During the first session of introductory New Testament courses, I often invite students to imagine a different world. After introductions, the distribution of the syllabus and other preliminaries, students ponder: Imagine a world in which the average life expectancy for women is 25 or 30 years, where men's average life expectancy is more like 40. Imagine a world in which the average woman must complete pregnancy at least five times -- just to hold up her share of the population. Imagine cities in which perhaps one in three inhabitants are slaves. Imagine living on a street lined with four- or five-story apartment buildings, a street only six or eight feet wide and served by no public plumbing. Imagine living with no meaningful police force, where the strong almost always get their way and violence frequently resolves conflicts.
What would religion look like in a world like that?
Religion offered two major benefits for most people in the Roman Empire: protection and belonging. You and I may have learned about the classical Greek gods in high school, but the early Christians (those who were not Jews) inhabited a richly populated spiritual universe. Local gods, regional gods, professional gods, family gods and household gods expected recognition and required satisfaction. Evil spiritual forces also lurked, threatening to harm the unobservant. Acknowledging the gods, whether through direct personal worship or through public festivals and ceremonies, provided protection for households and communities. Moreover, honoring the gods fostered community, as trade guilds, burial societies, ethnic groups, and extended families linked religion to their diverse group identities.
Earliest Christianity offered one alternative movement in that complicated spiritual economy. Emerging from Judaism, a significant ethnic and religious minority identity in its own right, the first churches stood among those ancient religious movements that offered individual mystical experience, promised the ability to transcend death and cultivated alternative communal relationships. Their competition included popular philosophical movements that trained people to discipline themselves in order to transcend suffering and respond to Fate (capital F) with freedom and equanimity.
Those earliest churches displayed one particularly remarkable trait: a passion to keep in touch with one another. We see this most clearly in Paul's letters, many of which include greetings and news from cities all over the eastern Mediterranean world. Paul sends and receives reports from one city after another. He praises the believers in Thessalonica, capital of Macedonia, because their reputation has spread not only throughout Greece but also "in every place" (1 Thessalonians 1:8). While in Ephesus (modern Turkey), Paul receives news from Corinth (in Greek Achaia; 1 Corinthians 1:11-13; 7:1). To Rome he sends representatives from Corinth and its suburbs (Romans 16:1-2). As Paul raises money in Corinth, he reminds the believers there of the generosity he has received from other regions of Greece (2 Corinthians 8:1-7).
We occasionally receive brief glimpses of the passionate regard these early Christians held for one another. We cannot confidently identify the location to which the Gospel of Mark was addressed, but the story pauses for one telling detail. The Romans compel "a passer-by," a certain Simon from Cyrene, to carry Jesus' cross. This is how the story identifies Simon: "It was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus" (15:21, NRSV). Cyrene was in Libya, and apparently Simon had moved to Roman Palestine, but for our purposes that's not the point. Imagine Mark's first audience as they hear the story for the first time. "It was Simon -- you may know him. You certainly know his sons Alexander and Rufus."
Perhaps Alexander and Rufus are in the room when the story is read. Perhaps their names evoke warm memories. Somehow Simon's accidental brush with Jesus has created a legacy. Two of his sons -- Did he have only two? Did he have daughters? -- stand among the prominent believers a generation later. This little aside in Mark's Gospel reveals the importance of such relationships for the earliest Christians.
The New Testament's very existence testifies to how passionately the earliest Christians kept in touch with one another. Some people imagine a group of powerful old men selecting the New Testament books in a smoke-filled room. That's not how things happened at all. The formation of the New Testament largely emerged organically. Imagine a church in one city, which might share a copy of Mark's Gospel with another church that lacked it. Imagine churches distributing their copies of Paul's letters with one another so that eventually most of the churches have the same collection. For the most part, the New Testament canon grew from the books that were the most widely read and treasured.
By a certain point in the second century, it seems most every significant church read and possessed copies of the four Gospels, Acts and 10 letters attributed to Paul. Other books also circulated, but less evenly. Some of these made it into the canon while others did not. The primary factor in their inclusion was their widespread use.
Imagine, again, how these books circulated. No class of professional scribes had emerged in the early churches. Instead, individuals copied their manuscripts by hand. They used extremely expensive writing materials such as papyrus and animal skins (parchment), which required a lengthy manufacturing process. They found ways to circulate these documents with one another over vast distances in challenging travel circumstances. These believers, most of whom had never met, went to such great lengths to share these resources because they cared deeply for one another.
In my next post I'll reflect on the diverse people who populated those earliest churches.
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The First Christians | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians ...
Early Christianity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE | PBS
Christianity : Pictures, Videos, Breaking News - Huffington Post
It's easy to discover more by reading Elain Pagle's work.
Also, look for Irenaus, The Canon of Truth, and the Battle Against Gnosticism. Irenaus waged a war against Gnosticism and its writings.
The four Gospels did not arise organically as Mr. Cary would have you believe. Perhaps he is unaware of the Nag Hammadi Library
Irenaeus of Lyon, "An Ancient Indictment and Overthrow of the Falsely Named 'Knowledge'"
http://youtu.be/iGf4sMVC7so
:-)
The problem with statistics like these, people forget that it's coverage a wide range of death possibilities. If you have population of five women -one who dies of chickenpox when she is three, another dies from falling out of a tree at 7, another dies of the flu at 12, and the other two live well into their 70's, you suddenly have an "average" life expectancy of about 33 years! If you managed to live through childhood, you could easily live into your 70's. After all, how old was Saint Paul when he was killed?
Funny how the almighty God choose to preach to his followers only 2k years ago, Shouldn't God be laying down the rules day one when God created humans like millions of years ago?
Shouldn't God be creating more advance and 'perfectly' programmed and obeying humans in the first place ?
Shouldn't the humans be living more than 25 year then but rather forever and ever in the first place, rather than the cumbersome transition into the spirit world and into heaven?
This God indeed a playful one
"Shouldn't the humans be living more than 25 year then but rather forever and ever in the first place, rather than the cumbersome transition into the spirit world and into heaven? " They do, in part. How could you know the transition is so "cumbersome", I'm just interested...
if god really want us to obey,
shouldn't every person on earth be given exact same guidelines to follow ? but instead we are faced with countless variations in religions, with so many proclaiming god spoken to them .new and old testament- be The one and only testaments. shouldn't everyone intelligences be created equal?
from a carbon based body transitioning to a question mark, thats not cumbersome ? so i can imagine out there there is a brain/soul copier ? logging our every thoughts so it can be risen when we are dead to sit beside god.
anyways it's just some random thoughts of mine late at night....
Wow, nice way to just brush aside 300 years of persecutions, tortures, deaths and savagery. Go read Fox's Book of Martyrs ( and no it has nothing to do with Fox News) and think about what you said. These Christians were being rounded up, set on fire, thrown to wild animals, stretched to death by horses, all because they refused to deny the name of Christ. And 300 years later, when the Church withstood all the wrath of the Romans, the Church grew and grew. It was then Constantine converted. but 300 years after. Thats longer than our country has been in existence.
The dispute Paul had with the other apostles had to do with the status of gentiles with respect to what was called "the Way of Life" (Christianity).
Scholar Karen King, found in "Women in Ancient Christianity"- Paul letters offer some important glimpses in the inner workings of ancient Christians churches. First theses Christian groups did NOT own Churches, church buildings, but meet in groups, Homes of Woman (wealthy or otherwise) no-doubt- in part to the Fact that Christianity was- NOT Legal in the Roman World Empire and part because of enormous expense to such fledgling societies.
Woman played a Key Role, took leadership, in house, home churches.
Paul letters and in Acts bare truth and facts to this. Paul tells of woman who were leaders of such home churches-Prisca, Junin, Julis, Nereus sister who worked as missionaries. Emplifying woman their great prominence roles, their was Mary Magdeline and many more woman. Acts 174-12, Acts 16:15, Corinthians 16:19, Colossians 4:15, later first Century work also - Didache-to christian prophets.
And also first earliest Christians communities looked upon the Books of OT as sacred scripture and read them at their religious assembles. What is made clear, Hegesippus, (Eusebius, Josephus, Church History. Note also James the Just, not a apostle after Christ agreed upon by all Apostles was Called the Bishop of Bishop, Christ church after Jesus death and recorded mention in bible Paul sent money to this Church. There was also many who called them self Christians who rose up after Christ but not all accept all that was spoken about Christ, many believed he was a prophet, some believed in the virgin birth some did not, many different Christian groups also. either. Much was done orally, were poorly educated, could not read also.