Development of the Canon

The authors of our New Testament books did not know that they were writing Scripture—our current books of the Bible. They did not know that a New Testament would ever exist, much less that their writings would be a part of it. Nevertheless, these writings owe their prominence and influence to the fact that they came to be included in that corpus.

To understand this significant point, let us imagine for a moment that Paul’s letter to the Romans had simply come down to us as an independent writing, a document from antiquity presenting the thoughts of a Christian missionary at the height of his career. Who would read it, and why? In all likelihood, it would be an interesting work to scholars who wanted to reconstruct the early history of one of the world’s major religions.

But elderly men and women would not be reading it in nursing homes, business professionals would not gather weekly to read it at prayer breakfasts, and teenagers would not memorize passages from it at summer camps. It would no doubt be regarded as a classic of ancient epistolary literature (like the letters of Cicero), and it might get quoted now and then, but it probably would not have inspired hundreds of paintings, thousands of hymns, and millions of sermons. The impact and significance of all New Testament writings is owed in large part to their inclusion in the Christian canon.

The word canon literally means “rule” or “standard,” but it is used by religious groups to refer to a list of books that are officially accepted as Scripture. In the early years Christians simply gathered together writings that they found to be helpful and shared them with one another. Paul encouraged the churches to which he wrote letters to exchange those letters with one another so that they could read what he had written to other congregations as well as to their own community (see Col. 4:16). Likewise, we are reasonably sure that multiple copies of Mark’s Gospel were produced and distributed to different parts of the Roman Empire a few years after it was written (both Matthew and Luke appear to have had copies). Since there were no printing presses at that time, the production of manuscripts was a costly and time-consuming process; nevertheless, Christians throughout the world wanted copies of these documents, and they seem to have done a remarkable job of making and sharing copies with one another.

At first there was no need for official agreement as to which books were to be read; for the most part, the works that circulated were the writings produced by people who had founded or led the earliest churches, people such as Paul and the original disciples of Jesus, or at least people who had known Paul or those original disciples. This chain of connection to Jesus and/or to Paul would come to be known as the “apostolic tradition,” and as long as churches were copying and sharing writings that stood within this tradition, there was little need to decide which of those writings was worthy of being labeled “Scripture.”

Almost from the start, however, there were voices within Christianity that were in tension with that developing tradition. From many of Paul’s letters, we learn that there were people arguing for versions of the Christian faith that Paul himself rejected; these people were preaching a message that they thought was “the gospel” but that Paul claimed was a perversion of the gospel (see Gal. 1:6– 9). Some of these alternative voices in the Christian movement probably produced writings as well (see 2 Thess. 2:2), but their works do not appear to have been preserved or included in the New Testament. In one sense, then, the New Testament is not just a collection of early Christian writings; rather, it is a selection of those writings.

The New Testament contains those works that were considered to be most representative of what became mainstream and orthodox. The process through which such selections were made was complex, and there is controversy among

modern scholars as to how the judgments were made. By the second century, however, two developments made the question of canon a pressing one for Christians.

First, there were now Christians who wanted to exclude writings with ties to the apostolic tradition that were not to their liking. The most prominent figure in this regard was the Christian scholar and evangelist Marcion (ca. 110–60), who came to prominence in the first half of the second century. Marcion appears to have been influenced by a movement called “gnosticism,” which valued what was spiritual but despised anything material or. He also wanted to purge Christianity of Jewish influences and make it into a more purely gentile religion. Marcion urged his followers to reject writings that taught a version of the faith different from what he was promoting. Eventually he came up with an approved list of writings that he thought should be considered Scripture for Christians: ten letters

of Paul (all but 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) and a copy of the Gospel of Luke. He also edited these eleven books to remove positive references to the Jewish God, or to the Jewish Scriptures, or to other matters that did not fit with his anti-Jewish, hyperspiritual version of the faith (he claimed that the writings had been previously modified by heretics and that by editing them he was merely restoring them to their original form).

In any case, many writings currently in our New Testament were rejected by Marcion and his followers not because they were considered to be out of step with the apostolic tradition but rather because that tradition itself was considered to be corrupt (steeped in Jewishness and overly concerned with physical life in a material world).

Second, there were Christians in the second century who began producing new writings and attributing these to people who had belonged to the original circle of apostolic witnesses. In virtually every case these new writings were copycat versions of books that had been written in the first century: someone would write a letter promoting gnostic ideas and claim that it was a newly discovered letter of Paul; someone else would write a gospel portraying Jesus as a major supporter of gnosticism and claim that it was a newly discovered work by one of his twelve disciples. These books continued to be produced well into the fourth century. Their anachronisms and idiosyncrasies make the fictional attributions of authorship readily apparent today, but the production of such writings did cause confusion among Christians in the first few centuries.

Thus the twofold problem: on the one hand, most Christian churches wanted to use only those writings that could be reasonably connected to the apostolic tradition; on the other hand, they wanted to use all the writings that were connected with that tradition, not just ones that fit with some particular teacher’s ideological preferences. Thus by the end of the second century lists began to appear specifying which writings were thought to meet these criteria. From these lists it becomes apparent that most of the writings now found in our New Testament were universally accepted as reliable witnesses to the apostolic tradition. Seven books, however, had a more difficult time gaining such acceptance: Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. We have no indication that these books were ever denounced or rejected outright, but the more cautious church leaders seem to have been reluctant to regard them as being on a par with the others (i.e., as being works that should be regarded as Scripture). Eventually, however, a consensus emerged, and by the beginning of the fifth century our current New Testament canon of twenty-seven books was well established.

Two conclusions regarding the canon of New Testament writings would be accepted by most scholars today. On the one hand, all the books in our current New Testament are ones that were deemed compatible with what came to be regarded as “apostolic Christianity”: there are certain, basic matters of faith on which they seem to speak with unanimity. On the other hand, the selection of canonical writings was not a narrow one that eliminated diversity of opinion: the twenty-seven New Testament writings present a wide variety of viewpoints, including positions that sometimes are difficult to reconcile. Indeed, if all the authors of these writings had been gathered into a single room at a given place and time, they almost certainly would have argued with one another over many matters that have continued to be of interest to Christians throughout the centuries. In short, the New Testament writings evince a basic unity but also remarkable diversity.

From Jesus to Us: Six Stages in the Transmission of the Gospel Tradition

Stage One: Historical Jesus

Jesus says and does things that are considered remarkable.

Stage Two: Early Tradition Oral and/or Written

People remember what Jesus said and did and share these memories with others.

People write down brief accounts of things that Jesus said and did.

Stage Three: Composition of the Gospels

The Gospel writers compile their books, drawing on both oral tradition and early written sources to form narratives of Jesus’s life and work.

Stage Four: Preservation of Manuscripts

People make copies of the Gospel narratives and distribute them.

Stage Five: Translation

Scholars translate copies of the Gospel narratives into other languages, including, eventually, our own.

Stage Six: Reception

In modern editions of the Gospels we hear or read about what Jesus said and did.

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The New Testament Writings

One of the most prominent Christians of the second century was a man now known to us as Justin Martyr (i.e., Justin the Martyr). Justin produced a number of theological writings, but he is perhaps best known today for a single paragraph in which he provides an early description of a Christian worship service.

Christian Worship in the Second Century

In chapter 67 of his First Apology, the Christian theologian Justin Martyr (110–65) provides us with our earliest account of Christian worship outside the New Testament itself:

“On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and . . . when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”

[Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 10 vols. (1885–96; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–89), 1:186.]

Most of the elements of contemporary liturgies already appear to be in place: preaching, prayers, eucharistic meal, even an offering. We want to pay special attention to one line of Justin’s remarks: “The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits.” What does he mean by “the memoirs of the apostles”?

He is referring to writings now found in the Christian New Testament (specifically, the four Gospels). These writings are being read publicly in worship alongside “the writings of the prophets”—that is, the Jewish Scriptures contained in what Christians now call the “Old Testament.”

The early Christians believed the Jewish Scriptures provided a record of God’s covenant (or testament) with Israel. But Christians also believed God had done something new in Jesus Christ, and they found language to describe this in Jeremiah 31:31–34, where the prophet speaks of God making a “new covenant” (see also Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). Christians eventually decided that the apostolic writings testifying to this new covenant should also be counted as Scripture, and it seemed natural to call these works the “new covenant writings” or, simply, the “New Testament.”

An Overview of the New Testament

We should begin by looking at a basic “table of contents” for the New Testament. There are twenty-seven books, ranging in length from the Gospel of Luke (the longest) to 3 John (the shortest). The books are arranged into seven categories:

1. The Gospels. There are four of these (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), and they are named for the individuals who traditionally have been identified as their authors. All four report on the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus; thus they provide four different versions of the same basic story, and there is a good deal of overlap in their content.

2. The book of Acts. This book is actually “part two” of the Gospel of Luke, but it has been put in its own section in the New Testament (following the four Gospels) because it is the only book that relates the history of the early church—that is, what happened after the events reported in the Gospels.

3. Letters from Paul to churches. There are nine of these (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians). If you are unfamiliar with the New Testament, the names of these books may strike you as odd or difficult to pronounce; they are geographical references to the people in various cities or regions to which the letters were sent (e.g., the “Ephesians” were people who lived in the city of Ephesus). The designated author of all nine letters is Paul, an important Christian missionary. These letters are presented in the New Testament in order of length, from Romans (the longest) to 2 Thessalonians (the shortest).

4. Letters from Paul to individuals. There are four of these (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon), and they are named for the individuals to whom they were sent. Again, they are presented in order of length. The designated author is the same Paul who is associated with the nine letters to churches, making, all told, thirteen letters from Paul.

5. The letter to the Hebrews. This one is in a class of its own. It is an anonymous work, and we do not know who wrote it or to whom it was sent, but since it appears to have been written for Jewish Christians (i.e., Hebrew Christians), it is traditionally called “The Letter to the Hebrews.”

6. Letters by other people. There are seven of these (James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude). Unlike the letters from Paul, these are named not for the people to whom they were sent but rather for the individuals who traditionally have been identified as their authors. They are often called “The General Letters (Epistles)” or “The Catholic Letters (Epistles).” The word catholic in the latter designation has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church but simply means “universal” or “general.”

7. The book of Revelation. This one too is in a class of its own. It offers an account of a visionary experience as recounted by someone whose name was John. It is sometimes called “The Apocalypse of John” (the word apocalypse means “revelation”).

Two warnings or caveats may be sounded regarding first impressions of these New Testament books. First, the books are not arranged in chronological order. To take just one example, the Gospels come first in the New Testament, but they were not the first books to be written; all four of them probably were written after the death of Paul, and thus they must be later chronologically than any letters that Paul wrote. Second, the titles that these books now bear reflect ancient church traditions that often do not hold up to scrutiny.

The first book in the New Testament is titled “The Gospel according to Matthew” (or just “Matthew” for short), but the Bible itself does not say that Matthew wrote this book, and very few modern scholars think that he did. Likewise, we have books in our New Testament called “The First Letter of John,” “The Second Letter of John,” and “The Third Letter of John,” but the books themselves are anonymous and could have been written in any order (they are numbered in our Bibles from longest to shortest).

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The Effects of Hellenism on the New Testament World

“Hellenism” refers broadly to the influence of Greek culture, which was prominent in the Roman Empire (or in what is sometimes referred to as the Greco-Roman world). During the New Testament period Jewish people throughout the world were said to be “Hellenized” because they had been influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the culture of Greece and Rome.

Hellenistic influences included simple cultural matters. For example, many Jewish people of the time, including Jesus and his disciples, had adopted the Greek practice of reclining at table to eat (i.e., they ate lying down, on floor cushions). Of course, the degree of Hellenism varied; in some instances it was embraced, while in others it was resisted. One extreme example of Hellenistic influence is recounted by the Jewish Roman historian Josephus, who says that in some cities young Jewish men paid to have surgical operations performed on their penises so that when seen exercising naked at the gymnasium, they would appear to be uncircumcised—apparently, circumcision was unfashionable, and the Jewish males did not want to be ridiculed by the gentiles.

At the opposite extreme, some Jews virulently resisted anything that smacked of Hellenism and sought to isolate themselves from the secular world, denouncing seemingly innocent social practices as instances of pagan infection.

Hellenistic influences were evident in Palestine, but they were even more prominent in the “Diaspora.”This term (meaning “dispersion”) refers to Jews living outside the traditional homeland of Palestine. Some Diaspora Jews were descendants of Jewish people who had not returned from the Babylonian exile. Many others were Jews who discovered that the Pax Romana allowed them to emigrate and live freely elsewhere. They did so, and for a variety of reasons: business opportunities, education, or a simple desire to see more of the world. But because Diaspora Jews often were far from Jerusalem (indeed, many never saw the city), the temple system lost some of its relevance and meaning for them. Diaspora Jews tended to look to synagogues rather than to the temple for their religious needs, with the result that, over time, rabbis became more important than priests and obedience to Torah took precedence over the offering of sacrifices (which was allowed only in Jerusalem).

The effects of Hellenism were also felt in another very practical way

Hebrew ceased to be the primary language of the Jewish people. It was all but forgotten in the Diaspora, and it tended to be used only in religious services in Palestine itself. The common language for Jesus and other Palestinian Jews was Aramaic.

Thus in Palestine Aramaic paraphrases of Scripture called “Targums” were widely used. Outside of Palestine the common language for Diaspora Jews was Greek, the language in which all books of the New Testament would be written. Indeed, long before the time of Jesus, during the third century BCE, the Jewish Scriptures had been translated into Greek. This Greek translation of the Jewish Bible is called the “Septuagint” (the word means “seventy,” and a common abbreviation for the Septuagint is “LXX,” the Roman numeral for seventy). Why this name? According to legend, the translation was done by seventy (or seventy-two) scholars

who, working independently, produced seventy (or seventy-two) identical translations. The Septuagint was widely used throughout the Diaspora and also appears to have been used in many parts of Palestine. Notably, most New Testament authors quote from the Septuagint rather than translating from the Hebrew Bible when they make reference to something said in Scripture.

The Septuagint contained fifteen additional books written in Greek in the years after the writing of the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians generally call the “Old Testament”). These extra books are often called the “Apocrypha” by Protestant Christians, though eleven of them are classed as “deuterocanonical writings” by Roman Catholics. Their status as Scripture was disputed among Jews at the time of Jesus, as it is among Christians today. In the New Testament the Apocrypha is never cited as Scripture, but Paul and other authors do appear to have read some of these books and to regard their teaching favorably. Hellenism also brought a pervasive increase of religious syncretism. As populations mixed, religious ideas were exchanged. For example, some Jewish people came to believe in immortality of the soul, the idea from Greek philosophy that each person has a soul that continues to live after his or her body dies. There is material in the Jewish Scriptures that could be read in support of such a view, though it had not been understood that way previously. Other tendencies in Jewish religion were amplified and modified through religious syncretism. Here we take a brief look at three.

Wisdom Theology

Wisdom theology became more popular than ever before. The wisdom tradition of Israel focused less on divinely revealed truth (prophets declaring a word of the Lord that often went contrary to human thinking) and more on common sense (truth that is gained through general insight into life and the human condition). There is a good deal of wisdom material in the Jewish Scriptures (in books such as Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes), and the Hellenistic Jews may have found a theology based on this material consonant with life in a secular, more philosophically oriented world. In the New Testament the influence of wisdom theology is evident in the teachings of Jesus (see Matt. 5–7) and in the writings of some of his followers (see especially the Letter of James).

Dualism

Dualism came to the fore as a more prominent aspect of religious perspective. Dualism reflects the tendency to separate phenomena into sharply opposed categories, with little room for anything in between. For instance, a dualistic perspective tends to objectify “good” and “evil” as realities within nature. The Jewish religion had originally resisted extreme dualism, emphasizing that all people and nations have both good and evil tendencies. In the New Testament world, however, we find that it has become common to think that there are “good people” and “evil people” in the world (cf. Matt. 5:45; 13:38), and that there are also good

spirits (angels) and evil spirits (demons). Furthermore, traditional Jewish religion had attributed virtually all power to what was good, to what derived from the all-powerful and righteous God, who ruled over all. The dualistic impulse granted far more power to Satan. Thus in the New Testament we discover that Christians influenced by Hellenistic Judaism have become so dualistic that they actually refer to Satan as “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4; cf. Luke 4:6; John 14:30; 1 John 5:19).

Apocalypticism

Apocalypticism combined a radical dualistic outlook (clear distinction between good and evil) with a deterministic view of history (the idea that everything is proceeding according to a divine plan). The apocalyptic perspective typically was twofold: (1) a pessimistic forecast for the world at large—things will go from bad to worse; and (2) an optimistic outlook for a favored remnant, those who would be rescued out of the evil world through some act of divine intervention (which was always believed to be imminent). Thus a limit was placed on the power of evil, but it was primarily a temporal limit: Satan may rule the world for now, but not for long! Apocalypticism as a dimension of Jewish religion emerged during the Babylonian exile (see the book of Zechariah) and may have been influenced by Persian religion, which was extremely dualistic.

In any case, it came to full expression during the Hellenistic period (see the book of Daniel) and flourished during the Roman period. In Jesus’s day apocalypticism tended to be embraced by Jews as a reaction against Roman imperialism and its cultural by-product, Hellenism. In the New Testament apocalypticism is most conspicuous in the book of Revelation, but it underscores many other writings as well (e.g., Matt. 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5–36; 1 Thess. 4:13–5:11; 2 Thess. 2:1–12; 2 Pet. 3:1–18).

Preservation of Jewish Identity

The influence of Hellenism may have been far-reaching in the world of Second Temple Judaism, but few Jews wanted to lose their national and cultural identity completely. Certain traditions—circumcision, Sabbath observance, holidays and festivals—became markers that would remin the people who they were and inhibit total immersion into Greco-Roman society. On a day-to-day basis the key markers of such identity may have been the various “purity codes” that the Jewish people had developed.

Such codes were typically derived from Torah, and they often articulated public, observable ways in which Jewish people would live differently than most of the population. Of course, all societies have culturally determined values regarding what they deem “clean” and “unclean.” In the modern Western world most people shampoo their hair on a regular basis, not to prevent disease but because they think that oily hair is gross or dirty. But globally and historically, there have been many people (including all those we read about in the Bible) who have thought oily hair is simply natural, the way hair is supposed to be. Such ideas reflect the standards of particular societies, values that might be deeply held (and vigorously defended) but that are not universal.

Likewise, the Jewish people at the time of Jesus (like many Jewish people today) had strong ideas about what was clean or unclean, but, as identity markers, these ideas had become integral to their religion. Eating pork or lobster was not just gross or disgusting; it was something that God had directed them not to do. Furthermore, the primary reason why God had directed them not to eat pork or lobster was not because doing so would be immoral or intrinsically evil; rather, abstention from such foods set them apart from other peoples of the world.

In a positive vein, the Jewish concept declared certain things to be holy or sacred: Jerusalem was a holy city (see Matt. 27:53), the temple was a holy building, and the Sabbath was a holy day. Negatively, there were many things that could render a person unclean, such as contact with a corpse or with various bodily fluids.

Lepers were unclean, as were women during menstruation and men who had recently had a sexual discharge (including nocturnal emissions). It is important to note that being unclean or encountering uncleanness was not necessarily a bad or shameful thing; often the point was simply to notice what made one unclean and to perform certain purification rituals in recognition of this. For a modern (though flawed) analogy, we might consider the act of changing a baby’s diaper: no one in our modern world would think that this is a bad or shameful thing to do, but most people probably would wash their hands after doing it.

One thing that we do not know is how seriously everyone took the purity codes. Some Jews might have ignored them or observed them selectively and sporadically, but many (often the ones we hear about) took ritual purity very seriously and found the codes to be not the least bit oppressive. The Jews of the New Testament era did not go through life with a paranoid aversion to avoiding pollution at all costs, nor did they suffer from perpetually low self-esteem due to an inability to remain ritually clean at all times. They simply avoided what was avoidable, noted what was not, and performed purification rites as part of their regular spiritual discipline. This was a deeply meaningful part of religious life for many Jewish people in both Palestine and the Diaspora.

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The People of Palestine at the Time of Jesus

During the lifetime of Jesus the population of Palestine was incredibly diverse. Even among Jewish people there was no single, unified system of beliefs or practices. Still, there were certain things that almost all Jewish people believed: there is only one God, and this God had chosen them to be an elect and holy people, distinct from all other peoples or nations on earth; also, God had made a covenant with them and given them the Torah. Accordingly, they lived in ways that set them apart from those who were not God’s people: they practiced circumcision, kept the Sabbath, observed dietary restrictions, and committed themselves to certain standards of morality (e.g., the Ten Commandments). Beyond these basics, however, the Jewish people in the time of Jesus were quite diverse. And, of course, not everyone in Palestine was Jewish (see Matt. 15:21–28; Luke 3:14; John 4:5–9).

Pharisees

The Pharisees may be the best known of the Jewish sects to readers of the New Testament. In many Gospel stories they are the opponents of Jesus, and often they are portrayed as narrow-minded legalists (Matt. 23:23– 24) or even as hypocrites who don’t follow their own teaching (Matt. 23:3). Such an understanding, however, would be incomplete (at best), representing a hostile assessment of how Christians (who became their religious competitors) believed some Pharisees behaved some of the time. In a broader sense, the Pharisees were noted for emphasizing faithfulness to Torah, including the study of Scripture and obedience to God’s demands. They were the Jews who founded synagogues throughout the land and encouraged every Jewish person to participate in prayer, Bible study, and regular worship.

The Pharisees also assigned authoritative status to an oral body of material known as “the tradition of the elders” (see Matt. 15:2), which eventually became codified within Judaism as the Mishnah (part of the Talmud). Their interpretations of the law seem to have been driven by a conviction that all of God’s people should live with the utmost sanctity.

They urged laypeople to follow the same purity regulations in their daily lives that were expected of priests serving in the temple, the idea being that (in some sense) every house was a temple, every table was an altar, and every man was a priest. For example, the Pharisees and their followers practiced handwashings originally designated for temple service before eating any meal (see Matt. 15:2; cf. Mark 7:3–4).

Many Pharisees appear to have been scribes, and it is possible that some New Testament references to “the scribes” refer to scribes who were Pharisees (cf. Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30; Acts 23:9). The same is probably true of the “lawyers” whom we hear about now and then (cf.

Matt. 22:35; Luke 11:45); they were experts in the law (i.e., Torah) and thus probably were Pharisees. Many Pharisees were synagogue leaders, and some are referred to as “rabbis”—that is, teachers (cf. Matt. 23:6–8). Jesus (who also is called “rabbi”) probably had more in common with the Pharisees than with any other Jewish group of his day, which could explain why most of his arguments were with them: they had enough in common to make debate possible. The apostle Paul was raised a Pharisee and continued to regard himself as a Pharisee even after he became a missionary for Christ (see Phil. 3:5).

Sadducees

The Sadducees probably were the most powerful Jewish group of the day. They figure less prominently in our Gospel stories because they appear to have been centered in Jerusalem, and Jesus spends most of his time in Galilee (but see Mark 12:18–23). They seem to have controlled the temple system and often dominated the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling body. The high priest and the chief priests whom we hear about in the New Testament probably were Sadducees. Pharisees and Sadducees were able to cooperate with one another on matters of common interest, but they were divided over a number of theological and political issues.

For example, it is said that the Sadducees did not believe in life after death and that they were skeptical of nonbiblical stories regarding angels and demons. They regarded only the Pentateuch (the first five books of our Old Testament) as sacred Scripture and viewed the other books that Jews and Christians now consider to

be Scripture simply as religious writings. Whereas Pharisees were teachers who emphasized Torah and synagogues, the Sadducees were priests who focused on sacrifices and temple worship. On the crucial matter of interaction with Rome, the Sadducees appear to have been more willing than the Pharisees to compromise on political matters as long as the temple and sacrificial system could continue unabated.

Pharisees	Sadducees
generally middle class	mainly upper class
power base outside Jerusalem	power base in Jerusalem
closely associated with synagogues	closely associated with the temple
primarily teachers and scholars	primarily priests
theologically committed to maintaining Israel’s relationship with God through obedience to the law	theologically committed to maintaining Israel’s relationship with God through the sacrificial system
accepted as Scripture most of what Christians call the “Old Testament”	accepted only the Torah (Pentateuch) as Scripture
believed in resurrection of humans to a life beyond death	did not believe in resurrection to a life beyond death
recognized existence of spiritual beings, including angels and demons	skeptical of beliefs regarding different spiritual beings
regarded as social moderates who objected to imposition of Roman authority but did not advocate armed revolt against the Roman powers	regarded as social conservatives who sought collaboration with Roman authorities in ways that would ensure their own place in the status quo
prominent Pharisees: Shammai (strict interpretations of law), Hillel (more lenient interpretations of law)	prominent Sadducees: Caiaphas and Annas, identified as high priests during the lifetime of Jesus
In the New Testament they argue with Jesus over matters of law but are only peripherally connected to the plot to have Jesus put to death	In the New Testament they are the primary architects of the plot to have Jesus put to death
the primary forebears of modern Judaism	disappear from history after the disastrous Jewish war with Rome in 66–73 CE

 Essenes

The Essenes were ascetic separatists who lived in private communities. They probably are to be connected with the group that lived in the desert at Qumran and preserved the library now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Essenes advocated strict dietary laws and other rigorous paths to holiness, including, for some of their members, a commitment to celibacy; they also practiced ritual baths and sacred meals similar to the Christian sacraments of baptism and Eucharist.

They espoused messianic beliefs and harbored apocalyptic ideas about imminent judgment and divine deliverance. The Essenes are never mentioned in the New Testament, and there is no sure indication that any New Testament figure knew about them or had any contact with them. Nevertheless, scholars like to compare

and contrast Essene beliefs and practices with those of Christianity. In particular, John the Baptist has been evaluated in this light: like the Essenes, he lived in the wilderness, called for radical repentance, and baptized people. It is impossible to know for sure, but most scholars today find no direct evidence to suggest that John was an Essene (or had ever been one), but he may have been influenced by some of their ideas.

Zealots

The Zealots were radical anti-Roman Jews who advocated armed rebellion against the Roman forces. Their numbers included the sicarii, knife-wielding assassins who mingled in with crowds and stabbed Jews suspected of collaborating with the Romans. Ultimately, the Zealots and their sympathizers would be responsible for leading the Jews into a disastrous war against Rome in 66–73 CE. They probably are not mentioned in the New Testament itself, though one of Jesus’s disciples was called “Simon the Zealot” (the term could simply

mean “Simon the zealous one”). The Zealots may not have appeared as an organized force in Palestine until a few years after the time of Jesus.

Herodians

The Herodians were a political coalition of Jews who supported the family and dynasty of Herod, which included many Roman leaders who ruled various areas of Palestine at various times. In the New Testament they are mentioned as collaborating with Pharisees to trip up Jesus politically and to establish grounds for having him banished or destroyed (see Mark 3:6; 12:13).

Samaritans

The Samaritans lived primarily in Samaria, the region situated between Judea (where Jerusalem was) and Galilee (where Jesus lived and conducted most of his ministry; see map 1.2). They claimed that they were the true Israel (descendants of the “lost” tribes taken into Assyrian captivity around 722 BCE) and that the Jews represented a heretical splinter group that had gotten its start when Eli set up a rival sanctuary in Shiloh (see 1 Sam. 1:3). The Samaritans had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary; they regarded the temple in Jerusalem as a secondary sanctuary built by heretics (see John 4:19–22).

They did not accept anything as Scripture but the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), and they had their own version of the Pentateuch, which differed at key points from that of the Jews (e.g., one of the Ten Commandments states that the Lord is to be worshiped only on Mount Gerizim). The Samaritans claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile.

According to the Jews, the Samaritans were not children of Israel at all; rather, they were either descendants of foreign colonists whom the Assyrians had brought into the land after the conquest in 722 BCE or, at best, the offspring of Israelites who had forsaken their traditions and intermarried with foreigners. Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group.

Ideally, Jews and Samaritans were not to enter each other’s territories or even to speak to one another. During the New Testament period, however, Samaria was under Roman rule, and the Romans did not recognize Samaria and Judea as separate countries; they simply grouped them together (along with Idumea) as one realm with a single ruler. The Jewish Roman historian Josephus reports numerous violent confrontations between Jews and Samaritans throughout the first half of the first century.

In the New Testament Jesus often is represented as having a compassionate, if not friendly, attitude toward Samaritans: he surprises a Samaritan woman by engaging her in conversation (John 4:3–26), and he even points to individual Samaritans as good examples for his Jewish followers to emulate (Luke 10:30–37; 17:11– 19). The book of Acts indicates that some Samaritans became Christians (Acts 8:5–17).

Gentiles

Gentiles are people who are not Jews. They were also prominent in Palestine at this time. Large numbers of Romans, Greeks, and Persians had moved into the area and settled there, contributing to the urbanization of traditionally rural areas.

Indeed, the two largest cities in Galilee at the time of Jesus were Tiberias and Sepphoris, but Jesus is never said to visit either one of them. As he travels about the countryside, he demonstrates an obvious preference for villages, completely avoiding the large urban centers, where most of the gentiles lived. Jewish attitudes toward gentiles varied: among the Pharisees, Rabbi Shammai is reported to have espoused intolerance of gentiles, whereas Rabbi Hillel is said to have been more

conciliatory. The evidence on Jesus is mixed (for a negative attitude toward gentiles, see Matt. 6:7; 10:5; 18:17; 20:25–26; for a positive attitude, see Matt. 8:5–13). Even Paul, who devoted the latter part of his life to bringing salvation to the gentiles, does not always seem to have thought highly of them (see, e.g., Rom. 1:18– 32).

The attitude of gentiles toward Jews was also somewhat varied. Anti- Semitism was high, with many gentiles (including those who lived in Palestine) openly hating Jews and despising their culture, customs, and religion. But there were also a good number of gentiles who were attracted to the Jewish religion. Of particular interest to New Testament study are those gentiles who were called “God-fearers.” The God-fearers were half-converts—gentiles who embraced Jewish theology, worship, and morality but did not follow ritual purity laws, which they regarded as specific for ethnic Jews. They were allowed to attend synagogues, but typically they were not circumcised (which would have constituted a full conversion and made them “Jews”). Eventually, these God-fearers became prime candidates for conversion to Christianity (see Acts 10:1–2).           

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