Beyond the Bible II: From Faith to Religion: The Untold History of the Early Church

By Neil P Harvey

In the first century A.D. Jesus of Nazareth, called the Messiah and the Son of the Living God, inspired a small group of followers to carry his Gospel message of redemption and salvation from Jerusalem unto all nations. By the end of the first century, churches were established in nearly every city visited by the apostles, and soon Christianity emerged as the fastest growing religion in the world. And then, what? In his fascinating follow up to Beyond the Bible, Neil P Harvey examines the earliest history of the church, and explores its formation as seen through the eyes of the earliest believers. Beyond the Bible II is a power-packed, fact filled adventure that offers a fresh look into the origins of Christian doctrine, the formal recognition of clergy, and the untold history of trial and conflict guaranteed to leave you amazed, and ultimately fulfilled with new insights into how Christianity came into being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil P Harvey
• Release date: Jun 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370793914

Neil P Harvey

Neil P. Harvey is a lifelong student of history and accomplished essayist with a passion for writing and digital art. In 2003 Mr. Harvey created the community organization Letstalkand, where he served as lead adviser and lecturer at various events across the country.

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Chapter 1

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BEFORE THE BEGINNING

Christianity is a worldwide religion founded upon the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the well-known and controversial Jewish figure who began his ministry in the Roman province of Galilee. Unlike many before him, Jesus as a leader proclaimed that he was the messiah (John 4:26) sent to become a sacrifice in order to bring about a reconciliation with God. His message was readily accepted by some, but others were more reticent as they feared the Jewish authorities who openly rejected Jesus’ claims and ministry. It was this fear in conjunction with the fervent condemnation of his enemies that ultimately led to Jesus’s famed crucifixion.

To the Jewish people, the word “messiah” (literally “moshiach” meaning “anointed one”) is typically used as an epithet for a king or priest that has been set aside to fulfil a special purpose ordained by God. In accordance, messiahs must be anointed or “smeared with oil” in a ceremony conducted by a priest who pours scented oil over a designee’s head or body; serving as a symbolic representation of the messiah’s purification. Although closely associated with the Jews, the tradition was common in the ancient Near East, most often performed during weddings or religious ceremonies. In Jewish tradition, it was customary for priests and prophets to be anointed as a part of their consecration, but later the practice was extended to the kings of Israel and Judah.

In the 8th century BC the northern kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians, followed by the invasion of the southern kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 589BC. As a result, most of the Jewish people were displaced and relocated to Babylon, subsequently threatening to bring an end to Hebrew culture as they assimilated into the greater society. However, a core remnant of the Jewish people preserved their historical oral traditions and customary set of beliefs. During this time the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Daniel were written, along with a number of the Psalms, which were used as hymnals and for Jewish meditation even until the present day.

But the Jewish people longed to return to their homeland, which they traditionally viewed as being promised to them by God. In the following years they increasingly believed that a prophetic leader would arise to restore them, as such an event was alluded to in scripture. During this period the Psalms were a constant source of inspiration and several make reference to an “anointed one” – a king or priest and future ruler who would establish (or re-establish) the kingdom of God on earth:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed – Book of Psalms 2:1-2

The Persian King Cyrus the Great returned the Jews to their homeland in 539BC and facilitated their rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem; beginning an era known as the Second Temple Period (530BC – 70AD). Although they were granted a measure of autonomy, they were in fact ruled by a number of successive powers, eventually coming under the dominion of the Ptolemy and Seleucid kings, who greatly exposed Judah (or Judea) to Greek culture and impressed upon them the Greek way of life. Many Jews at this time adopted Greek names and dressed in Greek clothing, with some even participating in the many pagan festivals considered unacceptable to the more devout Jews.

As a result, a sect known as the Hasideans (the pious) rose to prominence in the 2nd century BC. They considered themselves to be the preservers of Jewish traditions and culture, and they were the primary instigators behind a series of uprisings that resulted in the occupation of Jerusalem by Antiochus IV in 168BC. Antiochus outlawed the Jewish religion and re-dedicating the temple in Jerusalem to Zeus. He banned the traditional Jewish sacrifices and only permitted the sacrifice of pigs, which was meant to be a deliberate offense. Those caught performing any act of observance to Mosaic Law were imprisoned or burned alive.

In the aftermath of the persecutions a temple priest named Mattathias fled Jerusalem and returned to his home in Modiin. One year later he inspired yet another revolt after refusing to sacrifice an offering to the Greek gods. His son Judas Maccabee led the uprising against the Seleucid army and Hellenized Jews in an effort to repel the occupancy and restore the Jewish state.

The guerilla tactics of the Jewish fighters overwhelmed the Seleucids, and after a series of victories they defeated the foreign army and liberated the city of Jerusalem. According to tradition, Judas Maccabee next cleansed the temple and lit a menorah that miraculously burned for eight days without being refilled; an occurrence recognized as the festival of Hanukkah still observed to the present day.

The family founded the Hasmonean Dynasty, which governed much of Judea until it was conquered by the Roman Republic in 63BC. Although none of the Maccabees were explicitly called “messiah” (perhaps because they were not descendants of David), they certainly were regarded as messiah-like figures who liberated the Jewish people and established an era of peace.

He [Jonathan Maccabee] made peace in the land, and Israel rejoiced with great joy: For every man sat under his vine and his fig tree, and there was none to fray them: Neither was there any left in the land to fight against them. – 1 Maccabees 14: 11-13

From this period onward the belief in a coming “anointed one” or “messiah” became more widely accepted, and more apparent to those who studied the ancient scriptures. The concept of a pure and chosen vessel called to re-establish a Godly kingdom was especially appealing to the emerging Jewish sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes, who then served as the procurators of Jewish homogeny.

In 142BC the Seleucid monarchy officially recognized the Maccabees as rulers of Judea. They remained in power for the next one-hundred and three years before being unseated by Herod the Great in 39BC. By this time many of the Jewish people no longer viewed the anointed one as just a king and a priest, but he was THE king and THE priest, that would descend from the paternal line of David and restore the kingdom of Israel after freeing the Jewish people from their oppressors.

The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. - Book of Psalms 110: 1-4

In the Talmud (the core text of Rabbinic Judaism) he is called “melekh mashiach” or “king messiah,” whose preeminent mission is to usher in a Messianic Age. The Dead Sea Scrolls, some dating to the 2nd century BC, are exceptionally poignant when referring to the messiah as a priest and a warrior king, with some passages even adding that he would be a healer of disease and one able to cure the blind. And still other texts speak about a suffering servant (quoting lines from Isaiah 53); depicting the messiah as an innocent man mistreated and despised, yet highly favored of God. Given these myriad points of view, it is easy to understand how they became conflated at the time of Jesus ministry, seeing that his followers believed he superseded each of the criteria required for one to be the messiah.

The Baptist and the Messiah

Messianic belief reached a peak in the first century. One such figure arose in the person of John the Baptist, who was born during the reign of Herod the Great to the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. John is described in the Gospel of Mark as a man living in the wilderness, clothed in camel’s hair, and living on wild honey and locusts. He once referred to himself as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” a reference to the 40th chapter Isaiah, and as one who would “prepare the way of the Lord.”

By all accounts John’s ministry was remarkable in ways that exceeded all that had come before him. He unabashedly called the Jews to repentance and purposefully baptized them in water as an outward expression of their repentance and purification. As his popularity grew people from throughout the region journeyed to hear him preach, which drew the attention of the priests and religious leaders of Jerusalem, who sent emissaries to question as to whether or not he was the messiah.

And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. – John 1:19-20

They then questioned why he was baptizing if he was not the messiah, as if to imply that his message of repentance was not of God. John retorted and said:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost – Matthew 3:11

John’s ministry must have been shocking to many of the first century Jews who heard him speak. For they had before them one who appeared to have all the hallmarks of a messiah, but instead he proclaims he is not, and that the true messiah will come to baptize them in the Holy Ghost (understood as the “ruach kadsh'cha,” literally “Holy Spirit”). For those awaiting a leader who would call the Jews to arms and liberate them from Rome, John’s message of repentance shamed them – for they thought they were already right in the eyes of God by birth and by their ritual observance of Mosaic Law. John’s proclamation that they must repent of their sins publically undermined their authority as religious leaders and as the faithful practitioners of Jewish law.

According to the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth also came before John to be baptized, even though apparently John already believed that Jesus was the messiah. As such, he was unwilling to baptize Jesus, instead saying that it was Jesus who should baptize him. And yet Jesus insisted – but why? If Jesus truly was the anointed one, why would he need to be baptized by John for the remission of sins?

The answer is perhaps best left to theologians, but from a practical point of view it is understandable that Jesus would have sought John’s baptism as part of a purification ritual known as “tevilah;” a ceremonial full water immersion tied to the Book of Exodus, which had been observed by the Jews since the Second Temple Period. Just after the baptism John publically proclaimed that Jesus was the “Lamb of God,” thus inspiring many people to follow him. Others came later and referred to Jesus as the Son of David, the Son of God, and “the vine,” which by the first century were titles associated to the messiah, as Peter confirms when he proclaimed “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

After being baptized by John, Jesus ventured into the wilderness to fast. Afterwards he returned and preached what would become the first of many public sermons, where he gained a great number of disciples. The address became known as The Sermon on the Mount, where he called for forgiveness of one another, for loving your enemies, and for caring for the needy. From the beginnings of his ministry, Jesus also emphasized the need for a spiritual restoration of Israel, and he clashed with Jewish authorities over their application of the Law, which arguably was based more on tradition rather than on the Law itself.

Jesus challenged his disciples to embrace the spirit of the Law and to seek the kingdom of Heaven over material possessions. As the appeal of his ministry grew, many came to believe Jesus was the messiah prophesied about in scripture. It was only later that his disciples fully understood that his intent was not to begin an armed rebellion against Rome, but instead his mission was to reconcile the lost and to bring those that believed in him into a right relationship with God.

Birth of the Ministry

According to the New Testament Jesus appointed twelve apostles in the early days of his ministry. Several more were added after The Resurrection, such as Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Apollos. A handful of bishops (Greek episkopos: overseers) were elected as well, but the first twelve apostles were not among them. It was said that both Peter and John were not desirous of great titles or honor, and it was therefore Jesus brother James (also called an apostle) who was appointed as the first bishop in Jerusalem. He likely oversaw the close-knit community who were most faithful to Jesus teachings, such as the one-hundred and twenty believers praying in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.

In addition to the apostles, Jesus had many followers most often referred to as his disciples in the New Testament. These are the people who followed him from town to town or came to hear him preach. When one such crowd gathered in the city of Bethsaida, he miraculously fed over five-thousand of them after ministering to the sick. He later fed a similar crowd of over four-thousand near the Sea of Galilee. Both instances greatly contributed to his fame. In all, Jesus performed an incredible number of miracles throughout the duration of his ministry – he restored sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk, but perhaps most famously he commanded his friend Lazarus back from the dead. That many who bore witness to his miracles and listened to his teachings became disciples is not at all surprising. Although the exact number is unknown, most scholars estimate that as many as twenty-thousand believed in him by the sunset of his ministry.

But the Jewish leaders took issue with Jesus and they plotted against him. Since they could not by right execute him without cause, they sought help from the Roman government after accusing Jesus of plotting to overthrow them. The Gospels tell of how Jesus was betrayed and then executed by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate as a concession to the Jewish authorities. After his death, many of Jesus disciples spoke of his resurrection, astonishingly professing to have seen and spoke with him on several separate occasions. He accordingly revealed to them that his suffering and resurrection was foretold for the remission of sin. Although many Christians disagree on a wide number of issues, belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the common foundation of the Christian faith. Without belief in The Resurrection, there is no Christianity.

After his resurrection, Jesus instructed his disciples to testify about what they had seen and heard from him in Jerusalem and throughout the world (literally to “all nations”), a mandate referred to as The Great Commission. Peter appears to have taken the mantle as leader of the twelve apostles, although his role as an authority is debatable, since decades later at the Council of Jerusalem it was James who presided over the meeting, not Peter.

Nevertheless, most historians agree that the church itself was first birthed on the Day of Pentecost (the Jewish festival commemorating when Moses first received the Ten Commandments) in Jerusalem, where Peter and the other apostles are said to have been empowered by the Holy Ghost. It was on that day that Jews and Jewish converts from all parts of the world assembled to hear Peter’s testimony:

And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words – Acts 2:8-14

Reading on we learn that three-thousand of those present became believers on that day and many more followed. As was the custom, Peter, John and the others spoke daily at the temple in Jerusalem, and since they and the other apostles were the closest to Jesus, many people gathered to hear them speak. It is traditionally believed that while entirely devoted to the gospel, most of the apostles were uncultured and unfamiliar with artful forms of speech (such as dialectics or rhetoric). They instead chose to rely primarily on demonstration and they preached in a simple fashion most familiar to the common people.

Of all the disciples