Documentary Reflection
Reflection Question For Program 1
While according to the established gospel, Jesus was tried by Sanhedrin, sentenced by Pontius Pilate, and later crucified by the Romans, experts believe that Jesus was responsible for his death more than anyone else. Evidence suggests that his action followed a certain planned path where the consequences were clear or rather pre-determined. Jesus believes that he was on a mission from his father, God, which drove his motives because he wanted to fulfill the mission (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). First, his action to fulfill the prophecy of the messiah put him in the path of danger, beginning with his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey fulfilling the coming of the messiah. Second, he attacked the religious establishment by attacking the traders at the Temple during the Passover, a symbolic attack of the Temple itself. Jesus grew in the Jews’ religious cultures; hence, he knew the possible consequences of his action, which symbolized the destruction of the Temple, indicating a rise of the Kingdom of God. Besides, during the last supper, Jesus predicted his death when he broke the bread and took the wine to symbolize his broken body and spilt blood (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Later pointed out that one of his disciples will betray him. Jesus’ actions did not make him guilty in the sense that Caiaphas and Pilate are guilty, but as a soldier, on a mission, he becomes brave and faced his death because he was faithful to his vocation, which led to his death.
The primary responsibility for the death of Jesus rests in the Jewish leaders and the Jews of Jerusalem. It has tragic consequences resulting in anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism, and the Holocaust. The crucifixion of Jesus led to conflicts between the church and the synagogue and the desire to convince Rome that Christianity was not against the Roman empire (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). First, Jesus was a Jew, but he was crucified in a Roman means of execution since Jews punished the wrongdoers by stoning to death. During the crucifixion of Jesus, Sanhedrin had no power giving the Roman governor Pontius Pilate the power to order the crucifixion under the Roman rules (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Besides, Jesus’ actions suggest that he wanted to provoke the Jewish leaders since the Romans were unlikely to initiate actions against him. During the first-century of Judaism, politics and religion were inseparable. Hence, it was unclear if Jesus’ death was political or religious. However, the religion-political power of the day was the major element that motivated the death of Jesus.
The historical Jesus, as depicted in the New Testament, was a Jew who was faithful to the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets; therefore, Jesus, whose Aramaic name was Yeshua, naturally angered the Roman government because of his preaching. After his arrest and persecution at the Passover ceremony, his followers lived on in Galilee and Jerusalem. They continued to observe the Jewish Laws awaiting the second coming of the messiah (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). However, the future of Christianity did not stay long in the hands of the Aramaic Nazarenes before it passed to the energetic Greek-speaking Jew from Tarsus named Paul. Paul never met Jesus, nor was he impressed by the Jew; however, a vision-guided him to preach Christianity with the different versions from the Nazarene version. Unlike the Nazarene teaching, Paul preached to the gentiles and did not force them to undergo circumcision or to other demands of the Jewish laws. Besides, he wrote to his churches that Moses’ laws were no longer relevant because his teachings were sufficient. Pau brought equality between the Jews and gentiles, slaves, and free people (Forger, 2020). Anyone who would disobey Paul’s teachings and try to convince the gentiles to follow the Jewish Laws was denounced and became Judaizers.
The conflict between Paul and the Nazarenes led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the killing of many Jews. Paul Church grew and separated and became hostile to the emergence of Judaism. The writing of the Christian gospel in the late first century led to the fierce competition between the Jews and Christians. They were arguing if Jesus was the promised messiah and which group among them represented the true Israel. The young Christian churches distance themselves from the conflicts which explained the hostility towards Judaism and Jews (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). The story of Jesus shows that the real enemies were not gentiles or the Romans who orchestrated the death of Jesus, but rather the Jews, including the Pharisees, priests, and the Jewish people. Tragically, Christianity, which began with a group of Jews, grew to become a threat to Judaism. Post-Holocaust Christians agreed with the church anti-Semitism about the Jews’ past and their responsibility in the death of Jesus.
Reflection Question For Program 2
After the crucifixion of Jesus, Christianity grew rapidly and marked the conception of a new community that preached peace and equality. First, the condition that promoted the spread of Christianity was the promises of gifts, including spiritual gifts beyond the daily experience that people were used to (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Besides, Christianity promised immortality and liberation from sicknesses, poverty, and individual isolation. Christianity created the possibility for the future relationship between humans and a superpower beyond the world’s powers. Similarly, during the Roman empire, people lived in a world full of inequalities, poverty, and wealth under the control of a few people. During the Roman era, there was sickness, and people had no access to health services because the doctors were so expensive. Rome reinforced inequality through the Augustan system, where it had a hierarchical system where the empire was the pinnacle of power, and the blessing comes down from above. During this period, the emperor was the way to the divine word, and someone at the bottom of the social pyramid receives less or nothing coming down (Forger, 2020). After people embraced Christianity, slavery began to fade, but it still existed. Since Christianity promised equality people and liberation from suffering, it won the hearts of many people who wanted to live a better life.
The sociology formula boosted the spread of Christianity when Jesus was alive and after his crucifixion. The Christian community supported the baptismal formula, which identifies Christ as neither Jew nor Greek or male or female, slave nor free persons (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). This social formula described the new community of the Kingdom of God that was inclusive and welcoming everyone to join. The community invites everyone and makes them feel valued and equal compared to the Jews Laws that classified people into social classes. The Christian community did not give any advantage or disadvantage to any person through biased methods. On the contrary, it gave value to the less fortunate in society, including the slaves, because it gives them personal dignity and equal social status. Christian community helps to take people out of slavery, isolation, hunger, sickness, and guides them wherever they go (Jervis, 2018). The first welfare institution was for the widows, recognized as the church’s virgins, which rescued them from poverty. These social values led to an increase in churches up and establishment of hospitals and social services, including giving food and money to people who are in need leading to its popularity.
The Roman empire was going through major demographic changes because cities were growing, which benefitted the spread of Christianity. For instance, within the growing cities, deaths were higher than births, leading to the shrinking of the old pagan aristocracy. People are moving from other countries into the cities, including the Christians becoming the new population and a huge number of people (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Their availability in the cities allowed them to socialize with other people, which led to the growth of Christianity due to demographic changes. Besides, the plagues and famine wiped a bigger population resulting in more members of one group relative to the population. Fortunately these demographic changes favored Christians who became a significant proportion in the cities during the second and third centuries in some of the Roman cities (Forger, 2020). Thus, the demographic changes, including the decline in the pagan aristocracy, movement into the cities, and natural calamities, led to the Christian community’s popularity resulting in the spread of Christianity.
Christianity had a sense of belonging, which facilitated its spread because it offers solutions to the basic and deeply felt human needs. With the immigrant population in the Roman cities, one had to climb through the ladder of the social life to belong to the Roman world. On the contrary, Christianity was an open community with no qualification or social ladder to match up to anything (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). As a result, Christianity attracted many people who felt the sense of belonging because it was a web of a community of closely-knit friends who helped each other during the hard times as brothers and sisters of Christ. The warmth of Christianity led to the growth of the community in the Roman world. Besides, it led to a sporadic spread during the second century and the first quarter of the third century. As a result, the Roman empire began to persecute Christians, such as Decius. However, it was late because Christians were so numerous, making it impossible to eradicate them. By the wake of the campaign to eradicate Christianity, there was a church in Rome that took care of more than 1500 widows and had 46 presbyters, 56 exorcists and doorkeepers becoming the new welfare agency in the roman empire (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). The leaders of the church were the community patrons who sat in the Roman Councils. The sense of belonging that Christianity offered won many people who could not climb the Roman ladder to gain social status. They found a place where they are respected and valued, leading to the expansion of Christianity in the Roman empire.
Reflection Question for Program 3
The gospel is a unique piece of literature that are not bibliographies, and rather, they are a kind of religious advertisement. In the gospel, the authors proclaim their interpretation of the Christian message using the story of Jesus of Nazareth at an evangelistic position(“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). The authors of the gospel are not eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus’ life and ministry, and they recollect the stories they heard and the tradition ns to tell the life of Jesus. Some of the traditions are accurate, whereas others wholly create the authors of the gospel. Besides, the authors of the gospel modify the stories to fit their own beliefs about the story of Jesus and Christianity (Jervis, 2018). The new testament is the ancient bibliographies that believe heavily on oral sources to written sources. Ancient authors did not use the theories of psychological development because the important characteristics were the eyewitnesses who were present at the birth of Jesus, and most stories represent the ethical and moral values in society. None of the gospel writers was present during the era of Jesus, and the disciples were uneducated peasants who could not write or read. The disciples of Jesus spoke Aramaic, but the gospel authors were Greek speakers.
The gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John depicts the story of Jesus differently reflecting on the experience and the circumstances during their time. (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020)For instance, the historical evidence shows that Mark wrote the gospel for the community that was deeply affected by the failure of the first Jewish revolt against the Roman empire. The gospel of Mathew, speaks to the Jewish community who conflict with the Pharisaic Judaism that dominated their life after the war. Besides, Luke wrote for the Gentile audience who were eager to demonstrate their Christian beliefs in a way that did not conflict their service to the Roman Empire and living as responsible citizens. While the four gospel authors lived during different times, they narrated the life of Jesus and the tension between the Christians and the Jews. Luke wrote the gospel when the tension had protected into hostility, and John wrote when the conflicts had become an open rift and expressed the difference in evangelistic language.
The writers of the gospel are doing so from their verbal memory, which influences the way the version of the stories; hence, for better understanding, it is important to understand how they influence the stories. It is hard to narrate the life of Jesus from his birth to death and resurrection since it is massive information making the writer go through a traumatic period. Paul is the first writer of the gospel, where he is telling the stories of Jesus 20 years after his death involving the passing on of tradition from the eyewitnesses to the writers. It is reasonable to imagine that the disciples sat down after the death of Jesus and start telling the stories about the encounters with Jesus. The traditional way of passing the information was important because it easy to pass the traditions without losing the original meaning. However, in the development of the oral stories, the apostles and the prophets with the writing skills decided to write down the story of Jesus (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Paul’s writing did not mention the miracles done by Jesus, his birth, the teaching of the parables, or the gospel tradition of Kenya at all because he chose to dwell much on his death.
Moreover, Paul’s letters are majorly from his preaching but not the gospel. Through the stories of Paul, one can understand that the storyteller’s narration influences the story because the traditions develop as the community looks for a way of a recreation of the memories. Similarly, it is impossible to peel back the recreation later because there is a tradition behind the story (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). For the words of Jesus, the story cannot be what Jesus must have said because the initial authors for community life had already formulated the earliest layer of tradition. The traditional oral stories were written down to enable the passing of the information from one generation to another. The only way Christians communicate was through contact with each other. In this case, it is important to make sure that the gospel is uniform and easy to share. It is important to understand how the storyteller influenced the stories and make sure that the Christian will celebrate during the Eucharist would be a true story told within the same line.
Reflection Question for Program 4
The spread of Christianity in Rome enhanced the efficiency of the Rome Empire, but it challenged the principles and led to membership in a sect, which was dangerous. After the death of Jesus, his teachings remained and spread all over the Roman Empire to the Jewish communities. The communities helped to strengthen the apostles, such as Paul. First, when Roman embraced Christianity marked the beginning of freedom of religion were in the year 313 Constantine and Licinius made Christianity the official religion of the empire (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Besides, the proclamation did not only favour Christians because it gave freedom to every person to worship in whichever way they wanted. After all, the emperor thought that whatever the deity it would bless the empire as a whole. Secondly, Christianity limited the power of the imperial power, where Constantine became weaker than his predecessors. For instance, Constantine struggled to unite Christianity under one umbrella to end the religious struggles. The struggles by Constantine was unlike before when they could order from the comfort of their thrones. Constantine had a new flock to satisfy, namely the church led by the bishops interested in the souls of the Christians rather than the money (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). Thus, when the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, it led to the freedom of religion and reduced the emperor’s powers, leading to mutual understanding.
Furthermore, Christianity led to the care for the powerless and established Christianity as an easy target. Constantine believed that his reign would be successful if he received favor from God, which made him care for the poor, orphans, and widows in his territory. The Christian teaching indicated that God cares for those who had no power, and if he wanted to keep his power, Constantine decided to look for favors from God (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). For instance, tax revenues were reduced for the church, and the little collections were used for the poor. Besides, Constantine gave powers to the bishops to equalize the civil justice system because it did not favor those people without money or lack influence. However, it never meant that Constantine was a supporter of Christianity; rather, he played power games to secure his power. The Christian rituals were misinterpreted as cannibalism or incest, hence, raising suspicion and making Christianity an easy target for criticism by Nero. They wasted no time to arrest and torture the Christians in Rome before publicly executing them (Martelli & Martelli, 2020). For instance, emperor Nero tried to divert his failures and blamed it on Christianity as a scapegoat. Thus, the spread of Christianity exposed its vulnerability and led to the care for the poor by emperor Constantine who wanted favors from God.
Religion and government work parallel to each other, but they are most successful when they protect and encourage each other. The relationship between religion and politics in Rome began with the development of Christianity in the Province of Judea. Christianity spread across the Roman government. After the death of Jesus, Paul wrote many letters to small Christian communities living throughout the Roman empire. In 313 CE, Constantine allowed Christianity and other religions as he gave people the freedom of worship (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). In 325 CE, the council of Nicaea gave Christianity a boost because the Roman government recognized it as the main religion. Also, the spread of Christianity and acceptance by the government standardized Christian beliefs and practiced all over Rome (Everton & Schroeder, 2019). The connection between Christianity and the Roman government meant that Christianity incorporated specific Roman cultural practices and practices.
Atheism and agnostics could be the dominant religion of the future due to the disparities in the current religious s believe that creates doubts on the believers. For instance, today, the church is losing the staunch parishioners increasing the lack of interest by the followers. In the 21st century, during the increase in technology use, people who lack affiliation to any religion are growing significantly (Everton & Schroeder, 2019). For instance, the Atheist is the largest religious group in North America and parts of Europe. The lack of religion affects the perception of death, childhood teachings, and voting systems. For atheism to rise as Christianity did, it should consider what people want to hear, such as the promises of a better life or freedom from the religious shells. People are currently tired of the religious myths and the leadership who have monetary interest rather than the souls of the believer; hence, atheism should provide a reason to believe without affiliation with any religious group. Atheism could be the next dominant religion owing to the disappointments from Christianity and other current religious affiliates.
Like paganism, the rich religions in the region of ancient Mesopotamia are on the verge of extinction because they lack the convincing power to advance their values. The religions include the Mandaeans, Pagan Kalasha, and Alawites, shaker families who are losing the beliefs of their people, and the absence from the Middle East where it began leaves them more vulnerable (Everton & Schroeder, 2019). The religions that are at the brink of extinction should review their cultural beliefs to suit the people’s interests and the gospel that makes sense to the people. Besides, religions should consider expanding their territories to attract people who may share the same opinion with them and willing to join the religion. Lastly, they should make sure that the preachers of their religion have a vast knowledge of the gospel that will allow them to convince more people to join or help the religions to merge with others who share similar opinions (Jervis, 2018). Thus, several religions are at the brink of extinction; however, if they revise their activities, they can survive and expand their flock.
The most surprising and important information in the program is the transformation of the cross into the symbol of triumph and Jesus of Nazareth into Jesus Christ because it marked the beginning of the spread of Christianity. The last episode of the program symbolizes the comparative Mythology of Jesus because it summarizes his life and how Christians relate to the traditions, theology, and other religions. The symbol of the cross of Jesus Christ carries around the issues of life and eternity. It symbolizes the victory of victories against the war of ages (“From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”, 2020). The dying of Christ defines the end of the war against the evils and between Satan and Christ. Learning new historical information creates a new perspective on concepts such as Christianity. Besides, the new historical information about the life of Jesus creates doubts on the accuracy of the gospel of Christ because the authors used their interpretations and the oral information, which may be distorted (Forger, 2020). The story of the life of Jesus is surprising. Still, his crucifixion is the most puzzling, and the new historical knowledge creates a new perspective that can work positively or negatively on the faith of the reader.
References
Everton, S., & Schroeder, R. (2019). Plagues, Pagans, and Christians: Differential Survival, Social Networks, and the Rise of Christianity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 58(4), 775-789. doi: 10.1111/jssr.12631
Forger, D. (2020). Jesus as God’s Word(s): Aurality, Epistemology, and Embodiment in the Gospel of John. Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 42(3), 274-302. doi: 10.1177/0142064×19890489
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians. (2020). Retrieved 22 August 2020, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/showsreligion/#video-2
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians. (2020). Retrieved 22 August 2020, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/showsreligion/#video-1
Jervis, L. (2018). When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul by Beverly Roberts Gaventa. Toronto Journal of Theology, 34(1), 135-136. doi: 10.3138/tjt.2018-0035
Martelli, A., & Martelli, F. (2020). According to the Holy Bible, the suffering of “MAN JESUS CHRIST” preceded his crucifixion from the perspective of pathophysiology. South Florida Journal of Development, 1(3), 63-71. doi: 10.46932/sfjdv1n3-001