Christian Accounts of Jesus

• Based on a consideration of Christian accounts such as the New Testament gospels, some features of the life of Jesus could be postulated
• short public teaching career of a first-century CE Palestinian Jew appeared to have alluded to reworking of prevalent Jewish notions regarding the import, means and consequence of living in accordance with Gods’ will
• Jesus appears to have attracted both the attention of supporters (some construing him as a messiah, or “Christ,” to throw off Roman rule and reestablish Jewish political autonomy) as well as opponents (including Roman authorities suspicious of his political agenda)
• Jesus having received capital punishment on charges of sedition, his supporters subsequently experienced him as resurrected from the dead in a manner seen to confirm teachings and actions that characterized Jesus during his lifetime
• conflicting perceptions of the meaning and events of Jesus’s life and death divided Jews

Baptism of Jesus
Saul/Paul

• Saul of Tarsus was a formidable Jewish opponent to Jews who interpreted Jesus’s life and teachings positively
• having undergone a significant religious transformation, Saul renamed himself Paul and reversed his earlier position, becoming an influential advocate for a particular positive portrait of Jesus to both Jews and non-Jews
• Paul arguably introduced new ways to interpret Jesus’s nature and message
• His interest in outreach to non-Jews was predicated on an understanding of Jesus that put him at odds with Jews who also construed Jesus’s life and teachings positively but who regarded it as having special relevance for Jews alone
• Paul’s understandings of Jesus’s life and teachings eventually won out
• various advocates of Jesus who had held seemingly conflicting interpretations of Jesus’s life and teachings composed written accounts of their understandings - texts that would later be compiled to form the New Testament

The Conversion of St. Paul
Roman Persecution

• Because early Christian communities were regarded as both seditious and secretive, Christians were easy targets for unfounded accusations by non-Christians and objects of suspicion by Roman authorities
• Roman authorities, blaming Christians for problems in the empire, pursued a policy of persecution; Christians who were killed as a consequence were designated “martyrs”
• A reversal of fortune came in the early fourth century CE when the Roman emperor Constantine, having had a religious visionary experience that suggested that support of the Christians would secure him military victories, ended persecution of Christians laid the foundation for the full enfranchisement of Christians in the empire as well as the status of Christianity as the Roman empire’s state religion

Ecumenical Councils

• Roman imperial support for Christian communities required an empire-wide standardization of Christian practices and teachings
• empire-wide councils were convened of leaders from far-flung Christian communities
• at these councils, differences in understandings were raised and debated, including:
• the nature of Jesus - in what way was he human and / or divine?
• what is the relationship of Jesus to God?

New Theological Controversies

• As an empire-wide standardization of Christian teachings was pursued, new issues regarding what would constitute correct teachings arose
• Augustine (354-430), a Christian leader in North Africa, introduced the notion of original sin, arguing for the importance of relying on God’s grace - rather than one’s own efforts - in attaining an ideal human state
• other thinkers, such as John Chrysostom and Pelagius, argued against Augustine’s suggestion of original sin, who held a more optimistic evaluation of human nature; Augustine’s views won out
• Some Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Chrysostom held Jews in strong contempt

Monasticism
After imperial persecutions abated following Constantine, Christians who would have otherwise proved their earnestness through martyrdom instead developed the institution of monasticism

Splits Among Christians

• Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Christians - no longer guaranteed the unifying effect of being incorporated under a single imperial authority, began to split into separate communities
• in 1054 a formal division occurred among the Latin-speaking Christians in Europe centered around Roman authority (the pope) and Greek-speaking Christians to the east, in the Byzantine Empire - what became Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians
• variation in teachings, art, and religious life were prompted by such division

A Greek Orthodox Service on Good Friday
Crusades

• expeditions by European Catholics in response to new forms of administration by Muslims of Palestinian territories resulted in new enmities:
• Muslims gained a new resentment as a result of the seemingly unprovoked attacks from far-off foreigners
• Eastern Orthodox Christians gained a new resentment from Crusading Roman Catholics attacking Eastern Orthodox communities
• Jews gained a new fear from Crusading Roman Catholics wiping out entire Jewish populations in their wake

Further Splits

• within Europe, by the sixteenth century, an additional split occurred: some Christians in Northern Europe protested against some forms of Christian religious teaching and practice that were in evidence
• in separating themselves out, they became known as Protestants
• among Protestants, there was wide-ranging dissention regarding appropriate forms of teaching and religious life; leaders of these new forms of teaching and practice included:
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• King Henry VIII of England
• George Fox
• Protestants of widely varying doctrine and practice joined Catholics and Eastern Orthodox in establishing trading posts and colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas in the sixteenth century

Martin Luther
John Calvin
Enlightenment
a new emphasis on the value of reason, beginning in the seventeenth century, prompted many Protestants to further develop new understandings of God and miracles

Further Protestant Innovation

• In the U.S., following independence from Britain, a substantial number of new forms of understanding the nature, life and teachings of Jesus emerged among a proliferating number of new Protestant groups, including:
• African-American churches
• evangelicals
• Christian Scientists
• the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
• the Unification Church
• advocates of liberation theology

Mary Baker Eddy
Rev. Martin Luter King, Jr.
Roman Catholic Innovation

• Two Vatican Councils were the occasion for the re-visitation of some Roman Catholic teachings. The Councils were held in:
• 1869-1870
• 1963-1965
• New understandings that were established at the Councils included:
• the infallibility of the Pope on matters of doctrine
• the appropriateness of using local vernacular languages in ritual
• the importance of abolishing a list of books Catholics were forbidden to read
• Jews no longer regarded as responsible for the execution of Jesus

Worldview: Christianity

• Jesus regarded as central in importance, although wide variations exist regarding how to evaluate his humanity, his divinity, his teachings, and the meaning of his death and possible resurrection
• the world regarded alternately as good in itself or as somehow - at least temporarily - ruined through inappropriate human behavior
• human beings also either alternately regarded as fundamentally good and capable of self-transformation into better conditions, in life and / or after death; or as somehow - at least temporarily - ruined by a history of inappropriate human behavior and in need of help from outside in order to attain a better condition, in life and / or after death
• baptism and a communal recollection or reenactment of the last supper Jesus ate before his execution is common for most Christians; some Christians enact a wide range of other ritual practices
• forms of authority and accountability regarding teaching, ritual, religious life and ethics vary widely among Christians