of a god, who shall restore the golden age and spread his empire. Narrator romes empire spread across the mediterranean, sweeping through north africa and reaching as far west as spain. To the east, it encompassed egypt, turkey, greece, and palestine, where jesus was born in the jewish land of judea, then ruled by king herod. In judea, the king, herod, was in effect a client king. He ruled almost in place of rome. He was the. He was the voice of rome, the instrument of rome, probably instrument of rome is best in that, because he. He had his own independent notions certainly. Herod the great was probably one of the greatest kings of the postbiblical period in israel, but you wouldnt want your daughter to date him. He was ambitious, brutal, extremely successful. And it is one of the real untold ironies of jewish history that this man, who. Whos the guy you love to hate in jewish history, really, leaves the most indelible mark on the face of the land of israel. It appears that herod thought of jerusalem as his showpiece. He really wanted to make it a place where people would come, just as people would have gone to athens, or rome, or the great cities of the mediterranean world. Narrator a meticulously accurate model of ancient jerusalem shows the extraordinary scale of herods building program. And so, when herod built the city, or helped to rebuild the city, he did so on a monumental scale. And this can be seen in the rebuilding of the temple. Narrator we know exactly how herod rebuilt the temple because detailed descriptions of the architecture have survived. Along the coast, herod constructed an aqueduct 40 miles long. It brought water to a new seaport he had built. In honor of the Roman Emperor caesar, herod named the city caesarea. We really need to get a. A feel for a city like Caesarea Maritima at the time of jesus precisely because it shows the crucial intersection of roman rule in jesus own homeland. Narrator in this thriving seaport, the power of rome, its culture and commerce, commanded every aspect of daily life. In the middle of the city was a roman city, complete with the capital, temples to the deified roma that is the personification of rome itself. The political reality of the day was of a dominant power overseeing the life on a dayto day basis. Narrator into this Political Climate jesus was born. The gospels present the familiar account of his birth. dramatized and she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. Our best guess for the birth date of jesus would be 4 b. C. E. In other words, he was born before the death of herod the great, who died in 4 b. C. E. But i emphasize best and guess. Narrator the gospels claim jesus was born in bethlehem. Historians think it is more likely that he was born and grew up near the sea of galilee in the village called nazareth. The region was known for being a hotbed of political activity, and some of it violent. In the last few generations of new testament scholarship, the galilee has achieved this reputation for being the hotbed of radicalism, you know, the. I dont know, the 60s berkeley of. Of palestine. The galilee, by most of the traditional accounts, is always portrayed as a kind of bucolic backwater peasants on the hillsides. And yet, our recent archaeological discoveries have shown this not to be the case. Nazareth stands less than four miles from a major urban center, sepphoris. Sepphoris was founded as the capital of the galilee. And so it was really invested, much like Caesarea Maritima, with all the trappings of greek or roman city life. Narrator recent archaeological discoveries at sepphoris challenge the conventional picture of jesus life. One of the more exciting discoveries that we made at sepphoris was a magnificent roman villa with a gorgeous, gorgeous mosaic on its floor, in a banquet hall. Floor, in a banquet hall. Floor, in a banquet hall. The lady was dubbed mona lisa by the press when we found her because she is really an extraordinary depiction of a beautiful woman of roman antiquity. And the picture we get is a community very much in the mainstream, but on the high end of the scale. Sepphoris was not just a city with houses and with waterrks and things like that, but it had satellite settlements around. Nazareth, to all intents and purpose, was a satellite village attached to the region or municipality of sepphoris. The findings really are requiring us completely to rethink jesus social economic setting, because we really had thought of jesus as being really out in the. In the hinterland, utterly removed from urban life, especially romaninfluenced urban life. What the excavations at sepphoris suggest is that jesus was quite proximate to a thriving and sophisticated urban environment that would have brought with it all of the diversity of. Of the roman empire, and would have required, just to get on, you know, as the price of doing business, a level of sophistication that one would not have thought characteristic of jesus, the humble carpenter. Narrator scholars today question the image of jesus the humble carpenter, and disagree about his social class. dramatized they were astounded, and said where did this man get this wisdom . Is not this the carpenters son . The difficulty for us in hearing a term like carpenter is that we immediately think of a highly skilled worker, and, at least in north america, in the middle class, making a very high income. As soon as we take that into the ancient world, we are totally lost, because, first of all, there was no middle class in the ancient world. There were the haves and the have nots, to put it very simply. And in the anthropology of peasant societies, to say that somebody is an artisan or a carpenter is not to compliment them. It is to say that they are lower in the pecking order than a peasant farmer. Narrator very few scholars now believe that jesus was of such lowly birth. Im not entirely convinced that we could characterize jesus as. As a peasant. I think that that probably miscasts jesus, especially in view of the more recent discoveries at sepphoris and elsewhere. He must be someone in the artisan class if hes working in the building industry. And in all probability, that would mean where he might grow up and live in nazareth, he likely went to sepphoris to earn his living. And this puts him in the interesting mix of cultures that would have been the daily life of a city like sepphoris through the marketplace, in the building. And sepphoris itself, as a city, was built precisely at the time that jesus was growing up and living just next door. You couldnt deal and wheel either in the workplace or in the market without knowing a good deal of greek. And i cant hardly imagine anybody worth their salt who wouldnt know some greek. Jesus was trilingual. Jesus participated in both the aramaic and hebrew culture and its literatures, as well as the kind of hellenistic greek that he needed to do his business and his ministry. Narrator despite its greek and roman influences, sepphoris was a thoroughly jewish city. And jesus remained faithful to his religious heritage when he left nazareth to become a preacher. dramatized then he began to speak, and taught them, saying, do not think i have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. What we learned from the gospel stories is not that jesus was not jewish. Quite the opposite. Hes completely embedded in the judaism of his time. Was jesus a jew . Of course jesus was a jew. He was born of a jewish mother in galilee, a jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples all of them were jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish Communal worship what we call synagogues. He preached from jewish text, from the bible. He celebrated jewish festivals. He was born, lived, died, taught as a jew. Nowadays, there are temples and synagogues everywhere you go. There is not a Jewish Community in the world that doesnt have a synagogue, and many of them are called temples. In this period, however, we should always remember that there is only one temple, and thats the one temple in jerusalem. people conversing in background narrator for jews living in the time of jesus, the temple in jerusalem was the center of their religious life. The jewish historian josephus has a very memorable line. He says, one temple for the one god. The jews saw themselves as a unique people with one god, one god alone, and this one god of this one special people had one temple. And thats a very powerful idea, reflecting accurately, i think the historical truth that the temple was a very powerful unifying source within the Jewish Community. This was the one, most sacred place on earth, the one place on earth where the earth rises up and the heavens somehow descend just enough that they just touch. This was the only one place on the entire earth where this was so. The temple in jerusalem was the symbolic heart of the country. Jews everywhere, if they chose to, if they were pious, would put aside part of their income its sort of like, oh, the way christmas clubs operate now youd put aside money explicitly to be spent having a party in jerusalem. Narrator although the temple was the centerpiece of jewish life and worship, judaism was not a state religion. Theres no such thing as a state church. Its not a monolithic religious or cultural entity at this time. Indeed, what were seeing more and more through the research and the archaeological discoveries, is how diverse judaism was in this period. Sometimes reading ancient sources is like overhearing family quarrels in a distant room. And some of the most endearing aspects i can say this because i dont. I dont live in the First Century but the most endearing aspects of reading this evidence that we still have is overhearing the lively quarrels. I mean, people who werent priests at all would have absolutely Firm Opinions on how the priests should be doing their business. distant conversations there will have been a whole wide variety of groups in jerusalem, and perhaps in the countryside as a whole. These are the revolutionary groups who took their religious understanding of what judaism was and turned that into political program, political agenda. We must destroy the roman empire or we must destroy jews who cooperate with the roman empire. Narrator we now know that other groups had even more extreme views, and their ideas shed new light on jesus own message. One of the best examples of the vibrantly different thought thats at work in judaism in this period is, of course, now what we know from the discovery of the dead sea scrolls. As you leave jerusalem and go to the south and to the east, toward the dead sea, the terrain changes rapidly and starkly. You move off gradually from rolling hillside through the ravines, and it becomes stark and desolate. Its dry, its arid, its rocky, and its rough. And then, all of a sudden, within a span of only about 13 miles, the entire terrain drops out in front of you at the surface of the dead sea. It is in that rugged cliff face on the banks of the dead sea that the dead sea scrolls were discovered at the site known as khirbet qumran. The dead sea scrolls are usually thought to have been produced by a group known as the essenes. And the essenes are a group that literally abandoned jerusalem, it seems, in protest against the way the temple was being run. And they go to the desert to get away from what they see to be the worldliness of jerusalem and the worldliness of the temple. The manual of discipline, or in hebrew, serahayachad, envisages a Community Living in almost total isolation, a community that is self contained, that is governed very strictly. There is an oath of entry. It is very much a monastic community. X the congregation of the elect must pledge himself to live according to the rule of theo community, to love all the children of light, and to hate all the children of darkness. The essenes are what we might best call an apocalyptic sect of judaism. An apocalyptic sect is one that . Thinks of itself as, first of all, the true form of the religion. Yt by apocalyptic expectation, i mean that some group has a. An apocalupsis in greek a revelation that god is going to finally solve the problem of injustice, unrighteousness, evil in the world, by totally eradicating the evil. Thats the terrible price of apocalypse; theres going to be gzm totally eradicating evil and we, the good, whoever we are, are going to live with god, be it heaven on earth, or earth in heaven, forever, in justice and holiness and righteousness. Among the dead sea scrolls, we hear not of just one messiah, but at least two messiahs. Some of their writings talk about a messiah of aaron, a priestly figure who will come to restore the temple at jerusalem to its proper purity and worship of god. But theres also a messiah of david that is a kind of kingly figure who will come to lead the war. The qumran scrolls reveal a variety of scenarios for. For the end of days. The best known one, perhaps, is the scroll called the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness. And at some point, there will be a major battle, a cataclysmic struggle, not just between evil and the cosmic forces of good. And, needless to say, this will end with a victory for the sons of light in other words, for the group itself. Now, we typically think of this as reflecting a belief in the end of the world, but, in fact, thats not exactly what they thought. They use language like the end last days, but what they mean is the present evil age is coming to an end. This is really more in the vein of a transformation of the present social order, and a return to a kind of golden age of statehood and independence. So its really kind of a political expectation. Its not otherworldly. In fact, when it comes, it will be right here and right now. Narrator history offers no evidence that jesus was influenced by the essenes, but their apocalyptic challenge struck chords that reverberatedd throughout the homeland and echoed through the message of a prophet known as john the baptist. dramatized in those days, john the baptist appeared in the wilderness of judea, proclaiming repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. John the baptist was a renowned kind of eccentric, it appears, from the way that josephus describes him. But he seems to have had this quality of a kind of prophetic figure, one who was calling for change. So he is usually thought of as being off in the desert wearing unusual clothes a kind of ascetic almost. John is taking people out into the desert, crossing the jordan. He is recapitulating the exodus, and he is planting little, ticking time bombs of apocalyptic expectation all over the jewish homeland, waiting for god to strike, as it were. Narrator it was as johns disciple, the gospels say, that jesus submitted to the ancient jewish rite of baptism. The evidence that jesus was a follower of john is as strong as anything historians can find about jesus. The reason is a certain embarrassment in the texts, trying to explain why on earth would jesus be apparently inferior to john. If he goes and is baptized by john, then somehow we have to explain how that can happen. The gospels then go on to say that jesus was the one predicted by john. Most contemporary scholars would see that to be a. A construct developed by the early church to help explain the relationship between the two. The difference i see between john the baptist and jesus is, to use some fancy academic language, john is an apocalyptic eschatologist. An eschatologist is somebody who sees that the problem of the world is so radical that its going to take some kind of divine radicality. God is going to descend in some sort of a catastrophic event to solve the world. There is another type of eschatology, and thats what i think jesus is talking. Im going to call it ethical eschatology. That is the demand that god is making on us not us on god so much as god on us to do something about the evil in the world. Narrator we dont know to what extent jesus remained faithful to johns apocalyptic message, but at some point after his baptism by john, jesus seems to have embarked on his career as a preacher. dramatized jesus went throughout galilee, teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. Jesus career apparently was centered mostly in the towns and villages and a few small cities in the area of the galilee, his home region. Jesus ministry in the galilee is rather complicated, but i think we can begin to get the real better understanding of it through archaeology and through higher literary studies of the gospels today. Those villages there were absolutely essential to his ministry. Hes avoiding the big towns, or cities, probably because the elements who run those cities are of such a high class that theyre probably not interested in jesus message. Narrator whether he was himself a simple man of the people or someone far more sophisticated, jesus does seem to have pitched his message at ordinary people and to have impressed them with his healing powers. Healings, which seems to have been something of a specialty of his, for which he had a great reputation, people would bring from miles around, judging from the gospels they would bring their sick, the frail, to jesus to be healed. I love the story about. About jesus reaching down and picking up the dust and mixing it with his own spit and forming a kind of healing balm that he applies to someone. And its also interesting that in. In one healing case, jesus sort of misses the mark a bit and has to. Has to refine the cure that hes applying. So one finds the intrusions of Popular Culture in these jesus traditions that are being elaborated through natural processes of. Of storytelling. Now, we need to be aware that there are other miracle workers around at the time, so just the idea of performing miracles is not in itself unique. In the First Century, in one sense, everyone including, later in the century, vespasian, when he was becoming the emperor were miracle workers if they were important enough. What really was unusual about jesus is, why would god work through a jewish peasant . That sort of struck the roman imagination as unbelievable. Not that there would be miracles, but that miracles might be performed by a jewish peasant. Jesus limited his circulation to the agrarian populace. And his teaching was characterized by metaphors that would be readily understood by agrarian populations. dramatized jesus said to his apostles, give them something to eat. They replied, we have nothing here but five loaves and two fish. And he said, bring them here to me. The feeding of the multitudes is one of the few stories thats told in all four gospels. Thats a story near and dear to many peoples hearts. Jesus goes into the gallilean hillside. He takes about 5,000 people with him. And its there that they have a picnic, even though there are no provisions made for that. He multiplies five loaves and two fishes to feed this multitude of people. Well, i. I dont think it takes Rocket Science to figure out why that kind of story is so endearing to poor people. I mean, thats. Thats. Thats dinner and a show. Narrator behind the simple rustic imagery was the message of the coming kingdom of god, an enigma jesus did not attempt to simplify. Jesus tells a parable about somebody who takes a mustard seed, plants it in the ground, and it grows up to be a great tree, or a bush at least a weed, though, in plain language. Now, imagine an audience reacting to that. Presumably the kingdom is like this, and they have to figure out, whats it like . You mean, the kingdom is big . But you just said its a big weed. So why dont you say a big cedar of lebanon . Why a big weed . And besides, this mustard. Were not certain we like this mustard. Its very dangerous in our fields. We try to. We try to control it. We try to contain it. Why do you mean the kingdom is something that the people try to control and contain . Every. Every reaction in the audience. The audience fighting with themselves, as it were, answering back to jesus, is doing exactly what he wants. Its making them think, not about mustard, of course, but about the kingdom. But the trap is that this is a very provocative, even a weird, image for the kingdom. To say the kingdom is like a cedar of lebanon, everyone would yawn, say, of course. Its like a mustard seed. Whats going on here . Either people will tend to focus on jesus as some sort of social reformer, or as an apocalyptic firebrand preaching a coming kingdom of god on earth. And yet, it must be recognized that those are very different images, very different kinds of individuals, and yet both are reflected within the gospels tradition. Narrator he may have preached social change. He may have preached a new kingdom on earth. Either way, jesus was bound to find himself in conflict with the roman authorities. The core of jesus preaching is the kingdom of god. And the difficulty for us is to hear that term as 100 political and 100 religious. Not one, not the other. In the First Century, those were inextricably intertwined. The kingdom, if you used that expression in the First Century, would. Meant the roman kingdom. It meant the roman empire. When you talked about the kingdom of god and were somehow setting it up in some tension with the roman empire, you were making a very caustic criticism of the roman empire, and you were saying that its system was not the system of god. The jewish historian josephus tells us a number of stories about characters whose career could be crudely summarized as following some guy wakes up in the morning and he thinks hes the messiah or something, or hes a prophet. And he says. He gets a group of people to follow him. He says, were going to go out in the desert and were going to wait for god to do something for us. So a whole bunch of people may go with him maybe thousands go with him out to this deserted, unsecured place, and they wait for what josephus calls the tokens of their deliverance. And the romans send a Vicious Police action out there and kill everybody. When that kind of Police Action is perpetrated against what we might consider harmless fanatics, the romans are really giving us a very good historical lesson in. In how domination works. All the time that jesus is talking, i cannot not imagine the fact that hes going to be put to death. Everything that he is doing is politically dangerous. If you are following jesus life from day to day, you should be saying to yourself, somebody is going to kill this man. dramatized after he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to jerusalem. Moving to jerusalem, jesus was moving from the territory ruled by herod antipas, to the territory ruled directly by rome through a prefect, Pontius Pilate. Pontius pilate was the governor from 26 to 36, and so that places us very clearly within the early period of roman rule. These are some of our most important and clearest dates for the activities of jesus life. When jesus actually died were not absolutely sure. Some people would say as early as maybe 27, maybe some others as late as 33, but we do know its under pilate. Pontius pilatus, praefectus judea. Pontius pilate, governor of judea. And we know of him as effective and a fairly ruthless administrator of his territory, the area of judea. There are several episodes recorded by josephus where eschatological prophets emerge, and pilate has no hesitation in eliminating them or in suppressing episodes of potential conflict or revolt within that territory. murmur of crowd people from all over the empire went to jerusalem on passover. Its one of the most populated times in the whole city. Its a madhouse. There are extra animals being brought up sheep because of the passover holiday. There are pilgrims coming in from everywhere. And jesus comes up to town, too. He could have stayed home and had passover in the galilee, but he didnt. Hes up in jerusalem because this is important. Pilate would get nervous when there were crowds of jews, and, of course, he was legally responsible to be up in jerusalem when it was the most crowded of all. He would leave this very nice, plush, seaside town in caesarea, which was, you know, a nice pagan city, plenty of pagan altars, all the stuff he wanted and have to go up to jerusalem where. Where all these jews were congregating, and stay there for crowd control until the holiday was over. He was in a bad mood already by the time he got to town, and passover would fray anybodys nerves. murmur of crowd if you were a pilgrim coming to jerusalem in these days, you would walk through the streets of this magnificent city. As you approach the temple mound, you come up to this massive, monumental complex that we call the temple, and there are grand staircases up which one can go and get up to the top. And you come out up on top of the platform in the outer precincts of the temple complex. The soldiers that were garrisoned in jerusalem would have been stationed in the nearby fortress called the antonia, which literally stands adjacent to the temple complex and kind of looks over it. They could keep an eye on things there, and, of course, everyone in the temple knew they were there, too. Particularly at passover, which is a holiday that vibrates with this incredible historical memory of National Creation and freedom, and the roman soldiers standing along the colonnade of the temple looking down at jews celebrating this. So its. Its a politically and religiously electric holiday. dramatized then, jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers. The difficulty with the story of jesus and the money changers in the temple is that the story is told in slightly different ways in different gospels. For example, in marks gospel, and, in fact, in matthew, mark, and luke all three this event occurs in the last week of jesus life and is clearly the event which brings him to the attention both of the temple leadership and the roman authorities. It is, in effect, what gets him killed. Johns gospel, interestingly enough, though, puts the story of the cleansing of the temple as the very First Episode in jesus public career, more than two years earlier, and no mention is made of it near his death. So, there are a few problems with the. With the story itself, although it is one of the stories that appears in all the gospels, so something is going on there. Its unclear how he actually gets into trouble. He wouldnt have wandered into the crosshairs of the priests because, compared to how the pharisees are criticizing the priests, what jesus doing. Is doing is fairy minimal. If he had been complaining about the priests, or criticizing them, or criticizing the way the temple was being run, this would just. Its business as usual. This is. This is one of the aspects of being a jew. Another possibility, though, is that jesus sounds more like the essenes, who were really criticizing the whole way the temple is run as having become too worldly, too caught up in the money of the day, or maybe just too roman. And if thats the case, then his action looks much more like an act of political subversion. Try and imagine the temple for what it was. It was both the house of god and the seat of collaboration. It was the high priest caiaphas who had to collaborate with the roman occupation. Now, how would jesus, as a gallilean peasant, see the temple . I think with ferocious ambiguity. On the one hand, it was the seat of god, and you would die to defend it from, say, a Roman Emperor like caligula putting a statue in there. But what would you do when it was also the place where caiaphas collaborated with the romans . Was the temple really the house of god anymore . What jesus does is not cleanse the temple; he symbolically destroys it. If you really think the end of the world is at hand, that has a kind of liberating and frantic energy that goes along with it. Its not good for quiet crowds and social stability. And given the. The emotional and religious tenor of this holiday anyway, to have somebody preaching that the kingdom of god was really on its way perhaps it was going to be coming within, you know, within that very holiday preaching that the. The. In the days before passover, its the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater. Narrator the gospels agree that this politically charged climate was the occasion for his arrest, but what happened next, and the role played by the priests, remains unclear. I think theres some kind of cooperation between the chief priests and pilate. The chief priests always had to cooperate with rome because its their jobs. Theyre mediating between the imperial government and the people. Then there was a perceived danger that pilate was on the verge of some kind of muscular crowd control. People would get hurt or killed when pilate felt so moved. And perhaps for this reason, jesus was turned over to rome. The most difficult thing for us, after 2,000 years, is to bring our imagination down when were looking at the passion of jesus, because we want to think the whole world was watching, or all of the roman empire were watching, or all of jerusalem was watching. I take it for granted there were Standing Orders between pilate and caiaphas about how to handle lowerclass, especially, dissidents who cause problems at passover. Jesus would have represented, you know, a kind of activist and resistor in. In Pontius Pilates experience that he had been dealing with for years, and with varying degrees of. Of success and effectiveness, obviously. But jesus would have been a blip on the screen of Pontius Pilate because the unrest and the uprisings were so common a part of daily life for the roman administration of judea that jesus would have been seen, i think, as very, very little out of the ordinary. Now, i dont for a moment think that pilate would have been worried that jesus could have challenged the power of the emperor. Thats not the point. The point is, any challenge to roman authority, any challenge to the peace of rome would have been met with a swift and violent response. In dealing with a person who was guilty of sedition, pilate had considerable leeway. He was probably driven by convention, and that is the process of executing state criminals through crucifixion. There is no doubt in my mind but that the persons responsible for the actual execution of jesus were the romans. The romans practiced crucifixion. It was. While it was not unknown to the jewish people, it was not a form of jewish execution. dramatized then they brought jesus to the place called golgotha, which means the place of a skull. A crucifixion site was usually near, say, a main road into the city. It was a warning location. The uprights for the crosses were usually left there permanently. And you have to think of that site as not a place where people would go regularly. It. Its an abhorrent site. Its supposed to be a warning, even when nobody is hanging there. So the idea that there would be crowds around the crucifixion leave. Leave out passover or anything like that just watching, i think most people would probably avert their eyes and walk away because they dont want to be on the side of the romans who are killing and crucifying one more good jew among the thousands who have been crucified in the First Quarter of that century. Death by crucifixion was certainly an awful, awful experience for the persecuted individual. It was slow, it was painful, and it was public terror. Its not from bleeding. Its not from the wounds themselves that the death occurs. Its rather a suffocation because one cant hold oneself up enough to breathe properly. And so, over time, really, its the exposure to the elements and the gradual loss of breath that produces death. We dont have that much detail about the actual crucifixion of jesus. What we have are the stories in the gospels. And theyre. Uh, interestingly and appropriately, the gospel writers are drawing on psalms, psalms that, in. In the jewish canon, are. Are often cries to god. And thats. Theyre grabbing onto that literature to shape their narrative presentation of the crucifixion. Those are cries of terror and loneliness. Theyre really appeals to god for meaning. The words that are put in jesus mouth in mark, why have you forsaken me . Its. Its the religious power of the psalms that is really one of those wonderful moments of concrete continuity between what this. This very passionately religious firstcentury jew might have been thinking as he was dying this horrible death on the cross as the finale to this. This week of passionate religious excitement and commitment. And. And asking god what happened. The plaque that was nailed to the cross is one of the few clear pieces of historical evidence that we have. Iesus nazereno, rex iudorum. The plaque, which names him as jesus, the king of the jews, suggests that the charge on which he was executed was one of political insurrection, a threat to the pax romana. But hes also now a victim of the pax romana. Narrator in the year 51 of the common era, by the shores of the aegean sea, a visitor arrived at the greek city of corinth. His name was paul of tarsus. Lets imagine paul going up the main street of corinth, through the monumental roman archway, into the forum, the center of city life, the place where all the business and in most of the Political Activities are done in the public life of this grecoroman city. Here are the shops, here are the offices of the city magistrates, and we are standing literally in the shadow of the great temple of apollo. Narrator apollo, the sun god, watched over the fortunes of corinth. Like zeus, hera, artemis and athena, apollo was one of the olympian gods, that family of divinities who presided over the ancient and diverse pagan universe. Paganism is our designation for what 90something percent of the people in the mediterranean were doing. Jews are a visible minority. And then, everybody is doing lots of other things. One would have found a rich array of deities meeting the various needs of individuals. Its like going to a supermarket and being able to sort of shop for god. And you have them at various times in your life and for various functions of your. Of your living. Narrator by the time paul arrived in corinth, pilgrims had been worshipping for centuries at local shrines, like the Sacred Spring of the pierenne. To devout pagans like these, pauls message of a jewish messiah come to save all mankind, jew and gentile alike, must have seemed outlandish. And so, when we hear paul say, ive determined to know nothing among you but jesus christ, jesus the messiah and him crucified, that must have struck an interesting chord among these cosmopolitan greeks who would have inhabited corinth at that time. dramatized i am a jew born in tarsus in cilicia, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous about god. The apostle paul is, next to jesus, clearly the most intriguing figure of the First Century of christianity and far better known than jesus because he wrote all of those letters. dramatized for as long as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the lords death until he comes. Wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead. Whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure. If there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Were beginning to get, for the first time in the new testament, the language that will become the hallmark of all the later christian tradition. You see, its paul who starts the writing of the new testament by writing letters to these fledgling congregations in the cities of the greek east. Paul alludes in a number of his letters to the message that he would have communicated verbally, probably. He emphasizes two things on the one hand, very clearly the importance of the death and resurrection of jesus; on the other hand, he also emphasizes the. The importance of understanding the end time and the immediacy of the end time, and that one must be prepared for it. And the way one prepares for it is to be good. We find a lot of ethics in. In paul. And its around this issue of how one. One lives in anticipation of the end time thats just around the corner, for paul. Narrator the death and resurrection of jesus lie at the very heart of pauls preaching, but it is a story that predates paul and goes back to the first followers of jesus in jerusalem. dramatized joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. The movement that originated around jesus must have suffered a traumatic setback with his death. Not so much that a messiah couldnt die, but that nothing happened. The kingdom didnt arrive immediately as they might have expected. The effect that the crucifixion had on jesus followers was the desired effect, from the roman perspective. That is, that people who were associated with jesus were terrified. I mean, before the easter proclamation, there must have been some kind of easter panic, you see, that folks were hiding out, as they should have, because now they were the accomplices of. Of an executed criminal. The followers of jesus, who dont go away as theyre supposed to when pilate does this, have to deal with that fundamental question of what does this mean that the one that we had all of these expectations about has been crucified . How do we deal with this, not merely the end of this life, but the shameful end of this life . The only place they can go, eventually, is into the hebrew scriptures, into their tradition, and find out, is it possible that the elect one, the messiah, the righteous one, the holy one any title they use of jesus is it possible that such a one could be oppressed, persecuted, and executed . They go into the hebrew scriptures, and, of course, what they find is that its almost like a Job Description of being gods righteous one, to be persecuted and even executed. And the amazing thing is, they said, hey, pilates right. He was the king of the jews. And, moreover, god has vindicated this claim that he is the king of the jews by raising him from the dead. dramatized an angel of the lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone. He said to the women, jesus who was crucified, he has been raised. Come, see the place where he lay. The stories about the resurrection in the gospels make two very clear points first of all, that jesus really, really was dead; and secondly, that his disciples really and with absolute conviction saw him again afterwards. The gospels are equally clear that its not a ghost. I mean, even though the raised jesus walks through a shut door in one of the gospels, or suddenly materializes in the middle of a conference his disciples are having, hes at pains to assure them, touch me, feel me, its bones and flesh. In luke, he eats a piece of fish. Ghosts cant eat fish. As an historian, this doesnt tell me anything about whether jesus himself was actually raised. But what it does give me an amazing insight into is his followers, and, therefore, indirectly, into the leader who had forged these people into such a committed community. Narrator according to the book of acts, christianity began at a single place, at a single moment in time. 50 days after the death of jesus, now known as pentecost, a miraculous event took place. dramatized and suddenly from heaven, there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. Thats the picture that we get in acts. The historical reality is probably much more complex. And the Christian Movement probably began not from a single center, but from many Different Centers where different groups of disciples of jesus gathered and tried to make sense of what they had experienced with him and what had happened to him at the end of his public ministry. The acts account of early christianity presents a very cogent, coherent image of earliest christianity, when, in fact, the more we find out about early christianity, the more wildly variegated a phenomenon it appears to be. As far as we can tell, the beginnings of christianity occurred in many different places, in many different groups. There were wandering charismatics who went around from door to door preaching without an ordinary occupation, depending on people with whom they stayed for hospitality, for food. There were settled groups in little towns. There were radical groups trying to give up ordinary occupations and family life following the teachings of jesus. It must have been an amazing mixture, amazingly diverse range. Its clear from the very beginning of christianity that there are different ways of interpreting the fundamental message. There are different kinds of practice. There are arguments over how jewish are we to be . How greek are we to be . How do we adapt to the surrounding culture . What is the real meaning of the death of jesus . How important is the death of jesus . Maybe its the sayings of jesus that are really the important thing and. And not his death and not his resurrection. I think were right to call it the Jesus Movement here, because if we think of it as christianity that is, from the perspective of the kind of movement and institutional religion that it would become a few hundred years later we will miss the flavor of those earliest years of the kind of crude and rough beginnings, the. The small enclaves trying to keep the memory alive. Were hampered by our vocabulary. . We know that this group will eventually form a gentile community, and theyll be known as christians. But this group didnt think that. This Group Expected jesus to return and establish the kingdom of god. He is a jewish messiah. They are followers of a jewish apocalyptic tradition. They are expecting the coming of the kingdom of god on earth. Its a jewish movement. The jewish sect, then, is a group which sees itself as jews, recognizes that there are other jews out there, but claims that those other jews out there have it all wrong. They dont fully understand what judaism is all about, and only the members of the sect do. Sectarian groups are always in tension with their environment. That tension is manifested in a tendency to want to spread the message out, to hit the road and convince others that the truth is real. dramatized go nowhere among the gentiles and enter no town of the samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of israel. One of the characteristics of the roman empire is, there is suddenly great freedom of movement, more so than in any period before that. And in some ways, more free than any period that will happen again, until the invention of the steamship. dramatized as you go, proclaim the kingdom of heaven has come near. One would have encountered on. On the via egnatia or. Or any other major roman road, a wonderful variety of journeyers. Some would be certainly engaged in commerce, taking their commercial products from. From place to place. Some would be involved in goods and services, taking their particular services to different places. One would have found philosophers. Rpe found persons such as paul preachers, missionaries of particular religious views and religious what, in a sense, is sort of ironic is that the. The network that was established for the mobility of the roman army finally became the network that was probably most instrumental in the spread of christianity. Narrator jews had traveled narrator jews had traveled along this network for centuries, and jewish communities were spread by the time of the First Century, there were probably then, as now, more jews living outside the land of israel than within the land of israel. Theres a very energetic Jewish Population in babylon. There is a very wealthy, vigorous Jewish Population living in the major cities around the mediterranean. Its because of diaspora judaism, which is extremely well established, that. That christianity itself, as a. A new and constantly improvising form of judaism, is able to spread as it does throughout the roman world. Narrator paul himself was a diaspora jew. Convinced that god had chosen him to spread the word about jesus, he traveled to antioch, the capital of roman syria. Antioch has one of the largest jewish communities outside of the jewish homeland its been suggested that maybe Something Like 40,000 people in this Jewish Community. So we can. We must imagine a number of different jewish congregations and subsections of the city in and through which paul could have moved and still felt very much at home within the Jewish Community. Wherever you have a sufficient number of jews, you would have a Jewish Community. Wherever you have a Jewish Community, you would have a Jewish Synagogue. Narrator by the fourth century, the synagogue had become a formal place of worship. But in pauls day, especially in the diaspora, it was more of a community center. Another remarkable feature of the synagogues in the diaspora is not only that they attracted large crowds of people, but among these crowds will have been gentiles. There is no barrier between jews and gentiles, and gentiles found the Jewish Synagogues and the jews themselves, apparently as open, friendly and why not go to the Jewish Synagogue . Especially because there are no nonjewish analogs. Theres nothing equivalent to this communal experience anywhere in pagan or greek and roman religions. Narrator gentiles attending synagogues would have been exposed to judaisms variety of beliefs. In antioch, this new jewish sect, the Jesus Movement, found a following in some synagogues. Paul felt that the time was right for these jews to bring the gentiles into their movement. Pauls message of the conversion of gentiles seems to be predicated on the isaiah language of what will happen when the kingdom comes, when the messiah has arrived, and there will be a light to the nations, a light to the gentiles. And in that sense, paul views the messianic age having arrived with jesus as being a window of opportunity for bringing in the gentiles into the elect status alongside the people of israel. Why do gentiles join the movement . Theres this tremendous religious prestige, thanks to the antiquity of the jewish bible. By entering into the church, these christians enter into that history, as well. Thats tremendously prestigious and important. I think perhaps originally they were attracted to the claims of salvation, regeneration, eternal life. Youre baptized, youre illuminated. Probably they were attracted to the rituals and to the communities. Narrator like most jewish communities, the early followers of jesus assembled for worship in each others homes. Among the things that make the christians different are a couple of rituals which they developed early on, before the very earliest sources that we have about them. And one of these is an initiation ceremony which they call baptism, which is simply a greek word that means dunking. The second major ritual which they developed is a meal, a common meal which they have together, which is designed as a memorial of the last supper which jesus had with his disciples. Now, the situation seems to be that initially when people were attracted to the Jesus Movement, they first became jews. Narrator becoming a jew was no easy matter. It meant conforming to strict jewish laws. dramatized this is the law, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living creature that may be eaten, and the living creature that may not be eaten. There are several issues involved here. One is the notion of the dietary laws, the eating restrictions that would have obtained for eating certain kinds of food if one was an observant jew; also with whom one could eat. Narrator in pauls view, it was now possible to allow gentiles who didnt observe all the jewish food laws to participate in the communal meals of the movement. But because its at a meal, it also runs headlong into some jewish sensitivities about what kind of foods you can eat and with whom you can eat. Narrator dietary laws were not the only regulations that marked jewish identity. dramatized every male among you shall be circumcised, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Of course, the major issues in converting to judaism for a gentile, for a nonjew, is that one must, if a male, become circumcised. And, of course, this was a. An obvious distinction if one is working out in a greek gymnasium, where everyone was nude to begin with. So, the ritual of circumcision is one of those major hurdles that people would have thought about from the greek world. Narrator paul argued that the rite of baptism could replace circumcision. This breakthrough allowed gentiles to more freely join gods chosen people. We now have, paul says, a new map of the world. The old distinctions between jews and gentiles are now obliterated. They have now been supplanted by a new and truer and more wonderful and more beautiful map, in which we have a new israel that will embrace both jews and gentiles, all those who now accept the new covenant and the new faith. dramatized there is no longer jew or greek. There is no longer slave or free. There is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in christ jesus. And that would spark one of the most important controversies of the first generation do you have to become a jew in order to be a follower of jesus as the messiah . dramatized i went up to jerusalem with barnabas, and i laid before the acknowledged leaders the gospel that i proclaim among the gentiles. Paul says explicitly that he went down to jerusalem to meet with the leaders of the church there. He calls them the pillars. We have some names of people who must have been the big shots in the movement peter, james. Now, this james is not the james whos in the list of the apostles. This james is the brother of the lord. Its somewhat surprising that we should hear of jesus own family members among this earliest group in jerusalem precisely because, in the gospels, the family is. Is usually portrayed as being antagonistic toward his public ministry. At one point, in marks gospel, they think hes gone crazy, and they try to take him away before he can do himself some harm. And they go down to ask the question of how do we deal with these gentile converts . And they manage to get some sort of rough agreement with the jerusalem leadership. They agree that its okay for paul to convert these gentiles and yet not to force them to be circumcised. Narrator as part of the compromise, paul agreed to collect money from his gentile congregations to support the church in jerusalem. So when paul goes back to antioch, he seems to think that hes won a major victory in the understanding of what the christian message will be. Shortly after his return to antioch, however, peter arrives from jerusalem. One of the most vivid episodes he sketches is in the epistle to the galatians, when hes talking about a faceoff he and peter have in antioch. A classic showdown in the history of earliest christianity. And paul tells the story this way he says that in antioch, he encountered peter, who was having a meal with nonisraelite jesus people. Peter thought this was all right until the contingent from jerusalem came. And they tap peter on the shoulder, and peter stops attending these. These banquets. And then we get a great passage of esprit de lescalier. Its probably what paul wishes he had thought to say to peter at the time, but in the letter, its presented as what he says to peter. And hes yelling at peter for not being true to the gospel and not being true to christ and not being true to this vision of things, and what hes really yelling at peter about is food. And the way paul tells it is, he says, well, you know, i. I. I confronted peter publicly. I told him he was a hypocrite. I told him off to his face. I told him off in front of everybody. End of story. Well, the story doesnt really have an end. You know, we. Wed like paul to tell us that, after he told peter off, he. He sort of skulked back to jerusalem with his tail between his legs, and then paul gave james and his party the whatfor, and then he threw them out, or Something Like that. Nothing like that. Pauls completely silent. Now, this suggests to us that paul had. Indeed had a showdown in antioch. He did face off with peter. He didnt win. He didnt carry the day, at least not that day. So this suggests to us that james party was influential, and influential outside the. Its jerusalem jurisdiction, and that perhaps james posse were there because they felt that their authority should be exercised outside of the jurisdiction of jerusalem. The blowup in antioch over eating with gentiles probably is the turning point in pauls career. Paul left and went to western turkey, or asia minor, and greece. For the next ten years, from 50 to roughly 60, paul will concentrate all of his efforts in this region of the aegean basin. Its probably ephesus and the areas immediately around ephesus that will be his most important base of operations. Ephesus was a cosmopolitan environment. The inscriptions and the statues and the artwork and the buildings all tell us that this is really a crossroads of culture and religious life throughout the mediterranean world. When you read jesus parables, you immediately think of agriculture, you think of peasants, you think of landowners, you think of farming. When you read pauls letters, you think of the school, you think of the philosopher, you think of the orator, you think of the city. In pauls view, at least, the city was the natural environment, if you will, for christianity. He has a way of coming back to the same city, he has a way of visiting new cities and talking about visiting new cities, and it was cities that he was going to, not just general geographical areas. Its important to understand, i think, that it was from these cities that christianity ultimately was spread. Paul mostly travels around in a kind of circuit of these congregations around the aegean rim, or he sends out his helpers and his coworkers, people like timothy and titus, to take information or check out whats happening over in philippi or someplace like that, sometimes perhaps even to go and help start a new congregation someplace over in, say, colossae or maybe up toward the interior in galatia. So we have to imagine the Pauline Mission as a kind of beehive of activity. dramatized greet andronicus and junia, my relatives who were in prison with me. Greet my beloved epaenetus, who was the first convert in asia for christ. Greet apelles, greet ampliatus, my beloved in the lord. Greet urbanus, our coworker in christ and my beloved stachys. The traditional view of the composition of the early Christian Communities is that they are from the proletariat. Early marxist interpreters of christianity make a great todo with this. Its a movement of the proletariat. Its essentially from the lowest classes. But if you actually look at the book of acts, and you look at paul, and you begin to collect the people who are named or identified in some way, here you have erastus, the city treasurer of corinth. Narrator an ancient inscription with the name of pauls follower, erastus, can still be seen in the ruins of corinth. You have gaius of corinth, whose home is big enough to let him be not only pauls host but the host to all of the churches of corinth. All of the little household communities can meet in his house at one time. You have stephanos and his household who have been host to the community. You have lydia in philippi, who is the seller of purple goods, a luxury fabric. You have prisca and aquilla, and we wonder why the woman is usually mentioned before her husband. She must be a woman of some consequence. You begin to get the impression that you have quite a variety of different social levels represented in these early Christian Communities. Not people at the absolutely top level. You have, with the exception possibly of erastus, no one from the aristocratic orders; no one who would be a member of the city council. You have no agricultural slaves who are at the bottom of the hierarchy. But in the rest of the social pyramid, everything in between, you seem to have representatives in these early christian groups. So we begin to get a picture of upwardly mobile people, to use a modern anachronistic way of describing them people who have mixed status, who probably will be viewed by the aristocracy outside as nouveau riche; not people who dont quite belong, but in their own eyes perhaps deserve more status than they are getting from the larger society, and have found within this community a role of leadership and a role which is recognized. The worship of an early Christian House Church probably centered around the dinner table. The term communion actually comes from this experience of the dining fellowship. We also know that all other aspects of worship that we think of as going with early christian practice probably happened around the dinner table as well. Paul refers to one person having a song and another person bringing a prayer. Everyone is contributing to the banquet whether its in the form of food or in the form of their piety and worship. Throughout the new testament, particularly in pauls letters in the book of acts, we find out that women owned the houses in which the early christians met. This, i think, is significant because i dont think the women who owned the houses were simply providing coffee and cookies, in effect, for the christian community. I think that this probably gave them some avenue to power in actual roles in the church. Paul speaks of women as his fellow evangelists and teachers and patrons and friends, as he does of men. But i dont see a picture of a golden age of egalitarianism back there. I see a new, unformed, diverse and threatened movement which allowed a lot more fluidity for women in certain roles for a while in some places and not in others. Narrator pauls way of building a community was just one of the many interpretations of the Jesus Movement. He had to fight a running battle to keep his fledgling congregations from falling under the influence of rival preachers. dramatized you foolish galatians who has bewitched you . His relationship with these folks is not entirely unproblematic. For one thing, hes got to manage a Long Distance relationship and we all know how difficult that is and he has to do this by letter. In his letters, hes often recapitulating for the recipients fights hes had prior to the fights hes having currently with his congregation. The early christians did have turf wars over who had it right, and you see this from the very beginning. The apostle paul, his opponents in galatia, who say, wait a minute. If youre really going to be a real christian, first you have to be a real jew, and that means you have to be circumcised, and you have to keep certain regulations out of the torah. So paul has not got it right. Paul has to say, no, you dont understand how radically new this thing is which god is doing here. Narrator paul preached the imminent arrival of gods kingdom on earth, and salvation for those converted to jesus. dramatized you know what time it is how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. Its clear that one of the concerns that keeps showing up throughout this period of pauls ministry is, when is this kingdom going to arrive . Whats going to happen . How soon . They are still, 25 years after the fact, anticipating the imminent return of christ, and the imminent arrival of the kingdom. And its this kind of, you know, dont slow me down with the facts impatience and energy that we get in pauls letters. Pauls very first letter the earliest single writing that we have in the new testament is i thessalonians, and already in i thessalonians paul is having to console them when people are starting to die within the congregation and the kingdom hasnt arrived yet. Narrator paul believed the earthly world order was about to change, that time was running out, and the end was at hand. Clearly the. The message about the. The coming end time was the part that would have been threatening to a roman official, and would have been threatening to any native population that had vested some authority in roman officialdom. Narrator paul attacked those who preferred peace and security to the coming kingdom of god. dramatized when they say, there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them. Scholars have wondered who this people is who are saying peace and security. Some interpreters think that its the first lapsed christians, and theyre no longer serious about the end time coming immediately. I tend to think, though, that it refers to those who are supportive of the imperial rule, the peace and security of augustan and imperial governments. Paul is saying those who are on the side of augustus will reach their end first. Divine wrath will come upon them first. So paul is very clearly drawing here a remarkable antithesis between the rule of the emperor on the one hand, and the rule of god the kingdom of god on the other hand. Narrator apocalyptic expectations were fueling political turmoil throughout judea. Jewish resistance to roman rule was growing daily. The situation in jerusalem was becoming increasingly tense through the mid60s also. Josephus tells us that there was growing tension over the last few governors of the countryside. He tells us that they were pretty abusive and. And corrupt administrators, robbing the people, as it were, for the. In order to line their own pockets. Josephus also tells us that theres another source of growing tension in the country at this time, because theres an increasing number of bandit and rebel types coming out of the woodwork in the country. And so between growing banditry, the rise of the zealot movement, a. A politically active insurgency movement, and then the corruption of the administration, the situation in jerusalem is becoming very, very tense indeed. Narrator in the year 60 of the common era, after a decade Building Communities in the greek east, paul decided that his work there was done. dramatized now, with no further place for me in these regions, i am going to jerusalem in a ministry to the saints. Paul wants to fulfill the promise that he had made to peter and james back in the jerusalem conference. For these ten years that hes been in the aegean, hes had his congregations collecting monies together to take back to jerusalem. Now we find him gathering all that up, each congregation sending an emissary with their part of the contribution, and theyre all going as an entourage to lay it at the feet of james in jerusalem. dramatized i know that when i come to you, i will come in the fullness of the blessing of christ. What seems to have happened is, when he went back to jerusalem with the contribution, he was arrested as some sort of rabblerouser. Narrator according to the book of acts, paul was taken to rome to stand trial before the emperor. Within a short span of time, the leading figures of the early Jesus Movement were wiped out. The tradition holds that peter and paul both died in about the year 64. About the same time, josephus tells us that james, the brother of jesus, at jerusalem, has also been killed, all in about the same two or threeyear period. With the passing of this first generation, the expectation that all of those coming events must be close at hand probably was a concern for a lot of people. Narrator in the year 66 of the common era, Jewish Resistance broke out into open conflict against rome. The rebels seized jerusalem. The first jewish revolt had begun. dramatized truly the battle is thine their bodies arerushed by the might of thy hand, and there is no man to bury them. Narrator it seemed that the fiery predictions of the essenes were about to come true. Most people in the first revolt really thought it was the apocalyptic event; it was the coming of a new kingdom on earth. Several of the Leaders Within the revolt really claimed to have messianic identity or prophetic identity. dramatized they shall be a flaming torch in the straws to consume ungodliness. Narrator true to their beliefs, the essenes marched out to fight the romans, and were annihilated. Even many christians thought that the war was the actual apocalyptic event. dramatized valiant warriors of the angelic host are among our numbered men, and the hero of war is with our congregation. Narrator a prisoner of war who defected to the roman side, the jewish historian josephus personally witnessed the sack of jerusalem. Josephus describes Walking Around the walls of jerusalem and pleading with people on the inside to give up rather then go through the suffering and agony that would come from a long, protracted siege. For two years then, jerusalem was under siege. Starvation, disease, murder were the order of the day. The loss of life must have been catastrophic to the Jewish Population as a whole. By the month of august in the year 70, the fate of jerusalem was a foregone conclusion. The roman armies were massed. They were ready to break through. Everyone knew it. It was just a matter of when, but they were going to fight to the death, and many of them did die. So on that fateful morning when they broke through, josephus describes the events of them breaking through the walls, the roman soldiers running through the streets, going into every house. dramatized pouring into the alleys, sword in hand, they massacred indiscriminately all whom they met, and burned the houses of all who had taken refuge within, running everyone through who fell in their way. They clogged the alleys with corpses, and drowned the whole city in blood. The dead bodies of natives and aliens, of priests and laity, were mingled in a mass, and the blood of all manner of corpses formed pools in the courts of god. Its a pretty awful slaughter, and we have lots of evidence of it now, between the artifacts that one finds of the first revolt that are scattered throughout this layer of the archaeological record arrowheads, spears, other kinds of indications of pretty serious handtohand combat in all parts of the city. dramatized towards evening, they ceased the slaughter. But as night fell, the fire gained the mastery, and the dawn broke in flames upon jerusalem. One of the most recent and poignant examples of this comes from the archaeology something called the burnt house which actually shows us one of the houses that apparently was burned during this. All of the furniture and the implements are here in place, with a layer of ash and residue of the burning still quite clear. dramatized the romans set the temple on fire. All that was left was the platform wall that once supported the symbol of the center of the nation of israel. Narrator roman troops sacked the temple and carried off the Sacred Symbols of judaism. Jerusalem, the sacred city; the temple, the center of piety and identity is gone. Its very important that we remember that up to and through the first revolt, christians are still part of judaism, and the revolt and its aftermath is just the beginning of a split, as each group tries to rethink its earlier traditions in the light of the failure of the first revolt. We have to imagine the refugees fleeing from the burning ruins of jerusalem. And as they looked back at the smoke rising against the horizon, they might have remembered the words of the psalm from the first destruction back in the time of the babylonian exile by the waters of babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered zion. Narrator next time. dramatized the romans expected to make an assault upon the fortress. Narrator masada. dramatized . Which they did. Narrator the end of Jewish Resistance to rome. The failure of the first revolt really was a traumatic event for everyone living in the jewish homeland jews and christians alike. As a result, they had to start rethinking their own assumptions. Narrator and the beginning of the gospels. dramatized i am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. Theyre not biographies. Theyre a kind of religious advertisement. What they do is proclaim their individual authors interpretation of the christian message. Narrator telling and retelling stories about jesus. dramatized why are you afraid, have you no faith . And they were filled with awe, and they said to one another, who is this, then, that the wind and sea obey him . Narrator and it is the story of the broken relationship between jews and christians. dramatized but the unbelieving jews stirred up the gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. Luke is reflecting the development of the Christian Movement more away from the jewish roots. Narrator and the conflict between the roman empire and the kingdom of god. Christians could be arrested simply because they bore the name christianus, christian. That was enough, under roman convention, to convict one of a2 capital crime. Narrator next time on from jesus to christ the first christians on frontline. Theres much more to explore at our web site. Watch the program again on line, and explore the archive of material offering a portrait of jesus world. You peel back layer after layer after layer of interpretation. Details on the first christians. We can tell the story by looking at the way they kept his memory alive. Why christianity succeeded. Originally, they were attracted to the claims of salvation, regeneration, eternal life. And the origins of the gospels and their different tellings of jesus life and message. The words that were put in jesus mouth in mark, why have you forsaken me . Plus, explore maps, pictures and background on the rise of christianity. Then, join the discussion at pbs. Org. N from jesus to christ the first christians on is available on dvd. To order, visit shoppbs. Org or call 1800playpbs. Frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontline is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The wyncote foundation. And by the frontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. Additional funding for this program was provided by the Arthur Vining Davis the Arthur Vining Davis foundations. Steves im meeting my florentine friend tommaso at i fratellini, a venerable hole in the wall much loved among locals for its tasty sandwiches and wine sold by the glass. Grazie. Tommaso thank you. And when youre done, you leave it on the rack. Steves boy, its intense in the city. Tommaso yes, it is. Well, if you want to leave the tourists, lets cross the river, and lets go to where the real florentines live and work. Steves whats that . Tommaso the oltrarno area. Steves theres much more to this town than tourism, as youll quickly find in the characteristic back lanes of the oltrarno district. Artisans busy at work offer a rare opportunity to see traditional craftsmanship in action. Youre welcome to just drop in to little shops, but, remember, its polite to greet the proprietor. Your key phrase is, can i take a look . Posso guardare . Man certo. Steves grazie. Here in this great city of art, theres no shortage of treasures in need of a little tlc. This is beautiful. How old is this panting . Woman this is a 17thcentury painting. Steves from florence . Woman we dont know. Maybe the area is genova. Steves genova. Each shop addresses a need with passion and expertise. Fine instruments deserve the finest care. Grand palaces sparkle with gold leaf, thanks to the delicate and exacting skills of craftspeople like this. A satisfying way to wrap up an oltrarno experience is to enjoy a florentine steakhouse, which any italian meat lover knows means chianina beef. The quality is proudly on display. Steaks are sold by weight and generally shared. The standard serving is about a kilo for two, meaning about a pound per person. So, both of those for four people . Woman yes. Steves the preparation is simple and well established. Good luck if you want it well done. Man i am hungry, yeah. Oh, look at this. Ah steves oh, beautiful. [ laughs ] man wow. Steves chianina beef. Woman white beans. Steves okay. Perfect. Man and that one. Steves so, the meat is called chianina. Tommaso thats its name, because it comes from the chianti. Steves oh, from chianti. Okay. And tell me about this concept of the good marriage of the food, you know . Tommaso well, when you have the chianina meat, you want to have some chianti wine, and they go together well. They marry together. We say, si sposano bene. Steves si sposano bene. A good marriage. In other words, the wine is from tuscany, and the meat is from tuscany. Tommaso exactly. You dont want to have a wine from somewhere else. Thats it. Rose welcome to the program and Merry Christmas tonight we celebrate the life of the man who wrote about Christmas Charles dickens. A Christmas Carol First Published in 1843, shaped the way we celebrate christmas today. The converge of scrooge, the kratch chit feast and tiny tims closing words god bless us every one yes minds us of the simple things about the season. Christmas carol emerged not out of a consideration of christmas but out of the parliamentary report of the employment of children in the mines and dickens read it with such disgust and horror he determined, as he said, to strike a sledgehammer blow against such activities. And the book is the direct result of that. Rose Charles Dickens for the hour. Next