The Bible: a new look at an old book
‘O, great Zeus, grant us those things which are well for us though we do not ask
them of thee, and deny us that which is ill for us though we pray to thee for it’.
- Socrates, Hellenic philosopher (5th century BC)
A notable feature of all the world religions is that they possess texts that are revered as sacred
scriptures. These are held to be divinely inspired (with the exception of Buddhism, being in
the main, but not exclusively, non-theistic), and hence serve to prescribe human belief and
conduct. Thus in Hinduism we find the Vedas and Upanishads; in Zoroastrianism, the Zend
Avesta; in Theravada Buddhism, the Pali Canon; in Taoism, the Tao Te Ching; in Judaism,
the Torah and Talmud; in Christianity, the Bible; and in Islam, the Koran.
With 'sacred scripture' the Christian Church has from the earliest times understood both the
Old and New Testaments. The relationship between the two parts of Scripture was worked out
from the second century of the Christian era, the Church being prompted to do so by the
Gnostic rejection of the Old Testament. By approximately the beginning of the fourth century
the present canon had been established, consisting of an Old Testament of 39 books and a
New Testament of 27 books. Collectively they are known as the Bible, from the Greek byblos,
meaning book. We will now focus on selected aspects of the Old and New Testaments in turn.
The Old Testament
The Hebrew scriptures known as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible consist of three
main divisions: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The five books of the Law are also
called the Pentateuch (Greek) and the Torah (Hebrew). It has traditionally been ascribed to the
authorship of Moses and consists of the following books:
Genesis covers the period from the creation of the world until the Israelite patriarchs;
Exodus and Leviticus deal with the Israelite exit from Egypt until the events at Sinai;
Numbers relates the Israelite wandering in the wilderness on their way to Canaan;
Deuteronomy recounts Moses’ farewell speech to the Israelites, including their cultic
obligations towards their God YHWH.
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The Pentateuch is followed by the Deuteronomic history, consisting of the books of Joshua,
Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. Joshua provides the reader with a highly idealised
account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, contradicting the version of events found in
Judges as well as the archaeological evidence. The books of Kings were incorporated into the
Deuteronomic history around 550 BC, after the fall of the southern kingdom. This history is
followed by a further set called the Chronicler, containing the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles,
Ezra and Nehemiah. The Chronicler was apparently finalised during the fourth century BC.
Moses or JEDP
Since early times perceptive readers have noticed the improbability of Moses having authored
the Pentateuch. Apart from relating the details of his own death (Deut 34), a single Mosaic
authorship is undermined by the two versions of creation (Gen 1 and 2), different commands
given to Noah regarding the animals to be taken onto the ark (Gen 6 and 7), and 3 versions of
a husband pretending his wife to be his sister (Gen 12, 20 and 26), to mention only the most
obvious difficulties. Due to meticulous research into the Hebrew text, a consensus arose
among Biblical scholars of the nineteenth century that the Pentateuch is actually a composite
work with the following strands of authorship:
(i) The J source (Yahwist) uses the name YHWH, usually rendered Yahweh, for God in
Genesis. It probably originated in the southern kingdom of Judah during the ninth century BC.
(ii) The E source (Elohist) uses Elohim as the name for God in Genesis. It appears to have
originated in the northern kingdom of Israel during the eighth century BC.
(iii) The P source (Priest) emphasises the cultic obligations of the Israelites towards God. It is
likely to have been written in the sixth century BC, during the Judean exile in Babylon, or
shortly after their return to Palestine.
(iv) The D source (Deuteronomist) dates from around 650 BC. It was discovered in the
Jerusalem temple some 30 years later and stimulated the reforms of King Josiah. At least
chapters 5 to 26 of Deuteronomy could be ascribed to this source.
The Tetrateuch came into being when J, E and P were combined into a single narrative, from
the creation through the Sinai events. It includes the covenants with Noah, Abraham and the
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Israelite people, with its signs of the rainbow, circumcision and the Sabbath, respectively.
After the Babylonian exile D was added to the Tetrateuch to form the Pentateuch, which was
more or less finalised by 400 BC.
The two creation accounts
It is generally accepted among Biblical scholars that the book of Genesis contains two
accounts of creation. The first account is contained in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and forms part of the
Priestly writing. It relates in symbolical language how God created the universe, the Earth,
and all life on earth, including humankind. Unfortunately there are many Christians and
others who read the creation account in Genesis in a literal way, thereby falling into much
confusion regarding the origin and diversity of life. Thus they believe that the world was
created in six 24-hour days around 6 000 years ago, rejecting the scientific evidence for the
vast age of the Earth, as well as the fossil record and the genetic evidence in favour of
evolution. This approach has actually hardened into the doctrine of literal creationism,
especially in that perennial hotbed of extremism, the United States of America. There the
creationists have for several decades been waging a campaign to have creationism taught in
school textbooks, thus far unsuccessfully.
The second account of creation in Genesis is found in chapter 2, verses 4 to 25, forming part
of the Yahwist writing. This account focuses on the creation of Adam and Eve as the ancestral
human couple. According to Genesis, Adam was first created from the dust of the earth, after
which God breathed life into him. Eve was then fashioned from Adam’s side. In this way the
author affirmed that humans receive their life from God, and that man and woman are
intimately connected to each other. After relating the creation of Adam and Eve and their
placement in the Garden of Eden, the narrative in chapter 3 relates the couple’s disobedience
to the will of God and their subsequent expulsion from the Garden.
We will now survey the relationship between ethnicity, history and religion among some of
the peoples referred to in the Old Testament, being a neglected field of study in our times.
Our focus will fall on the Amorites, the Israelites, the Galileans, and the Samaritans
consecutively. In this exercise we will mostly employ insights from Campbell’s work Race
and religion and the scriptural commentary of the Oxford Study Bible.
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The Amorites
One of the major Bronze Age peoples in the Near East was undoubtedly the Amorites. Some
of them are portrayed on Egyptian monuments of the 18th to 20th Dynasties with unmistakable
Nordic features, such as fair complexions and blond hair. This racial characteristic
distinguishes the Amorites from most, if not all, of their contemporaries around Syria and
Palestine, being mostly of Mediterranean racial provenance. In order to pre-empt
misunderstanding, it should be noted that this is a factual statement devoid of racial prejudice
or preference. This caveat will also apply to the remainder of this essay.
A famous Amorite was King Hammurabi, who ruled over his extensive Babylonian Empire
early in the second millennium BC. We read in the epilogue to his famous law-code that the
Amorites worshipped a high god called Adad, who was a sky-god of the elements. This
feature relates Adad to other Nordic sky-gods, such as the Indo-Aryan Ouranos, the Hellenic
Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, and the Germanic Thor/Donar.
The Amorites were probably an early Celtic group, the Celts having started the far-reaching
migrations from their ancestral cradle in the Danube basin around the middle of the third
millennium BC. These migrations would take the Celts westwards into large territories of
Western Europe and eastwards into Asia Minor and the Near East. Regions later known as
Gaul, Britain, Eire (Ireland), Galatia and Galilee were all peopled by these intrepid travellers
and their descendants.
The presence of the Amorites in Palestine is recorded from as early as 2 500 BC. They had an
early seat at Amor, to the north of Gebal/Byblos in modern-day Lebanon, and a stronghold at
Kadesh on the upper Orontes. There is some evidence of the early occupation of Galilee by
the Amorites. For example, Egyptian records relate the story of Sinuhe, who fled Egypt
during the reign of Pharaoh Anenemhet (12th Dynasty, 20th century BC), and who married the
daughter of the Amorite chieftain Ammu-Enshi.
During the second millennium BC the Amorites in Syria and Palestine found themselves
increasingly sandwiched between two powerful kingdoms: the Hittites to the north and the
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Egyptians to the south. For most of this troubled time the Amorites appear to have been in
alliance with the Hittites, so that Pharaoh Thotmes III (18th Dynasty) moved against Kadesh,
captured the Amorite stronghold, and brought Syria and Palestine under Egyptian rule. This
did not prevent the Amorites and Hittites being allied in resisting the Aramean invasions,
including the attacks of the Habiru (possibly referring to the Hebrews), which are so vividly
described in the Amarna letters discovered in the royal archives of Pharaoh Akhnaton.
Further evidence of the close ties between the Amorites and the Hittites is to be found in the
treaty between the powerful Pharaoh Rameses II (19th Dynasty) and the Hittite King
Hattushilish entered into in the year 1272 BC. Under the terms of this treaty, Hittite
domination of Syria and Palestine was acknowledged. Less than a century later, in 1190 BC, a
mighty alliance of Amorites, Hittites and Philistines launched an invasion of Egypt by land
and sea. However, this invasion was repulsed by the vigorous Egyptian defence led by
Pharaoh Rameses III (20th Dynasty).
By the time of the Israelite entry into Canaan during the 12th century BC, the Amorites were
still well established in Palestine, with a royal capital at Hazor, north of the Sea of Galilee,
and with smaller kingdoms at Jerusalem, Hebron and beyond the Jordan.
Akhnaten and Moses
Ever since the discoveries at Tell-el-Amarna in the 19th century, the tragic figure of Pharaoh
Akhnaten (also spelt Akhenaton) has fascinated historians. Living in the 14th century BC, he
became the first person in recorded history to teach a monotheistic religion, thus opposing
himself to the polytheistic religion of the Egyptian priesthood. He built a new capital city at
Amarna dedicated to the Aten, the true God of whom the sun was the visible symbol. There
Akhnaten, his wife Nefertiti and their six daughters lived in relative seclusion from the hostile
priests. However, his wide-ranging religious and social reforms, including the abolition of the
royal hunt, had aroused so much opposition that the army eventually rose against Akhnaten.
Thus it happened that after a peaceful reign of 17 years his royal house came to a fall, and it
was decreed that Akhnaten’s name and those of his three successors at Amarna be removed
from the king-lists and inscriptions. In this way the memory of the great reformer became
banished for three millenniums.
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The relevance of Akhnaten to this essay is to be found in his pioneering monotheism. Since
Moses had not long afterwards led the Israelites out of Egypt and gave the Law centred on the
worship of the one God to them, it was only natural that links between these two towering
figures would be sought. The father of psycho-analysis, Sigmund Freud, published the book
Moses and Monotheism shortly before his death in 1939. In it he suggested that Moses was
actually an Egyptian who had learnt of Akhnaten’s teachings while living in Egypt, and
conveyed it to the Israelites. Even the name for God used by the Israelites, Adonai, could
have been derived from the Egyptian Aten, or Aton. A prominent Jewish leader from America
had earlier visited Freud and tried to dissuade him from publishing, since the Jewish
leadership wished to preserve their ancient doctrine that Moses had received his revelation
directly from God, without any human influence. To the credit of the great Jewish
psychologist, the striving towards truth was more important to him than tribal loyalties.
After the Second World War the pendulum began swinging to the other side. In 1950
Immanuel Velikovsky published his controversial Worlds in Collision, in which he argued
that the impact of celestial bodies gave rise to world-wide myths of cataclysms, including the
10 plagues of Egypt. This was followed two years later by Ages in Chaos, containing a
revised chronology of Egyptian and Israelite history according to which the Exodus occurred
in the 15th century BC, which is two centuries earlier than the generally accepted date. By thus
shifting the time of Moses back to a century before Akhnaten, Velikovsky ruled out the
possibility that the Israelite leader could have been influenced by the Egyptian reformer in
any way. The American Jewish leader who had so earnestly pleaded with Freud earlier, would
no doubt have been delighted with this new development in support of Mosaic uniqueness.
This trend continued during the remainder of the twentieth century, with some historians even
playing down the significance of Akhnaten’s monotheism. However, a drastic departure from
the fashionable historiography occurred with the research of the Egyptologist Ahmed Osman,
himself an Egyptian. In his book Moses and Akhnaten he went even further than Freud by
asserting that the Israelite leader and Egyptian pharaoh was actually one and the same person,
known under different names by their Hebrew and Egyptian followers. According to Osman’s
reasoning, Akhnaten/Moses was an Egyptian prince of the 18th Dynasty, son of Amenhotep
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III, and was raised by Israelite relatives. This was shortly after the time when Joseph had
gained a high position at the Egyptian court and married into the royal family. When
Akhnaten/Moses came of age he became Pharaoh, ruling Egypt for 17 years. Around 1350
BC he was ousted from power by the army and the priests, and fled with his followers to the
Sinai. In the early years of the 19th Dynasty Akhnaten/Moses returned to Egypt to claim the
throne, during which he used his royal sceptre in the image of a bronze serpent. However, he
was unsuccessful and withdrew back into the Sinai where he died. Osman presents some
intriguing arguments for his case, based on Genesis, the Talmud, the Koran, and the Egyptian
records.
One does not have to accept Osman’s daring hypothesis to admit that there was some link
between Akhnaten and Moses, whether personally or in terms of influence. Interestingly, in
the early 1980’s the American composer Philip Glass wrote an opera on Akhnaten, which
includes moving settings of his hymn to the Aten and his love duet with Nefertiti.
The Israelites
The first extra-biblical reference to Israel is to be found in an inscription of the Pharaoh
Merneptah around the year 1220 BC. This records an Egyptian punitive expedition into
southern Palestine, during the course of which Ashkelon, Gezer, Yoanam and Israel were
ravaged. Interestingly, the first three references are to place names, Israel obviously referring
to a tribal entity. However, by the time of Pharaoh Rameses’ great victory barely a generation
later, in 1190 BC, no reference is made to Israel. This omission could imply that Israel had
either not recovered from the earlier Egyptian attack, or that it was by now too far away to be
mentioned.
If the Israelites had indeed sojourned in Egypt (and the Egyptian records are conspicuously
silent concerning such a presence, not to mention their dramatic departure), the most likely
time for an exodus would have been between Merneptah’s death in 1215 and the accession of
Rameses III in 1195 – an interregnum during which Egypt was in a state of anarchy. Allowing
for 40 years of wandering in the Sinai wilderness, as claimed in the Pentateuch, this would
date the Israelite entry into Canaan to the middle of the 12th century BC, in other words
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around the year 1150 BC. This date also appears to correlate with the archaeological
evidence.
Be that as it may, the Israelites (and later the Jews) traced their descent to the patriarch
Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob, and the 12 tribal heads. In fact, also the Christians and
Muslims claim Abraham as patriarch, as exemplar of unswerving faith in God and as
progenitor of Ishmael respectively. However, a dispassionate reading of the book of Genesis
leads to surprising possibilities, which we will now pursue.
According to Genesis, Abram left his ancestral home in Ur of the Chaldees and migrated via
northern Mesopotamia to Canaan, where he dwelt in Hebron on the plain of Mamre. At some
stage Abram fought in a confederation with 4 kings, defeating 5 Babylonian kings as a result.
Further, in a remarkable episode that was much later to receive a profound theological
interpretation by the Apostle Paul, Abram was blessed by the high priest and king of Salem,
Melchizedek, and paid tithes to him. The ‘most high god’ (El Elion in Hebrew) of whom
Melchizedek was high priest could be viewed as identical with the Amorite sky-god Adad.
Salem was referred to as Uru-salem in the Amarna letters, and later became known as
Jerusalem. It would remain an Amorite kingdom until it was captured by David in the late 11th
century BC. This Abram who was blessed by Melchizedek could safely be dated to the first
half of the second millennium BC.
In contrast, the newly named Abraham appears to have had no connection with either Hebron
or Salem, having dwelt at first in southern Canaan at Gerar, and later at Beersheba. At Gerar
we encounter a doublet of Abraham’s earlier attempt to portray his wife Sarah as his sister to
the Pharaoh, this time to the Philistine King Abimelech. It is known that Abimelech lived in
the 12th century BC, which ipso facto rules out an earlier date for Abraham.
This apparent dilemma may be solved by postulating that the editors of Genesis linked
together two different legends: those of the Amorite Abram and the Israelite Abraham. The
two legends were connected through the city of Hebron, where Abram was said to have lived
and where Abraham was claimed to be buried. Furthermore, cuneiform tablets dating from the
first Babylonian dynasty (17th century BC) contain references to the names Abarama and
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Abramrama. It is of interest to note that the name Abraham contains the same consonants as
Hammurabi, further confirming it as an Amorite name. Finally, the Genesis editors attempted
to link the Canaanite presence with a legendary Mesopotamian past by asserting that Isaac’s
wife Rebecca was the granddaughter of Abram’s brother Nahor, who had stayed behind in
Haran several centuries earlier.
Three generations after the Canaanite Abraham the 12 tribes of Israel appeared on the scene,
according to the Genesis account. Their descent was claimed to have been from the sons of
Jacob, but again a divergent interpretation presents itself to the unbiased reader. We read, for
instance, in the apocryphal Testament of Naphthali that an early conflict arose between the
two tribal leaders Joseph and Judah. In this contest only Levi and Benjamin sided with Judah,
the rest of the brothers preferring the leadership of Joseph. This division appears to have had
lasting consequences, since after the death of Solomon his kingdom broke up into a southern
kingdom comprising the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and a northern kingdom of 10 Israelite
tribes. The latter would eventually be deported by the Assyrians and never return, while the
southern tribes would be exiled by the Babylonians. Upon their return to Palestine around 500
BC, the descendants of Judah and Benjamin would become known as the Jewish nation.
An even more interesting picture may be obtained from considering the position of the socalled concubine tribes of Gad, Asher, Dan and Naphthali. According to the Genesis account,
they were the sons of Jacob’s concubines Zilpah and Bilhah, whose father Rotheus was said
to be a Chaldean, in other words most likely an Amorite. Let us consider these four tribes: (i)
Gad dwelt in northern Gilead, east of the Jordan, in a region long occupied by the Hivites, or
Hurrians (Septuagint Khorrios). According to an inscription of King Mesha of Moab, Gad
occupied Ataroth and other cities in Gilead. (ii) Asher is mentioned in an inscription of the
Egyptian Pharaohs Seti I and Rameses II as a Palestinian tribe, dating from some time before
the Israelite entry. The Asherites dwelt in western Galilee, which had been an old Amorite
domain. (iii) Dan was initially found in south-central Canaan, forming a buffer between the
Philistines on the west and the Israelites to the east. In its territory Beth-shemesh was situated,
possibly an ancient sanctuary of the Babylonian sun-god Shamash. Another possibility is that
the name of the early Danite hero Samson was related to Shamash. The tribe later migrated to
the extreme north of Palestine, adjacent to the tribe of Naphthali. They conquered the city of
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Laish and renamed it Dan – hence the expression ‘from Dan to Beersheba’, indicating the
northern and southern extremities of the Israelite territory. (iv) Naphthali occupied eastern
Galilee, in which the old Amorite capital of Hazor was situated. During the Israelite entry into
Canaan, the Hazorite king Jabin summoned half a dozen kings and tribes to fight the nomadic
invaders led by Joshua.
Interestingly, all four of these concubine tribes dwelt on the frontiers of the Israelite
confederation. This geographical fact serves as further evidence that they and their territories
were not conquered by the invading Israelites, but rather that alliances were formed with them
to secure the Israelite position in Canaan.
We may now attempt a tentative reconstruction of the process by which the Israelite
confederation was formed, as proposed by Campbell. Textually it appears likely that two
distinct stories initially lay at the base of the account: firstly, the Joseph story coming from an
Elohistic source and focussing on the Rachel contingent in the north; and secondly, the
Exodus story with its Yahwistic source and focussing on the Leah contingent. At a later stage
the two stories were combined into a continuous narrative when the Elohistic and Yahwistic
accounts were conflated. From this perspective, the Israelites initially consisted of three
distinct groups:
(i) An Amorite contingent consisting of the tribes of Joseph and Benjamin, having migrated
from Babylonia with Abraham as leader. They arrived in Palestine sometime between the 14th
and 12th centuries BC.
(ii) The 6 Leah tribes from the Sinai Desert, with Moses as leader and lawgiver. Their name
for the deity was YHWH, which was eventually adopted by all 12 tribes.
(iii) The 4 concubine tribes were the last to be received into the confederation. In this regard,
the Song of Deborah in the book of Judges reflects a mixture of Amorite and Israelite legends.
The amalgamation of these three groups probably occurred at Hebron, the first capital of the
united Israelite kingdom. This would have been after the conflict between Saul (from the tribe
of Benjamin) and David (from the tribe of Judah). If this reconstruction is correct, it would
imply that no less than half of the Israelite confederation was actually of Amorite descent.
Ethnically speaking, the Israelites were thus a mixture of Nordic and Mediterranean elements.
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The Galileans
It is not difficult to perceive that the name Galilee is related to Gaul, Galicia and Galatia, thus
implying a Celtic origin. By the time of the Maccabean rulers (2nd century BC), the Galilean
region and people embraced the plain of Esdraeleon and the lands of Zebulon, Naphthali and
Asher. According to archaeological evidence, the Israelite penetration of Galilee stopped short
of Mount Tabor. In other words, most of Galilee had remained non-Israelite from the outset,
even though it had nominally been part of the Israelite confederation under kings David and
Solomon.
Very few Christians are aware that the intensely race-conscious Israelites of the south referred
to their northern neighbours as Galilee of the Gentiles.1 This implies that the two groups were
racially and religiously distinct, since only uncircumcised peoples were called Gentiles (to be
precise, Goyim, meaning ‘cattle’). This fact was recognised by the Seleucid and Roman
rulers, both of whom placed Galilee and Judea under different governments. Also in the
cultural sense Galilee had become far more Hellenised than Judea, due in no small measure to
the influence of the Decapolis, the 10 Greek-speaking cities in northern Palestine, of which
Scythopolis was the main centre. For instance, the Greek satirist Menippus hailed from the
Decapolis, and the poet Meleager came from Gadara in northern Galilee.
At the time of Jesus, both Greek and Aramaic were widely spoken in Galilee and Samaria.
According to the testimony of the Roman lawgiver Cicero, Greek was spoken by all literate
people throughout Asia Minor and Syria. In its turn, Aramaic had been the common tongue of
Syria and Phoenicia since the 9th century BC. That Jesus was familiar with Greek may be
inferred from his reference while suffering on the cross to Paradise, which was the Greek
form of the Zoroastrian term for heaven. In addition, he initially spoke Greek to Mary
Magdalene during his first post-resurrection appearance.
The separation between the Galileans and the Judeans appears to have occurred in the 10th
century BC, that is hardly a century after the establishment of the Israelite confederation –
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Readers who are unfamiliar with this sense of racial exclusiveness and xenophobia among the
early Israelites are referred to the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges.
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further evidence of its tenuous nature. According to the apocryphal Book of Tobit, the tribe of
Naphthali ‘fell away from the house of David and from Jerusalem’, in other words from the
Levite priesthood. Later, during the Assyrian captivity, they ‘ate of the bread of the Gentiles
there’. To make matters worse, all of the tribe of Naphthali sacrificed to the idols made by
King Jeroboam in Dan and the mountains of Galilee, except Tobit himself. Incidentally, this
accusation provides a further link between Dan and Naphthali, said to be the sons of Jacob’s
concubine Bilhah, an Amorite.
After the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom around 722 BC and the partial
deportation of its Galilean and Samaritan population, aliens from various parts of the Assyrian
Empire were settled in Samaria. Keeping in mind that Samaria was situated between Galilee
to the north and Judea to the south, the effect of these demographic changes could only be to
separate the Galileans and Judeans even further: physically, politically, and religiously. Thus,
when the southern King Hezekiah decreed that all Israel should come to Jerusalem for the
celebration of the Passover, his messengers went as far as Zebulon, but stopped short of the
territories of Naphthali and Asher. Obviously, by this time (around 620 BC) the Galileans
were reckoned to be beyond the Judaic pale. We learn further from the apocryphal First
Maccabees and from the Jewish historian Josephus that during the Galilean revolt against the
Judeans in the second century BC, the latter were rescued by Simon Maccabeus and taken to
the safety of Judea.
The following steps in the divergence between the Galileans and the Judeans may be
identified. To begin with, there was the Assyrian conquest and subsequent settling of aliens in
Samaria. Later, after the return from Babylonian captivity, Judaism became ever more
insistent on ritual observance of the Mosaic Law, adding the Priestly Code to the Hebrew
scriptures. This was the ‘letter of the law’ that Jesus would subordinate to the ‘spirit of the
law’. Matters were complicated further by the Hellenic conquest under Alexander the Great
and the subsequent Hellenising of the Near East. An interesting observation was made by
Josephus, who was also Roman governor of Galilee, to the effect that the Galileans preferred
to live peacefully under Roman rule, while the Judeans were constantly causing trouble.
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According to the Gospels, many of the Galileans became followers of Jesus from the time of
the Sermon on the Mount. Opposition to Jesus in his home town of Nazareth is briefly
mentioned by Mark, Matthew and John, who obviously did not deem it to have been of much
importance. In his turn, Luke ascribes this opposition as arising from Jesus’ preaching in the
synagogue in Nazareth, after which the townspeople even tried to kill him. However, it is
possible that the Gospel references to Jesus preaching in synagogues in Galilee could be
ascribed to the pro-Judaic editors of the Gospels, since the Judeans had been evacuated by the
Maccabees and would not return to Galilee until after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
The Samaritans and Galatians
The population of Samaria consisted of peoples from various parts of Mesopotamia and Syria,
brought into Palestine by the Assyrian kings after 722 BC. Not to be outdone by the Judeans
to the south, the Samaritans set up a rival temple of their own on Mount Gerizim. In addition,
they used their own version of the Pentateuch, or the Torah. For these deviations from Judaic
orthodoxy, the Samaritans were thoroughly despised by the Judeans, while no love was lost in
the other direction either.
It is of interest to note that the Samaritans also expected a Messiah (meaning ‘Anointed’), but
not in the Davidic sense of a worldly conqueror as in the Judaic expectation. Rather, the
Samaritan Messiah would come as a Revealer (Taheh) of the Truth and Will of God. It is in
this sense that the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (Gospel of John, chapter
4) should be understood. No doubt this exalted messianic expectation contributed to Jesus
holding up a Samaritan as exemplar in one of his greatest parables, vividly contrasting him
with a Judaic priest and a Levite.
As a late branch of the great Celtic tree of migrations, the Galatians migrated from the
Danube valley across the Hellespont into central Asia Minor during the 3rd century BC. There
they had their own kingdom, with a capital at present-day Ankara, until the Roman conquest
in 25 BC. Their Celtic provenance is further demonstrated by the fact that both Jerome and
Sulpicius Severus in the 4th century testified that the Galatian language was similar to the
Celtic tongue found at Treves in the Rhineland. It was to these eastern Celts that the apostle
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Paul would bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ, later confirming it with one of his most
important letters.
Wisdom literature
The third division of the Hebrew scriptures is known as the Writings, also referred to as the
Wisdom literature. It consists of the books Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and the
apocryphal books Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus. Some of the Psalms could also be
added to this category, for examples Psalms 1, 91, 119 and 139. The Writings deal with the
general questions of human well-being, value and dignity, within the context of faith in
YHWH. Its main themes include the conviction of retribution for both good and evil deeds
(i.e. reward and punishment), creation and death, and the mystery of life, which was seen as
incomprehensible. The Wisdom theology became an integral aspect of early Christian beliefs,
for example in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Prologue to the Gospel of John, and the
Letter of James. As such it served as link between the Judaic and Christian religions, and a
most important one.
One of the most enigmatic books of the Bible is Job. It challenges the Deuteronomist theology
of reward and punishment by focussing on the suffering of the righteous individual standing
before God. The core of the dialogue of Job was probably written by the 6th or 5th century BC.
The Psalms were written by numerous authors ranging from the time of Joshua to that of
Ezra, covering a geographical area from Jerusalem to Babylon. The Psalter came to be called
a prayer book by the time of the second Jewish temple. It was used in the Jewish liturgy after
500 BC and in the Christian liturgy from the beginning of the Christian era.
The book of Proverbs is unique among the canonical Hebrew scriptures in that it ignores
major Israelite themes such as the Covenant, Exodus and Sinai, instead employing nonIsraelite wisdom traditions, especially that of Egypt. The oldest portions of the book (chapters
10-22 and 25-29) are pre-exilic and more ‘worldly’, while the latest portions (chapters 1-9)
are post-exilic and more ‘religious’. Proverbs is characterised by dualisms such as good/evil
and rich/poor. It personifies Wisdom and Folly as two women (chapters 1-7), and portrays
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Wisdom as created by YHWH before the rest of creation (8:22-31). This view is also found in
some Egyptian and Babylonian texts.
Another enigmatic Wisdom book is Ecclesiastes. The name is derived from the Greek for
‘assembly’, but the Hebrew original is Qoheleth, meaning Speaker. In its theology and style
the book is unique in the Hebrew scriptures. According to its message, the only valid
intellectual stance for people is that the ways of God are inscrutable, even more so than for
Job. In the long run life is seen as futile, since the same fate befalls good and bad people;
therefore we should enjoy life while we are able to do so. The book was probably written in
the 4th or 3rd century BC in Palestine.
The Song of Songs is yet another unique book in the Bible, being the love song of a young
man and his maiden. It reached its final form in post-exilic times. From early on the book was
interpreted allegorically; for example, the Church has always seen it as an allegory of the love
between Christ and his bride, the Church.
One of the most important apocryphal books is the Wisdom of Solomon, written by
Alexandrian Jews late in the second century or early in the first century BC. It contains a
synthesis of Judean religious ideas and the Hellenic philosophy of Plato and others. Thus we
find in it the concept of the immortality of the soul with rewards and punishments in the
afterlife (chapters 1-5), as against the Old Testament teaching on the resurrection of the body.
Also in its discussion on the nature of Wisdom (chapters 6-9) the book shows Platonic and
Stoic influences.
Interestingly, the book of Ecclesiasticus (literally ‘church book’) was received into the canon
by the early Church and not by the Jewish synagogues. It was written in Hebrew around 180
BC and translated by the author’s grandson into Greek. In its preface the earliest reference is
found of the tripartite division of the Hebrew scriptures that has since become axiomatic: the
Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. As in Proverbs, Wisdom is seen as being created first by
God, so that there is an intellectual purpose in creation. This Wisdom was later identified with
the divine Word, notably in the Gospel of John (1:1-3).
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The New Testament
The primary Christian scriptures, in the sense of not being claimed as such by any other
religion, are known by the collective title of the New Testament. They are divided into the
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the Acts of the Apostles, which is a continuation
of Luke’s Gospel; 21 letters from various apostolic sources, mostly Paul’s; and finally the
Revelation of John, also known as the Apocalypse. We will now present a brief exegesis of
some of the main themes of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, most of the Pauline letters,
and the letter to the Hebrews. Our main sources will again be the Oxford Study Bible and
Campbell’s Race and religion, the latter pertaining to the relationship between Jesus and Paul
on the one hand and Judaism on the other.
The Gospels
A clear literary dependence exists between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, called
the synoptic Gospels because their narratives can be viewed alongside each other. In contrast,
the Gospel of John contains a mostly independent narrative. Since the nineteenth century
there has been a scholarly consensus known as the two-document hypothesis, which may be
presented as follows:
(i) The priority of Mark, which was used by both Matthew and Luke;
(ii) Matthew and Luke also make use of a sayings source (Q, for Quelle) not found in Mark;
(iii) Each of the 3 synoptic Gospels also contains unique material.
Matthew
Although the Gospel of Mark was the first to be completed, Matthew’s version appears to
have been more popular, since far more early papyri of the latter have been discovered. There
has for a long time been a tendency to view Matthew as being the most ‘Jewish’ of the
Gospels. For instance, the author attempts to portray Jesus as the Davidic Messiah and as the
fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy. Thus we find descriptions of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in
Judea, the family’s flight to Egypt, etc. It is known from extra-biblical sources that King
Herod died in 4 BC, so if Matthew’s account is accurate, then Jesus had to be born not later
than that date.
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A major problem arises with Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. In the first place it is
chronologically impossible, since there is a discrepancy of several centuries between the
genealogy and the known dates for the Babylonian captivity and the reign of David.
Furthermore, Matthew’s genealogy showing the Davidic descent of Jesus through Joseph
contradicts the classical Christian belief in the virgin birth and divine fatherhood of Jesus.
From the third chapter of the Gospel onwards, Matthew closely follows the narrative of Mark
while still trying to demonstrate Jesus as the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy.
However, it should be pointed out that Matthew includes the Sermon on the Mount, which
begins with nine blessings, none of them counterbalanced by curses as in Deuteronomy 27
and 28. This is followed by a discourse of Jesus in which He spiritualises the Mosaic Law
radically, giving it an inward meaning in his discussion of six contentious topics (5:21-48).
Also, at the end of the Gospel we find the risen Christ’s commission to his followers to
evangelise the Gentiles (28:19), thus extending the Christian ministry far beyond the limits of
Israel (10:5-6). Interestingly, the atheistic French-Jewish philosopher Jacques Derrida labelled
Matthew an 'anti-Semite', so perhaps the conventional view of this evangelist has been an
unbalanced one.
Mark
Since the beginning of modern Biblical scholarship, Mark has been acknowledged to be the
earliest of the Gospels. Its writing was dated to some time after 70 AD, due to its reference to
the destruction of Jerusalem. However, a fragment of Mark 6:52-3 has been discovered at
Qumran, which indicates a date before 68 AD when the Essenes abandoned Qumran.
The Gospel of Mark is also the shortest one, beginning with the ministry of John the Baptist
and ending with the empty grave of Jesus. Mark does not provide a genealogy of Jesus, like
Matthew and Luke, or a prologue on the pre-existence of the divine Word, like John. Being a
collection of oral traditions regarding Jesus, it provides what is probably the most accurate
account of Jesus’ ministry. The style of Mark is concise and matter-of-fact, and the most
important theme is Christ’s victory over the demonic forces. A further notable theme is the
requirement for secrecy regarding Jesus’ identity, applied to both the disciples and the
demons – the so-called ‘Messianic secret’.
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In this Gospel the entire narrative is set in Galilee, except for the last dramatic week that
unfolds in Jerusalem. While in he was in Galilee, Jesus was never called son of David,
hearing it for the first time on his way to Jerusalem uttered by a blind beggar. Once, while
teaching in the Temple (12:35), Jesus argued that the Messiah could not be the son of David,
by quoting from Psalm 110 that deals with the priest-king in the tradition of Melchizedek. No
mention is made by Mark of Jesus being the Judaic Messiah, born in Bethlehem, his Jewish
descent, and so forth. It is nonetheless possible that Jesus was born in another town called
Bethlehem which was in Galilee, not far from Nazareth. One of the crucial moments in the
Gospel narrative is Peter’s confession of Jesus being the Messiah. However, it is countered by
Jesus who predicted that the Son of Man would suffer, die and be resurrected – in contrast to
the prevailing view of a conquering Davidic Messiah (8:27-33).
Most of the early manuscripts of Mark end with the empty tomb (at 16:8), without the postresurrection appearances mentioned by Matthew, Luke and John. Yet it should be mentioned
that Mark does record Jesus’ prediction of his resurrection (14:28), and that he would
afterwards go ahead of the disciples to Galilee. Furthermore, Mark’s epilogue (16:9-20)
contains definite resemblances to the post-resurrection accounts of the other three Gospels. It
is therefore wrong and irresponsible to use the ending of this Gospel as an argument against
the resurrection of Christ, as many have done.
Luke
The Gospel of Luke is actually the first part of a two-volume work that also contains the Acts
of the Apostles. The introductory verses (1:1-4) represent an early example of self-awareness
as a writer. It is also of interest that the text contains a number of passages that would become
important hymns in early Christian worship: the Ave Maria (1:28, 42); the Magnificat (1:4655), echoing the song of Hannah found in 1 Samuel, chapter 2; the Benedictus (1:68-79); and
the Song of Simeon (2:29-32). Various musical settings of these texts have been undertaken
by many composers until the present day. Particularly impressive is the Magnificat that
concludes the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin by Monteverdi, and the Ave Maria of
Bach/Gounod.
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In this Gospel, as in that of Mark, no mention is made of Herod or the flight to Egypt. This
would be in agreement with the usually reliable Jewish historian Josephus, who likewise does
not mention a slaughter of children by Herod. Instead, Luke provides John the Baptist with a
Judaic background, while the other Gospels portray him as an unorthodox preacher in the
wilderness, preparing the way for Jesus’ proclamation of the heavenly kingdom. Furthermore,
Luke tries even harder than Matthew to portray Jesus as an orthodox Jew, by having him
circumcised on the eighth day and presented in the Temple on the fortieth day, his family
visiting Jerusalem each year for Passover, and so forth. Luke’s dating of Jesus’ birth is also
problematic: according to Josephus, the only census and taxation in the time of Emperor
Augustus and Governor Cyrenius was in AD 6, which took place 10 years after the death of
Herod, and between 5 and 10 years after the birth of Jesus. Thus the birth stories of Matthew
and Luke contradict both each other and the extant historical evidence.
The genealogy provided by Luke mentions 42 generations from Jesus to David, in contrast to
the 28 generations in Matthew. This is not only a huge difference in time, but different names
are also found in the two genealogies claiming to cover the same period. From the third
chapter of the Gospel onwards Luke follows Mark closely. It is therefore possible that the first
two chapters of both Matthew and Luke were later interpolations to show a Davidic descent
for Jesus. Only once in the rest of Luke is Jesus referred to as son of David, by the blind
beggar, which is a repetition of the account found in Mark.
Another noteworthy aspect of this Gospel is that the genealogy of Jesus stretches all the way
back to Adam, in other words beyond the Israelite limits of Matthew’s version. This is done to
confirm Jesus’ kinship with all of humankind. Also, the lineage does not go through David’s
royal progeny as in Matthew, but through Nathan. Jesus’ descent therefore appears less
exclusive and more universally human, like the Gospel itself. In Jesus’ first sermon, delivered
in the synagogue of his home town Nazareth, he cited examples of God’s goodness to
Gentiles in the Old Testament. With this action, Jesus demonstrated the universality of his
mission, which so infuriated the Nazarenes that they tried to kill him.
In Luke’s account the sermon of Jesus containing the Beatitudes is delivered on a plain, not
on a mountain as in Matthew. A further distinction between the two accounts is that Luke
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adds woes to the blessings. It is also interesting to note that later in his ministry, when Jesus
said ‘Your faith has saved you’ to the woman who had anointed his feet with myrrh (7:50)
and ‘Your faith has healed you’ to the woman who had suffered from haemorrhages (8:48), he
uses the same Greek words. As in Matthew’s account, Jesus refutes the Judaic view of the
Messiah as being David’s son by quoting from Psalm 110, thus linking himself to the royal
priesthood of Melchizedek.
The Passion story of Luke and John is dissimilar in detail to that of Matthew and Mark. This
could possibly be ascribed to the existence of more than one tradition regarding the Passion of
Jesus in the early Christian community. For example, according to Luke and John it was
Satan who had inspired Judas to betray Jesus, but this is not mentioned by Matthew and Mark.
At the Last Supper, Jesus refers to a new covenant that was prophesied by Jeremiah (chapter
31). This covenant would be an internal one on the hearts of believers, not an external one on
stone tablets. We find another divergence with Judaic belief in this teaching of Christ.
In his trial before the Jewish authorities, Jesus refused to admit that he was the Messiah, while
in his trial before the Roman authorities he refused to admit that he was king of the Jews. The
Roman procurator Pontius Pilate proclaimed Jesus to be innocent three times, but reluctantly
yielded to the Sanhedrin’s threats and handed him over for crucifixion. Viewed in this light, it
appears that Pilate has been unfairly treated by the Christian Church ever since, being blamed
for Christ’s death. However, to the credit of the Church it should be mentioned that since
early times Pilate’s wife has been venerated as a Christian saint, due to her intercession for
Jesus before her husband. Of further interest is the fact that only Luke among the Gospels
restricts the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to Jerusalem and its vicinity. This links the
narrative to the beginning of Acts with a similar geographical locus, ostensibly in order to
reinforce the later claim of the Jerusalem church and its leaders to primacy of authority in the
early Christian community.
John
This Gospel has traditionally been viewed as the most theological of the four; it is also the
fount of Christian mysticism. It was probably written at Ephesus by the disciple of the same
name, known as John the Theologian in the Eastern Orthodox churches. However, the critical
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assignment of the Gospel to date from the end of the first century has been undermined by
recent archaeological and papyrological evidence that place the date of John as early as the
middle of the first century. This early dating of 20 to 30 years after the earthly life of Jesus is
compatible with the tradition that John had been the youngest of the disciples, thus giving him
many years to reflect on the meaning of the Christ events before writing it down.
The Gospel claims to be an eyewitness account of Jesus’ ministry. There is no convincing
reason to doubt this claim. The only place in John where Jesus admits to being Judean is in
his discussion with the Samaritan woman who took him to be Jewish. She defended the
Samaritan worship at Mount Gerizim, but Jesus replied that the Father is worshipped neither
there nor at Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth (4:19-24). This shows the universally spiritual
nature of Jesus’ teaching, above and beyond all tribal or national religions. Jesus then
admitted to being the Messiah (4:25-26), which should be seen in the context of the Samaritan
messianic expectation of one who reveals the divine truth rather than a Davidic conqueror.
A theme in the writings of John that would exert enormous influence on Christian theology is
his identification of Jesus with the divine Word (Greek Logos) that became flesh. This
appears in the Gospel prologue (1:1-18), the first letter (1:1), and the Revelation (19:13). In
the Gospel John also employs recurrent pairs of contrasts such as light/darkness, life/death,
and spirit/flesh. Interestingly, John mentions three Passover festivals (2:13, 6:4, 11:55), of
which Jesus attended two in Jerusalem. He also described other visits to Jerusalem for Jewish
festivals (5:1, 7:14). On the other hand, the Synoptic Gospels only mention one Passover and
one visit to Jerusalem – the very one on which Jesus was crucified.
The first twelve chapters of John following the prologue are called the Book of Signs,
testifying to acts of power by Jesus. These miraculous deeds point to truth that is only
accessible by faith. It is noteworthy that after the miracle of the bread and fish Jesus withdrew
to the hills on his own, to prevent the crowd from proclaiming him as king. Later, in his trial
before Pilate, Jesus would likewise reject kingship and oppose it with his own witness to the
truth. During the feast of the Tabernacles there had been division among the crowd who had
listened to Jesus’ speech whether he was the Messiah or not. However, the possibility of Jesus
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being the Messiah was dismissed out of hand by the Pharisees, who pointed out that the
Messiah could not come from Galilee (John 7:52).
Nowhere in the Bible is the conflict between Jesus and his Jewish opponents portrayed more
vividly than in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John. Without leaving any room for doubt
Jesus dissociated himself from Judaism and the Mosaic Law upon which it is founded. He
brilliantly employed a series of antitheses, such as light/darkness, the world above/this world,
freedom/slavery, and truth/lie to illustrate his standpoint. In each pair the first term is applied
to Jesus and his followers, and the second term to his Jewish opponents. The latter were
castigated for being followers of the father of lies and hence children of the devil. The Jews
then replied with their ultimate term of abuse by calling Jesus a Samaritan. When he asserted
his pre-existence before Abraham, the infuriated Jews tried to kill him, but Jesus escaped
from their sight.
During the aforementioned altercation Jesus had disassociated himself from the Mosaic Law
by referring to it as ‘your own law’ (8:17). The Jewish authorities reacted by banning all who
acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah (9:22), as they would later also do with the Jewish
Christians. While attending the festival of the Dedication (Hannukah) in Jerusalem, Jesus
again refused to be acclaimed as Messiah (10:24-25). The raising of his friend Lazarus from
the dead would prove to be the final straw for the Sanhedrin in plotting Jesus’ death (11:4553). The reference by Jesus to the Gentiles as the ‘scattered children of God’ (11:52) did not
endear him to the Jewish leadership either, to put it mildly, but gave further confirmation of
the universality of his mission.
The final week of Jesus’ earthly life commenced with his triumphant entry into Jerusalem,
which has ever since been commemorated annually by Christians as Palm Sunday. In view of
the fervent messianic climate of the time, it is not surprising that he was hailed as king of
Israel by the Judean inhabitants of the city. Moreover, Jesus’ entry took place shortly after he
had raised Lazarus from the dead, news of which had spread like wildfire, to the chagrin of
the Jewish leadership (John 12: 9-19).
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The Book of Signs is summarised in chapter 12, verses 37-50. After all his miraculous deeds
and inspired teachings, his own people (that is, the Jews) did not believe in Jesus, but many in
positions of authority believed – albeit secretly on account of the Pharisees. The Gospel then
presents the Last Supper as setting for a series of farewell discourses of Jesus to his disciples
(chapters 13-17). It is fitting that the traitor Judas should leave just before these discourses, so
that the mysteries of the Kingdom might be shared with the remaining disciples.
The Gospel of John provides the reader with a moving description of Jesus’ trial before the
Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. To Pilate’s question whether he is the king of the Jews,
Jesus replied that his kingdom is not of this world. When further pressed by Pilate whether he
is a king at all, Jesus answered that he came to the world to bear witness to the truth. Pilate
then tried several times to have Jesus released (18:38, 19:4, 6 and 12), but the Jewish mob led
by the chief priests vehemently insisted on his crucifixion, even threatening Pilate with the
emperor. The Romans finally yielded to the incessant pressure and crucified Jesus, with an
inscription that he was the king of the Jews fastened to the cross. The bitter irony of this act
does not escape the reader.
Finally, John provides more extensive post-resurrection appearances by Jesus (chapters 2021) than related in the Synoptic Gospels. This includes appearances to Mary Magdalene, the
apostles without Thomas, the apostles with Thomas, and the apostles at the Sea of Tiberias.
As a whole the Gospel of John provides more spiritual insights than any of the synoptic
Gospels, although the latter are valuable for the details of Jesus’ ministry that they contain. It
became the custom of the Church at an early stage to divide the 4 Gospels into sections to be
read on consecutive Sundays, so that their entire content is covered during the course of the
liturgical year that commences on 1 September.
Cultural background
In their thought-provoking book The Jesus Papyrus, the researchers Carsten Thiede and
Matthew d’Ancona provide evidence of the multilingual society of first century Palestine.
Thus Hebrew was the religious language and Aramaic the everyday language of the Jews,
while Greek was the cultural language and Latin the administrative language. Even the Essene
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community at Qumran was not culturally isolated, in spite of their world-rejection: no fewer
than 25 Greek documents have been found there.
As far as Jesus and his followers are concerned, it has become a commonplace among
Christian writers and preachers to refer to Jesus the humble carpenter, Peter the simple
fisherman, and similar clichés. However, this appears to be an over-simplification, to put it
mildly. The three disciples of Jesus from Beth-saida either had Greek names (Andrew and
Philip) or were given one (Cephas became Peter). Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth was situated
only 6 km from the Galilean capital Sepphoris, where a theatre for Greek plays has been
excavated, capable of seating an audience of 5 000 people. This shows that there must have
been large numbers of Galileans familiar with Greek tragedy and comedy – evidence of a
refined culture.
It is possible that the stepfather of Jesus, Joseph, was a builder rather than a carpenter, and
Jesus possibly also. The Greek tekton (e.g. in Matthew 13:55) means carpenter or builder, or
any craftsman for that matter. From the Gospels it appears that Jesus’ first language was
Aramaic, while he also read Hebrew and spoke Greek. When referring to his hypocritical
Judaic opponents, the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus was fond of using the terms hypokrisis and
hypokritai (see for instance Matthew, chapter 23). This was borrowed from Greek drama,
where these terms meant play-acting, and actor or pretender, respectively. It is likely that
Jesus became acquainted with this terminology at the Sepphoris theatre. Furthermore, it is
pertinent to note that after his resurrection Jesus spoke initially in Greek with Mary
Magdalene, and then in Aramaic (John 20:14-18).
It is well known that the entire New Testament (with the possible exception of Matthew’s
Gospel) was written in Greek. This fact confirms that the earliest Christian Church used
Greek as literary language, even if most of its members spoke Aramaic or other languages.
Among the New Testament writers it is especially Paul who impresses with his knowledge of
the Greek language and culture. He quotes various Greek authors in his speeches in the Acts
of the Epistles and in his epistles. Also, Paul’s court appearance in Caesarea before King
Agrippa (Acts 26) contains an allusion to Aeschylus. From this evidence it is clear that Jesus,
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the apostles and the early Christians in general were not uneducated simpletons – contrary to
popular opinion.
Jesus and Judaism
For the majority of Christians of all persuasions it is a matter beyond dispute that Jesus of
Nazareth was a Jew, and that the Christian religion arose directly out of Judaism. Any attempt
to question this double assertion is usually met with hostility and even persecution. In the
belief that all claims to the truth should be open to examination, we will now proceed to
investigate this contentious issue.
Regarding the textual evidence, we find references to the Israelite descent of Jesus mainly in
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and in some utterances of Paul in his letters (e.g. Romans
1:3 and 2 Timothy 2:8). Jesus never referred to himself as son of David, but rather as son of
Man or Son of God. The Pauline witness to the Israelite descent of Jesus could be ascribed to
his intense desire for the whole of Israel to be saved. Then again, it could be interpolations by
later pro-Judaic editors, as we find in the Gospels also.
In Judaism, the national religion of the Jewish people, the prophetic era had ended several
centuries before Jesus of Nazareth appeared on the Palestinian scene. Judaism had become
dominated by the ritual law, embodied in the Priestly Code that was added to the Pentateuch
to complete the Torah around the year 400 BC. Through meticulous observance of the Mosaic
Law, the Jews strove to win the favour of their god YHWH, but purely for worldly benefits.
There was no belief in a spiritual afterlife, since the dead all go to a dark, silent underworld
called Sheol (see Psalms 6:5 and 115:17; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Isaiah 38:18). The only hope was
for a Yahwistic theocracy, initially based on the promise made to Abraham of all the land
from the Nile to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18-21). With the advent of the Messianic
conqueror, all the Gentiles would be subjected to Israel and the world would be ruled from
Jerusalem (see Psalms 2 and 149, for example).
An interesting exception to this rule was the Zadokite party among the priesthood, who took
the Israelite prophets seriously, and thus believed in repentance and forgiveness. This
continuation of the ancient Israelite faith placed the Zadokites in firm opposition to the
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Pharisees. It is quite conceivable that some Zadokites numbered among the ‘many of the
priests’ who accepted salvation in Jesus Christ (Acts 6:7), before the open persecution of the
early Christians by the Jewish leadership began.
The public ministry of Jesus began with his baptism in the Jordan by the prophet John, called
the Forerunner in the Orthodox churches. This was a rite foreign to Judaism, in which
circumcision is the rite of entry into the faith. It is true that the word baptizo (to dip) is found
several times in the Septuagint, but not once in the Christian understanding of the term. While
circumcision is a rite undergone by Jewish boys on the eighth day in order to receive the
inheritance of Abraham, baptism signifies the beginning of the Christian life, following Jesus’
example, and equally so for male and female. Baptism is thus the primary sacrament of the
Christian faith, whereby the latter is consciously dissociated from Judaism.
Another fundamental difference between Judaism and the religion of Jesus is to be found in
their teachings on the devil. In the Hebrew scriptures Satan is nowhere seen as the tempter to
do evil, but rather as God’s adversary. A prime instance is the description of Satan appearing
as adversary or accuser before the heavenly court, to undermine the relationship of God with
Job (Job 1:6-12, 2:1-7; see also Zechariah 3:1-2). An illuminating curiosity is found in the
two accounts of David’s decision to conduct a census of Israel. According to the one account
(2 Samuel 24:1), YHWH in his anger incited David to take a census. But in the other account
(1 Chronicles 21:1) we read that it was Satan who incited David to make a census. This
apparent identification of Satan and YHWH would later be continued by the Christian
Gnostics in their rejection of the Hebrew scriptures.
In contrast, Jesus portrayed Satan as a sinister spirit always trying to tempt people unto their
own destruction, as he personally experienced after his baptism. Thus Satan is pointed out as
the author of the Pharisees’ lies, and in the book of Revelation we read of Jesus’ warnings
against the synagogue of Satan (2:9, 3:9). This teaching of Jesus on the devil is reflected in
the apostolic warnings abounding in the letters of Paul, John, Peter, and James.
Perhaps the most fundamental divergence between Judaism and the religion of Jesus is found
in their respective views of God. In Judaism the national god YHWH is not held to be the
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only god (as Allah is in Islam), but rather the only one to be worshipped, and moreover he is a
jealous god who becomes vengeful when other gods are worshipped (Exodus 20:3-5). Thus
YHWH became angry with Solomon for building altars to the gods Kemosh and Milcom, and
to punish the Israelite king he raised up adversaries to wage war against him (1 Kings 11).
Strictly speaking, therefore, Judaism cannot be called a monotheistic faith, but rather a
henotheistic one. Neither is Christianity with its foundational doctrine of the Holy Trinity
really a monotheistic faith. Among the religions of Middle Eastern origin, only Islam can
claim to be purely monotheistic.
Jesus consistently prayed to his Father in heaven, in other words his Heavenly Father. It is of
major significance in this regard that Heavenly Father is the ancient Indo-European name for
God: thus the Indo-Aryans prayed to Dyaus Pitar, the Hellenes to Zeus Pater, and the
Romans to Ju-piter. The Heavenly Father is the universal God of all humanity, as against the
Jewish national god. Thus Jesus addressed the Lord’s Prayer not to YHWH but to the
Heavenly Father, following the tradition of his Amorite prototype Melchizedek who
worshipped the Most High God. While the Hebrew scriptures teach the fear of YHWH, Jesus
emphasised the love of God. For YHWH to become the Heavenly Father would have required
a radical transformation, so to speak, in the period between the Old and New Testaments. It
would be more reasonable to acknowledge that Jesus and his Jewish opponents held two
divergent God-concepts.
The public ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem lasted for only five days, beginning with his
cleansing of the Temple and ending with the curtain in the latter being torn from top to
bottom. This could be interpreted as symbolising a radical purification of the religion of Israel
and its opening up to all those called by God through Christ, into which the great Apostle Paul
would lead the Gentile world for all the ages to come.
Acts of the Apostles
This second volume of the composite work that also includes the Gospel of Luke was written
by a cosmopolitan author, which according to tradition was the physician Luke. In this work
the author displays a wide acquaintance with the Hellenic culture and Roman political
organisation. The fast-moving narrative describes a progression of the Church from a small
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group in Jerusalem, through Pentecost (chapter 2) and the first apostolic council (chapter 15),
to a universal movement that embraced the imperial capital Rome.
The communal ownership of property in the early Christian community (2:44/5; 4:32) has
been claimed by some as evidence that the early Church was a precursor of communism. In
reality, it was a common practice among apocalyptic religious communities at the time, found
also among the Essenes at Qumran for instance. However, the story of Ananias and Sapphira
who were stricken with death for handling only a portion from the sale of their property to the
apostles, so contrary to the spirit of the Gospel and the letters of Paul, is more reminiscent of
the vengeful tribal deity found in many pages of the Old Testament than the heavenly Father
of Jesus.
In Peter’s second sermon at Jerusalem, he linked Jesus with the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. The Church was thus presented as a continuation of Israel. This perspective would be
refined by the powerful Greek-speaking orator Stephen in his speech before the Sanhedrin. In
it he recapitulated the Israelite history of salvation from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob,
Joseph, Moses (described in terms reminiscent of a Hellenistic divine hero), Joshua, David
and Solomon. By building the first Israelite temple the latter had actually dishonoured God,
who lives in heaven and on earth. Stephen proceeded to accuse the Jews of killing the
prophets and murdering Christ – a charge based on historical facts. However, this
uncomfortable truth so enraged the Jews that they stoned the Christian orator to death. In this
way Stephen became the first Christian martyr.
Stephen’s death was followed by a violent persecution by the Jews of the Hellenic Christians
(8:1), but not of the Jewish Christians who had remained loyal to the Mosaic Law and temple
worship. This led to the Hellenic Christians being scattered through Judea and Samaria,
preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in those regions. Among these evangelists the most
notable was Philip, who converted many of the Samaritans. We encounter Philip again much
later in the narrative, living in Caesarea with his four daughters that possessed the gift of
prophecy, when they would be visited by Paul.
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The most conspicuous figure in the earliest Christian community now makes his appearance
on the scene. We read of Paul’s famous conversion to the new faith in Jesus Christ on the
road to Damascus, where he would be baptised by Ananias. In the Syrian capital he preached
in the synagogue and proved to the Jews that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. As a result, the
Jews plotted to murder Paul, but he escaped to Jerusalem, where he was introduced to the
apostles. But there the sequence of preaching in the synagogue and a Jewish plot to kill him
repeated itself. For Paul’s safety his fellow Christians then sent him away to his home town of
Tarsus in Asia Minor.
However, there are some discrepancies in the New Testament regarding Paul. According to
Acts, he often preached to the Jews in the synagogues, but in his letter to the Galatians (1:16,
2:8) the apostle stressed his mission among the Gentiles only. In fact, the post-conversion
account in Acts (chapter 9) differs significantly from Paul’s own account (Galatians 1:132:10). According to the latter, he only went to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, and
met Peter and James alone among the apostles. We will return to this aspect further on.
One of the crucial events related in Acts is Peter’s vision of the ‘unclean’ animals (10:9-16).
In this vision God annulled the Jewish food laws as being invalid for the Christian
community, thus making a clear distinction between Jew and Christian. As a result Peter
understood that God has no favourites, but accept the righteous in every nation (10:34-35).
The myth of the Jews being the chosen people of God was thereby shattered in this revelation.
The Gentile mission of the earliest Church was centred in Antioch, being the third city of the
Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria. The Jewish Christians Paul and Barnabas led this
mission, having agreed as such by the other apostles. It is of interest to note that from the
outset the Gentile Christians were admonished to send alms to their Jewish-Christian brethren
in Judea, but no mention is made of the reverse being required. The latter province had been
ruled by Herod Agrippa (AD 41-44), appointed to the throne by the Emperor Claudius (4154). To please the Jews, Herod had the apostle James (brother of John) beheaded and Peter
imprisoned. After Peter’s miraculous escape from prison he left Jerusalem, after which James
became the leader of the Jerusalem church. No further mention of the remaining twelve
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apostles is made in Acts. Interestingly, the contemporary historian Josephus confirmed the
account of Herod’s divine acclamation and sudden death (Antiquities XIX, 8.2).
We read in Acts of three missionary journeys undertaken by Paul to the Gentiles,
accompanied on the first by Barnabas and on the second by Silas. During the first journey
Paul gave a sermon in the synagogue at Galatian Antioch (i.e. in Asia Minor), in which he
presented aspects of Israelite history as having been a necessary preparation for the Christian
faith. However, Paul’s sermon in this case does not reflect the sophisticated Christology and
eschatology of his letters. It is of course possible at that early stage that he was still in the
process of refining his thought, as is the case with any great thinker.
At the end of the first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas returned to their home base of
Antioch. Some time afterwards they went to Jerusalem to meet with the other apostles, in
what has ever since been called the first apostolic council, traditionally dated to AD 49 or 50.
This was called to settle a controversy that had arisen over the insistence of some Jewish
Christians that the Mosaic Law, including the ritual of circumcision, was a prerequisite for all
Christians. We now encounter some discrepancies between the account of the council in Acts
(chapter 15) and Paul’s letter to the Galatians (chapter 2):
(i) Peter claimed to have received his Gentile mission from God (Acts 15:7), but according to
Galatians (2:7-8) he was sent to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles.
(ii) The compromise on keeping parts of the Mosaic Law (Acts 15:20) is not mentioned in
Galatians, only the dual missions and the need to remember the poor in alms giving.
(iii) According to Acts, the Judaisers were not sent by the Jerusalem church (15:24), but
Galatians insists that they were sent by James himself.
These are not the only problems we come across in the narrative. Before embarking on the
second missionary journey, Paul is said to have separated from Barnabas over the issue of
John Mark (Acts 15:36-40), but according to Galatians chapter 2 the split was due to the
matter of table fellowship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. In addition, Paul had his
companion Timothy circumcised for the sake of the Jews (Acts 16:3), but he refused to
succumb to having Titus undergo the same painful ritual (Galatians 2:3). It is also of interest
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that Paul’s Roman citizenship (Acts 16:37, 22:25) is never mentioned in his letters, but that is
perhaps due to their mainly theological and pastoral intent.
At the time of Paul’s visit to Athens, the Hellenic city had been the intellectual centre of the
western world for several centuries. This would be the setting for Paul’s debates with
unnamed Greek philosophers, as described in the seventeenth chapter of Acts. In a profound
speech on the Areopagus (literally, Mars Hill), the itinerary apostle linked the altar dedicated
by the Greeks to the Unknown God with the Heavenly Father of Jesus Christ. He argued that
this God is the Creator of heaven and earth and all life, and does not dwell in shrines built by
human hands. Furthermore, He is the Creator of all humans from one stock, having also
determined the history and territory of their nations. We are created to seek this God, who is
the ground of our life, movement, and existence.
To reinforce his argument on Mars Hill, Paul quoted from the work Phaenomena by the poet
Aratus to the effect that humans are the offspring of God. But this is not all: God has ended
the age of ignorance and commands universal repentance, for the sake of judgement by Jesus
whom He had resurrected from the dead. This latter statement by Paul proved to be
problematic to his audience, since some of them though that the resurrection (Greek
anastasis) referred to the Greek goddess Anastasia. Nonetheless, we are told that a few joined
Paul and became believers, including Dionysius (who according to tradition would become
the first bishop of Athens) and Damaris.
Although Paul was a highly learned man, judging by the fine Greek and brilliant reasoning of
his letters, besides being an impressive orator, he did not deign it beneath his dignity to earn
his living as a tent maker. According to Acts (18:1-3), he made tents while living with Aquila
and Priscilla in Corinth. This became an example to the later Christian monasticism with its
motto Orare et labore – pray and work. In other words, the followers of Christ are not
supposed to live like parasites on the labours of others. This ethic is of course the opposite of
that found in the modern welfare state.
On Paul’s return to Syria from his third and last missionary journey, he gave a sermon in the
city of Troas in Asia Minor on a Saturday night, when the Christians there were gathered for
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the breaking of the bread (Acts 20:7). This service probably included an early version of the
Eucharist, and its timing reflects the traditional Christian practice of reckoning the day from
sunset. Thus, liturgically speaking Sunday begins at sunset on Saturday, the service of
Vespers (from the Greek hesperos, evening) being the first service of the daily cycle. In his
sermon Paul quoted from Jesus (20:35), ‘Happiness lies more in giving than receiving.’
Although this saying is not recorded in any of the Gospels, it reflects the statement made by
John at the very end of his Gospel that there is much else that Jesus did that could not be
recorded for lack of space.
Having arrived back in Syria, Paul travelled via Caesarea to Jerusalem in order to report back
to the congregation led by James. Although they were pleased to hear the details of Paul’s
ministry among the Gentiles, the Jewish Christians blamed him for teaching the Jews in the
Diaspora to reject the Mosaic Law and circumcision. This false charge led to Paul undergoing
a ritual purification to affirm his Judaism (Acts 21:18-26). Interestingly, this apparent step
away from justification by faith in Christ is not mentioned anywhere in the apostle’s letters.
Shortly thereafter, Paul was assaulted by the Jews in Jerusalem on similar trumped-up charges
as the first martyr Stephen, namely that he attacked the Mosaic Law and the temple. In his
defence, Paul claimed to have been a pupil of the well-known teacher Gamaliel, who had
earlier advised the Sanhedrin to be cautious in their dealings with the apostles (Acts 5:34-39).
Again, we find no mention of this claim in any of Paul’s letters. Furthermore, Luke portrays
Paul as grovelling before the high priest Ananias (23:5), as part of his ongoing attempt to
portray the great apostle to the Gentiles as a faithful Jew. Already in his Gospel Luke saw the
Christian faith as the fulfilment of Judaism, for example when Jesus claims to have fulfilled
the Law, the prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:44).
In his subsequent defence before the Roman procurator Felix (Acts 24:10) and the Jewish
king Agrippa II (Acts 26:2-3), Paul made skilful use of Hellenic rhetorical conventions. In
addition, he claimed to have received his commission from the risen Jesus to open the eyes of
Jews and Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan to that
of God, so that they might obtain forgiveness of sins and be placed among God’s own
(26:18). Like Jesus before Pilate approximately 30 years earlier, Paul was found innocent
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three times: by the Pharisees before the Sanhedrin (23:9), by the procurator Festus (25:25),
and by Agrippa (26:31). Like Jesus, this triple acquittal would not save him from the wrath of
the Jewish leadership.
After appealing to be heard by the Roman emperor, Paul was sent under guard to Rome. It is
interesting to note that many of Paul’s actions on the way from Crete to Malta, as recounted in
Acts 27:9 to 28:10, give the appearance of a Hellenic divine hero. In the final chapter of Acts
we read of Paul informing the Jewish leaders in Rome that the salvation of God had been sent
to the Gentiles, for the Jews had refused to listen (28:25-28). This theme would be elaborated
on in a number of the Apostle’s letters to early Christian communities.
The letter to the Romans
Paul’s epistle to the Roman Christians is the longest and most theological of his letters,
written some time after the letters to the Corinthians and Galatians. The letter stimulated
commentaries by several prominent Greek and Latin Church fathers. Much later Martin
Luther’s commentary (in German) on this letter would lay the foundations for much of
Protestant theology. Its main thesis is justification (or unmerited acceptance) of the believer
through faith (or unconditional trust), according to God’s righteousness and not through
observing the Mosaic Law.
A number of notable sub-themes are found in this letter, including the following:
(i)
A graphic description of human depravity (1:18-32), including an unequivocal
condemnation of homosexuality. Without any doubt Paul would have been revolted by
the modern Western fashion of homosexual marriages.
(ii)
Adam and Christ contrasted by means of opposing pairs (5:12-21): disobedience and
obedience, sin and righteousness, condemnation and acquittal, and bringing death and
life for all. In the early Church, Christ was seen as the second Adam, who came into
the world to correct the failure of the first Adam.
(iii)
Christian baptism (6:1-14) as sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ, freeing
the baptised from the power of sin. The Eastern Orthodox churches, and in the
Protestant world the Baptists, have preserved the traditional Christian practice of
baptism by triple immersion in water.
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(iv)
The divided self (7:14-25), due to the inner struggle between the spirit and the flesh.
This teaching of Paul would later play an important role in the rise of asceticism and
monasticism, the partakers of which strive to weaken the flesh through regular fasting
and constant prayer.
(v)
The liberation of the whole creation from suffering and mortality (8:18-25), through
the sacrifice of Christ. This understanding forms part of Paul’s vision of the cosmic
Christ, as elaborated in his letter to the Colossians especially.
(vi)
Israel’s unbelief (chapters 9 and 10) led to the Gentiles being chosen by God (chapter
11), yet Paul looks forward to the salvation of all Israel. An implication hereof is that
the Church should always welcome converts from Judaism, as from any other religion
or none.
(vii)
The Christian’s duty to the state is to be an obedient subject (13:1-7). Therefore the
Church should strive to be apolitical and refrain from political statements or activities,
focussing instead on the Kingdom of God.
(viii) Christian life as an imitation of Jesus Christ (15:1-13). This image would provide the
title of the famous medieval devotional work by Thomas a Kempis.
The first letter to the Corinthians
This epistle was written by Paul while residing in Ephesus, in the early 50’s of the first
century. It provides a comprehensive picture of an early Christian congregation and its
founder. At least two of the most important Christian beliefs found their first written
expression in this letter, namely the Lord’s Supper and the resurrection of Jesus. Paul’s
account of the Lord’s Supper (11:23-26) claims to be a tradition coming from Jesus himself.
The bread that is eaten serves as Christ’s body, and the wine that is drunk serves as the new
covenant of his blood. Thus, each time Christians partake of the Lord’s Supper, they proclaim
their Lord’s death, until he returns to the earth. Paul’s account of the resurrection (15:3-8)
likewise claims to be a tradition that Paul had received. It is recounted in the form of an early
Christian creed: Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised to life on the third day, and
appeared to the twelve apostles.
Paul also wrote to the Christians at Corinth about the governing powers of the age we live in
(2:6, 8). These powers are none other than demonic beings on the astral level, having been
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expelled from Heaven for rebelling against God under the leadership of Satan. Elsewhere Paul
calls them ‘the realm of spirits’ (Romans 8:38), ‘the elemental spirits of the universe’
(Galatians 4:3), and ‘cosmic powers, the authorities and potentates of this dark age, the
superhuman forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Ephesians 6:12). By having Christ
crucified, these beings brought the coming destruction upon themselves. It is clear that Paul
had a more thorough understanding of the spiritual war between good and evil than most of
the other apostles.
Furthermore, the foundational Christian teaching on sex and marriage is to be found in
chapter 7 of this letter. Firstly, the marriage of a man with a woman is encouraged to prevent
immorality. Divorce is discouraged, even with unbelieving partners, since they can be saved
through the believing spouse. Next, the unmarried and the widowed are advised to remain as
they are, but are given permission to marry rather than burn with desire. Finally, the
remarriage of widows with a believing man is permitted. We can notice the spirituality,
psychological insight and practical realism of Paul’s teaching in this most important matter.
Paul’s discussion of public worship (11:2-16) is based on the tradition that the woman’s head
is the man, the man’s head is Christ, and Christ’s head is God (i.e., the Heavenly Father).
Thus the man should pray with his head uncovered to mirror the glory of God, while the
woman should pray with her head covered out of regard for the angels, the latter referring
back to the story in Genesis 6:1-4 about angels mating with women. All of this is, of course,
anathema to the so-called ‘feminist theologians’ and ‘liberated’ women of our time. Yet in the
Christian teaching (if not always in practice) women and men are essential to each other: the
first woman was made out of the first man, and ever since man has been born from a woman.
In this perspective there is no justification for either male chauvinism or feminism, both
attitudes being unbalanced and harmful.
It is of interest to note that in Paul’s lengthy discourse on the spiritual gifts, he refers to the
Spirit, the Lord, and God - thus anticipating the later Christian doctrine of the divine Trinity.
He deals with the variety of gifts within the one body of Christ (chapter 12); waxes lyrically
about love being the greatest give of all, closely followed by faith and hope (chapter 13); and
writes that rational preaching is far more valuable than ecstatic utterances, admonishing that
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all worship should take place in good order (chapter 14). Alas, those who have taken part in
ecstatic outbursts over the ages, culminating in the excesses of the modern Pentecostal/
charismatic2 movement, have chosen to ignore the apostle’s sound advice.
Paul concludes his letter with a major treatise on the bodily resurrection of the dead (chapter
15), in order to counter the Platonic belief in the immortality of the soul, freed at death from
its bodily prison. However, it is not physical bodies that will be resurrected, but a
transformed, spiritual body. The reason, Paul argues, is that flesh and blood cannot possess
the Kingdom of God. In other words, the corruptible cannot possess the incorruptible. The
effect of all this is that mortality will be transformed to immortality. In this way, Paul finds
common ground with both Jewish and Hellenic thought: the Jewish belief in the resurrection
of the body and the Hellenic belief in the immortality of the soul is synthesised into an
organic whole. During the course of his reasoning Paul quotes from the Greek poet Menander
(at 15:33), to the effect that bad company ruins good character; a wise remark indeed.
The second letter to the Corinthians
It is generally accepted by biblical scholars that the final four chapters (10-13) of this letter
were added later to the first 9 chapters. They are written in a different tone and aimed at the
Jewish-Christian interlopers in Corinth, who are not mentioned earlier in the letter. Paul
defends his apostleship and calls his Jewish-Christian opponents agents of Satan (11:14-15).
These Christians, with their insistence on keeping the Mosaic Law, are even likened to the
serpent in Eden (11:3) – not exactly an expression of brotherly love, which is further
indication of Paul’s commitment to justification by faith in Jesus Christ, and not through
legalistic works. To reinforce his case the Apostle quotes his impeccable Jewish pedigree,
calling himself a Hebrew, an Israelite, and a descendant of Abraham (11:22).
The letter includes an excursus on Paul’s heavenly visions. He had been caught up into
Paradise (the heavenly Eden), and into the third heaven. To prevent him falling into pride on
account of these exalted visions, he was given a thorn in the flesh. Much speculation has
taken place on the meaning of this expression. All that the Apostle tells us is that he was
buffeted by a messenger of Satan. This could be a reference to a demonic being or a human
2
Charismaniac might be more appropriate.
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servant of the evil one. At any rate, Paul eventually understood that God’s graceful power
works through his weakness. In the same way, the Christian’s weakness can be transformed
into strength by the grace of God.
Paul concludes his epistle with a full benediction, which would become a standard one in the
Church: ‘May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit, be with you all’ (2 Cor 13:14). We again find Paul invoking the divine
Trinity, long before it became officially established as Christian doctrine.
The letter to the Galatians
The letter Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia, which was part of Asia Minor (modern-day
Turkey), is one of his most important writings. From its contents it appears to have just
preceded his letter to the Romans, addressing the same issues and using the same phrases as
the latter, but more urgent in tone. It was sent to churches that the Apostle had founded (Acts
14), which had been visited by Judaisers claiming that they and Paul were subject to the
authority of the Jerusalem church. They also insisted on at least partial observance of the
Mosaic Law, including circumcision (5:2-12). The central message of this letter is therefore
freedom from the slavery of the law, through faith in Christ. Seen in this light, legalism is a
denial of justification by faith.
Furthermore, Paul asserts his independence from the Jerusalem church, having received his
apostleship directly from Christ. He provides valuable biographical information (1:11-2:14),
differing markedly from the account in Acts of the Apostles. We should note that this letter is
earlier than the writing of Acts and probably more reliable. Paul recounts how in his zeal for
Pharisaic Judaism he outdid most of his fellow Jews in their persecution of the Church, until
God (who had set him apart from his birth) revealed Christ in him. This was done so that he
could proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles. However, he did not go to Jerusalem or the other
apostles, but instead went to Arabia and from there to Damascus. Only three years later did
Paul visit Jerusalem, where he met Peter and James among the apostles. From Jerusalem he
travelled to Syria and Cilicia, without paying any visits to the Judean churches. Fourteen
years later Paul went with Barnabas and Titus to Jerusalem to attend the first apostolic council
(of which we read in Acts 15, dated around the year 49 or 50). At this meeting it was agreed
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that Paul and Barnabas would continue their ministry among the Gentiles, while Peter, James
and John would lead the mission among the Jews.
In this letter Paul also relates an apostolic argument over table fellowship between Jewish and
Gentile Christians (2:11-21). Peter and Barnabas had withdrawn from such fellowship after
Jewish-Christian messengers sent by James had arrived in Antioch. With this behaviour they
earned the rebuke of Paul, who argues that justification (or acceptance by God) is not
obtained by keeping the Mosaic Law, but through faith (or unconditional trust) in Christ.
Thus, through faith in Christ his followers are released from the custody of the law, the union
with Christ made possible by baptism. This Pauline teaching represents a momentous
abolition in Christ of the distinction of Jew and Greek, man and woman, and slave and free
person.
The Apostle continues his differentiation of the Christian faith from Judaism by associating
the keeping of the Jewish ritual calendar, as insisted by the Judaisers, with astrology and the
worship of demonic spirits (4:8-10). This is again strong language, leaving no doubt about
Paul’s convictions. Furthermore, in his allegorical treatment of the story of Sarah and Hagar
(4:21-5:1), he deconstructs the traditional Jewish claim to be the offspring of Abraham
through Isaac. Instead, the Jews are shown to be children of the slave Hagar, associated with
Mount Sinai (symbolising the Mosaic Law) and the earthly Jerusalem (site of the temple with
its Levite priesthood). The Church, in contrast, contains the true children of the free woman
Sarah, being associated with the heavenly Jerusalem. We can find an anticipation of the
Augustinian distinction between the City of God and the City of man in this interpretation of
Paul.
It is important that the freedom in Christ should not be misconstrued as licentiousness. Rather,
it is expressed in love and generosity, guided by the Spirit of God (5:13-6:10). Finally, to
counter the attempt by the Judaisers to enforce circumcision on Gentile Christians, Paul
insisted that only the new creation through the cross of Jesus Christ counts (6:12-15). The
entire letter to the Galatians is thus a celebration of true freedom in Christ.
The letter to the Ephesians
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Together with the letter to the Galatians this epistle is known as the captivity letters, since
they were in all likelihood written during Paul’s imprisonment in Rome (around 61-63 AD).
The main theme of the letter to the Christians at Ephesus in Asia Minor is the Church as the
body of Christ. Those in the Church are the people of God, chosen before the creation of
world (1:4). Here we again find Paul deconstructing the Jewish claim to be the people of God.
The reality of Christ and the Church has cosmic dimensions, since the whole universe is
brought into a unity in Christ (1:10). Paul continues that Christ is the head of the Church,
which is his body. Seen from another angle, the Church is the fullness of Christ, as Christ is
the fullness of God (1:22-23; see also Colossians 1:19). Furthermore, Christ created a new
humanity through his abolition of the Mosaic Law (2:14-15).
Towards the end of the letter we find a treatment on various Christian relationships (5:216:9). First the Apostle teaches the Ephesians on Christian marriage. Wives are admonished to
be obedient to their husbands, for the man is the head of the woman just as Christ is the head
of the Church. For their part, men are admonished to love their wives as Christ loves the
Church. With his conjunction of womanly obedience and manly love in marriage, Paul
represents a counter-blast to both feminism with its rejection of obedience and male
chauvinism with its rejection of loving care. Needless to say, there is no place for the
despicable phenomenon of homosexual ‘marriage’ in the Church of Christ.
The Apostle continues that children are required to obey their parents, for such obedience is
the only commandment to be rewarded with a promise of blessings (referring to the Ten
Commandments). In their turn, fathers are instructed to raise their children in the Christian
discipline and teaching. The modern western rejection of parental authority and responsible
discipline is therefore part of an anti-Christian value system. Finally, slaves are admonished
to be obedient to their earthly masters as if to Christ, and masters are required to treat their
slaves in a Christian spirit. Slavery has of course been abolished throughout the western world
for a long time, but is still practised unofficially in many parts of the world. Nonetheless,
Paul’s teaching in this regard could equally well be applied to relations between employees
and employers, with dutiful service and fair treatment respectively being required.
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The nature of the Christian struggle is described by Paul in the conclusion of this letter (6:1020). He writes that the struggle is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against
the authorities and potentates of the dark age that we live in, and against the superhuman
forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Interestingly, this reference to a dark age is also found
in Hinduism, where it is known as the Kali Yuga. The Apostle here confirms the reality that
humankind has since the dawn of time been involved in a never-ending war on the spiritual
level, waged between the holy angels loyal to God and the fallen angels loyal to Satan. As a
matter of fact, most of the great political and ideological -isms of the past two centuries or so
have stood in the service of the dark forces, including the dominant systems of our own time.
Opposed to them are those relatively few humans who love God and his Kingdom: the saints,
mystics, and others who devote their lives to the service of God and his creation (human,
animal, and plant).
To equip his followers for this titanic struggle, Christ has provided a whole armoury of
spiritual weaponry: the belt of truth, the breastplate of integrity, for shoes the Gospel of peace,
the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the word (Greek rhema) of God.
This imagery must surely stand as the most graphic depiction of the Christian’s armoury in
the struggle against the forces of darkness.
The letter to the Philippians
The third chapter of this Pauline letter echoes the content of 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, by
calling the Judaisers ‘dogs’. At the time this was a Jewish term of contempt for Gentiles, and
not all an endearing reference to pets. Paul repeats his Jewish pedigree by drawing attention to
his background as Israelite, Hebrew, and Pharisee. Circumcision is described as mutilation,
which physically speaking it naturally amounts to.
Paul wrote further to the Christians in Philippi that his only desire is to know Jesus Christ and
the power of his resurrection, in the hope of attaining to a personal resurrection from the dead.
In declaring so, the Apostle transforms the Old Testament concept of a book of life, from
which names were struck out at death, to a list of those destined for eternal life (4:3). This
belief in personal immortality is another divergence between Christianity and Judaism.
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The letter to the Colossians
The letter to the Christians at Colossae, like the one to the Ephesians, was probably written
during Paul’s captivity in Rome, around 61-63 AD. It contains the Apostle’s fully developed
Christology in the celebrated hymn to Christ (1:15-20), which seems to be modified from an
earlier hymn. The hymn shows the influence of Jewish Wisdom literature, but the concept of
the divine Wisdom (Greek Sophia) is developed into Christ as creator and redeemer. Christ is
depicted as cosmic ruler, above all the angelic beings, reconciling the whole creation to God
through his death on the cross. For the first time the Church is portrayed as the body of Christ,
with Himself as its head.
Paul also issues a warning against false teachings based on human traditions and the
‘elemental spirits of the universe’ (2:8). Examples of these teachings to be avoided by
Christians are dietary rules, calendar observations, self-mortification, angel worship, and
visionary claims. This list is seen to contain both Jewish and pagan practises. It is interesting
that in the Eastern Orthodox churches regular fasting is prescribed, while all the services
follow the Church calendar. Whether these age-old practices are compatible with Paul’s
teaching on Christian freedom is a matter of debate. The Apostle then reiterates his teaching
to the Galatians that in Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, circumcised and
uncircumcised, and slave and free person. This implies that membership of the Church is open
to all who wish to follow Christ, without ethnic, cultural or socio-economic limitations.
The first letter to the Thessalonians
Paul wrote this letter probably from Corinth around the year 51 AD, making it the earliest of
his writings. Its dominant theme (chapters 4 and 5) is the future coming of Christ, called the
Parousia, which was expected sooner rather than later. At the Parousia all the Christians,
living and dead, will meet Christ in the air. Nothing more has been revealed about this
cataclysmic future event, except that it will be unexpected. Since the time of Christ’s return is
unknown, it is useless to speculate about it. Alas, the Apostle’s advice would be ignored
countless times in the centuries to come, as apocalyptic cults presumed to predict the date of
the second coming of Christ. Their often spectacular failures have not prevented repetitions of
this futile and spiritually harmful activity.
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The letter contains a stringent criticism of the Jews, who are charged with killing Christ and
the Israelite prophets, driving the Christians out, and being enemies of their fellow men in
obstructing the message of salvation being brought to the Gentiles. Paul’s reference to ‘the
retribution now overtaking them’ (2:14-16) could be a later addition, referring to the Roman
destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. Interestingly, the contrast that the Apostle
draws between the children of light and the children of darkness (5:4-8) is also found in the
Dead Sea Scrolls. As a well-educated man Paul would certainly have been aware of the
Essene teachings on the struggle between light and darkness, showing the influence of the
Persian prophet Zarathustra.
The second letter to the Thessalonians
The second letter to the Christians at Thessalonica also contain a treatise on the Parousia
(chapter 2), but its expectation now lies further in the future. It mentions certain signs that
must occur first before Christ returns, paralleling those in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13.
Notable among these signs are the final human rebellion against God and the revelation of the
evil adversary called the Antichrist. Ever since these words have been penned there has been
speculation on the identity of the Antichrist, with numerous attempts to ascribe it to this tyrant
or that oppressor. It could perhaps refer both to powerful enemies of the Church in history or
to a specific figure still to come. Only time will tell.
The letter to the Hebrews
The best Greek in the New Testament is found in the letter to the Hebrews, which shows the
characteristics of a lengthy treatise. The earliest reference to the letter dates from the end of
the first century at Rome. Its authorship has been an enigma since early times. In the Chester
Beatty Papyrus, dating from the early second century, the letter is found between those to the
Romans and the Corinthians. However, in later manuscripts it is either placed last among the
Pauline letters, or not included at all. The early Church received the letter as written either by
Paul himself or by a disciple in the Pauline tradition. In other words, regardless of its
authorship the letter to the Hebrews reflects the theology of Paul.
The letter is a fervent appeal to the descendants of the Hebrews to leave behind the old
covenant of Judaism and accept the new covenant in Jesus Christ. In chapter one it portrays
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Christ as supreme above all the angels, as Son of God. The author employs a number of Old
Testament quotations, especially from the Psalms. Following this introduction an impressive
logic of redemption in Christ is developed. He took on human nature (chapter 2), and is
worthy of more glory than Moses (chapter 3), being faithful to the household of God as son,
of which Moses is a servant. Christ is our great high priest in the order of Melchizedek,
having passed into heaven (chapter 4). His high priesthood is far superior to that of Aaron,
being after the order of Melchizedek who is the prototype of the eternal high priest, Jesus
Christ (chapters 5-6).
Alone in the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews takes up the theme of Melchizedek
touched upon in Genesis and Psalms. According to Genesis (14:18-20), Melchizedek (whose
name means King of Righteousness) was the Amorite king and high priest of Salem (later
Jerusalem). At the time of the Israelite entry into Canaan, the king of Salem was Adonizedek,
meaning Lord of Righteousness. The letter’s quote from Psalm 110:4 as applied to Jesus
Christ is totally unrelated to the conquering Davidic Messiah of the Hebrew scriptures.
According to the well-known 19th century commentary by Bishop Westcott, the religion of
Melchizedek was Amorite and not Israelite. Melchizedek appears as representative of the
primitive, original revelation of God to man. Both Melchizedek and Jesus Christ represent a
non-Jewish, universal priesthood. The supreme priesthood of Christ involves the abrogation
of the Mosaic ritual, which can therefore have no value for the Christian.
After having drawn an analogy between Christ and Melchizedek, the author elaborates on this
theme (chapter 7). The order of Melchizedek and Christ is above the Levite priesthood, since
the former two are immortal and the Levites mortal. In addition, a change of priesthood
requires a change of law, and this is related to Jesus being from the tribe of Judah and not
from Levi. Thus, the priesthood of Christ is based not on the Mosaic Law but on his person as
Son of God. Furthermore, Christ exercises his priesthood in God’s sanctuary and not in a
human one. The new covenant renders the old one obsolete, and the eternal priesthood of
Christ abolishes the Levite priesthood after Aaron (chapter 8).
In chapter 9 of the letter it is argued that Christ offers a new and better sacrifice, in which the
annual Mosaic rites with the blood of animals are replaced by one perfect sacrifice with his
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own blood. Just as a human testament becomes effective on the death of the testator, Christ’s
death has inaugurated a new covenant. With his first coming Christ bore the sins of mankind,
but with his second coming He will bring salvation for his followers. In chapter 10 it is added
that Christ as final sacrifice annuls the Mosaic Law which cannot lead to salvation.
The classical Christian definition of faith is found in the opening verse of chapter 11: faith is
the certainty of what we hope for and what we do not see. In the rest of the chapter numerous
examples of living by faith in the Old Testament are depicted, from Abel to the prophets.
However, the fulfilment of the promises only came with the new covenant in Christ. Those
who over the ages have died in the faith of God are depicted as a great cloud of witnesses
surrounding those still living (12:1). This text would later become applied to the Christian
veneration of the saints. The author also draws a striking contrast between Sinai and the old
covenant on the one hand, based on fear, and Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem and God, Jesus,
the angels and the elect on the other (12:18-29).
The letter as a whole declares a living faith, as taught by Jesus among the Galileans and
accepted by many of them. In all of this there is no expectation of a Davidic Messiah to be
found, or any desire to worship at the Jerusalem temple. If the letter was actually authored by
Paul, it may be dated to shortly before his martyrdom around AD 64, just before the outbreak
of the Jewish War in 67. Interestingly, no mention is made in the Gospels of the high
priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchizedek. Instead, He is portrayed as the Davidic
Messiah, especially in Matthew and Luke.
Paul and the Judaisers
Before we look at the main movements within the early Church, it would be useful to mention
the key events in the increasing conflict between Jews and Christians. Firstly, there was the
illegal stoning of James, brother of John, by the Sanhedrin (AD 62). A few years later (65-68)
Nero persecuted the Christians in Rome, but not the Jews. This differentiation naturally did
not help to endear the Jews to the Christians. Next, following the Roman crushing of the
Jewish revolt in Palestine, the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem (70). Shortly afterwards,
the Christians were allowed to build their first church in Jerusalem, on Mount Zion. This time
it was the Jews who had reason to harbour resentment towards the Christians. Finally, by the
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year 80 the Jewish Talmud openly cursed Christians. At this stage the separation between the
two religious communities had hardened to the extent of lasting mutual mistrust.
Within the Church a related conflict had arisen. From the outset two diverging currents could
be discerned in the nascent Church. On the one hand there was the Jerusalem church led by
James, which viewed Christianity as a sect of Judaism. In their view it was incumbent upon
all Christians to observe the Mosaic Law, or at least certain aspects of it, such as
circumcision. On the other hand there was the apostles Paul and John and their disciples, who
strove to free Christianity from Judaism completely and present it as the universal religion of
humankind. We will now look at the struggle between these two movements and the outcome
thereof.
Our primary evidence regarding the earliest Church (roughly the period 35 to 65 AD) is found
in the New Testament, particularly in the letters of the Apostle Paul and the Acts of the
Apostles. The latter is actually the second volume of the combined historical work Luke-Acts,
in which the author purports to show the apostolic foundation of the Jerusalem church. Thus
the Apostles are shown to have remained in Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus, but no
mention of this is found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, or John. In fact, they all mention
the Apostles going to Galilee, in accordance with the risen Christ’s instructions. A further
discrepancy may be found in the disciples’ question regarding the restoration of the kingdom
to Israel (Acts 1:6), which would appear unlikely coming from Galileans, except if they
misunderstood the teachings of Jesus on his kingdom. Strangely, no mention is made in Acts
of the Galilean Christians, who after all had been the first followers of Jesus Christ.
The first mention of bishops in the Jerusalem church comes from Hegesippus, in the latter
part of the second century. According to this rather late source, Jerusalem had no fewer than
15 bishops by the time of the city’s destruction by the Romans in AD 70. This figure should
already raise suspicion, except if the Jerusalem church had really been a model of instability.
The first two of these bishops were said to be James and Simeon, both of whom were said to
be relatives of Jesus, and both having been martyred by orthodox Jews. It appears that some
time after 70 the Judaisers in the Church adopted the martyred Peter as founder of the
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Jerusalem church. This was ostensibly done to confirm the assertion in the Gospel of Matthew
(16:18) that Peter was to be the rock on which the Church would be built.
No other person contributed as much to the establishment of Christianity as a faith and way of
life separate from Judaism as did the Apostle Paul. The theological grounds for this separation
are abundantly presented in his letters, which are also the earliest Christian documents. An
Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin, Paul counted his own Judaic descent and earlier Pharisaic
zeal as loss for the sake of Christ (Philippians 3:5-7). He wrote to the Corinthians that the veil
of the old covenant had been taken away in Christ (2 Corinthians 3:12-18). Further in the
same letter (11:13-15, 22, 26) he attacked the Judaisers and the Jews as the joint enemies of
the Church.
As far as Paul’s conversion is concerned, we know from the account in Acts that he had to
pass through Galilean territory on his way to Damascus. It is conceivable that among the
Galileans he had an opportunity to learn of the true teachings of Jesus, rather than the
Jerusalem version he had previously been exposed to. At any rate, after his conversion he
strove earnestly to free the Christian faith from Judaism. Thus he rejected circumcision and
the Mosaic Law as binding on Christians, which brought him into open conflict with the
Jerusalem church led by James. Furthermore, Paul rejected the attribution of being the
Davidic Messiah to Christ. As a result of his indefatigable labours to establish the Christian
faith, the Jews sought to kill him throughout his apostolic ministry.
The longest of Paul’s letters is addressed to the Roman church, as we have seen. It appears
that this church early on contained a mixture of Pauline and Jewish-Christian elements. Paul
wrote his letter to the Roman Christians with the purpose of exhorting them to abandon
Judaism entirely, in the wider context of righteousness in Christ. According to the famous
church historian Eusebius (early 4th century), a disciple of Paul named Linus became the first
Roman bishop in AD 69. Linus was succeeded in 81 by Anenclitus, who was succeeded in
turn by Clement in 93. The latter had been a co-worker of Paul, according to Origen and
Eusebius being the same Clement mentioned by the Apostle in his letter to the Philippians
(4:3). In this way the Pauline teaching survived at Rome at least until Clement’s death in 102.
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The earliest reference to Peter being in Rome comes from Clement of Alexandria around the
year 200, which is 140 years after the event. It is also strange that no mention is made in the
Gospel of Mark of Peter being the rock of the Church, being an account written by the
Apostle’s interpreter and companion (according to Papias, middle 2nd century). Furthermore,
the first bishop of Rome, Linus, was elected around five years after Peter’s martyrdom in the
imperial capital. The later Roman ecclesiastical claim to a Petrine foundation is thus shown to
be erroneous.
Given the tireless missionary travels of Paul, some of which are related in Acts (including the
vivid account of the storm and shipwreck on the way to Rome, in chapter 27), it is not
surprising that the Apostle left behind a number of churches following his teaching. They
were widely spread around the Mediterranean world, such as the churches at Ephesus (led by
Timothy), Crete (Titus), Corinth (Dionysius), Athens (Dionysius the Areopagite), Pontus
(Philologus), and in Gaul (Crescens). Some of these churches would preserve the teachings of
Christ and Paul for many centuries to come.
Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD the Jews were banned by the Romans from
returning to the Judean capital. Therefore the Jewish Christians shifted the focus of their
activity to the imperial capital, Rome. By the time of Marcion’s visit to Rome around 140 the
Roman church was already claiming a Petrine foundation. They had a priesthood modelled on
the Levite one, enjoying liturgical authority and supported by tithes from the Christian
congregation. After obtaining control of the Roman church the former Jerusalem party strove
to assert its authority over all the Christian churches, notably the ones following the Pauline
and Johannine teachings. Thus the Roman bishop Victor in 190 excommunicated the Asian
dioceses for alleged heterodoxy, for which he was rebuked by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons.
Sixty years later another Roman bishop, Stephen, excommunicated the African and Asian
churches on similar charges, being in turn criticised by Bishop Cyprian of Carthage.
During this period of increasing their control over the Church as a whole, the Judaisers were
busy editing the New Testament writings. This process entailed adding the birth stories and
genealogies to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Thus it happened that the copy of Luke that
Marcion brought with him to Rome differed substantially from the copy then in use by the
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Roman church. Furthermore, the Judaisers set out to destroy all ‘heretical’ writings, especially
those of the Gnostics and the neo-Platonists. So efficient were these self-appointed censors in
their work of literary destruction that the Gnostic scriptures were only rediscovered in 1945,
at Nag-Hammadi in Egypt.
The Jewish-Christian takeover would bring severe consequences to the Church of Christ.
Henceforth any dissent would be penalised by anathema and excommunication, to which was
added from the fourth century, when Christianity became the state religion, the horrors of
persecution and extermination. By the Middle Ages the (western) Church had added the fires
of the stake to the threats of hellfire in the afterlife in order to enforce its control of the
Christian people. How far this sacerdotal tyranny had deviated from the religion of love
taught by Jesus and his faithful apostles Paul and John should not be too difficult to notice.
Chronology of New Testament events
The following chronology was mostly obtained from the Biblical scholar Martin Hengel’s
Earliest Christianity (the year AD appears in the first column, with more than one date
indicating uncertainty):
27/28
Appearance of John the Baptist
30
Crucifixion of Jesus
31/33
Execution of Stephen
32/34
Conversion of Paul
34/36
Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem
34/38
Beginning of Gentile mission in Antioch
43/44
Martyrdom of James, son of Zebedee; Peter leaves Jerusalem
48/49
Apostolic council in Jerusalem; clash between Peter and Paul in Antioch
49/50-51
Paul in Corinth
52/53-55/56
Paul in Ephesus
55/57
Paul’s second stay in Corinth
56/57
Arrest of Paul in Jerusalem
56/59
Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea
58/60
Paul’s journey to Rome
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62
Martyrdom of James, brother of the Lord
64
Martyrdom of Peter and Paul
65
Nero’s persecution of Christians begins
66
Flight of Jerusalem church to Pella
67
Beginning of Jewish revolt
70
Destruction of temple; Jews expelled from Jerusalem
Marcion
The much-despised figure of Marcion strove to become the first Church reformer, although he
was ultimately unsuccessful in this attempt. Hailing from Asia Minor, where his father had
apparently been the bishop of Sinope, he was active in Rome around the year 140. Strongly
influenced by Gnosticism, Marcion taught that the Bible provides testimony about the
existence of two different gods, and not only one as is generally believed. On the one hand
there is the known God, who created the world as demiurge and who gave the Law to Moses
on Mount Sinai. This being is called YHWH in Hebrew, being the tribal God of the Israelites
and later the Jews. On the other hand there is an unknown God in the Old Testament, who
would be revealed by Jesus Christ as his heavenly Father.
This theology of Marcion inevitably led to his well-known project to establish an alternative
Christian canon. He naturally rejected the Old Testament in its entirety. In addition, he purged
the New Testament to contain only the Gospel of Luke, minus its perceived Jewish-Christian
editing, plus ten letters of the Apostle Paul, of whom Marcion was a devoted follower. This
scriptural revision acted as stimulus to the official Church to establish its own canon of sacred
scripture. In this way the canonical New Testament consisting of 27 ‘books’ came into being,
which was added to the Old Testament of 39 ‘books’ to form the Bible as we know it today. It
is interesting that a Roman fresco of Paul dating from around the year 200 has been
discovered, in which the Apostle holds two groups of five scrolls each. This probably depicts
the five books of the Torah and the five books of the Gospel and Acts, implying that they had
already come to be regarded as of equal standing in the official Church by that time.
We have already referred to Marcion’s copy of the Gospel of Luke differing from the Roman
copy. For example, the former did not contain the first two chapters of the Roman (and
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present) version. Also, in Marcion’s copy the Lord’s Prayer begins with the invocation,
‘Father, let thy Holy Spirit come upon us’ (11:2), which is not found in the orthodox copy.
However, both versions state that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask
(verse 13). It therefore appears likely that Marcion’s copy was the earlier one.
Marcion himself wrote a work called Antitheses, to demonstrate the irreconcilability of the
teachings of Jesus and the Mosaic Law. Needless to say, this work has been lost, our
knowledge of it deriving from Tertullian’s attack on Marcion some decades after the latter’s
death. After his expulsion by the Roman church, Marcion proceeded to found his own church
free from Judaist influences. This alternative Christian community proved to be so popular
that by the fourth century Marcionite churches were to be found as widely spread as Italy,
Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Arabia and Persia. In a remarkable twist of irony the earliest
inscription commemorating the founding of a Christian church comes from a Marcionite
church near Damascus around the year 318. It would seem that Tertullian’s polemic against
Marcion had been rather ineffective, at least for the time being.
Conclusion
That the Christian religion grew out of both Judaistic and Hellenistic roots cannot be denied,
although many have tried to reduce Christianity to an extension of either Judaism or
Hellenism. The correct way is to recognise the full heritage of the Church, without playing off
one part against the other. Having said as much, it is also clear that the Christian religion is an
autonomous Way towards God. As the early Church father Ignatius, martyred in Rome in
107, admonished: It is absurd to profess Christ and to Judaise. In other words, one is either a
Christian or a Jew.
The truth concerning the Bible lies somewhere between the extremes of Marcion on the one
hand and the official Church on the other hand. In rejecting all of the Old Testament, Marcion
deprived himself and his followers from the spiritual insights of the Wisdom literature,
notably the Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In declaring all of the Old Testament to be on
the same level of divine inspiration and authority as the New Testament, the Church opened
the door for intolerance, xenophobia, and persecution of the Other to become normative. It
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would surely be better for followers of Jesus Christ to avoid these extremes, in the interest of
a balanced Christian perspective on sacred Scripture.
Basil Beer
June 2009
Bibliography
Campbell, C.G. Race and Religion. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1970.
Hengel, Martin. Earliest Christianity. London: SCM Press, 1986.
Liddell and Scott. Abridged Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon press, 2004.
Osman, Ahmed. Moses and Akhenaten. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2002.
Suggs, M. Jack; Sakenfeld, Katharine & Mueller, James (editors). The Oxford Study Bible.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Thiede, Carsten Peter & d’Ancona, Matthew. The Jesus Papyrus. London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1996.