to a single man from the galilee. and a message so powerful that it moved his unlikely disciples to great things. it s sometimes suggested that a group of fishermen from the galilee would be incapable of establishing a worldwide religion, but that s simply our own modern skepticism. i mean, after all, abraham, a single man, managed to do so and mohammed, a single individual, managed to do so. the human spirit is remarkable if people simply put their mind to accomplishing what they feel god calls them to do. whatever accounts for christianity s success, the debates over what the faith in jesus is and what organized religion should be are far from settled. in the beginning of
so by the end of the 1st century, disagreement had become a deepening divide, further driving christians from the jewish faith. by the time we get to john, we hear talk of those who respected jesus being thrown out of the synagogue. yes, and how the enemies in john s gospel are the jews. it left a terrible legacy in christianity. if you read your gospel carefully, then sometimes you would stop and be rather perplexed by this, because jesus is a jew, his disciples are jews. practically all the characters are jews. so when the jews challenge jesus and his disciples, you should say, hang on a minute, they re all jews. what do we mean by this? they re jewish, and they re writing about other jews, and it s like, i can call my mother names, but you should not call
whom you are persecuting. and when he finds out that jesus is truly alive, it means that the other things that jesus followers say about him must also be considered as true. jesus is the messiah. saul of tarsus who never met jesus in the flesh, never traveled or supped with him and who wanted to kill his followers, becomes the greatest defender of the jesus faith, known to the world by the greek version of his name, paul. some people have called paul the second founder of christianity, because christianity is more than following the teachings of jesus. christianity is not just the religion that jesus had, it s the religion about jesus. it s the religion founded on jesus death and resurrection.
christian leader who aposticized under torture and who denounced jesus christ instead of being put to the sword. we find people mocking it. we find people saying they go to their deaths because they believe that there s life after death and mocking that. but it does seem to have been a driving force that attracted people. life after death, a driving force, despite the romans brutal oppression. but christianity was also addressing the needs of this life. some people have thought that the christians attention to social needs is what attracted people to this faith. here was a community of people that saw one another as brothers and sisters, that gathered together weekly for worship, that took care of the needs of one another, that collected alms for the poor.
but scholars tend to read that passage as symbolic rather than as a literal relationship or secret marriage between jesus and mary magdalene. scholars have not been persuaded over the years that jesus was married. we know of jews from the 1st century, in fact, who were unmarried. and it s striking that the jewish men that we know of who were single and celibate were men who shared the same point of view as jesus. perhaps the biggest problem with the gnostic gospels is that they were written decades and even centuries after the gospels of matthew, mark, luke and john. for some historians, that passage of time raises serious questions of authenticity. the gnostic gospels are not early sources of christianity. they are documents that came into existence way after the actual gospels had come into existence.