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CLASS 2
February 17, 2008:
The History of Early Israel to 135 C.E.
and the Development of Early Christianity
Including the Trinity
A Class Assembled and Taught By Bill Stroop

The Second Temple Period | First Century Judaism and Jesus' Place in History | The Trinity | Bibliography

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The Second Temple Period

After 50 years in exile, the Israelites were allowed to return. this came about because Babylonia was conquered by King Darius of Persia, and Darius let the Israelites return and rebuild the Temple and the city of Jerusalem under the guidance of Ezra and Nehemiah, the designated authorities of the Persian empire. The Second Temple, as it was called, was rededicated on Passover, 516 B.C.E. Judah remained a vassal of the Persian empire until the rise of the Greeks. In 332 B.C.E., Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, including Judea.

The Hellenistic Period

The Hellenistic influence on Judea cannot be overstated. Jerusalem was no longer isolated from the outside world, and the influence of Greek rationalism on education and ways of thinking, and the Greek style of governance all heavily influenced Jewish thought. The apocalyptic literature of the Bible originated during this period (such as the second half of the Book of Daniel). The first five books of the Bible were translated into Greek (this is the Septuagint).

The Hasmonean Period and The Roman Occupation

After Alexander's death, the Greek empire was divided. The Selucid king and the Ptolemaic kings fought over the territory that contained the former nation of Judah. Eventually it fell into the hands of the Selucid kings, the most notorious of which was Antiochus Epiphanes IV. The high priest in Jerusalem bought his priesthood from Epiphanes, which infuriated the people. Epiphanes also desecrated the Temple. Eventually, a guerrilla war broke out headed by Judah Maccabee. The Maccabee's were part of the Hasmonean dynasty, and after a 25 years struggle, they took power and declared Judea free of Selucid control in 141 B.C.E. The Hasmoneans invented a new form of governance in which the role of King and Priest here held by the same individual.

The Sadducees and the Pharisees as religious leaders of the people arose at this time. Near the end of the Hasmonean rule (which is near the time of Herod and Jesus), there was dissent among some conservative Judeans about the ruler of Judea being both King and Priest. The Essenes were among the sects who opposed the power of the Hasmoneans, and they fled into the desert to begin their own communities. The Dead Sea scrolls found at Qumran are the scholarship of the Essene community that fled "mainstream" Judean Jewish culture. The Essenes looked for a messiah who would put an end to Hasmonean hegemony.

In 63 B.C.E., the Roman general Pompey conquered Judea. The last two Hasmoneans were brothers and they fought over who would inherit the Hasmonean throne. They asked the Roman empire to intervene, but the Romans were busy with their own internal struggles. Pompey and Julius Caesar were at odds, and the Roman republic was in decline. Eventually, Octavian took power of Rome, and was declared emperor. He changed Roman administration, and put Judea under its control. The old priesthood was gone, and a new ruling party emerged that many did not even consider as Jewish. This new ruling party was the Herodians, named for its founder, Herod Antipater, the Idumean. Herod the Great, Antipater's son became the procurator of Judea by action of the Roman senate. He was the procurator when Jesus was born. Herod was a great builder, and the Second Temple was greatly expanded under his rule. The great stones that the disciples refer to when they accompany Jesus to the temple refer to Herod's accomplishment.

Herod also introduced many religious reforms, including elevating men to the priesthood who were "outsiders" (people outside the traditional Levitical or Aaronic families).

First Century Judaism and Jesus' Place in History

Jesus was born around 4 C.E. and died around 37 C.E. He lived and ministered during the exceedingly turbulent "end times" of the Jewish state. The first of two Jewish revolts would take place in 69 C.E., and the Temple would be destroyed in 70 C.E. And the second Jewish revolt, often called the Bar Kochba rebellion, took place in 135 C.E. All jews were banished from Jerusalem at that time. It was only in 1945 at the end of WWII that the nation of Israel was restored.

From Jesus' time to 70 C.E., Judaism was quite variable in practice. Judaism was a belief in the God of Moses (Yahweh), who created the world, and who chose the Jews to be his special people in accordance to their loyalty to him. Judaism was a practice of the laws that Moses commanded in God's name. These laws included things like circumcision, holding of the Sabbath, and not eating certain foods. Judaism had become a "book religion" in which the reading of the Torah as well as the Prophets (Neviim) and the Writings (Ktuvim) (together this is the Tanakh or Jewish Old Testament). This study work was done in prayer houses or synagogues. This is quite different from worship that was centralized around the Temple. Also, pre-exilic Judaism focused on the community whereas the religion of Jesus' time and later focused on the individual. After 70 C.E., the rabbinic period began, and an early leader was Rabban Gamaliel.

There were several sects within Judaism, including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the Zealots, as well as the Christians. Shaye J.D. Cohen writes in Ancient Israel,

Of the groups that emerged in the first century, the Christians are the most famous. Jesus, their leader, was a holy man and a teacher, who, like many other such people, attracted admirers and disciples. Like many of his contemporaries, he apparently believed that the end time was imminent, and that he was sent by God to prepare the way for its arrival. He therefore prophesied that the jerusalem Temple would be removed because a new and more perfect temple would be erected by God as part of the new, perfect, and permanent order of the end time. The high priests, however, regarded Jesus as a trouble maker, and handed him over to the Romans for execution.

The Earliest Christian community, as described in the Book of Acts, shares many features with [other] Jewish movements of the first century C.E. The apostles controlled this Christian group, property was held in common, disbursements were made to the faithful from the common till, and disobedience to one's superiors was not tolerated (Acts 5:1-11). The group dined and prayed together. New members were "converted" through baptism and repentance (Acts 2:38-42). Like the Essenes, the Christians attempted to create a utopian community. Although Christianity emerged from a Jewish context, as one of many first century C.E. apocalyptic groups, by the end of the century, it had separated from its mother religion (the Gospel of John is a good example of a text from a thoroughly separated community).

Christians abolished the Jewish dietary restrictions and the traditional observance of the Sabbath, and elevated Jesus to a position far higher and more significant than that of any angel or any other intermediary figure in Judaism. Some of that significance can be inferred by the symbols that were (and are still) used by Christian groups to refer to Christ (see the table immediately below). By the beginning of the 2nd century C.E., most Christians had ceased to identify themselves as Jews. However, some continued to view themselves as Jewish for the next few hundred years. But these groups were rejected as "gentile" by the Jews and considered heretics by Christians.

The Trinity

Early Symbols of Christianity (from Robert C. Walton. Chronological and Background Charts of Church History. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Press, 1986)

There is perhaps no other doctrine in Christianity that has provoked more trouble for Christianity than the Trinity. Put simply, the Trinity is the identification of its God. In defining the Trinity, Robert W. Jensen writes in the Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, "We turn in out worship to the one whom Jesus the Israelite called 'my father;' we worship God with this Jesus, as the Son he thus made himself out to be; and we are animated therein by that same Spirit who evokes their mutual love."

There is no mention of the Trinity in Holy Scripture, and yet it is a defining characteristic of some branches of Christianity. The trinity describes the relationships among the three members of the Godhead in a manner consistent with the Bible. Central to the doctrine is the question of how God can be one and three. Early Christians did not want to lose their Jewish monotheism while exalting their Savior. Heresies emerged as people tried to explain the vastness and power of a God that is both transcendent and immanent, without become tritheists, which is what Jews were quick to accuse them of being. Christians have long argued that Jewish monotheism does not preclude the trinity.

The climax of the Trinitarian formulation came in 381 C.E. at the Council of Constantinople. This is the council that defined the orthodox view of the Trinity.

As early as 33 C.E., the Apostolic fathers taught the full and real divinity of Jesus and accepted and adopted the Trinitarian baptismal formula. Between 100 and 150 C.E., most of the theological discussion is about the person of jesus. There was theological ambiguity about the trinity. Between 150 and 325 C.E., there was an increase in persecution and heresy. Chief among these was the Arian controversy that denied the deity of Christ. Consequently, Christians had to be more precise about their beliefs about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The great Christian Apologist Origin said that the Holy Spirit was co-eternal with the Father and the Son. Tertullian, a North African Bishop and Christian apologist spoke of "trinity" and "persons" - three in number, but one in substance. An ancient diagram showing the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is shown below.

The Holy Trinity. (from Robert C. Walton. Chronological and Background Charts of Church History. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Press, 1986)

In 325 C.E., the Council of Nicea addressed the Arian Heresy. Called by the Emperor Constantine, the council addressed the issue of whether Christ was fully God, or whether he was a created and a subordinate being. Arius said that only God was eternal. His opponent, Athanasius said that Christ was co-eternal with the Father. There was no sense of subordination. But, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was left undeveloped.

The Council at Constantinople in 381 C.E. addressed the issue of the Holy Spirit. In the end, the Council added the statement, "... and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father, who is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son."

Issues about Christ would continue until the Council at Caldedon in 451 C.E., but the issue of the Holy Spirit was laid to rest. Or was it?

In the sixth century the words, "and the son" (the filioque clause) were added to the Creed at the Third Council at Toledo. The words became wildly familiar, and by 1000 C.E. it was adopted by Rome. The issue of the subordination of the Holy Spirit in the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed is a principle source of contention between the Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) churches.

Bibliography

Armstrong, Karen. A History of God. New York, NY: Ballentine Books. 1993.

Cohen, Shaye J.D. From the Maccabees to the Mishna. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1987.

Friedman, Richard Elliott. Who Wrote the Bible? New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1997.

Justo L. Gonzales. A History of Christian Thought, Vol 1, Revised Edition: From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1970.

Shanks, Hershel (ed.). Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall-Biblical Archeological Society, 1999.

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