Video:
Audio:
Recommended Reading:
- Powerpoint presentation
- Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity
- The classic narrative of the Maccabean revolt is found in the books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees in the Apocrypha.
- The Diversity of First-Century Judaism
- Everett Ferguson’s Backgrounds of Early Christianity contains information on the Jewish, Greek, and Roman contexts.
- Philip Jenkins’s Hidden Gospels is a reply to the scholars of the “Jesus Seminar” who have questioned the reliability of the Gospel narratives.
The New Testament Era – Quiz
- Apart from the apostles, those who held authority in the early church were called _________ and _________.
- Converts to the Christian faith were initiated through the rite of __________.
- Explain the tension between the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and those of traditional Greco-Roman society.
- Identify the two commands that Jesus said were the essence of the Law and the Prophets.
- List the four prominent Jewish groups/factions discussed in the lecture.
- The doctrine of the __________ states that Jesus died for the sins of the world.
- True/False: Eastern mystery religions had spread to many areas of the Roman Empire by the first century.
- ________ is sometimes identified as the “apostle to the Gentiles.”
- bishops (or elders or presbyters) and deacons
- baptism
- Jesus preached humility and charity, whereas Greco-Roman values stressed prowess and the seeking after glory
- Love God, love one another
- Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots
- Atonement
- True
- St. Paul