There are few areas of ancient history where dates, interpretations of texts, and the events themselves are so contested as in the study of the first century of Christian history. The sources for Jesus’ life are, like those for most aspects of the ancient world, inadequate. References to Christianity in contemporary non-Christian
Sources are very few, just enough to give confirmation that a teacher known as Jesus (not an uncommon name for this period) existed and was crucified on the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea, in about ad 30. The earliest Christian texts, six or seven letters of the apostle Paul written twenty to thirty years after the crucifixion, say virtually nothing about the life of Jesus, whom Paul had never met. The four surviving Gospel accounts (the word ‘gospel’ derives in English from the Anglo-Saxon ‘godspell, the Greek original means ‘good news’), those attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, were written some decades later in Greek and none shows any knowledge of the writings of Paul. Mark is dated to possibly soon after 70 (as he seems to be aware of the fall of Jerusalem in that year), Luke and Matthew to about 85, and John between 90 and 100. (It was only in ad 180 that these names were firmly linked to specific Gospels, by Irenaeus, a Christian from Smyrna who became bishop of Lyon. (On Irenaeus, see further below, p. 589.)) Memories of Jesus were transmitted over these early years through word of mouth and written records of his sayings, although the passage of time makes it is unlikely that eyewitnesses would have survived who could have given accurate accounts directly to the Gospel writers. The first three Gospels do have a common source albeit developed by the writers in different ways and so are known as the synoptic Gospels, Gospels ‘seen with a single eye’. John is altogether a more sophisticated theological examination of Jesus’ life but it has some historical accuracy in that it records place names around Jerusalem that have recently been confirmed by archaeology.
Jesus spoke Aramaic. Greek was still virtually unknown in his native Galilee and none of his immediate followers came from circles where it would have been spoken at the sophisticated level provided by the New Testament texts. So there is a major problem in understanding what might have been lost or developed by the New Testament authors as they worked on their original Aramaic sources. Moreover the Gospels were written for audiences outside Judaea. Mark was by tradition written in Rome, though modern scholarship prefers Syria. Mark’s knowledge of the geography of Galilee is hazy. Matthew appears to have been written in Antioch, capital of the Roman province of Syria and the city where Christians are first attested by name, while John may have been writing to a community that had fled Jerusalem for Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor. There is no consensus over where Luke was written and who its intended audience was (it is addressed to a single person, Theophilus).
The Gospels were not intended primarily as biographies or historical accounts and as a narrative of events they should be treated with caution. Their aim was to emphasize the special importance of Jesus so as to distinguish him from the other holy men and cults which pervaded the ancient world. An important preoccupation, therefore, was to establish Jesus’ status. This was done through highlighting stories of a virgin birth, of a ‘Transfiguration’ (the moment when God himself appears to have recognized Jesus’ status), and of his powers as a miracle worker. Jesus’ death and his resurrection are also given special prominence, with a focus on his mission as an innocent man, put to death but triumphing over it in some way so as to proclaim God’s message of salvation. There was also a concern with establishing Jesus as
The longed-for messiah (see below). To do this, stories from his life were probably shaped to correspond with prophecies from the Hebrew scriptures. The first chapters of Matthew, for instance, outline the events of Jesus’ birth and early life with constant reference back to earlier prophecies. Matthew may, in fact, have seen Jesus as a leader who aimed to bring redemption to Jews alone but who, like earlier ‘prophets’, was rejected by them.
The degree to which such needs and pressures shaped the ‘facts’ presented in the Gospels is the subject of immense scholarly dispute. The trend of recent scholarship has been towards accepting the historical reality of Jesus but placing him more securely within his Jewish background. This background has been put into sharper focus by the growth of understanding of the Jewish world of the first century, particularly as a result of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (see below).
(For further reading, it has to be said that this is an overcrowded field, with many rivalries and divisions between and within Christian, Jewish, and agnostic perspectives. It is very difficult to find a coherent picture. However, Paula Fredriksen’s From Jesus to Christ, 2nd edition, New Haven and London, 2002, is a scholarly but readable discussion of the issues involved in creating that elusive figure ‘the historical Jesus’. Christopher Rowland’s Christian Origins, 2nd edition, London, 2002, analyses the Jewish background but takes the story on as do the works of Larry Hurtado such as How on Earth did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus, Grand Rapids, Mich., 2005. Hurtado argues, against others, for an early acceptance of Jesus as a divine figure.)
World History
