The first century was marked by a series of tensions between certain Roman authorities and some Judeans that, in some ways, ultimately culminated in the Judean war and the destruction of the second temple by the Romans in 70 CE. While some Roman governors (procurators) of Judea seemed somewhat attentive to the peculiarities of Judean culture, including its monotheism and some of its laws, others were less so.

Thus, for instance, Josephus relates a story about how the procurator or prefect Pilate (who is also known for his execution of Jesus in about 30 CE) attempted to have Roman standards (decorative shields) with images of the emperor placed within the city walls of Jerusalem (War 2. 169-171 //Antiquities 18.55). (There is a useful online article about Pilate). According to Josephus, the result was a significant, non-violent sit-in by a large crowd of Judeans who were greatly offended by the abrogation of Jewish laws concerning images. When Pilate decided he would have his guards surround the crowds and prepare to threaten death, the response by the Judeans was the extension of their necks in Josephus telling: we’ll die for our God’s laws. Pilate gave in this time, but this sort of incident could not be good for Roman public relations in Jerusalem and Judea. In his histories, Josephus recounts a number of other incidents involving clashes, some more violent than this one with Pilate, between Romans and inhabitants in this Roman province.

Among these incidents is one involving a less than polite Roman soldier in the time of procurator Cumanus (c. 48 CE), whose moon and accompanying rude noises (William Whiston’s translation is somewhat more restrained) ended up resulting in a riot and the death of some Judeans in the crowds during the feast of Passover (Josephus may be exaggerating with his 10,000 dead, though):

“[W]hen the multitude were come together to Jerusalem, to the feast of unleavened bread, and a Roman cohort stood over the cloisters of the temple (for they always were armed, and kept guard at the festivals, to prevent any innovation which the multitude thus gathered together might make), one of the soldiers pulled back his garment, and cowering down after an indecent manner, turned his breech to the Jews, and spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture. At this the whole multitude had indignation, and made a clamor to Cumanus, that he would punish the soldier. The rasher part of the youth, and such as were naturally the most tumultuous, fell to fighting, and caught up stones, and threw them at the soldiers. Upon which Cumanus was afraid lest all the people should make an assault upon him, and sent to call for more armed men, who, when they came in great numbers into the cloisters, the Jews were in a very great consternation. Being beaten out of the temple, they ran into the city. The violence with which they crowded to get out was so great that they trod upon each other, and squeezed one another, till ten thousand of them were killed, insomuch that this feast became the cause of mourning to the whole nation, and every family lamented their own relations” (War 2.223-227; the translation here is William Whiston’s as cited on PACE (with punctuation slightly revised), which also supplies the parallel passage in Josephus’ Antiquities.

These are just two examples of what repeated itself at certain points, contributing to what would become a full revolt in 66 CE.

Judean culture in the second-temple period (c. 500 BCE-70 CE) was diverse. And it is important to remember that what we often call “early Christianity” or, perhaps better, the Jesus-movement was in fact one among many Judean groups or sects in first century Palestine and the Mediterranean diaspora (Jews also lived in Greek and Roman cities outside of Israel).

Among groups within Judaism or Judean culture, we happen to know most about the sects that the Jewish historian Josephus styles as three (or four) Judean “philosophies” (especially in War 2.119-166 and Antiquities 18.11-25, produced in the 70s and 90s CE). The works of Josephus, along with all kinds of supporting information, are available online on the PACE (Project on Ancient Cultural Engagement) site.

In more than one passage, Josephus speaks of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. In one of them he tacks on the so-called “fourth philosophy,” a violent group stemming, Josephus’ claims, from the tax-related rebellion (c. 6 CE) associated with Judas of Galilee and including, in his view, the sicarii assassins of the mid-first century. The difficulty is that Josephus’ account of each of these groups is brief and sketchy, and he has certain axes to grind. It is from Josephus, for instance, that we hear some reliable information that the Pharisees were concerned with the exact interpretation of the law and that they believed in some form of future resurrection (“immortality of the soul”), while the Sadducees did not believe in such a resurrection (War 2.162). Josephus doesn’t hesitate to make value judgements in his descriptions, though. Thus he says that the Pharisees are friendly and nice to the public while the Sadducees treat one another badly and treat outsiders worse (War 2.162).

Our other sources for the groups mentioned by Josephus are likewise not unbiased. One could say that the gospels, especially Matthew, reverse the bias regarding Pharisees in that this Jewish author of Matthew would not feel bad if readers (or hearers) of his writing came away with the notion that “Pharisees” and “hypocrites” were synonyms (see Matthew 23). So we lack clear and detailed information concerning these groups. Discoveries such as the scrolls found on the edge of the Dead Sea since the 1940s may expand our picture of at least one of the groups that Josephus discusses, but the identification of the Dead Sea community as Essenes is uncertain (see Pliny the Elder’s description of the Essenes on the Dead Sea coast in his Natural History, 5.15.17). So our information is meager for even these best known groups, let alone the many other movements that were active in the first century.

Rather than go into the details of what Josephus says about each, what I want to emphasize here is that the ones he mentions in these substantial passages were by no means the only groups. In fact, it seems that Josephus has in mind only the more educated classes in his discussion (hence his use of the designation “philosophies” for his Greek-speaking audience). All four of these groups consisted primarily of the literate, probably less than ten percent of the population at the time. In fact, Josephus explicitly states that the Essenes numbered only in the thousands (he says four thousand in Ant. 18.1.5 [20]), and it is likely that each of the other three were likewise in the thousands at most. So what about the remaining population of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, which would have been into the millions?

Once again, Josephus happens to give us hints in his incidental stories of this or that prophet or “king” (messiah), though he tends not to like these other popular movements within Judea, Samaria, or Galilee. He gathers together a number of cases in just one time period alone, in a collection of what he calls a sampling of “ten thousand disorders” (Antiquities 17.269-285). One example from another period will suffice here, this one involving a prophetic figure named Theudas who gained a following in the 40s CE:

Now it came to pass, while Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan. For he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who, falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. This was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspius Fadus’s government (Antiquities 20.97; trans. by William Whiston cited from PACE).

The Jesus-movement (what we now call “early Christianity”) should be understood, in part, within the context of many popular and not-so-popular Jewish movements and sects in the first century. We need to remember that this was a movement within Judaism, not a separate religion.

In writing this post, my memory was refreshed by Lester L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian. Volume Two: The Roman Period (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), especially pp. 463-554.

History Carnival no. 39 is up over at the History News Network. There Ralph E. Luker guides you to the most recent blogging on various periods of history, including the ancient period.

When studying the New Testament, it is important to consider how these writings were first produced, how they were copied and re-copied by scribes, what errors or corruptions may have been introduced, and how the modern scholar or text critic arrives at what she thinks is closest to the original Greek document produced in the first century. The term textual criticism refers to the modern scholarly practice of determining, as closely as possible, the original text of some ancient writing by sifting through the manuscripts of that writing that have survived. In the case of the New Testament there are over 5,000 manuscripts or fragments to sift through. There is an excellent site on ancient writing techniques, scribal practices, and textual criticism by Timothy Seid (professor at Earlham School of Religion) which I highly recommend as an introduction to these matters:
Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts

The NTGateway also supplies several other useful links on textual criticism.

This is just a reminder to readers and to other biblical-related and cognate blog authors to send me your favourite (and relevant) posts for consideration in the upcoming biblical carnival no. 10 (which is due in at the beginning of October). My email address is pharland at yorku dot ca . (I better start thinking of an angle!)

As Tyler Williams points out, you can also submit posts to biblical_studies_carnival@hotmail.com or via the Blog Carnival page: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_203.html.

(Used in accordance with the guidelines of www.reverendfun.com)

This also reminds me of T-Bone Burnett’s recent lyric:

If we were to pass an eleventh commandment
In twenty years, people would be shocked to learn
That there had once been only ten
And wouldn’t care if there had been

(T-Bone Burnett, “Everytime I feel the shift,” Columbia/DMZ, 2006)

Over on Troels’ blog there is a nice list of his top ten favourite Greco-Roman archeological sites, including slide shows and comments on each. Ostia, a port city of Rome, is also a favourite of mine, particularly because of the abundance of evidence for guilds and associations. Of course, I am also not impartial when it comes to many cities of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), including Aphrodisias, Pergamum, and Nysa (because virtually no one is there–I should post some of my photos from this site) which are among my favourites. Ephesus is wonderful too, but the crowds of tourists can be a distraction. Didyma’s temple of Apollo alone is somewhat overwhelming. I could go on but I won’t.

In teaching early Christianity in a university setting, there are a number of assumptions and views that need to be corrected or dismantled in order to clear the way for students to make better sense of these ancient documents. Something that does not often occur to students and which needs to be highlighted again and again is that Christians of the first three centuries (and even beyond) did not have a New Testament! You heard me.

They did have what they considered scriptures, namely the Jewish writings known as the Law and the Prophets, but the process that led to the collection of writings or canon we now know as the “New Testament” was a long one. (Obviously the notion of the Jewish scriptures being the “Old Testament” would have to await the existence of the “New” one). See Mark Goodacre’s list of links to online resources relating to canon for further discussions. In fact, the earliest evidence we have of any church body establishing a list of authoritative Christian books that coincides exactly with the 27 books now in the New Testament was in 393 CE. Even that emerged out of a local meeting of church authorities in North Africa rather than some “universal” decision that was implemented in some way.

The process that led to the collection of writings that were considered authoritative as scripture, namely the canon, was a long one which I will not detail here, except to note that early on Christians were collecting and using Christian writings of various sorts. Sometimes one community used the same writings as another community, but seldom did everyone agree which ones should be considered “scripture”, if they considered this issue at all. In some cases writings accepted by one community could be utterly rejected as “heretical” by another, as was the case with many “gnostic” writings. The process of choosing the writings that were considered canon and excluding certain other documents was, in some ways, the triumph of one Christian view over another. To provide another example, in the mid-second century Marcion of Sinope had clear ideas of what he would include in an authoritative collection, including the Gospel of Luke and certain letters of Paul, but he did so in a way that tried to excise any passages that seemed to equate the Jewish God with the God who sent Jesus (he thought there were two gods involved).

Others disagreed with Marcion, although some began to agree that it was worthwhile thinking about defining which writings were authoritative. One early list of writings that has survived, known as the Muratorian canon (perhaps from around 200 CE), happens to largely coincide with the books that were later included in the New Testament. But other Christians at this time would make a different list nonetheless, and even the Muratorian canon mentions an Apocalypse of Peter (perhaps the same one available here) which some held to be authoritative but which did not ultimately make it into the New Testament. And the issue of including or excluding the Apocalypse of John, also known as Revelation, continued to be hotly debated into the fourth century, for instance.

Rather than get further into the long and complicated history behind the formation of the canon of scripture, here I wanted to briefly mention one important implication of the non-existence of the New Testament in the first centuries. In particular, the lack of any established, authoritative collection of writings and the variations in the writings used by different Christian groups reflected and further facilitated the continuation of variety or diversity among early Christians. And when there were differences of opinion regarding belief or practice among these diverse Christian groups, there was no set of early Christian writings that everyone could agree was the measure (the meaning of the word “canon” is “measure” or “rule”) or authority to settle disputes regarding what belief or practice was right or wrong.

This means that the modern student of early Christianity should not assume that the views expressed in any one writing are somehow representative of all early Christian views. It also means that we should refrain from solving the dilemnas encountered in studying one early Christian writing by turning to another by a different author, as though they are all the same. Finally, we should consider the writings in the New Testament within the broader context of early Christian literature that did not make it in, and give each its due.

For more on the diversity of early Christianity, see my series on the Christian Apocrypha and “Gnosticism”. For more on the development of the canon, see the resources mentioned on NTGateway.

The ninth edition of the Biblical Studies Carnival is up over at Hypotyposeis.