John2 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2024 6:00 pm
He
became a Christian, by interacting with Christians.
As this was the first generation of Christians, they *all* became christians by interacting with Christians!
By the same place I mean "the Land of Israel."
When you say "the Land of Israel" I wonder if you are having a similar experience as Elaine Pagels talks about when she went to school--how disappointed she was that she didn't find what one of her professors called "Play Bible Land." Where fishermen and carpenters enjoyed walking around the peaceful lake of Galilee, surrounded by farmers, who were sowing their wheat, or tending their vineyards and olive trees...on the hillsides, the sheep could safely graze, tended by good shepherds....the Romans are bumbling but benign rulers...the centurions love the Jews so much they build Synagogues for them out of own pocket....and Pilate would have *never* crucified Jesus if it hadn't been for that jewish mob, because he gave Jesus a fair trial and found that he did nothing wrong....
By the time Jesus beamed down to Capharnaum, there hadn't been any place called "Israel" for about 7 centuries!!! The region of Galilee was never part of the territory that the 12 tribes of Israel were said to occupy in the OT. Neither was the region of Idumea. If Jesus actually lived, he might not even have ethnically been a Jew--him being from Galilee and all.
There was incredible tension between the romans and the jews....with revolutionaries and messiahs appearing like clockwork. It might have been like Josephus described it, but it was nothing like the Gospels describe it. Pilate was specifically mentioned by Philo as a cruel, unjust, and arbitrary ruler....centurians were enforcers with a gang of 100 brownshirts who did not hesitate to quash any hint of opposition to Caesar.
Judea in the 1st Century was nothing like the OT. And if you read the OT carefully....you'll find there's no Judaism there!!! They had no synagogues, no rabbis, no schools like the phrases or essines. Everybody from David on down kept household idols. Heck most of them didn't even worship YHWH--there were ashore poles and groves in high places all over. And the vast majority of ones who *did* worship YHWH also worshiped other gods--even the likes of David and Soloman. The only monotheists were a bunch of annoying prophets going around stirring up trouble. They were all like the Saducees, in that they didn't believe in life after death.
Fast-forward to the NT. Synagogues in every city. Strict monotheism was universal. Not an ashore pole, not a single grove in high places, no sacrifice to any other god was tolerated.---No household idols---and the citizens were so dedicated to their God that they were borderline fanatical, to the point of creating tremendous friction with the Romans. And, while there were some sadducees left, the religion had become so hellenized and mixed with greek philosophy that most people believed in the afterlife. It was a completely different religions and a completely different cultural and symbolic world.