Political Situation under Rome: Palestine Herod the Great 374 BCE - - PDF document

Tuesdays with Mark

Deacon Gary Notes from Presentation Slides, Week One week one

• the New Testament World
• the New Testament Writings
• Gospels
• Jesus
• the Gospel of Mark

The New Testament World First-century Palestine

• Roman rule
• 63 BCE to 70+ CE
• Peace and taxation
• Jewish residents
• History of foreign rule
• Hellenized culture .. Aramaic spoken
• Christ followers
• “God-fearing” Gentiles from Judaism
• Jews who followed Christ and Torah
• Pharisees ....... Torah teachers
• Sadducees ...... Temple priests
• Essenes ......... Flee city for desert
• Zealots ........... Seek political freedom
• Herodians ....... Have political power
• Samaritans
• Gentiles

Political Situation under Rome: Palestine

• Herod the Great
• 37–4 BCE
• Idumean (from coastal people; not fully Jewish)
• Politically astute (plays all sides)
• Initiated building programs
• Creating jobs
• Feeding people
• Offending some by celebrating Greek culture
• Enlarged Jerusalem Temple

Empire-wide

• Emperor’s Pax Romana
• Public building programs
• Aqueducts
• Roads (facilitate trade and movement of armies)
• Gymnasiums and Spas
• Crime reduction on roads and seas
• Protects trade routes and pleases merchant class
• High taxes
• Peasant farmers pay for public works program
• Impoverished people become slaves

Judaism and Christianity under Rome

• Rome permitted innocuous religions
• Rome condemned all social unrest
• i.e., prophets seeking social change
• thieves, traitors, insurgents
• 60 CE Emperor Nero purged Rome


64–70 CE War in Palestine-Jerusalem

• 110 CE Jerusalem closed to Jews


112 CE Christianity becomes a crime

• “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach
• 136 CE Bar Kochba Revolt

Hellenism: Greek Culture under Roman Rule Hellenism in Palestine

• “Reclining” at tables (rather than sitting up)
• Surgical operations to reverse male circumcision
• Aramaic spoken (Hebrew for ceremony)
• And Roman syncretism in Judaism
• Wisdom theology
• Dualism .....Good vs. Evil
• Apocalypticism (Deterministic view of history, God is in charge)

Hellenism in Diaspora

• Jews left Palestine over hundreds of years
• For business and trade
• Fleeing war or changes in political climate
• Synagogues over Jerusalem Temple
• Houses of prayer; not sacrificial rites•
• Rabbis over priests
• Torah over sacrifices
• Greek spoken over Hebrew or Aramaic
• Septuagint writings over Hebrew

Roman Philosophies and Religion

• Epicureans
• Free Will
• Tranquility
• Stoicism
• Virtue is highest calling
• Logic and reason control emotion

• Cynicism
• Radical authenticity
• Extreme independence
• Mystery religions
• Secret societies
• Honour of the Emperor
• Worship or patriotism?
• Animism
• Belief in spirit world
• Augury
• Oracles
• Fortune/future tellers
• Supernaturalism
• Miracles
• Divine men

Gnosticism

• 2nd–4th century phenomenon
• Worldview
• Anything material = evil
• Spirit = good
• Soma sema—a Greek refrain meaning “the body is a tomb”
• Syncretistic—mixes with any religion
• Gnostic Christianity (after first century)

• Christ the spiritual redeemer brings secret knowledge
• View 1
• Liberate spirit from flesh—renounce (ignore or harm) body
• View 2
• Spirit is already free of flesh, bodily excess won’t hurt spirit

The New Testament Writings - God’s new covenant with God’s people

• 27 Writings
• 4 Gospels
• Acts of the Apostles
• 9 letters from Paul to churches
• 4 letters from Paul to specific people and their communities
• Hebrews
• 7 letters by other people (“catholic letters”)
• Revelation

Organization of the Writings

• Not ordered chronologically
• Titles do not necessarily indicate authorship, but tradition and trajectory
• Luke-Acts = two volumes by one author
• Letters ordered from longest to shortest
• “Apocalypse” is the Greek word for “Revelation”

Development of the “Canon”

• Leader writes a letter or gospel
• Community reads aloud in worship together with Torah, prophets, and

psalms

• Communities copy and share writings with other churches
• More churches copy and share writings
• Churches begin to collect some writings to read together with Torah,

etc.

• Leaders begin to list important writings
• Lists expand and contract over time

Basic Trends in the Development of the Christian Canon

• Oral to written
• Expansion: add to what exists
• Copy writings
• Augment writings
• Edit writings (combine oral and written)
• Write new writings (in names of early apostles)
• Contraction: condense what exists
• Leaders prefer “known” apostolic writings
• Leaders list writings connected to earlier traditions

Critical Methods of Study (tools used by biblical scholars)

• Text criticism
• Archeology
• Sociological criticism
• Cultural anthropology
• Historical criticism
• Source criticism
• Form criticism
• Redaction criticism
• Narrative criticism
• Rhetorical criticism
• Reader-Response criticism
• Ideological criticism
• Deconstruction

The Earthly Jesus

• Ministry
• Itinerant
• Rural
• Jewish
• Preaches God’s kingdom (now and future)
• Absolute allegiance to God
• Forgiveness reconciles sinners and outcasts
• Reassessment of legal interpretations
• Radical “love ethic”
• Reversal of social values (poor over the rich; meek over the powerful)
• Teaches about himself
• “Son of Man”
• Messiah and Son of God
• Mediates God’s presence
• Parables and prophetic acts
• Healing
• Exorcisms
• Demonstration of God’s presence and power
• Conflict with religious leaders

New Testament Study of the Earthly Jesus

• Focus: the unique presentation of Jesus in each NT Gospel
• Aim: understanding presentation of “Jesus” in each Gospel
• Faith and theology aim at Christian belief
• Ask different questions; supply different answers
• Interpret each Gospel on its own terms
• Do not import information from one Gospel to another

Historical Study of Jesus

• Focus: historically verifiable evidence


Aim: to describe “the person who emerges from an analysis of sources in accord with generally accepted principles of historical science”

• A skeptical science
• only accepts “facts”
• tests sources against one another
• Uninterested in the unique perspective of Gospelsà seeks Jesus

“behind” Gospels The Exalted Jesus (of NT faith)

• Abides with believers; believers abide in Jesus
• Communicates with believers
• Present at baptism of believer
• Answers prayer
• Will return again
• Receives believers’ devotion
• Equal to God and subject to God

The Gospels - Four pictures of Jesus

• 1. “gospel” = (1) early Christian preaching (2) written life of Jesus
• Written like ancient biography
• Portrays “the essential character of the person”
• Encourages emulation of the person
• Has little concern for chronology
• Includes multiple genres

• Influenced by Jewish literature
• “Fictive” (story-like) style of narration
• Overtly evangelistic (“that you may believe”)
• Types of Material in Gospels
• Parables
• Figurative stories that convey spiritual truth
• Miracle stories
• Demonstrations of exceptional “power” or “signs”
• Pronouncement stories
• Anecdote that preserves “the memory of something Jesus said”
• Individual sayings
• Passion and resurrection narratives

The Synoptic Puzzle

• Synoptic = “seeing together”
• Matthew, Luke, and Mark appear to be seeing Jesus together —from

a similar view

• Overlapping material


Parallel structures, style, perspectives, and tone

• Also each have unique material
• Matthew contains 90% of material in Mark but is twice as long
• This raises the question: How are these three Gospels related?
• (Majority) Two-source Hypothesis
• Mark written first
• Matthew and Luke use Mark as a written source
• Matthew and Luke use a second (hypothetical) source of Jesus’

sayings = Q

• Matthew and Luke, independently, used their own oral sources to

complement written sources (M and L)

• (Minority) Two-Gospel Hypothesis
• Matthew wrote first
• Luke used Matthew
• Mark later condensed Matthew and Luke into one writing

Mark - A tale of mystery, conflict, irony and pathos

• Date and Place
• First Gospel written 65–73 CE
• Shortest Gospel
• Lacks birth and resurrection narratives
• Mark 13 may refer to Jewish War, 64–70 CE
• Follows format of early Christian preaching
• Author
• Anonymous
• Papias identifies author as “Peter’s interpreter” (1 Pet. 5:13; box 6.1)
• Devout Christian
• Jesus is Son of God and Messiah (Mark 1:1)
• Cites Hebrew scriptures as word of God
• Less knowledgeable about Palestine
• Assumes knowledge of Latin terms but explains Aramaic
• Community
• Roman Christians
• Believe Jesus’ story is sacred history
• Identify with the terrors in Mark 13
• Need comfort, encouragement
• Are they undergoing local persecution?
• Are they in Rome when Nero persecutes Christians there, mid 60s

CE?

• Style
• Everything happens “immediately” (Euthus!); new changes are here
• Colloquial, unrefined Greek
• Suspension of correct grammar
• Use of historical present (past tense and present continuous in

same sentence: “Jesus went into a Synagogue. Immediately, Jesus is speaking .

• Intercalation
• Interweaves one story with another to illumine both
• Abrupt, confusing ending (16:8)
• Key Themes
• Urgency
• Messianic secret
• 4:10-12
• 1:43-44; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26
• Ambiguity—do we really understand?
• 8:14–21
• Human portrait of Jesus
• Cross is Central
• Present Kingdom
• “Holiness is contagious” and now transforms the unclean
• New obedience to God is possible now
• Future Kingdom
• Jesus returns
• Brings judgment and deliverance
• Disciples
• Mark portrays disciples “negatively”
• They have difficulty understanding Jesus
• They don’t recognize who Jesus is (Messiah)
• Peter correctly confesses Jesus (8:29)
• But only partially understands; receives rebuke
• Disciples misconstrue the Messianic purpose
• Like the blind men (Mark 8:22–26 and 10:46–52)
• Judas betrays Jesus; Peter denies Jesus
• Only women do not abandon Jesus at the cross

Outline

• Jesus heals people and casts out demons (1:1–8:30)
• Jesus teaches (8:31–10:52)
• First prediction (8:31–34)
• Second prediction (9:30–32)
• Third prediction (10:32–34)
• Teaching in Jerusalem (11:1–13:37)
• Passion and crucifixion (14:1–15:47)