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The First Church
The Convocation at Pentecost
Pentecost is the Greek name for the Hebrew Shabu'ot or Festival of Weeks.
"From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD."
- Leviticus 23: 15-16
"Pentecost occurred on the fiftieth day after Passover. This festival originally marked the early harvest of the ancient Canaanites, but the Jews had taken that over and superimposed on it a celebration of God's gift of the Torah and its reception by Moses on Mt. Sinai. So Pentecost marked a major moment in Israel's history and was celebrated with a vigil service covering twenty-four hours."
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 61
In modern Israel, the wheat usually ripens in May and the harvest lasts approximately five weeks. All Jews celebrated the Pentecost and the multitudes that gathered in Jerusalem from the outlying regions posed a regular security problem for the Romans. The following convocation resulted in a revolt in 4 B.C.E.
"Now when that feast, which was observed after seven weeks, and which the Jews called Pentecost, (i. e. the 50th day,) was at hand, its name being taken from the number of the days [after the passover], the people got together, but not on account of the accustomed Divine worship, but of the indignation they had ['at the present state of affairs']. Wherefore an immense multitude ran together, out of Galilee, and Idumea, and Jericho, and Perea, that was beyond Jordan; but the people that naturally belonged to Judea itself were above the rest, both in number, and in the alacrity of the men. So they distributed themselves into three parts, and pitched their camps in three places; one at the north side of the temple, another at the south side, by the Hippodrome, and the third part were at the palace on the west."
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Bk XX, Ch IX, Sn 1
"When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train; you received gifts from men, even from the rebellious--that you, O LORD God, might dwell there."
- Psalms 68:18
"The covenant renewal ceremony was, in fact, performed at the festival of Shabu'ot (Pentecost), which commemorates the Sinai revelation [which] fell according to the Qumran calendar either on or one day after the eleventh sabbath of the year."
"The eleventh song of the Sabbath Shirot cycle completes the description (better: ritual construction) of the 7-tiered celestial temple, with its gates and furnishings. The following song, performed on the twelfth sabbath, is the climax of the liturgical cycle and describes (better: invokes) the descent of the divine kabod on the chariot-throne (kisse' Merkavah) into the Holy of Holies of the temple.
"I interpret the Sabbath Songs as a liturgical cycle in which an image of the celestial temple was ritually constructed, stage by stage and week by week, in the personal and collective imagination of the worshippers. Completion of this process coincided with or immediately preceded the festival of shabu'ot at which the Community renewed its sacred covenant. On the sabbath following this covenant renewal the divine Glory was called upon to descend and indwell this temple, which had been constructed (in belief and imagination) by the worshipping community in partnership with the angels. This temple embodies the true temple in heaven, as seen by Ezekiel (unlike the perverted, demonic version in Jerusalem). We know from other sources that the New Covenant Community regarded itself as the embodiment on earth of this celestial temple archetype."
- Christopher Morray-Jones, "The Temple Within", SBLSP, 1998
The main goal of the members of one of the sects, the Therapeutae, was to have a vision of God. During a festival like Pentecost they would put on white robes and gather together to share a communal meal. Parallels can also be found in Jesus' transfiguration on Mount Hermon.
The Gathering of the Apostles
According to Acts, just before his ascent into heaven Jesus told the gathered Apostles:
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
- Acts 1:8-9
"After Jesus' death his followers soon experienced spirit-possession and other 'pentecostal' experiences, all of which, again, would be categorized as dissociative in nature. Thus we have a pathologically dissociative clientele (conversion disorders/ demon possession) who were cured by their faith in a spirit-possessed healer and, probably, their tendencies toward dissociation were re-oriented by Jesus toward experience of the Kingdom. After his death his personal talent for induction of the Kingdom experience was no longer available. The dissociation prone group of followers then continued to experience dissociation but in what was for them a new form, spirit-possession, glossolalia, etc. This they defined as the sine qua non of Christian life (cf. Paul, Acts, John) and they deliberately went out to bring about that experience in other people by the use of techniques that may be knowable from the evidence we have in the NT."
- Stevan Davies' review of his book Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity, Continuum Press, New York 1995
A major convocation of the Apostles and Jews from throughout the Roman empire reportedly occurred seven weeks after the crucifixion of Jesus, during the celebration of Pentecost
"The 'upper room' (hyperoon), where the first community was remaining (Acts 1:13: hou esan katamenontes) after the ascension and where the Pentecost event occurred (Acts 2:1-2), already had an established significance for Luke. Luke seems to represent this center as the prototype for the primitive churches places of worship. The Greek word (hyperoon) in the New Testament appears only in Acts and always in contexts that denote a place of worship. According to Acts (9:37, 39) Tabitha, a member of the community of widows in Joppa, was laid in such an upper room after she died. Acts 20:7-8 describes an early Christian meeting for Sunday worship in an upper room at Troas in Asia Minor. This report, given in the first person, specifically observes that 'there were many lights' in the room (Acts 20:8). Moreover, inside the 'house of Peter' in Capernaum, which was transformed into a house church by the second half of the first century, numerous fragments of oil lamps have been found. Upper rooms had previously acquired some religious significance in the Old Testament (2Kgs 4:10-11: aliyya; Dan 6:11: 'alit, LXX: hyperoon). This is perhaps why, at a later time, they became favorite meeting places for scholars. As shown by a third-century synagogue inscription in Stobi (Dalmatia), even synagogues sometimes had special upper rooms (hyperoa)."
- Rainer Riesner, "Jesus, the Primitive Community, and the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 201
Contact with the Spirits
"The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning."
- Ezekiel 1:13-14"The flashing of the [lig]htning [...] to the chief of the godlike beings of [...] running between them are god[li]ke being having the appearance of [glowing] coals [...] walking to and fro. The utterly holy spirits [...] the utterly holy, divine spirits, an ete[rnal] vision [...] and divine spirits, fiery shapes round about the [...] wondrous spirits."
- Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 4Q403 Frag. 1 Col. 2. 5-10a"And it (the cloud?) shall come forth with him, with tongues of fire."
- 4Q376 Col. 2"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them."
- Acts 2:1-3
As revealed in shamanistic Merkavah visions, the tongues of fire were angels. In Isaiah's symbolical vision such fiery spiritual beings are called seraphs (the only such identification in the Bible.)
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs ('burning ones'), each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.'
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.'
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.'"
- Isaiah 6:1-7
The number of the seraphim "is considerable, as they appear around the heavenly throne in a double choir and the volume of their chorus is such that the sound shakes the foundations of the palace. They are distinct from the cherubim who carry or veil God, and show the presence of His glory in the earthly sanctuary, whilst the seraphim stand before God as ministering servants in the heavenly court. Their name too, seraphim, distinguishes them from the cherubim, although it is confessedly difficult to obtain from the single Scriptural passage wherein these beings are mentioned a clear conception of its precise meaning. The name is oftentimes derived from the Hebrew verb saraph ('to consume with fire')....The seraphim are mentioned at least twice in the Book of Enoch (lxi, 10; lxxi, 7), together with and distinctly from the cherubim."
- Catholic Encyclopedia
Speaking in Tongues
"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability."
- Acts 2:4
As described in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice the worshippers, in a communal ritual, would hypnotically intone the language of the angels, singing praises to God.
"The leaders of the exaltation possess tongues of knowledge [so as] to bless the God of knowledge for all His glorious works."
- Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 4Q405 Frag. 23 2.12
See "The Tongues of Men and of Angels" for more about the angelic liturgy.
"The whirlwind and the chariots of fire that marked the Elijah story became the mighty rushing wind and the tongues of fire in the Pentecost story."
"Elijah was able to pour a double portion of his large, but still human, spirit on his single disciple. The ascended Jesus could pour the infinite power of God's Holy Sprit on the entire gathered community of believers."
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 318
Opening the Door to the Gentiles
"They are to atone for all those in Aaron who volunteer for holiness, and for those in Israel who belong to truth, and for Gentile proselytes who join them in community."
- Community Rule 1QS 5.6
In the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), "the divisions in the human family created by human brokenness destroyed the human attempt to build a tower into heaven where humanity and divinity could be united. The symbol of that division was the confusion of languages. Now Luke was saying that in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the human family was invited anew into God."
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 319
"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place....Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven...Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"
- Acts 2:5, 9-11
According to Acts, Peter was the first Apostle to baptize gentiles:
"And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost for they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days."
- Acts 10:45-48
"Acts 11:19 states that the apostles and disciples of Jesus had still been 'speaking the word to none except Jews'. Jewish customs, however, are not changed by mere heavenly signs. The question regarding the admission of Gentiles was brought before a court of elders in Jerusalem. While it was recognized generally that 'a door of faith had been opened for the Gentiles (Acts 14:27), some of the Christian Jews (who, by the way, continued to identify as Pharisees) did not believe that Gentiles should be exempt from circumcision and observing the whole Law of Moses."
- Miryam Nathan, "Acts, the Jews and the Torah"
"Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews."
- Acts 11:19
The Movement of the "Meek" and "Poor"
"We often read that Jesus 'shook the foundations' of Judaism. It is clear, however, that Judaism was not very severely shaken, although Jesus was probably an irritating presence, as were his followers after his death. There was, however, at the time of his execution, no rounding up of the disciples, nor was it necessary to suppress crowds of rioters. It is likely that, during his lifetime, Jesus made a smaller impact for God do not worry much about numbers or about realistic strategy."
"The disciples continued as an apolitical group which was persecuted, at least sporadically, by the Jewish leadership and which was tolerated, perhaps even protected, by the Roman government."
- E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism
"Sanders is of course correct that there is no evidence of Roman intervention or requests for Roman intervention; nor is there evidence that the chief priests sought from Rome authority to act against the movement in Jerusalem or Judea. But that ought to raise serious doubts about the messianic orientation of the community in Jerusalem, i.e., the public proclamation of Jesus as a divinely appointed ruler nullifying the actions of Roman and Jewish authorities against him and demonstrating their illegitimacy. It should also make one far less inclined to suppose that the Gospel Passion narratives constitute sources from which one can extract and reconstruct the historical circumstances and reasons for the death of Jesus."
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
"[And those who acquire gold and silver in judgement suddenly shall perish.] Woe to you, ye rich, for ye have trusted in your riches, And from your riches shall ye depart, Because ye have not remembered the Most High in the days of your riches."
- Enoch 94:7-8
"The socioeconomic status designated by änî ["poor"] involved not simply lack of money or possessions, but first of all powerlessness and vulnerability vis-a-vis the powerful (and often arrogant) members of society....There is an implication of 'being unjustly deprived of one's rights and goods' in änî; accordingly, the regular adversaries of the 'poor' in the OT are not the rich but the wicked, the arrogant, and the oppressors. This status often evoked - at least according to many religious affirmations in the OT - an attitude of humility toward and reliance upon God, before whom one had to stand empty-handed, without pretensions but with hope."
- John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.
"The Righteous Teacher suffered physical and emotional torture from the 'Wicked Priest', who had exiled him from the Temple priesthood. True to his religious heritage and brilliant theological sensitivities, the Righteous Teacher, who had led his followers to the monastery [camp] in the desert before he had finished composing some hymns, looks back on his tortures with thanksgiving praises to God, who had redeemed his servant, 'the life of the Poor One'."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism
"And you (O God) have delivered the life of the Poor One (änî)
(who had been) in the den of lions,
who had sharpened their tongue(s) like a sword.
And you, O my God, have shut up their teeth
lest they tear out the life of the Poor One and the Beggar (warash).
And you have forced backwards their tongue(s) like a sword into its sheath,
lest the life of your Servant be slain."
- Thanksgiving Psalm 1QH 5.13-15
(2) The Ebionites
"The movement that seems subsequently to have developed also came to be called the Ebionites (i.e. 'the Poor Ones'), a term of self-designation running the gamut of the Qumran documents."
- Robert Eisman and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
"The word translated as 'poor' -drigu - is the origin of the Persian 'Darvish' or 'Dervish' - a name still used for certain (whirling) sects of Muslim Sufi mystics - and it had a specific and special sense, meaning a pure, devout, and humble person, a true follower of Zoroastrian doctrine: a believer. It is also identical in meaning to the Hebrew ebionim, translated as 'Ebionite' - the term used by the Essenes [Yahad] of Qumran to describe themselves - and both terms are reflected in 'Cathar'-derived from the Greek for 'pure'-as well as in the Templar title, 'The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon'."
- Paul William Roberts, Journey of the Magi (1995)) p. 156
"But we in the lot of your truth shall rejoice because of your mighty hand...Truly, your mighty hand is with the Poor."
- War Scroll, 4Q285 13.12-14
"...Christian communities were at first formed in the name of Jesus as a founder-teacher. The teacher-sage was invested with the authority of Wisdom's envoy to enhance the significance of the teaching as various Jesus movements confronted challenges and sought a place in the social landscape of Galilee and southern Syria. Along these lines, a continuing wisdom trajectory can be traced into second century Christian gnosticism. On this view, the resurrection of Jesus is not the common center of all expressions of early Christianity. Moreover, the communities whose foundation myth was the kerygma of Jesus' saving death and resurrection do not represent the dominant basis of association from the beginning and arose in circumstances different from those of the Jesus movements. These are the pre-Pauline and Pauline congregations of the Christ located at first in northern Syria and Asia Minor."
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
"For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into you assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take noticed the one wearing the fine clothes and say, 'have a seat here, please,' while to the one who is poor you say, 'Stand there,' or, 'Sit at my feet' (Gk 'sit under my footstool'], have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
- James 2:3-5"They [the Apostles] asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was [or had been] actually what I was eager to do."
- Galatians 2:10
"It is clear from the Pauline corpus that in some sense the community following the leadership of
"By the fourth century, the high Church historian Eusebius, previously Bishop of Caesarea, is willing to tell us about these Ebionites. Of Palestinian origin and one of the people primarily responsible for the Christian takeover in Rome, he clearly regards the Ebionites he describes as sectarian - sectarian...in contradistinction to that form of Pauline Christianity that he helped promote in Constantine's time."
- Robert Eisman and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
"...The first ten bishops of the Jerusalem Church were, according to the 'Church Father' Eusebius, all circumcised Jews who kept Jewish dietary laws, used Jewish liturgy for their daily prayers and recognized only the Jewish Sabbaths and festivals, including the day of atonement. This last observance clearly demonstrates that they did not regard the death of Jesus as atoning for their sins!"
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
They were "called Ebionites by the ancients because of the low and mean opinions they held about Christ."
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.27
"By this statement he means that the Ebionites do not regard Jesus as divine. He does so, using the 'Wicked Demon', 'Devil' and 'net' language that is so much a cornerstone of the presentation of the charges in the Damascus Documentagainst them. Knowing that Ebionite means 'Poor Man in Hebrew', he jokingly contends that they received this epithet because of 'the poverty of intellect they exhibited', i.e. in following such a primitive Christology.
"He knows that they considered Christ born by 'natural' means."
- Robert Eisman and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
"A plain and ordinary man, who was justified by his advances in Righteousness only...they also insisted on the complete observance of the Law, not did they think one could be saved only by faith in Christ and a corresponding life" Rather "they evinced great zeal to observed the literal sense of the Law...They observed the Sabbath and other ceremonies just like Jews." Paul they considered "an apostate from the Law."
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.27
(3) James the Just
"The disciples said to Jesus, 'We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?'
Jesus said to them, 'No matter where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.'"
- Thomas Logion 12
James title, the Just or "Righteous One" (Zaddik) was borne by claimants to the High Priesthood, a lineage that dated back to the time of King David.
In the Gospel of the Hebrews, "the account of the resurrection is unique in that James is the first believer to see the risen Jesus (see 1 Cor 15:7), not Peter or Mary of Magdala, as in the other gospels."
- The Complete Gospels, Robert J. Miller (Ed.), p. 434
"The Lord, after he had given the linen cloth to the priest's slave, went to James and appeared to him. (Now James had sworn not to eat bread from the time that he drank from the Lord's cup until he would see him raised from among those who sleep.)
Shortly after this the Lord said, 'Bring a table and some bread.'
And Immediately it is added: He took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to James the Just and said to him, 'My brother, eat your bread, for the Son of Adam has been raised from among those who sleep."
- Gospel of the Hebrews 9:1-4
In the gospels, the order in which the Apostles saw the risen Jesus usually indicated the apostolic succession - which depended on which community the gospel originated from. (Peter, of course, was the first Apostle according to the synoptics and Paul.) James, the brother of Jesus, is mentioned in the gospels of Mark and Luke, but not Matthew and John.
James is an English rendition of the Hebrew Jacob by which he would have been known by his Jewish contemporaries.
"Tyndale was...a good Oxford-Cambridge trained Greek scholar and based his translation on the 3rd (1522) edition of Erasmus' Greek text (which later was to be called the textus receptus). He consistently rendered the Greek IAKOBOS as 'James.' Thus, in the first chapter of 'The epistle off Paul unto the Gallathyans' he has Paul say: 'Then after thre yeare I returned to Jerusalem and abode with hym xv dayes / non other off the Apostles sawe I / save James the lordes brother.'
"It should be noted that the text was printed on the continent in German Gothic script, so there was as yet no distinction between a capital 'I' & a capital 'J.' Thus, Tyndale really rendered IAKOBOS as IAMES."
- Mahlon Smith (CrossTalk)
The first used of James in place of Jacob may have occurred in John Wycliff's English translation of the Bible ca. 1375 CE
| The original Jacob is transliterated from the Egyptian as | ||||
| Iakeb | Aarhu | Mer | User | Ra |
| Great North Wind | On the Ladder | Beloved | Strong in | God |
- Tom Simms (CrossTalk)
"Control of the Church passed to the apostles, together with the Lord's brother James , whom everyone ... has called the Righteous..."
- Eusebius (quoting Hegesippus, an early second century Jewish Christian writer), Ecclesiastical History, 2.23
The title "Righteous One" was apparently mistranslated into Greek as "Sadduc" or "Zadok" and was a term particularly associated with the Davidic Messiah. Sadduc was also the name given by Josephus to the co-founder of the Zealots.
"As Eisenman [Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran] demonstrates, the legitimacy of the high priesthood - of Zadok or of the Zadok - was resuscitated by the Maccabeans, the last dynasty of Judaic kings, who ruled Israel from the second century BC until Herodian times and the Roman occupation."
- Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy
"...James title, 'Bishop of Jerusalem', and the description of him in almost all early Church sources as 'high priest', reverberates with the materials before us here..."
"...James the Just (the 'Zaddik'/Zadok') [was] the leader of the so-called 'Jerusalem Community' from the 40s to the 60s C.E. - what has retrospectively come to be called 'Jewish Christianity' in Palestine."
- Robert Eisman and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
"In the place where you are to go, go to James the Righteous One for whose sake heaven and Earth came into existence."
- Thomas 12"Then he said: 'The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.'"
- Acts 22:14 (referring to James)
Quoting Hegasippus, Eusebius states that James 'the Righteous' 'was holy from his birth'..."
- Baigent and Leigh, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
Hegasippus also desribed him as a "Nazirite".
"He drank no wine...ate no animal food; no razor came near his head; he did not smear himself with oil, and took no baths. He alone was permitted to enter the Holy Place [the Holy of Holies in the temple], for his garments were not of wool but of linen [i.e., priestly robes]. He used to enter the Sanctuary alone, and was often found on his knees beseeching forgiveness for the people, so that his knees grew hard like a camels...because of unsurpassable righteousness, he was called the Righteous and...'Bulwark of the people'..."
- Eusebius, The History of the Church 2,23
Spreading the Gospel
After the death of Jesus, the apostles lead by Peter began to actively seek converts. The opposition was immediate:
"There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one. Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation, And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison."
- Acts 5: 16-18
"The high priest reprimands the apostles for their determination to hold the authorities responsible for the execution of Jesus and to spread the teaching throughout Jerusalem.
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
"'We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,' he said. 'Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.'"
- Acts 5:28
"For the implied reader, of course, this shows how much the authorities fear the Jerusalem populace. Following Gamaliel's intervention, the apostles are flogged, charged to cease, and released only to return to proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah daily in the temple and at home (5:27-42)."
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
"The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ."
- Acts 5:41-42
"It is interesting to note that the only time in Acts that the authorities make reference to the execution of Jesus is in response to accusations concerning their own guilt....In Acts, the resurrection of Jesus occasions controversy only because of school debate between Sadducees and Pharisees, not because proclaiming it as the vindication and exaltation of Jesus is an act of defiance against the authority of those who put him to death. The crucifixion of Jesus by the Roman and Jewish authority in Judea has, in the perspective of Acts, theological and historical consequences for the Jews, but no social and political consequences for the apostles."
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
"In connection with the persecution under Herod Agrippa 1, Luke introduces (Acts 12:12-14) another meeting place in Jerusalem [besides the location of the convocation at Pentecost]. The account not only describes the outside (Acts 12:13: a house with its own gateway) but also gives the name of the owner - Mary, the mother of John called Mark (Acts 12:12). Other Christians under the leadership of the 'Lord's brother,' James, gathered at a different location (Acts 12:17)."
- Rainer Riesner, "Jesus, the Primitive Community, and the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 201
Stoning of Stephen |
"It has sometimes been held that persecution was directed against the preaching of faith in Jesus, a condemned criminal, as Messiah...There must be, however, appreciable doubt about this as a ground of persecution. If it were, it should follow that Christianity was persecuted and hounded wherever there were enough Jews to give the followers of Christ a hard time. Yet, to repeat, it is clear from Paul's letters that the leading Jerusalem apostles were not persecuted, at least during his career, even though they believed that Jesus was the Messiah."
- E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) pp. 283-284
"John the Baptist was executed and a movement associated with his activity survived, but it did not attempt to establish itself at Herod's residence. The Teacher of Righteousness was put to death, but his community established itself in the Judean desert. The fate of the followers of the Samaritan prophet, the followers of Theudas and those of the Egyptian prophet are known. It is not certain what the fate of Judas the Galilean was, but he does not seem to have established a movement with continuous leadership in Jerusalem. Josephus records that two of his sons were crucified by order of the Procurator, Tiberius Alexander, at the time that the entire country came under direct Roman rule. I do not find in any of this grounds to explain the relationship between the violent fate of Jesus in Jerusalem and the relative freedom of the leaders of a Jesus movement in the same city."
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
"Jerusalem, unlike Damascus or the cities in Paul's eventual itinerary, had a Jewish majority. The social situation was accordingly much less volatile. Also, in the course of the four decades until the destruction of the Second Temple, the Sanhedrin had other noisily apocalyptic popular movements and living messianic preachers to worry about."
- Paula Fredriksen, 'Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2,' JTS 42 (1991), p. 557
"On the other hand, I cannot imagine that preaching messianic claims for Jesus in the Jerusalem where he was executed would have constituted a less volatile situation. We should remember that it was Rome that 'took care' with dispatch of popular apocalyptic movements and living messianic preachers. For their part, the Jewish ruling classes would have had both means and reason to take more forceful action than they did against Galileans now established in Jerusalem who claimed to be founded upon a sovereignty that had been vindicated by God against the judgment and position of authority of the ruling priests."
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
Yet as we have seen, according to Acts, the Apostles met at the Temple daily and appeared to have based the center of their operations there (despite gospel accounts of Jesus' violent opposition to the institution). The Temple had a large public courtyard where Jews and gentiles were allowed to gather freely. Apparently, the apostles continued to preach there with relative impunity for three decades until the death of James in 62 C.E.
"...There is no evidence of Roman intervention or requests for Roman intervention; nor is there evidence that the chief priests sought from Rome authority to act against the movement in Jerusalem or Judea. But that ought to raise serious doubts about the messianic orientation of the community in Jerusalem, i.e., the public proclamation of Jesus as a divinely appointed ruler nullifying the actions of Roman and Jewish authorities against him and demonstrating their illegitimacy. It should also make one far less inclined to suppose that the Gospel Passion narratives constitute sources from which one can extract and reconstruct the historical circumstances and reasons for the death of Jesus"
- Merrill Miller, "Beginning From Jerusalem..."
(2) Paul's Mission in Asia Minor
"Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered."
- Acts 5:36-37
In "Acts 5:36, prior to Paul's appearance on the Christian Jewish scene, we see the name of Theudas who had claimed to be a messiah. History tells us that this Theudas was killed approximately the year 46 C.E. If we assume that Christianity began in the year 33 C.E., then we can conclude that prior to the entrance of Paul, post-crucifixion Christianity was in existence for some 13 years. Paul fills in the rest, in the book of Galatians."
- Miryam Nathan, "Acts, the Jews and the Torah"
"But when God, who set me apart [even] from my mother's womb, and called [me] by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, that I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations, immediately I took not counsel with flesh and blood, nor went I up to Jerusalem to those [who were] apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and again returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to make acquaintance with Peter, and I remained with him fifteen days; but I saw none other of the apostles, but James the brother of the Lord.
- Galatians 1:15-19
Baranbus and Paul initially had some success in preaching to synagogues in Asia Minor and winning converts.
"Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch."
- Acts 11:25-26
Baranbus and Paul began to meet with increasing hostility in the diaspora community.
"It seems...likely that Jews of synagogue communities of the mixed Western urban centers would have reason to fear repercussions because of Christ communities that were aggressively engaged in uprooting Gentiles from idolatrous practices, i.e., from longstanding social, economic and cultural traditions."
- E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) p. 283-284
"...It takes some careful reading to determine what Jews were persecuting the Christians: Acts 13:45 tells us something about them. They were Jews who were jealous; and they were slanderers, who contradicted what was spoken by Paul."
- Miryam Nathan, "Acts, the Jews and the Torah"
"The next sabbath almost the whole city [Antioch of Pisid'ia] gathered together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted what was spoken by Paul, and reviled him."
- Acts 13:44-7
"Acts 14:5 and 14:19 indicate that again these particular Jews were Sadducees. These verses contains a reference to 'stoning', and this was not done by Pharisees; in fact, such 'vigilante' acts would be considered murder by Torah Law as taught by Pharisees."
- Miryam Nathan, "Acts, the Jews and the Torah"
"But Jews came there from Antioch and Ico'nium; and having persuaded the people, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead."
- Acts 14:19
"Even a cursory reading of the written Torah shows that Torah Law requires a trial before judges and a minimum of two qualified witnesses before capital punishment could be administered. (Deuteronomy 19:15-16). Christianity now had two enemies: Sadducees and Gentiles faithful to Herod's Roman Empire."
- Miryam Nathan, "Acts, the Jews and the Torah"
Herod Agrippa I began his crackdown on the early church when the Jewish Christians in Antioch sent assistance to Jews in Judea beleaguered by the Romans.
"And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea: Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John [not James the Righteous] with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people."
- Acts 11:27-03, 12:1-3
"In consequence there was a ready wish to break up the closed circle living at Jerusalem and to achieve greater success through settlement elsewhere. James 'the brother of the Lord' remained behind, but the center of the movement was shifted to Antioch in Syria."
- Luigi Pareti, The Ancient World
(3 Agrippa as Messiah
"...King Herod Agrippa I...won the unanimous support of all Jewish parties and other Semitic leaders for a revolution that was only aborted by his sudden fatal illness during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. Although Josephus did not say so, there is good reason to speculated that Agrippa, who was born in Bethlehem and had been to Egypt, believed himself the Messiah and formed his anti-Roman coalition by winning his allies to that belief."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
There are other parallels between Jesus and Agrippa. Both were born late in the reign of King Herod the Great. Agrippa descended from the royal Maccabean Princess Mariamne.(and as was commonly rumored, Joseph, Prime Minister of Israel). He was the eldest surviving male child of the Maccabean Line and as such he was the only rightful heir to the throne of Israel.
In the spring of 36 C.E., Agrippa was arrested but managed to escape to Rome and present evidence to Emperor Tiberius against Pilate and Antipas. Shortly thereafter Pilate and the high priestJoseph Caiaphas were removed from office.
- condensed from Bruce Evry, "Agrippa - The Last King Of Israel"
"On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and made an oration to them. And the people shouted, "The voice of a god, and not of man!" Immediately an angel of the Lord smote him, because he did not give God the glory; and he was eaten by worms and died."
- Acts 21-3
Josephus' account of this event is more restrained.
"On the second day of which shows he [King Agrippa] put on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a texture truly wonderful, and came into the theater early in the morning; at which time the silver of his garment being illuminated by the fresh reflection of the sun's rays upon it, shone out after a surprising manner, and was so resplendent as to spread a horror over those that looked intently upon him; and presently his flatters cried out, one from one place, and one from another (though not for his good) that he was a god; and they added, 'Be thou merciful to us; for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man, yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature.'
"Upon this the king did neither rebuke them, nor reject their impious flattery. But, as he presently afterwards looked up, he saw an owl sitting on a certain rope over his head, and immediately understood that this bird was the messenger of ill tidings, as it had once been the messenger of good tidings to him; and fell into the deepest sorrow. A severe pain also arose in his belly, and began in a most violent manner.
"He therefore looked upon his friends, and said: 'I whom you call a god, am commanded presently to depart this life; while Providence thus reproves the lying words you just now said to me; and I, who was by you called immortal, am immediately to be hurried away by death. But I am bound to accept of what Providence allots as it pleases God; for we have by no means lived ill, but in a splendid and happy manner."
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Bk 19, Chapter 8, v. 343-347