Finding the Roots of Christianity

A Spiritual and Historical Journey

Painter

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781532610301
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Finding the Roots of Christianity is for people who are curious about the historical Jesus, his followers, and the movement they began. Who were they, and how was their message understood by those who heard them? Where did the New Testament of the Bible come from? In a personal, thoughtful style, Luke Painter brings into focus the life and times of the Jewish prophet Jesus of Nazareth, bridging the gap between personal study of the Bible and academic scholarship. Sources outside the Bible, including the ancient historian Josephus and recently discovered "lost scriptures" such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, reveal the diversity of early Christian beliefs. Roman religious beliefs influenced how the Christian message was understood during the transition from Jewish sects to the official religion of the Roman Empire. Clear and concise, and based on careful historical research, this book guides the reader through what is known about the earliest origins of Christianity as well as recent discoveries and debates. The author's personal journey of faith and passionate interest in the people behind the New Testament enliven the facts of history, illuminating their meaning for their own time as well as today.

1

Belief and History

This is the story of my investigation of my Christian faith, and some interesting things I discovered. I hope it will be helpful to people who are curious about the Bible and Christianity and where it all came from. What does the evidence of history reveal about Jesus and his disciples and their followers, about who they were and what they thought? Historical sources can provide context for the life of Jesus, to understand him and the New Testament authors as people within their own culture and time. Documents outside the Bible can illuminate the world in which Christianity was born; however, the most important source is the Bible itself. The Bible is a religious document at the center of a major religion, but the search for the facts of history requires understanding the Bible as a historical document. I first became interested in the origins of Christianity as a result of my religious faith, but my exploration led to a much wider study of the culture and history of Jesus and his followers.

As a child I believed in traditional Christianity because my parents and other mentors and friends believed. I looked to the Christian Bible as the source and authority to understand my faith. I accepted the Bible as literally true and infallible, as do millions of Christians around the world. Membership in the community of believers became part of my identity, and this was a powerful influence on my early life. I sought my own relationship with God, as did people in the Bible and in my church. I felt obligated to defend the doctrines of my religion, and had some trepidation when I began questioning them. The Bible was a friend and source of daily inspiration, and this made it difficult to question the idea that it is perfect.

Biblical infallibility or inerrancy may seem a strange idea in the modern world, but for many Christians it is a fundamental doctrine. Belief in the Christian Bible as the one infallible authority is a unifying principle among evangelical Christians, tying together a vast community of people from several major denominations and many independent churches. One such large and venerated organization is the Southern Baptist Convention, which states as a basic belief that, “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.”1 If this is true, it certainly simplifies the search for historical facts about Jesus and the early Christians! I could start by simply accepting that everything the Bible says is literally true and factual. Setting aside the lens of religious belief, it is clear that the Bible is unlikely to be perfect and infallible, because it was written by humans and nothing done by humans is infallible. Nevertheless, this is the standard to which millions of people hold the Bible. How can so many people accept such a radical belief?

People may simply accept belief in the perfection of the Bible as part of the package of their religion, but for many believers the Bible also has the power to inspire faith in God. From this follows reverence for the Bible, and from this reverence follows the conviction that everything in it must be true and right. I had spiritual experiences that reinforced and internalized my belief in God, and I interpreted these experiences in light of my religious training and the Bible.

Most spiritual experiences are difficult to explain to another person, but I can relate an experience that strengthened my belief in the Bible. It happened when I was twelve years old. I was sitting alone under some trees, with some things on my mind, fretting more than thinking. I looked up at the sky, and I heard a voice loud and clear, saying, “My son, rest in me. Be still and know that I am God.” I believed it was the voice of God. I was astounded and my worries shattered.

The voice was clear, but I cannot say that someone else sitting there would have heard it, maybe it was in my mind. I already believed in God and was studying the Bible. I knew part of this was from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God,” but what really hit me was the love behind it, the loving God who called me son and wanted me to be at peace. This confirmed and strengthened my belief in God, and in the Bible as the infallible Word of God. I cultivated a sense of the presence of God, and listened for the still, small, voice of the Holy Spirit.

This kind of experience has consequences for the way a person reads the Bible. For example, the Bible says that Jesus had a similar experience when he was baptized by John the Baptist:

When he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10–11)2

Historians often discount such miraculous occurrences in the Bible as non-factual legends, but for me it was easy to believe that Jesus and others in the Bible had experiences like this, because something similar happened to me. When people questioned the Bible, it seemed to me they did not understand that it came from the living Spirit of God. For my parents, who were church pastors, the skepticism they had encountered in their seminary training seemed to take the faith and life out of the Bible. We found ourselves identifying with the Christians of the New Testament, as we sought and experienced the reality of God. The important thing, we thought, was for people to believe in the living Holy Spirit. This brought real and tangible benefits to their lives, so questioning the Bible seemed counterproductive. There appeared to be only two ways to go: believing in God and the Holy Spirit and the perfection of the Bible, or rejecting the whole thing. I later came to realize there is another option, but that stark choice was how it looked to me then.

As I grew older, I felt a responsibility to myself, God, and the truth to question beliefs I had accepted uncritically. I wanted to truly understand the Bible and Christianity, and I wanted my faith to be grounded in truth. I believed that any real God would want me to use reason and wisdom. I had a sense of God’s presence that affirmed “God is love,” as the Bible says (1 John 4:8), a simple phrase that for me conveyed a reality beyond words. Jesus said that loving God and loving your neighbor fulfills God’s purpose (Matt. 7:12, 22:37–40). He told his disciples, “This is my commandment that you love one another” (John 15:12). I believed in this heart of love and forgiveness, but set aside the traditional doctrines of Christianity. I believed in God but recognized that this belief cannot be objectively proven.

I cannot prove that compassion and kindness are keys to a good life, but this is something anyone can practice regardless of their beliefs. There are compassionate people who are not religious and do not believe in God, and there are hateful people who are very religious and seem to genuinely believe in God. Jesus said it is their actions that show his true followers, not their vows of allegiance (Matt. 7:15–23), and people who are loving and kind are serving God whether they know it or not (Matt. 25:31–46). His followers are to serve one another in love and humility (Mark 9:35, John 13:14). To have your sins forgiven, simply forgive the sins of others (Matt. 5:14–15). In these teachings of Jesus I saw the same Spirit that inspired me, and it was through the Bible, perfect or not, that I came to this. Because the Bible was important to me personally, I wanted to know what it was and how it came to be written. Furthermore, the writings of the Bible and related ancient documents contain the most important historical evidence available for the origins of Christianity, a movement that has influenced the lives of many people and the history of the world.

1. Southern Baptist Convention, Basic Beliefs.

2. Citations from the Bible are provided in the text using abbreviations for the books of the Bible.

2

The Bible and the Story of Jesus

How can the Bible be understood as a historical source? The most direct way is to examine what it says. The New Testament of the Bible contains almost everything known about Jesus and the early beginnings of Christianity, including letters written by the apostle Paul, one of Christianity’s important founders. For centuries, Christians have looked to these writings as authoritative and inspired by God. A careful study will reveal the humanity of the Bible authors, as people within a time and culture. Some of the conclusions from this investigation may seem radical to someone who has heard only the traditional religious point of view, but familiar to anyone with an introductory course on the New Testament from a college or seminary.

Jesus and his disciples were Jews in the land of Israel, which was at that time, 2000 years ago, under the control of the vast and powerful Roman Empire. As observant Jews they followed Jewish ritual practices and dietary laws, avoided work on the Sabbath day, and revered a set of scriptures that later were adopted as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. These ancient Jewish writings are an important source for understanding not only ancient Judaism but also Jesus and his disciples and their followers, who were the source and the subject of the second part of the Christian Bible called the New Testament. The Bible, therefore, has two parts: the Old Testament containing the holy scriptures of the Jews, originally written in Hebrew; and the New Testament, written in Greek, containing the oldest and most revered documents of Christianity. The writings of the Bible were produced by various authors and editors over a span of centuries, and had no chapter or verse divisions in their original form.

The Jewish temple in the city of Jerusalem was the heart of the Jewish world and culture. Jews believed that the spirit of almighty God resided there, in the Holy of Holies, the inner court of the temple. Priests in the temple performed rituals prescribed by the Jewish laws, including animal sacrifices. There were annual holy days when many thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem, and the biggest of these was the Passover. A similar event in the world today is the Muslim Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca where thousands of pilgrims perform ancient rituals that includ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations of Books of the Bible and Other Ancient Sources
• Chapter 1: Belief and History
• Chapter 2: The Bible and the Story of Jesus
• Chapter 3: According to the Scriptures
• Chapter 4: The Message of Jesus the Christ
• Chapter 5: Filled with the Holy Spirit
• Chapter 6: The Message of the End—A Closer Look
• Chapter 7: Lost Scriptures and the New Testament
• Chapter 8: Josephus and the New Testament
• Chapter 9: Paul, Peter, James, and the Gospel
• Chapter 10: Christianity in the Roman World
• Chapter 11: Constantine and the Nicene Creed
• Chapter 12: Putting It All Together
• Bibliography