Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus (–29 AD) to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles () and is thus also known as the "Apostolic Age." Early Christianity developed out of the ministry of Jesus. Subsequent to Jesus' death, his earliest followers formed an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century.
Paul the Apostle, a Pharisee who had persecuted the early Christians of Judea, converted –36 and began to proselytize among the Gentiles. According to Paul, Gentile converts were exempted from Jewish commandments; he argued that all are justified by their faith in Jesus. This was part of a gradual split between early Christianity and Judaism, and Christianity became a distinct religion that included predominantly Gentile adherence.
Jerusalem had an early Christian community led by James the Just, Peter, and John. According to Acts 11:26, it was in Antioch that the followers were first called Christians. Peter was later martyred in Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The apostles went on to spread the message of the Gospel around the classical world and founded apostolic sees around the early centers of Christianity. The last apostle to die was John in .Zahn, Theodor. "John the Apostle", The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. VI, (Philip Schaff, ed.) CCEL
Etymology
Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as "The Way" (), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the ."Larry Hurtado (August 17, 2017), "Paul, the Pagans' Apostle" Other Jews also called them "the Nazarenes." According to Acts 11:26, the term Christian (), meaning "follower of Christ," was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch. The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" () was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.
Origins
Jewish–Hellenistic background
The earliest Christians were an apocalyptic sect within Second Temple Judaism. The basic tenet of Second Temple Judaism was ethical monotheism. Jews believed God had chosen them to be his people and had made a covenant with them. As part of this covenant, God gave his people the Torah (Law) to guide them in their worship of God and in their interactions with each other. The law required Jews to observe the Sabbath, follow kosher dietary laws, and circumcise their male children. Judaism's holiest place was the Temple in Jerusalem, where a hereditary priesthood offered sacrifices of incense, food, and various kinds of animals to God. Sacrifices could be offered only at the Temple, but Jews in both Palestine and throughout the Diaspora established synagogues as centers of prayer and study of Judaism's sacred scriptures.
Christianity "emerged as a sect of Judaism in Roman Palestine" in the Hellenistic world of the first century AD, which was dominated by Roman law and Greek culture. A major challenge for Jews during this time was how to respond to Hellenization and remain faithful to their religious traditions. During the early 1st century AD, there were many competing Jewish sects in the Holy Land, including Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and other groups. Each group adopted different stances toward Hellenization.
In this context of foreign domination, Jewish apocalypticism became widespread. Apocalypticism is the belief that God would soon destroy the cosmic forces of evil currently ruling the world and establish an eternal kingdom. To accomplish this, God would send a savior figure or messiah. Messiah (Hebrew: ) means "anointed" and is used in the Bible to designate Jewish kings and in some cases priests and prophets whose status was symbolized by being anointed with holy anointing oil.
It can refer to people chosen by God for a specific task, such as the whole Israelite nation (1 Chronicles 16:22; Psalm 105:15) or Cyrus the Great who ended the Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 45:1). The term is most associated with King David, to whom God promised an eternal kingdom (2 Samuel 7:11–17). After the destruction of David's kingdom and lineage, this promise was reaffirmed by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who foresaw a future Davidic king who would establish and reign over an idealized kingdom.
In the Second Temple period, there was no consensus on who the messiah would be or what he would do. Most commonly, he was imagined to be an Endtimes son of David going about the business of "executing judgment, defeating the enemies of God, reigning over a restored Israel, establishing unending peace." The messiah was often referred to as "King Messiah" () or malka meshiḥa in Aramaic. Yet, there were other kinds of messianic figures proposed as well—the perfect priest or the celestial Son of Man who brings about the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment. The concept has its root in the apocalyptic literature of the 2nd century BC to 1st century BC.
Demographics
According to the Book of Acts, within a year of Jesus' death, there were about 5,000 believers (Acts 4:4). However, many historians do not believe the numbers given in the Book of Acts. They believe that in 60 AD, there were hundreds, but not tens of thousands of Christians. At the end of the 1st century AD, they estimate there were 7000–7500 Christians in the whole world. Bart Ehrman supports the figures of 1000–1500 Christians in 60 AD, and 7000–10000 Christians in 100 AD. Keith Hopkins and Christopher Kelly support the figure of 1400 Christians in 50 AD.
Life and ministry of Jesus
Sources
Christian sources, such as the four canonical gospels, the Pauline epistles, and the New Testament apocrypha, include detailed stories about Jesus, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus. The Gospels are theological documents, which "provide information the authors regarded as necessary for the religious development of the Christian communities in which they worked." They consist of short passages, or pericopes, arranged in various ways as suited their aims.
Non-Christian sources that are used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus include Jewish sources such as Josephus, and Roman sources such as Tacitus. These sources are compared to Christian sources such as the Pauline epistles and the Synoptic Gospels. These sources are usually independent of each other (e.g. Jewish sources do not draw upon Roman sources), and similarities and differences between them are used in the authentication process.
Historical person
Biblical scholar Graham Stanton notes that "nearly all historians, whether Christian or not, accept that Jesus existed" and that more is known about him than any other 1st- or 2nd-century religious teacher with the exception of Paul. The two events of Jesus' life subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect. states that baptism and crucifixion are "two facts in the life of Jesus [which] command almost universal assent".: "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus ... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."; ; ; ; ; Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine summarizes the scholarly consensus on Jesus' life as follows:
There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings. Concerning the accuracy of the accounts, viewpoints run the gamut from considering them inerrant descriptions of Jesus's life, to doubting whether they are historically reliable on a number of points, to considering them to provide very little historical information about his life beyond the basics. According to Bart Ehrman, the gospels are "filled with nonhistorical material, accounts of events that could not have happened" and with contradictory accounts of the same events. As historical sources, the gospels have to be "weighed and assessed critically." Scholars often draw a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, and two different accounts can be found in this regard.
Academic scholars have constructed a variety of portraits and profiles for Jesus. Contemporary scholarship places Jesus firmly in the Jewish tradition,Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz. The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press. 1998. translated from German (1996 edition) and the most prominent understanding of Jesus is as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet or eschatological teacher. Other portraits are the charismatic healer, the Cynic philosopher, the Jewish Messiah, and the prophet of social change.
Ministry and eschatological expectations
In the canonical gospels, the ministry of Jesus begins with his baptism in the countryside of Roman Judea and Transjordan, near the Jordan River, and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke () states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry.Paul L. Maier "The Date of the Nativity and Chronology of Jesus" in Chronos, kairos, Christos: nativity and chronological studies by Jerry Vardaman, Edwin M. Yamauchi 1989 pp. 113–29 A chronology of Jesus typically has the date of the start of his ministry estimated at AD 27–29 and the end in the range AD 30–36.
In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jewish eschatology stands central. After being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus teaches extensively for a year, or maybe just a few months, about the coming Kingdom of God (or, in Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven), in aphorisms and parables, using similes and figures of speech. In the Gospel of John, Jesus himself is the main subject.
The Synoptic Gospels present different views on the Kingdom of God. While the Kingdom is essentially described as eschatological, some texts present the Kingdom as already being present, while other texts depict the Kingdom as a place in heaven that one enters after death, or as the presence of God on earth.. While some sayings suggest Jesus expected the end to be close, others place time between his presence and the final events, which suggests that Jesus understood the coming of the kingdom of God to be conditional on repentance with a changeable date. Jesus talks as expecting the coming of the "Son of Man" from heaven, an apocalyptic figure, who would initiate "the coming judgment and the redemption of Israel." According to Davies, the Sermon on the Mount presents Jesus as the new Moses who brings a New Law, a reference to the Law of Moses, the Messianic Torah.
Death and resurrection
Jesus' life was ended by his execution by crucifixion. His early followers believed that three days after his death, Jesus rose bodily from the dead. Paul's letters and the Gospels contain reports of a number of appearances after his death and burial.
Conservative Christian scholars, in addition to apologists and theologians, generally present these as being descriptions of real appearances of a resurrected and transformed physical body.CraigMichael Morrison The Resurrection of Jesus: A History of Interpretation According to N.T. Wright, there is substantial unanimity among the early Christian writers in the first and second century, that Jesus had been bodily raised from the dead.Wright, N.T. (2003), The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp.9–10 Craig L. Blomberg argues there are sufficient arguments for the historicity of the resurrection.Blomberg, Craig L. (1987), The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 2nd Ed, 2007. In secular and Liberal Christian scholarship, the appearances are argued to be descriptions of visionary post-mortem experiences of Jesus.