Western Heritage Midterm 2

Second Temple Jerusalem

Era after the Jews return from exile and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (c. 500 BC-70 AD) It was a period marked by significant religious and cultural developments, including the emergence of various Jewish sects and the influence of Hellenistic culture.

Jewish Identity in Jesus’ World

Josephus reports that many first-century Jews were eagerly expecting the fulfillment of major prophecy in their own lifetime.Jo

Sadducees:

chief priests, aristocrats, Temple establishment; denied eschatological expectations.

Pharisees:

Strict devotees to Torah and other oral traditions that helped interpret, guard Torah; staying prepared and pure for when God did act in history

Essenes:

Jewish hardliners, separatists who withdrew and rejected the Temple; Similar to the Pharisees in their legal strictness and eschatology but more extreme.

The “Fourth Sect”- Zealots, Sicarii, and Co.

pick up a sword and carve out God’s Kingdom yourself, redolent of the Maccabean ethos.

The Apostle Saul

in contrast to earlier followers of Jesus, Paul believed his main calling was to spread gospel to both Jews and non-Jews around the Roman Empire; Much of Paul’s career is devoted to resolving tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians

Christian Persecution in Rome

Coordinated persecution is expensive, so it’s rare; More often, persecution appears to be a local, horizontal affair: neighbors, family, bosses,
masters, etc.

Christian Apologists

make intellectual defenses of Christianity to its critics, often coming from a philosophical background

Orthodoxy v. Heresy

From very early in the Christian movement, there were fights about what constituted appropriate belief and practice (see much of the New Testament)

Marcion

rejects the Old Testament and major sections of the New; withdraws from wider christian community

Montanists

more orthodox but believe in charismatic prophets; ordination of women; people are spooked by the idea of charismatic revelation

Gnostics

coded and secretive about writings, knowledge, revelation; like Marcian reject cosmology of Genesis and its view of God; how do we escape from this material realm; rejects creation

paidaia

education

Matthew 16

establishment of peter as the rock; is peter’s confession the rock? was jesus making a pun? was he implying that peter’s confession is a shared confession among the apostles?

matthew 28

“some doubted”; very human element; jesus is telling them to baptize and teath others to be disciples; good news extends to all peoples

Galations 2.11

peters is afraid of circumcision debate; do you have to be kosher to follow jesus; law of moses is there to GUIDE; not law, but instruction

Galations 5.19

works of flesh; law of moses was a guide to prepare people to accepts the new law brought by christ

Diocletian’s Great Persecution

303-313

Council of Nicaea 325