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| Beginnings
Beginnings : Bishop +Rogers' latest series of essays exploring the origin of early Christianity from the time of the Apostles, throught the Post Apostolic period and beyond. If you have any comments on this essay, pro or anti I would love to hear from you . Ring me on 01225702436 or email tyfurog@aol.com
Christianity is now over 2000 years old, though still one of the younger world religions. But 2000 years is a long time, and we who are at this end of it may well consider from time to time how things have changed Whatever we may like to think, our religion is bound to be different in many ways from that of the early Christians, just as our personal ideologies differ from those of our parents, and that is only over one generation - about thirty years. So this essay, 1 hope the first of several, if it is well received, will start at the beginning, and then we may progress over the early centuries to see how our faith developed in its basic ideas and beliefs, most of which, though not all, we still hold to today. It is very important to know these things at this time when Christianity is in retreat, partly because it is misunderstood, and poorly taught. We must be able to offer enquirers true facts and a clear understanding of what we believe and why, and not give them cause to mistake or misunderstand our religion as they so often do. | |
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 So we must begin with the source - Jesus. What do we know of him at the beginning, unclouded by later developments? Well, all we know is the record in the Gospels, because we can disregard the possibly forged comments of his near contemporary Josephus, the Jewish historian, who referred to Jesus in rather ambiguous terms in a very short sentence. There are no other known contemporary (or near contemporary) references.
The Gospels (there are four accepted by the Church since the fifth century, though many more existed, and we may consider some of them later), were written a long time after Jesus’ lifetime, and do not pretend to be real histories, more a transmission of his teaching. We don’t know who wrote them, though they were attributed to the evangelists we know by name. It seems unlikely, after much scholarly research, that the close followers of Jesus who were named as authors actually wrote them, though the Church has always favoured acceptance of the idea that they did. Mark, the first, was written about 70CE, Matthew and Luke probably between 80 and 100 CE and John about 100CE. Of course these dates are knowledgeable guesses, since we have no originals dated or signed. The earliest manuscript so far found is a few verses of John, dated 125CE, and the next available- a slightly bigger piece- has been dated to the late second century. 
These fragments came from Egypt, preserved by the climate, and are, of course, copies as are all subsequent manuscripts. Copying offers enormous possibilities for mistakes, even though the Jewish copyists of the Talmud were renowned for the care they took for accuracy. There is no record to suggest, however, that the early Christian copyists took the same care.  Indeed later and more complete manuscripts show many corrections and some interpolations and even changes in the text if the copier thought them to be more in keeping with the Church’s teaching. | | 
Before these gospels were written the letters of Paul were in circulation from about 40 CE, and the evangelists would, have been aware of them, and of all the oral tales of Jesus, which Christians must have circulated. But think of the stories of the two world wars, some of which can he shown to be just hearsay even after only ninety years. 
Truth is never easy to find after time has passed. Paul never met Jesus in the flesh as far as we know, but it is from his 'channeled' hearing of Jesus on the way to Damascus that we have the very words of consecration, which Paul said were used at the Last Supper (which he did not attend), and which are used daily at the most sacred moment of the Mass. I know that these words also appear in the synoptic Gospels but they were all written considerably later than Paul’s letters. So then what do we know of Jesus? Clearly he was a Jew - indeed a very committed Jew, and very learned if the reported usage of scripture by him is true. Was he a poor man? We don't know. He is referred to in the early (Greek) scriptures as a tekton, which can mean teacher, or master carpenter, or builder - which we do not know. It suited the early Church to describe him as a poor carpenter. 
We are told that he had brothers and sisters (the Church was later very unhappy about that} and that he lived in a small village - Nazareth - in Galilee, one of the backwoods of Judea, but it is rarely mentioned that this was only about five kilometers from a major town at Sepphoris which was being built by the Romanised rulers of Judea, and which had a palace and a three thousand seat theatre, and where lucrative work would have been available for a builder or carpenter.
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Jesus was clearly a teacher of considerable repute, well known in the locality, though Geza Vermes (who until his recent death was one of the most respected scholars in this field) has suggested that Jesus was always considered a mamzer (illegitimate) because of his mother's pregnancy during her engagement. Again we do not really know, because at that time differing views were held as to what should be the right thing with regard to sex during the engagement time. Neither do we know if the claim that he was genuinely King of the Jews, as Pilate posted above his tortured body, is true. Certainly the gospels go to some trouble to show his descent from King David, and also from the high priestly line of Israel, which, if true, would have given him a legitimate claim both to the crown and to the spiritual leadership, and thus making him a perceived danger to both the Jewish priests and the Romans.  Whenever such suggestion might have been made Jesus always is reported as saying 'keep it quiet’ though he never denied it outright, and it appears that he was crucified ostensibly because of that possible claim of which he was clearly aware even if he did not wish to pursue it in the expected way. As a side note to this, just as we have no contemporary evidence about Jesus, there was none for Pilate either until a few years ago when an inscription referring to Pilate as governor of Judea was discovered.
So to sum up. All we really know about Jesus is that he was a Jew, probably a religious teacher, who was probably crucified for claiming (or having had claimed for him) the Jewish kingship during the rule of Pontius Pilate We don't know when or where he was born or when he died since there is nor record other than the Gospels (which disagree on dates}. What came of this rather poorly documented beginning we shall try to pursue in the next issue +Roger If you have any comments on this essay , pro or anti I would love to hear from you . Ring me on 01225702436 or email tyfurog@aol.com | |
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