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By contract, even under Roman political authority, the first century Jews maintained self-rule in matters of Religion (a lesson hard learned under their Selucid overlords). That rule was centralized in a religious body known as the Sanhedrin, consisting of a mix of leading Pharisees and Sadducees. Other parties existed, of course, – political and religious diversity was almost as great as it is in Israel today. There were political extremists, as well as those who advocated compromise with the Romans. Similar divisions existed in the religious world with the Essenes (of which Qumran is probably an example) at the conservative end and some varieties of Hellenism at the other. Palestine was probably more religiously conservative than was the Diaspora (Jews living elsewhere). Jesus was born into this world. Where he fell in this mixture of viewpoints is still a matter of debate. He seems to have put himself at odds, at one time or another, with each of the leading groups (sometimes siding with one against the other). He was certainly a miracle worker (even his early detractors did not question this). Where this power came from remains a matter of faith (or lack of it). He was eventually executed by the Romans as a dissident (around 30 CE). His disciples claimed to have seen him alive on several occasions afterwards, and the emerging theology of the resurrection became fundamental to most versions of Christianity thereafter. Over the next couple of millennia (although most famously over the next 30-40 years) the kerygma (the proclamation of his life, message, and significance) have spread with varying degrees of success throughout the world. In the early period, however, the emerging Jesus community was certainly viewed by contemporaries as simply another entry in the growing list of Jewish sects. In fact the earliest members did not view themselves as having abandoned the faith of their fathers (Judaism), but as having found its true meaning in the already-come Messiah. [AH] |
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The
Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880).