As Escrituras Hebraicas

began as a movement within Judaism at a period when the Hebrews had long been under foreign influence and rule, and had found in their religion the linchpin of their community, (rather than in their politics or cultural achievements). From the prophet Amos (800 B.C.) onward, the religion of Israel was marked by tension between the concept of monotheism, with its universal ideal of salvation (for all nations), and the exclusivity of the notion of God’s special choice of Israel, coupled with those who accepted neither concept.

In the age after Alexander the Greats conquest, (the Hellenistic (Greek) period, 300 B.C. to 300 A.D.), the dispersion of the Hebrews throughout the Hellenistic kingdoms and later, the Roman Empire, gave some impetus to the universalistic tendency. But the attempts of foreign rulers, especially the Greek King of Syria – Antiochus Epiphanes (168–165 B.C.), to impose Greek culture and religious syncretism in Palestine, provoked zealous resistance on the part of many Hebrews. In Judea, the predominant call was for separation and exclusiveness. Hebrew missionaries to other areas were strictly expected to impose the Hebrew customs of circumcision, kasher (fit) food, Sabbaths and other festivals.

The Hebrew Scriptures viewed history as the stage of a providential drama, which would eventually end in a triumph of God, over all present sources of frustration (foreign domination, the sins of man, etc.). They believed that God’s rule would be established by an anointed prince, (a Messiah), of the line of David – (former king of Israel in the 10th century B.C.). However, the proper course of action leading to the consummation of this drama was the subject of some disagreement.

Among the diverse Hebrew groups, were the aristocratic and conservative Sadducees, who accepted only the five books of Moses (the Pentateuch), then there were the more popular and strict Pharisees. The Pharisees not only accepted biblical books outside the Pentateuch but also embraced doctrines – such as those on resurrection and the existence of angels – which was of recent acceptance in Judaism – many of which were derived from apocalyptic expectations that the consummation of history would be heralded by God’s intervention in the affairs of men in dramatic, cataclysmic terms.

The Sanhedrin (supreme Hebrew legislative and judicial court) at Jerusalem was made up of both Pharisees and Sadducees. The Zealots were aggressive revolutionaries seeking independence from Rome. Other groups were the Herodians, supporters of the client kingdom of the Herods (a dynasty that supported Rome) and abhorrent to the Zealots, and the Essenes – a quasi-monastic dissident group, probably including the sect that preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls. This latter sect did not participate in the Temple worship at Jerusalem, and observed another religious calendar; from their desert retreat they awaited divine intervention and searched prophetic writings for signs indicating the consummation.

What relationship the followers of Jesus had to some of these groups is not clear. In the canonical Gospels (those accepted as authentic by the Catholic church) the main targets of criticism are the scribes and Pharisees, whose attachment to the tradition of Judaism is presented as legalistic and disreputable. The Sadducees and Herodians, likewise receive an unfriendly portrait, the Essenes are never mentioned. Jesus himself may have been a Zealot, as well as Simon, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples.

Under the military and political conditions of the time, there could be no future for either the Sadducees or the Zealots – whose attempts to make apocalyptic predictions come true, led to the destruction of Judea after two major Hebrew revolts of 66–70 A.D, and 132–135 A.D, against the Romans.

Thus the choice for many Hebrews lay between the Pharisees and Christianity, the former dedicated to the meticulous preservation of the Mosaic Law, and Christianity – as later defined by Europeans – the universal propagation of the Christian version of the Hebrew faith, as a religion for all mankind, (Catholic means universalistic).

Pharisaism as enshrined in the Mishna (the Oral Law), and the Talmud (commentary on, and addition to the Oral Law), became normal Judaism. By looking to the Gentile (non-Hebrew) world and carefully disassociating itself from the Zealot revolutionaries, Christianity (as construed by Europeans who had converted), made possible the ideal of a world religion, at the price of sacrificing Hebrew particularity and exclusiveness. The fact that Christianity has never succeeded in gaining the open allegiance of more than a minority of Hebrews is more a mystery to theologians than to historians.

There are indications that Christianity was intended initially, as exclusively a religion for Hebrews – Jesus himself was against the empirical power of the European conquers. It appears that it was Paul – a self appointed apostle “after” Jesus death – who forced acceptance of gentile converts. How or why the gentile converts were granted acceptance in the Jerusalem church under Jesus’ brother James is not known.

Saint Paul, the Apostle

born AD 10?, Tarsus in Cilicia [Turkey] – died 67?, Rome

Original name Saul of Tarsus, 1st-century Hebrew who, after first being a bitter enemy of Christianity, later became an important figure in its history.

Converted only a few years after the death of Jesus, he became the leading Apostle (missionary) of the new movement and played a decisive part in extending it beyond the limits of Judaism to become a worldwide religion. His surviving letters are the earliest extant Christian writings.

Paul himself claimed the title of Apostle, apparently on the ground that he had seen the Lord and received a commission directly from him. This appears to be in agreement with the condition in Acts that a newly appointed Apostle should be capable of giving eyewitness testimony to the Lord’s Resurrection. According to some early Christian writers however, some were called apostles after the period covered by the New Testament.

In the first Christian generation, authority in the church lay either in the kinsmen of Jesus or in those whom he had commissioned as Apostles and missionaries. The Jerusalem church under James, the brother of Jesus, was the mother church. Paul admitted that if they had refused to grant recognition to his Gentile converts; he would have labored in vain. If there was an attempt to establish a hereditary family overlordship in the church (by James’ descendants), it did not succeed, although among the Gentile congregations, the Apostles sent by Jesus