Historical background of the New Testament

Mishnah Berakot 5:5 tells of Hanina ben Dosa, who in the generation following Jesus cured Gamaliel's son by prayer (compare with Matthew 8: 5–13). A later story (In the Babylonian Talmud, Berakot 33a) tells of a lizard that used to injure passers-by. Hanina ben Dosa came and put his heel over the hole; the lizard bit him and died.

Such men were respected for their relationship with God but not considered especially saintly; their abilities were seen as one more unknowable thing and not deemed a result of any ultra-strict observance of Jewish law.^{[citation needed]} These men were sometimes doubted, often respected, and even (according to Géza Vermes) addressed by their followers as "lord" — but never considered "saviors" or "messiahs."^{[citation needed]}

Messiahs and millennial prophets

The literal translation of the Hebrew word mashiach (

An "Egyptian" prophet" led thirty thousand around the Mount of Olives and sought to enter Jerusalem until stopped by Antonius Felix, a procurator after Fadus.^{[citation needed]}

Zealots, Sicarii and bandits

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

When Herod was still military governor in the Galilee, he spent a good deal of time fighting bandits under the leadership of Ezekias. These bandits are best understood as a peasant group whose targets were local elites (both Hasmonean and Herodian) rather than Rome. Ventidius Cumanus (procurator 48 to 52 CE) often retaliated against brigandry by punishing peasant communities he believed to be their base of support.^{[citation needed]} When a Galillean pilgrim on the way to Jerusalem was murdered by a Samaritan, the bandit chief Eliezar organized Galilleans for a counter-attack, and Cumanus moved against the Jews. A Syrian legate, Quadratus, intervened and sent several Jewish and Samaritan officials to Rome. The Emperor Claudius took the Jewish side, and had the Samaritan leaders executed and exiled, and turned one named Veler over to the Jews who beheaded him. Thus, widespread peasant unrest of this period was not exclusively directed against Rome but also expressed discontent against urban elites and other groups; Roman policy sought to contain the power of the bandits while cultivating Jewish support.^{[citation needed]}

During the

The Romans employed a scorched earth policy in its fight in the north, driving thousands of peasants southwards towards Jerusalem. Between 67 and 68, these peasants, perhaps led by bandits, formed a new political party called the Zealots, which believed that an independent kingdom should be restored immediately through force of arms. It is unclear whether their leaders made messianic claims.^{[according to whom?]} The Zealots imprisoned members of the Herodian family, killed the former high priests Ananus ben Ananus and Joshua ben Gamla, and put on trial the wealthiest citizens.^{[citation needed]} It is possible that they believed they were purging elements whom they believed would have surrendered to the Romans. But these purges also reveal the great social divide between Jewish peasants and aristocrats at this time. They formed part of a social revolution: although they ultimately lost to the Romans, elite groups like the Hasmoneans, Herodians, and Sadducees would never again have power in Roman Judea.^{[citation needed]}

Analysis of the gospels

Most historians view the gospels not as an objective account of Jesus, but as the product of men writing at a particular period, and grappling with particular theological as well as political issues. Specifically, they assume that, after Jesus's death,

According to historian Paula Fredriksen (1988: 5), critical scholars rely on four basic criteria for extrapolating an "authentic" historical account of Jesus out of the New Testament sources:

1. Dissimilarity: "if the earliest form of a saying or story differs in emphasis from a characteristic teaching or concern both of contemporary Judaism and of the early church, then it may be authentic."
2. Coherence: "if material from the earlier strata of tradition is consonant with other material already established as probably authentic, then it too is probably authentic."
3. Multiple attestation: "if material appears in a number of different sources and literary contexts, then it may be authentic."
4. Linguistic suitability: "material with a claim to authenticity should be susceptible of Aramaic rendering, since Jesus did not teach in Greek, the language of the documents."

As Fredriksen observes, these criteria do not guarantee an accurate historical reconstruction. Nevertheless, she argues,

If something stands in the gospels that is clearly not in the interests of the late 1st-century church — disparaging remarks about Gentiles, for example, or explicit pronouncements about the imminent end of the world — then it has a stronger claim to authenticity than otherwise. Stated briefly, anything embarrassing is probably earlier. (1988: 6).

Even these criteria are not sufficient to recover "what really happened." They can, however, enable historians to suggest "with reasonable security what possibly happened, what probably happened, and what could not possibly have happened.

According to Fredriksen, two events in the Gospels probably happened: John's baptism and Pilate's crucifixion of Jesus. These events are mentioned in all four gospels. Moreover, they do not conform to Jewish tradition in which there are no baptized and crucified messiahs. They are also embarrassing to the early Church. John the Baptist's prominence in both the gospels and Josephus suggests that he may have been more popular than Jesus in his lifetime; also, Jesus' mission does not begin until after his baptism by John. Fredriksen suggests that it was only after Jesus' death that Jesus emerged as more influential than John.^{[citation needed]} Accordingly, the gospels project Jesus' posthumous importance back to his lifetime. Ways this was accomplished were by minimizing John's importance by having John resist baptizing Jesus (Matthew), by referring to the baptism in passing (Luke), or by asserting Jesus' superiority (John).

Given the historical context in which the Gospels took their final form and during which Christianity first emerged, historians have struggled to understand Jesus' ministry in terms of what is known about 1st century Judaism. According to scholars such as Geza Vermes^[

)

As the Gospel accounts are generally held to have been composed in the period immediately following the revolt of 66–73, it has been suggested that Christians had to refashion their theological and apocalyptic claims given that Jesus did not immediately return to restore the Jewish kingdom. Moreover, as Christianity emerged as a new religion seeking converts among the gentiles, and eventually as the

religion of the emperor himself, it needed to assure both Roman authorities and prospective Gentile audiences that it neither threatened nor challenged imperial sovereignty. Some historians have argued that these two conditions played a crucial role in the revision of accounts of Jesus' life and teachings into the form they ultimately took in the Gospels.^[19]

The divergence of early Christians and Rabbinic Jews

Main article:

Split of early Christianity and Judaism

As with many religions, no precise date of founding is agreed by all parties. Christians traditionally believe that Christianity began with Jesus' ministry, and the appointment of the

Constantine I and Christianity. According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen

,

The separation of Christianity from Judaism was a process, not an event. The essential part of this process was that the church was becoming more and more gentile, and less and less Jewish, but the separation manifested itself in different ways in each local community where Jews and Christians dwelt together. In some places, the Jews expelled the Christians; in other, the Christians left of their own accord.

— [21]

According to Cohen, this process ended in 70 CE, after the great revolt, when various Jewish sects disappeared and Pharisaic Judaism evolved into Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity emerged as a distinct religion.^[22] Many historians argue that the Gospels took their final form after the Great Revolt and the destruction of the Temple, although some scholars put the authorship of Mark in the 60s, and need to be understood in this context.

Bar Kokhba's revolt

, when the successors of the Pharisees claimed hegemony over all Judaism, and – at least from the Jewish perspective – Christianity emerged as a new religion.

The First Jewish–Roman War and the destruction of the Temple

By 66 CE, Jewish discontent with Rome had escalated. At first, the priests tried to suppress rebellion, even calling upon the Pharisees for help. After the Roman garrison failed to stop Hellenists from desecrating a synagogue in Caesarea, however, the high priest suspended payment of tribute, inaugurating the First Jewish–Roman War. In 70, the Temple was destroyed. The destruction of the Second Temple was a profoundly traumatic experience for the Jews, who were now confronted with difficult and far-reaching questions:^[27]

• How to achieve atonement without the Temple?
• How to explain the disastrous outcome of the rebellion?
• How to live in the post-Temple, Romanized world?
• How to connect present and past traditions?

How people answered these questions depended largely on their position prior to the revolt. But the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans not only put an end to the revolt, it marked the end of an era. Revolutionaries like the Zealots had been crushed by the Romans, and had little credibility (the last Zealots died at Masada in 73). The Sadducees, whose teachings were so closely connected to the Temple cult, disappeared. The Essenes also vanished, perhaps because their teachings so diverged from the issues of the times that the destruction of the Second Temple was of no consequence to them; precisely for this reason, they were of little consequence to the vast majority of Jews).

Two organized groups remained: the

Early Christians, and Pharisees. Some scholars, such as Daniel Boyarin and Paula Fredricksen, suggest that it was at this time, when Christians and Pharisees were competing for leadership of the Jewish people, that accounts of debates between Jesus and the apostles, debates with Pharisees, and anti-Pharisaic passages, were written and incorporated into the New Testament

.

Loss of records

The siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE included a major fire at the Temple which destroyed all except the

Flavius Josephus writing (about 5 years later c. 75 AD) in The Jewish War (Book VII 1.1) that Jerusalem had been flattened to the point that "there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited."^[29] And once what was left of the ruins of Jerusalem had been turned into the Roman settlement of Aelia Capitolina, no Jews were allowed to set foot in it; and almost no direct records survive about the history of Judaism from the last part of the first century through the second century.^[30]

Margaret M. Mitchell writes that although Eusebius reports (Ecclesiastical History III 5.3) that the early Christians left Jerusalem for Pella just before Jerusalem was subjected to the final lock down in 70, in the face of this total destruction we must accept that no first hand Christian document from the early Jerusalem Church has reached us.^[31]

The Emergence of Rabbinic Judaism

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Following the destruction of the Temple, Rome governed Judea both through a

Fiscus Iudaicus

In 132, the Emperor

According to many historians, most of Jesus' teachings were intelligible and acceptable in terms of Second Temple Judaism; what set Christians apart from Jews was their faith in Christ as the resurrected messiah.[36] The belief in a resurrected Messiah is unacceptable to Jews today and to Rabbinic Judaism, and Jewish authorities^[who?] have long used this fact to explain the break between Judaism and Christianity. Recent work by historians paints a more complex portrait of late Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Some historians have suggested that, before his death, Jesus forged among his believers such certainty that the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead was at hand, that with few exceptions (John 20: 24–29) when they saw him shortly after his execution, they had no doubt that he had been resurrected, and that the restoration of the Kingdom and resurrection of the dead was at hand. These specific beliefs were compatible with Second Temple Judaism.^[37] In the following years the restoration of the Kingdom as Jews expected it failed to occur. Some Christians believed instead that Christ, rather than being the Jewish messiah, was God made flesh, who died for the sins of humanity, and that faith in Jesus Christ offered everlasting life (see Christology).^[38]

The foundation for this new interpretation of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection are found in the epistles of Paul and in the Book of Acts. Most Jews view Paul as the founder of Christianity, who is responsible for the break with Judaism.^[