In arguing against the theories of “Zeitgeist, the Movie”, I will be presenting a three-part series of posts relating to the first century Jewish culture from which Christianity was birthed. Though I will not directly counter specific points in the movie in these posts, I will establish a historical case to demonstrate that first-century monotheistic Judaism was not doctrinally influenced by the cultural worship of various pagan deities.
The Jewish People Viewed as Social and Religious Separatists by Foreigners
The foreigners, or gentiles, who came into contact with the Jews, wrote about the exclusivity of the Jewish people. One of these writers was Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian. In his Histories, Book V, Tacitus explains the exclusive worship of the Jews, “…the Jews have purely mental conceptions of Deity, as one in essence. They call those profane who make representations of God in human shape out of perishable materials. They believe that Being to be supreme and eternal, neither capable of representation, nor of decay. They therefore do not allow any images to stand in their cities, much less in their temples.”[1] Tacitus further explains the self-imposed social segregation of the Jewish people, “…they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies. They sit apart at meals, they sleep apart….they abstain from intercourse with foreign women….Circumcision was adopted by them as a mark of difference from other men. Those who come over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and brethren.”[2]
Another writer, Dio Cassius, a Roman historian of the second century, reflects on the established Jewish monotheism in the Roman Empire, “They are distinguished from the rest of mankind in practically every detail of life, and especially by the fact that they do not honour any of the usual gods, but show extreme reverence for one particular divinity. They never had any statue of him even in Jerusalem itself, but believing him to be unnamable and invisible, they worship him in the most extravagant fashion on earth.”[3]
Argument against a Strict Adherence to Monotheism
The argument against an exclusive monotheism of the first-century Jews usually refers to the cultural influences on Judaism from the Roman Empire (Hellenism). The Jewish believers, it is argued, could not be closed-off to or completely isolated from these influences.[4] To a certain extent, cultural variances are noted, as in the Judaism of Elephantine or in the later Judaism of Ethiopia.[5] However, cultural variances, as the use of foreign terminology to explain Jewish philosophy or belief[6], or as the Gentile proselyte maintaining pagan rituals along with Jewish belief,[7] do not warrant a verdict of fluctuations in the traditional Jewish adherence to monotheism.
The argument that Hellenistic pagan mystery cults influenced the core doctrine of Jewish monotheism lacks an evidential base. In “Pharisaism and Hellenism” from the multi-volume work, Judaism and Christianity, W.L. Knox reports, “We have a great deal of evidence both in literature and in inscriptions as to the Judaism of the time and the evidence of syncretism of Judaism with Gentile cults, when it is carefully sifted and the conjectures left out, boils down to singularly little.”[8] Also, “there is no evidence that any one of these gods [of the pagan mystery cults] was conceived of as an ethical personality, still less any suggestion that the ethical character of the god is the basis and source of both individual and social morality.”[9] The Judaic view of God was a totally different concept from the Hellenized religions of Rome, because of the very idea that only the one true God was worthy of any worship. Even though the Hellenistic Romans had a concept of a highest god, they believed worship was a matter of degree because divinity was a matter of degree.[10] A lesser or greater god was worthy of the appropriate degree of worship.[11] This strict adherence to monotheism was a noted hallmark of Judaism in the first century,[12] and out of this Judaism the earliest Christian followers emerge.
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS WERE MONOTHEISTIC JEWS
The earliest extant historical writings concerning the origins of Christianity are from the apostle Paul.[13] Scholars generally agree that of the writings attributed to Paul, these date between the late 40’s and the early 60’s of the first century[14]. In Paul’s texts, there is a basis for the former adherence to the monotheistic Judaism of the first century by the early Christian leaders. Larry Hurtado, in How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God, emphasizes this basis, “Our earliest extant historical sources exhibit an emphatic rejection of pagan religion and a corresponding monotheistic affirmation of the exclusive validity of the one God.”[15] In the establishment of Paul’s monotheism, Paul’s letters to the Galatians, Thessalonians, and Corinthians will be investigated along with Luke’s Acts of the Apostles.
Paul’s Former Religious Zeal and Conversion
Paul was a monotheistic, zealous Pharisee. His devotion to Judaism before his Damascus Road experience is perhaps best annotated by his ‘mission’ to persecute the followers of Jesus. Hurtado describes Paul’s loyalty, “…devotion to Jesus must have been sufficiently striking (even audacious) that it could draw the determined efforts of this formerly zealous Pharisee to destroy what he regarded as an unacceptable innovation in Second-Temple Jewish religion. It had to be some major offense by Jewish Christians to have elicited the kind of Phinehas-like zeal with which Saul/Paul attacked the Jesus movement.”[16] Paul’s testimony to his background and his conversion are found in several places in the Scripture. In Galatians 1: 11-24, Paul relays his conversion story concerning his zealous Judaism and his persecution of the believers in Jesus: “…how intensely I persecuted the church and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (v.13b-14). This story is confirmed in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 9 and 22. Also, in Acts 8, the historian, Luke, mentions Paul’s approval of the stoning of Stephen. The case is made for Paul: he is a devoted Jewish believer in the one true God.
More to come…..
MJ
Footnotes: [1] Tacitus. Histories, Book V. Available from: http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/histories.5.v.html. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed December 5, 2007. [2] Ibid. [3] Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book 37, Chapter 17. Available from: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html. Accessed December 11, 2007. [4] Snyder, Graydon F. “The Interaction of Jews with Non-Jews in Rome.” Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome. Karl P. Donfried, ed., Peter Richardson, ed. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Publishing Company: 1998. pg. 74. [5] Ibid. [6] W.L. Knox suggests that Josephus dresses up a native Jewish idea in language drawn from the pagan mysteries. Knox, W.L., “Pharisaism and Hellenism.” Vol. 2,. Judaism and Christianity. pg. 83. [7] See Cohen, Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew. [8] Knox, pp. 89-90. [9] Hooke, S.H., “The Emergence of Christianity from Judaism,” Vol. 1, Judaism and Christianity. pg. 261. [10] Bauckham. pg. 13. [11] Ibid. [12] See Bauckham. pg. 6, See also: Bowersock, G. W. Polytheism and Monotheism in Arabia and the Three Palestines. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 51. (1997), pp. 1-10; Robert L. Wilken. “Judaism in Roman and Christian Society” The Journal of Religion, Vol. 47, No. 4. (Oct., 1967), pp. 313-330; Rainbow, Paul A. “Jewish Monotheism as the Matrix for New Testament Christology: A Review Article.” Novum Testamentum, pp. 78-91; Kaam, Antony. The Israelites: An Introduction. New York, Routledge: 1999. pg.161 (Jewish belief immediately prior to the first century); Bentwich, Norman. “The Graeco-Roman View of Jews and Judaism in the Second Century” The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 23, No. 4. (Apr., 1933), pg. 342 (Jewish belief coming out of the first century).
[13] Hurtado. How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? pg. 32. [14] Ibid. pg. 33. [15] Ibid. pg. 32, See also Bauckham. God Crucified. pg. 40 [16] Ibid. pp. 35-36.
In arguing against the theories of “Zeitgeist, the Movie”, I will be presenting a three-part series of posts relating to the first century Jewish culture from which Christianity was birthed. Though I will not directly counter specific points in the movie in these posts, I will establish a historical case to demonstrate that first-century monotheistic Judaism was not doctrinally influenced by the cultural worship of various pagan deities.