The First Seventy Years

Reading The Bible Backwards: A.D. 30-40

August 27, 2014

"No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.  No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins (Luke 24:37-38).  The new faith that grew in the hearts and minds of those first followers of Jesus of Nazareth was first poured into the existing wineskin of Judaism.  For a time the new and the old shared a home in the temple in Jerusalem and in the synagogues of the Roman world.  Ultimately, however, the pressure produced by all the fermentation required a separate skin and the two faiths went their separate ways.  The old wineskin of Judaism wasn't burst--it still holds the ancient faith of the Jews, but a new wineskin was created in that first seventy years or so after the crucifixion.  Two thousand years of aging have brought us to today.  Seventy years ago a new bubble appeared in the Christian wineskin; we call it MBBC.  Over the next few weeks we'll look at the seventy years at the beginning of Christian history while we celebrate the seventy years of MBBC's existence.  Those of us who live on this end of history owe those early Christians a great debt; at the cost of their very lives they kept the Faith.
Our story will move from those early years we shared with Judaism through the geographical explosion of Christian congregations into the Gentile world and the invention of a new literary form we call "gospels" to tell the story of Jesus.  War between Jews and Romans darkened the birthplace of Christianity as both Christians and Jews suffered the loss of all things physical.  The great war hastened the physical and spiritual separation of Christianity from Judaism, and there was a final hardening of lines by the synagogues that made it very difficult if not impossible, for Jewish Christians to continue to attend.  The story of our first seventy years at MBBC  is fascinating and shares a few of the characteristics of that first Jerusalem congregation.  For one thing, both MBBC and the first Christian churches were house-churches without a stand-alone church building.  Thankfully, however, our story does not involve the terrible suffering faced by the earliest Christians.  In this first session we'll try to identify the most significant events in the very first decade after Jesus' crucifixion from about 30 to 40 A.D.

Dating Events in the First Ten Years?
The generally accepted date for the crucifixion is Friday, April 7th of the year 30 A.D.  The major events between A.D. 30 and 40 that are recorded in the book of Acts are:
A.D. 30- Peter's sermon on the first Pentecost and the rapid addition of believers to the initial band of disciples
A.D. 31-32-the election of "deacons" to address administrative issues related to food distribution
A.D. 33-34-the stoning of Stephen and the resulting scattering of believers from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria (and beyond?)
A.D. 37-Saul receives his vision of Christ in Damascus
A.D. 40-Saul's first introduction to Peter and James in Jerusalem

Luke, who wrote Acts, does not actually give us dates for these events, and we can't be absolutely certain that the dates listed above are correct.  We don't know, for example, how many months or years went by before the first deacons were chosen.   Enough time elapsed for problems to arise within the community.  Paul (Saul) says that his first visit to see Peter (Cephas) and James was three years after his Damascus Road experience (Galatians 1:18), but we don't know when he had his vision.  Obviously Paul's Damascus Road experience came after he witnessed the stoning of Stephen, but we don't know the date of Stephen's death.  These dates have to be calculated by going backwards from some certain dates in Paul's missionary trips and we can only give a range for these early dates.  But with the understanding that we may be a few months off either way, we can be confident in the dates.  (1)
It is obvious that Pentecost and Paul are the two big events in these first ten years, at least as far as datable events go.  Not every significant event can be dated, however, and it will be helpful if we can put ourselves back in Jerusalem in those months and early years after the crucifixion.

The Church and The Temple
Across the centuries Judaism and Christianity have allowed the wall of separation (2) that was once torn down to be rebuilt.  It is hard for us today to think of ourselves as Jews--but Jesus and every one of the original followers of Jesus were Jews.  Jesus, his disciples and members of his family were in Jerusalem to observe the Jewish festival of Passover when Jesus was arrested and crucified.  These original followers of Jesus did not stop being Jews because Jesus was crucified.  Luke tells us that the entire group numbered about one hundred and twenty people.  He names specifically the eleven remaining disciples, an unspecified number of women, Mary the mother of Jesus and the four brothers of Jesus.  In the Gospels we are not introduced to the other disciples by name, but Luke tells of Jesus sending out the "seventy" ahead of him to the villages they were approaching (Luke 10:1-12).  It seems likely that the group of one hundred twenty in Jerusalem after the crucifixion included those people who had been followers already.  Every one of those disciples was a Jew.
Luke says that immediately after the crucifixion the daily life of these disciples involved "attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes" (Acts 2:46).   The temple complex included the large area around the temple with its covered and colonnaded porticoes.  There would have been room in these outer walkways for the entire group of disciples to gather.  The temple activities would have included morning and evening sacrifices plus the recitation of prayers and psalms by the priests.  Luke tells us that Peter and John "were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour" (Acts 3:1) when they encountered a lame man who was then healed.  They subsequently taught those who had gathered to witness the excitement about Jesus.   The miracles did not occur every day, but the teaching and witnessing apparently did.  The public worship of these early Christians was worship in the Jewish temple (and perhaps in synagogues but Luke does not tell us of a single occasion when the early Christians went to a synagogue).  Throughout this first ten year period of the early church every Christian was also a Jew and distinctively Christian practices were added to existing Jewish ones.

The Addition of New Believers (3)
Luke makes it clear that many people accepted the message of Peter and others in the days shortly after the crucifixion.  Luke says "the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47).  Acts 2 tells the familiar story of the first major event in the life of the early church (4) on the day of Pentecost when these Christians were filled with the spirit and people from all over the Roman world heard their testimony.  When these visitors returned to their native lands, they took the message of Jesus with them and the seeds of the Christian faith were planted in many lands.  Luke tells us that "about three thousand souls" were added to the church as a result of Peter's preaching on Pentecost.  Luke says that "those who received his word were baptized," but he did not give us any indication of who baptized these converts or what process the group followed in accepting new members.  How the small band of Christians assimilated the overwhelming number of new believers we do not know.
According to Luke's account in Acts, the earliest Christian group "had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:44-45).  That description of the early church as a  "community of goods" has been the subject of intense scholarly debate and study. (5)   The Gospels suggest that Jesus and the disciples lived in a similar way with Judas being the treasurer for the group. (6)  Whatever the exact level of private ownership involved, (7) it is clear that these Christians cared for each other and shared their goods with their brothers and sisters.  It is not clear how long this arrangement prevailed, but it was doubtless in place throughout the first ten years of the church.

Re-Reading the Bible
One of the most significant events of these early years is not something we can put on a particular day or year, but there is ample evidence for it.  Although the Gospels indicate that Jesus clearly rejected the role of the traditional Messiah, the disciples apparently did not get that message.  Jesus rebuked Peter for his misunderstanding (Matthew 16:23), but immediately after the crucifixion Luke writes that two of the disciples "had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."  Those hopes were crushed by Jesus' death.  Even some weeks after the crucifixion, Peter insisted that Judas be replaced to bring the number of apostles back to the number of the tribes of Israel (Acts 2:15-26).  This seems to suggest that the disciples still thought in terms of a redemption of the nation, Israel.
Beginning with the education of those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, those early Christians had to re-read their Bible, our Old Testament.  Once they became convinced that God had raised Jesus from the dead, they began to comb the Old Testament to see if a crucified and risen Messiah could be found there; they read their Bible backwards.   And, indeed, he could!  Luke has recorded the gist of Peter's sermon on Pentecost, and his preaching shows what they found when they re-read the Bible.  Peter found that Psalm 16 said, "thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let thy Holy One see corruption."    The disciples read that verse in the light of their experience of a resurrected Jesus, and it said something it had not said before!  Now they understood that the Psalmist "foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.  This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses" (Acts 2:31-32).  Suddenly the Bible came alive for the disciples.  Had they not found Jesus in their Bibles, surely no one would have believed that the cross was part of God's plan.  But, as a result of their powerful re-interpretation of the scriptures, "many of those who heard the word believed...(Acts 4:4).

Confronting the Power Structure
There were others listening besides the crowds of people whose hearts were convicted when Peter accused them of denying "the Holy and Righteous One" and killing "the Author of Life" (Acts 3:14).  Many in the crowds were convicted of their guilt and repented, but the temple officials and the Sadducees were "annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead" (Acts 4:2).  It had been only two or three months since that terrible Friday when Jesus was crucified.  Only the women who loved Jesus could risk being associated with him that day.  The same temple police who arrested Jesus were still in charge.  It must have taken great courage for Peter and John to stand in the temple courtyard and publicly condemn the leadership of the temple for the murder of Jesus.  One of the things that can't be missed in the early chapters of Acts is the danger Peter and his colleagues faced by publicly accusing the temple leaders of criminal actions and affirming God's intervention to raise Jesus from the dead.  The temple police arrested Peter and John and commanded them "not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus" (Acts 4:18).  After being released Peter continued to teach the crowds in the temple, and he was arrested again.  The High Priest charged, "you intend to bring this man's blood upon us" (Acts 5:22) to which Peter responded, "The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior...and we are witnesses" (Acts 5:31-32).  The temple leadership was outraged by Peter's charge and probably would have executed Peter had it not been for a wise Pharisee named Gamaliel who talked them out of it.  So the confrontation with the authorities continued.
Within four or five years of the crucifixion, many people like those who heard the Gospel in other languages on Pentecost had joined the group.  Some of these Jews from outside Israel spoke Greek rather than Aramaic, and the church appointed seven "deacons" (all with Greek names and one who was not a Jew by birth but by choice) to minister to these Hellenists. (8)  One of these deacons was Stephen, and it is clear from Luke's record of his sermon that Stephen argued the case against the temple officials even more vigorously than did Peter:
 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.  Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,  you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it” (Acts 7:51-53).
Stephen was stoned to death after making his charge against the established leadership and, understandably, members of the church in Jerusalem "were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria" (Acts 8:1).  If the temple leadership had wanted to contain the new movement they did precisely the wrong thing!

Paul's Vision of Jesus
Who could have predicted that one of the men who watched the gruesome murder of Stephen, and condoned it, would ultimately be the theologian who helped the world understand what Jesus' death meant?  Yet that is exactly what happened.  Within six or seven years of Jesus' crucifixion there were Christians throughout the land of Israel and in the synagogues of the great city of Damascus one hundred and thirty-five miles to the north.  In all likelihood Christian believers had also made their way three hundred miles south to Alexandria in Egypt which was destined to become one of the major centers of the Christian faith.  But in these two major centers as well as in Jerusalem, Christians were still Jews as well.  The Jewish leadership in Jerusalem was outraged by the charges leveled against them by the Christians, and they were just as angered by the assertions that Jesus had been raised from the dead because the Sadducees denied that there would be a resurrection.  Thus they permitted Paul (the Greek name for Saul) to hunt down members of "the Way" both in Jerusalem and in Damascus, and it was on the road to Damascus where one of the most revolutionary events in the first ten years of the Christian faith occurred.  The man on his way to hunt down Christians was himself struck down by a blinding light and a voice that changed his life.
There is so much we wish Luke had been able to tell us.  Who was the man named "Judas" to whose house Paul was taken in Damascus.  Does Luke know his name because he became a Christian and was remembered?  How many Christians were there among the Jewish community in Damascus?  How did they learn about Paul's experience?  How long did it take for word to get back to the temple leadership in Jerusalem about what had happened?  How (and when) did Ananias become a Christian?  When Paul later told of this event he said of Ananias that he was "a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there..."(Acts 22:12).  It does not sound as if Ananias was a newcomer to Damascus who had fled from Jerusalem!
One can only speculate about  what  went on in Paul's life that brought him to his knees far to the north.   Luke does not say, but one wonders how the sight of that brutal murder of Stephen affected Paul.  Did it weigh on his heart?  Did it make him ready to hear the voice of Jesus?  Perhaps over the weeks or months between that execution and Paul's trip, Stephen's sermon caused Paul to re-read the Old Testament for himself.  And perhaps the image of that battered body kept haunting him.
One can only guess at what might have happened to Paul had his vision come to him while he was within reach of the temple police in Jerusalem!  After Paul's encounter with Jesus in his vision he did not --probably could not--return to Jerusalem for three years. It appears that the temple authorities in Jerusalem asked King Aretas of Nabataea who had control of Damascus to arrest Paul and send him back to them, and he tried to do so but failed. (9)

Conclusion
The first ten years of the Christian church comes to a close with Paul being sent out of Israel and back to his home town of Tarsus because those who murdered Stephen wanted to do the same to him (Acts 9:29).  Likewise, Peter, who had escaped from prison in Jerusalem, had to leave the city (Acts 12:17) and go to Caesarea which was controlled by the Romans.  There were Christians who stayed in Jerusalem even in the face of this extreme hostility and they were still observant Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah.  The departure of Simon Peter opened the way for new leadership and James, the brother of Jesus, became the head of the church.
The first decade was dominated by appearances of Jesus that convinced the disciples that God had raised him from the dead.  This lead to a re-reading of the Bible and confrontation with the temple leaders which cost Stephen his life and forced Peter out of Jerusalem.  And a final appearance of Jesus to a zealous Pharisee on a murderous mission set the stage for the rest of the story.

1.  In addition to these dates for events in Israel it might be helpful to get some reference points for the Roman World.  Jesus was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus.  Tiberius assumed the role of emperor in A.D. 14 and was the emperor throughout the ministry of Jesus.  He died in A.D. 37 and was replaced by Caligula.

2.  Paul asserted that "he [Jesus] is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility..." (Ephesians 2:14).  There was a wall around the Temple in Jerusalem in which there were signs warning non-Jews not to enter the sacred area.  Paul saw that wall as a symbol of everything that kept Gentiles from sharing in the covenant promises that Jews enjoyed.

 3. James D. G. Dunn, Beginning From Jerusalem [Vol 2 of Christianity in the Making] (Wm B. Eerdmans, 2009), 9, Footnote 29.  Dunn surveys seventeen terms that are used to name Christians in the New Testament.  The term believers best captures what the earliest Christians thought themselves to be. Note the references: those who believe-Acts 2.44; Rom. 3:2; I Cor. I 4. 22; I Thes. I. 7: 2.10, 13;  those who believed/became believers - Acts 2.44, 4.32;  2 Thes. 1.1 0;  those who had become (and remained) believers-Act 15.5, 18.27, 19. 18, 21.20. 25;  believing/faithful - Acts 16.1. 15: I Cor. 7.25: 2 Cor. 6. 15: I Tim. 4.10, 5. 16; 6.2, Tit. 1.6;  the believers/faithful - Acts I0.45; 12.30; l Tim. 4.3. 12.

4.  It is not clear when the early Christians began to call themselves a "church" (the Greek word is ekklesia).  The word simply means an "assembly."  The word "synagogue" means the same thing and is used by Luke to name the Jewish assemblies.

 5. Brian Capper, 'The Palestinian Cultural Context of Earliest Christian Community of Goods' from The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995), ed. R. J.  Bauckham (volume 4 of The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting), pp. 323-356.

 6. "The gospels seem to suggest that Jesus and the Twelve formed such a community
(...John 12:6, 13:29); the early chapters of Acts portray the disciples as continuing to live in this
way after the Ascension." JustinTaylor, "The Community of Goods among the First Christians and among the Essenes"  in  Historical Perspectives: From the Hasmoneans to Bar  Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,  Edited by David Goodblatt, Avital Pinnick, and Daniel R. Schwartz (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000) 147-164 .

 7 .Acts 2:46 describes the disciples as "breaking bread in their homes" indicating that they had individual houses and did not live together as a group.  We get the impression from the Gospels that all early Christians were in Galilee, but it seems that at least some of that group were from Jerusalem and its suburbs of Emmaus and Bethany.  We are not told where Mary and Jesus' brothers lived in Jerusalem or how they earned enough to live.

  8.The Hellenists appear one more time in Acts 9:29 but this time they are Jews who have not become Christians.  It may be that these "Hellenists" came from the same synagogues that put Stephen to death:  the synagogues of the Cyrenians, the Alexandrians and the Cilicians (Acts 6:9).

 9. Paul wrote to the Galatians that he waited three years to return to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:18-19).  To the Corinthians he wrote:  "At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hand" (2 Corinthians 11:32-33).