SEQUEL 2: The Word is Spread to the World--by Linden Malki

More than half of the New Testament books are "Epistles" (letters), many of them written by Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee who became Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. He is a good example of how God chooses special people for special jobs. He was born into a Hebrew family,  in the Greek city of Tarsus on the Mediterranean coast of what is now southeastern Turkey, and was also a Roman citizen. He had a Greek education as well as having been a student of Gamaliel, one of the most respected scholars in Jewish tradition.   He was a Pharisee, with great zeal for Jewish law, and originally judged the followers of Jesus as heretics. Read his story in Acts 22; how he was called to serve God by preaching the message of the Gospel to first, his fellow Jews, and then to the outsiders, the Gentiles. We have many of his letters, to churches he founded and others to people he had mentored, dealing both with the meaning of Jesus' life and death and the practical issues and problems that came up in the churches. This gives us an amazing real-time snapshot of the development of the  early church, as well as supplying advice and instruction to 2000 years of Christians.

The letters were written (in order of their appearance in the Bible, not geographically or chronologically) to Rome, Corinth (a seaport on the isthmus between mainland Greece and the peninsula that is the southern half of the country), Galatia in Asia Minor (now Turkey), Ephesus (a seaport on the east coast of the Aegean Sea). Philippi (on the  northern coast of the Aegean in Macedonia, north of Greece), Colossae (in eastern Asia Minor), and Thessonika (now Salonika on the northwest corner of the Aegean, the second largest city in Greece.) In addition, we have letters written to Timothy and Titus, mentorees of Paul who became church leaders, and Philemon, a personal letter to a friend.   The letter to the Romans is Paul's most scholarly presentation of the Gospel; The two letters to the Corinthians deal with the problems of a rambunctious group of folks in a very pagan city; and the letter to the Philippians was written from prison but expresses eloquently the joy of knowing Christ.  More than one psychologist has recommended reading this small book for encouragement and mental health.

We also have letters from other major followers of Jesus.  The next one is the Letter to the Hebrews, by an unknown writer who is obviously inspired and respected by the churches.  Some older Bible translations give Paul as the author, but the more I read Paul's letters and this book, the more aware I am that the style is different and the writer comes to the story of Jesus from a different direction--aimed directly at a traditional Jewish community.  The other letters we have are from James (the leader of the original Jerusalem church and brother of Jesus), Peter, John, and Jude (brother of James and another brother of Jesus).

The final book is the "end of the story." It is a form that  was popular in this period, a vision of the final triumph of God in human history.  Jesus Himself is the "star" of this one.  It is a series of visions that John had when he was confined to the prison island of Patmos, in the western Aegean Sea. Amateur and professional scholars have analyzed it in many different ways, which is not surprising when we realize that there are references and coded descriptions for which we no longer have the key, as it was circulated underground among churches who were being persecuted.  A surprising amount of church music is based on passages from this book. The  important thing to remember is that even  though there are different ways to interpret it, there is one overarching message: at the end, we will be with God forever!

ean coast of what is now southeastern Turkey, and was also a Roman citizen. He had a Greek education as well as having been a student of Gamaliel, one of the most respected scholars in Jewish tradition.   He was a Pharisee, with great zeal for Jewish law, and originally judged the followers of Jesus as heretics. Read his story in Acts 9; how he was called to serve God by preaching the message of the Gospel to first, his fellow Jews, and then to the outsiders, the Gentiles. We have many of his letters, to churches he founded and others to people he had mentored, dealing both with the meaning of Jesus' life and death and the practical issues and problems that came up in the churches. This gives us an amazing real-time snapshot of the development of the  early church, as well as supplying advice and instruction to 2000 years of Christians.

SEQUEL: The Promised Messiah Comes!

Human beings have been created with an insatiable desire to retell stories and write them down.  By the time of Jesus, in the Roman Empire of what we now call The First Century AD,  the Jewish Scriptures were in wide circulation across the empire.  Jesus and His followers assumed a familiarity with them in their audiences. As the teachings of Jesus spread, they were written down; fragments have been found that have been dated to within a generation of Jesus' death and resurrection. Like the earlier Jewish Scriptures that we now call the Old Testament, this is a collection, not a single narrative.  

We find four different kinds of literature in this collection.First, the “Gospels” (Good News), the story of Jesus, the fulfillment of God’s Promise, from four different angles. 

 

"The Gospel of Matthew" written by a well-educated Jew with a thorough familiarity with the traditional Scriptures; refers constantly to examples and prophecies.

"The Gospel of Mark", Jesus in action. This is considered by many scholars to be Peter's preaching as collected and retold by John Mark, a young man from a good Jewish Christian family in Jerusalem, who was later associated with Peter, Paul, and Barnabas.

"The Gospel of Luke", written by a Gentile to a Gentile friend. Luke is considered by many scholars to be a first-rate historian. This is the first of two writings by the same author. It was written for a wider, Greek-speaking audience, and  includes more of Jesus’ parables.

These three are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels, because they share a framework and chronology, and may have drawn on a common source, although each has material unique to itself.

"The Gospel of John"  appears to have been written later, when the Synoptics were in wide circulation. John does not repeat them, but gives more material and spiritual truths that go deeper, and which shows the uniqueness of  Jesus, within the Jewish tradition but not limited to it. 

The second type of writing is historical. "Acts of the Apostles", the continuation of Luke’s Gospel, carries the story of Jesus through the first generation of the early church. Luke traveled with Paul in his later missionary journeys, and spent several years in Galilee when Paul was in prison in Caesarea while the various authorities tried to figure out what to do with him. It is likely that Luke took this opportunity to visit people who had known Jesus and the apostles and collected their recollections.

(to be continued next week: The Epistles (Letters), and the final drama.)

BOOK OF BOOKS by Linden Malki

The Bible is not "a book."  It is an anthology, a collection of writings that grew over a thousand years before the time of Jesus, and later, another hundred to compile His story. It is unique, I believe, among foundational literatures of spiritual communities, in not being a reflection of only one or two leaders and not more than one or two generations. Its chief derivative and rival in today's world is the Koran (or Quran), which is based on the story and teaching of one man and was compiled in its final form less than 30 years after his death.  Most other major religions are also the legacies of single individuals, such as Buddha, Confucius, and Zoroaster.

The Bible is also not a single continuous story. The Old Testament begins at the Beginning--Creation--and ends with the last of the recognized prophets who wrote around 400BC.  However, it consists of three major types of writings, which are arranged in what I see as five chronologies (with some overlaps). 

            First, of course, is the record of God's calling and dealings with a specific group of people.  The first five books, in Jewish tradition called the Torah, are the basic stories of the covenants of God with Adam, Noah, Abraham (c2000BC), and Moses (c1500).  Next we have the history of Israel--the descendants of Jacob--from Joshua to the united Kingdom of Saul, David (c1000BC) and Solomon, then the separate Kingdoms of Judah in the South and Israel in the North, the Assyrian invasion (726-712BC) and conquest by the Babylonians (596BC) at the end of 2 Kings. 

            The second chronological section overlaps the first: 1 and 2 Chronicles retell the history of the Israelites, focusing more on the southern Kingdom of Judah, followed by Ezra and Nehemiah with the return from Babylon (539-445BC), the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple; and Esther, in the exile community in Persia.

            The middle section is often referred to as "Wisdom Literature" or "Writings"--Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. These are poetic writings, of which Job is very ancient, and the others are collections, mostly attributed to David and Solomon, in fairly chronological order.

            The last two sections are the Prophets: "Major Prophets", the longest prophetic writings: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (a short collection of poems attributed to Jeremiah), Ezekiel, and Daniel, from the time of the Assyrian invasion to the exile in Babylon and Persia.

            The "Minor Prophets" are a dozen short writings. Hosea is one of the earlier prophets, from the period of the two parallel kingdoms, and Malachi the latest, after the return from Babylon, but the others are otherwise not necessarily in historical order.

These were assembled into one collection by about 200-150BC, and translated into Greek in Alexandria (Egypt). Most of the OT quotations in the New Testament are from the Greek version, known as the Septuagint, from the tradition that it was done by a team of 72 Jewish scholars. In the last century, a number of copies and fragments of these writings have been found, dated from the first and second centuries BC, and which are virtually identical with the versions we have today.

 Next week we’ll look at the New Testament.

Benefactor--by Linden Malki

At first I thought it odd that Jesus appears to not approve of social and political bigwigs who were called "Benefactors". Aren't the rich and powerful supposed to be generous?   In the Roman Empire of the New Testament era,  "Benefactor" had a very specific meaning.  This was a person of political status or ambition and access to wealth, who sponsored public projects and welfare benefits to the poor--with strings of political obligation attached; something like the "machine politics" we have seen in our own society. The recipients of the benefits were obligated to return favors and political support to the "benefactor".   It also solidifies the status difference between the donor and his clients.   Roman ruins are full of monuments and  inscriptions praising the benefactor with much flattery; their reward was the ego boost and the PR.   It was often ruinously expensive for the politicians,  and was part of the "bread and circus" that kept poor people busy and less likely to revolt. 

Archeologists rarely find monuments and inscriptions of this type in Greek and Jewish communities.  Jews of all economic classes were expected to contribute to the Temple and synagogue treasuries, which not only maintained those facilities but were called on to contribute to the poor.  We see the obligation to feed widows, and to contribute to communities hit by famine, in the early church in Acts and the letters of Paul. These donations were supposed, as far as was possible, to be made anonymously--Jesus criticizes those who draw attention to their giving,  and advises that "the left hand not know what the right hand is doing." We also see in the Gospels that the wealthy in some cases opened their feasts to the poor and disabled, and the Jewish and later Christian communities were known for their generosity to beggars. 

We can see in the Gospels that even in Judea the religious establishment  would draw attention to the money they donated to the synagogue and to the beggars at the temple gates.  It is possible that they saw this as fulfilling their charitable obligations and overlooked the needs of everyday people--like the man on the Jericho road, or the parents they can't afford to help because they already promised the money to the Temple fund.  Jesus also said that if we expect to be rewarded in this life, that is all the reward we deserve.  Jesus often told people who were healed to "tell no one." We are each asked to deal with the needs placed in front of us, without making a big public deal out of it.  The true reward is from God: Well done, good and faithful servant--enter into the joy of your Lord!