Christian Origins in A Nutshell | Paul Williams (2021-09-13) ​

0:00:00 This video aims to give you Christian origins in a nutshell. If you want a brief explanation of 0:00:09 Christian origins by a top expert i recommend this book: Searching for the Real Jesus by a guy called 0:00:16 Geza Vermes who is a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford and he's acknowledged 0:00:23 as a leading expert on the historical jesus, jesus as he really was in the first century, 0:00:29 and also Christian origins, the origins of Christianity. And in this book he has 0:00:34 a chapter called Christian Origins in a Nutshell, and i want to read you a bit from it so this is 0:00:40 an historian's academic summary of the origins of christianity which i think is really useful 0:00:45 really insightful and we'll show you really how uh christianity developed over the centuries and 0:00:52 changed from really being a very different kind of jewish faith to the much later hellenistic 0:00:59 faith that we are familiar with today. So Geza Vermes writes on page 161 of the book: 0:01:07 In 325 AD the emperor Constantine summoned and opened the ecumenical council at Nicaea 0:01:16 at which 318 bishops declared Jesus God, consubstantial with the Father. Consubstantial 0:01:24 by the way is a Latin phrase meaning of the same being of the same substance so whatever the father 0:01:30 was the son was basically according to the nicene creed. The essential beliefs of christianity entail 0:01:38 the holy trinity, the incarnation of the son, the redemption of mankind through the crucifixion 0:01:44 and resurrection of christ, and the universality of the church established to guide and nourish 0:01:51 the faithful until the final judgment and the inauguration of eternal life. 0:01:57 From then on he writes the influence of christianity on public life exercise under 0:02:04 the direction of bishops and theologians steadily increased in the roman empire 0:02:10 and in fact what you get is the emergence of the medieval period after constantine i think 0:02:16 at nicaea the heresy of arius who's the bad guy who denied the true divinity of jesus was refuted 0:02:24 by saint athanasius of alexandria aries by the way sometimes thought of as a unitarian and maybe 0:02:32 he was but he used the language of divine language of god but he also believed at least it's credited 0:02:40 to him that he said that there was a time when the son was not so unlike the father who was the 0:02:47 eternal uncreated god the son came into existence at some point in the past so he wasn't god in the 0:02:54 sense that jews or muslims would understand god he was a created being during the 4th century the 0:03:01 theologians of the theology rather of the holy trinity was fully developed by the greek church 0:03:08 fathers people like saint basil saint gregory of nissa and saint gregory of nazianzus in the west 0:03:16 saint ambrose and especially central augustine who's a huge figure in western civilization by 0:03:22 the way were the shining lights over the whole spectrum of theological doctrine origin of 0:03:30 alexandria in the east and saint jerome in the west dominated the field of biblical studies 0:03:37 and the egyptian desert fathers led by saint anthony sowed the seeds of christian asceticism 0:03:45 monastic life and aestheticism by the way is this focus on the denial of the self so you 0:03:50 don't get married you you focus on celibacy you might live as a hermit uh in a cave somewhere or 0:03:56 you might live in a monastery um famously uh saint anthony you know founded monasticism in the west 0:04:04 monastic life giza vermish writes was finally organized by saint benedict in the sixth century 0:04:11 and his disciples were largely responsible for the transmission of classical civilization to western 0:04:17 europe because at that time of course europe was in the dark ages whilst in the muslim world 0:04:23 antalucia islamic spain and further east there was a massive flourishing of learning and science 0:04:31 and culture in europe what we call here it was a time of the dark ages and we don't tend to 0:04:36 know about these other things very well anyway back to giza virmish after the fall of rome 0:04:42 in ad476 this is when the roman empire ended um in the west the papacy especially with gregory 0:04:51 the great took on a significant role in the religious cultural and political life and 0:04:57 christianity became or played a leading part in the history of the middle ages particularly 0:05:04 through the papacy which became probably the most powerful single force in the west at that time 0:05:10 anyway though fundamentally hellenistic in thought from the second century onwards and roman in 0:05:18 organization of after constantine the christian movement was originally the product of the jewish 0:05:25 mind excuse me so hellenistic in thought that means influenced by greek philosophy going back to 0:05:32 i don't know plato aristotle and other people 500 years before christ this philosophy of 0:05:39 philosophies were hugely influential in the roman empire and they had a big impact on christian 0:05:46 thought as well from the second century onwards he writes and the church was hugely influenced by the 0:05:53 roman empire in terms of his organization after constant time he writes but the christian movement 0:06:00 was originally the product of the jewish mind it's very important point fully developed christianity 0:06:06 what we call christianity did not fall from heaven its beginnings and early progress may be detected 0:06:15 and followed in the writings of the new testament which he says were written between ad50 and 120 0:06:23 a.d although he doesn't say the last to be written was probably the second letter of peter which is 0:06:29 now seen by scholars as a forgery not by peter but by written in the middle of the second century 0:06:36 so he continues the new testament consists of 27 greek documents four gospels or theological lives 0:06:43 of jesus the acts of the apostles outlining the early history of the christian church 0:06:50 there are 21 letters discussing christian belief and practice addressed to named or anonymous 0:06:57 churches or church leaders and the apocalyptic book of revelation this is the last book in the 0:07:03 bible in the christian bible that is describing the ultimate victory of christ and god marked by 0:07:11 the descent on earth of the heavenly jerusalem these the fourth gospel the gospel of john 0:07:19 and the letters of paul provide the best insight into the evolution of christian theology 0:07:26 because christian theology changed developed transformed over the 0:07:31 centuries it wasn't fixed from the beginning this is what we know from history now 0:07:36 the gospels of mark matthew and luke and the acts of the apostles he writes 0:07:41 constitute the chief sources for understanding of christian origins the author of the fourth gospel 0:07:50 notice he doesn't say john because we don't know who wrote the gospels it's a commonplace now 0:07:55 amongst scholarship that matthew mark luke and john we don't really know who wrote them 0:08:00 they're anonymous if you read the text it doesn't mention who wrote them doesn't mention any names 0:08:05 the author of the fourth gospel he writes imbued in hellenistic mysticism and philosophy 0:08:12 can hardly be identical with the apostle john the uneducated and common galilean fisherman 0:08:20 of acts 4 13. interestingly if you look in acts which is the history of the early church 0:08:26 the disciples of jesus are called uh uh are unlettered uneducated because they 0:08:32 would be they were fishermen and how could such people produce uh you know the second 0:08:37 the fourth gospel you know this work of mystical philosophy doesn't make any sense 0:08:44 his jesus the gospel of john's jesus a stranger from heaven presented as the 0:08:51 temporary incarnation or the temporal incarnation i should say of the eternal word of god 0:08:57 is the first major step towards the deification of christ in the nicene creed so john's gospel 0:09:04 is presents jesus such an exalted figure that he becomes a first step towards the statement 0:09:11 at nicaea that jesus is god this gospel probably originated between 100 and 110 a.d 0:09:19 so in the second century according to giza varmish it was compiled before 125 a.d because of the date 0:09:27 of the earliest papyrus fragments of john that we have but after the completion in the final quarter 0:09:36 of the first century of the doctrinally much less developed synoptic gospels so the four gospels 0:09:42 were written mark is the first according to scholars now matthew and luke wrote later and used 0:09:48 mark and then after them john wrote his gospel finally published in the early second century 0:09:56 the next chief artisan of christianity was saint paul so the next big figure who gave 0:10:02 us the christianity we have today with saint paul a jew of the greek diaspora 0:10:08 from tarsus in what is now turkey he had not known the historical jesus this is a really important 0:10:15 point paul never claimed no one ever thought that he met jesus he had a vision of course 0:10:21 on the road to damascus but he never met the historical jesus like his disciples had very 0:10:26 interesting and built his doctrine partly on tradition and partly on mystical vision 0:10:33 and insight he had lots of visions and mystical uh insights as well in his letters to the churches 0:10:40 founded by him through syria asia minor that's turkey today greece and rome he depicted jesus 0:10:48 who he never met as the redeemer of jews and gentiles thanks to his death and resurrection 0:10:55 and proclaimed his impending return to earth to bring about salvation for the whole of mankind 0:11:04 that's a pretty big claim about jesus paul's theological vision of the work of christ 0:11:10 was recorded in greek in his genuine epistles epistle's just another way of saying letters he 0:11:15 actually wrote literally wrote letters romans one and two corinthians galatians philippians 0:11:22 philemon and one and two thessalonians approximately written between 50 and 60 a.d 0:11:30 testifying to a beginning of christological speculation half a century before john's 0:11:38 gospel the fourth gospel by the way that list of paul's letters he says genuine epistles 0:11:44 there are other letters by paul which are now seen by most historians as forgeries for example 0:11:49 one and two ty one and two timothy and titus and probably the letter to the colossians probably the 0:11:56 letter to the ephesians are fake as well although there's more dispute about those two letters 0:12:02 so the earliest stage of the tradition relative to the historical jesus is preserved in the gospels 0:12:09 of matthew mark and luke they are called these synoptic gospels because they follow the same 0:12:16 general point of view and storyline and can be set out in three parallel columns in a gospel synopsis 0:12:25 by the way the word synoptic in greek the word optic is where we get 0:12:30 optic where we see things and sin means with syn optic so you can see them together so if 0:12:36 you look at the three columns of matthew mark and luke you'll notice basically or very often 0:12:42 the language is identical in greek and so you can see them together john is very different 0:12:48 anyway they they represent matthew mark and luke the least evolved form of the portrait of jesus 0:12:55 and are commonly dated to 70 to 100 a.d the entire new testament including the synoptic gospels 0:13:04 is in greek and was probably composed in greek remember by the way jesus was not greek 0:13:11 however jesus and his original audience were aramaic speaking galilean jews 0:13:18 so greek was not their language uh they spoke aramaic that was the the language of the masses 0:13:24 in that part of the world not greek it is possible that among early jewish christian groups such 0:13:31 as the ebionites or the poor that's simply what ebonites means in hebrew there existed an aramaic 0:13:38 gospel this is really interesting so he's saying that it's possible among the earliest jewish 0:13:44 christian groups there was an aramaic gospel in the same language as jesus himself of course 0:13:51 church tradition refers to matthew recording the teaching of jesus in the hebrew dialect 0:13:59 but no traces of it have survived so this may be what most what muslims may call the original 0:14:06 injil this original aramaic gospel not the matthew mark luke and john of the new testament and not 0:14:12 what paul preached because he never met jesus of course so in fact apart from a few aramaic phrases 0:14:20 preserved in mark's gospel they're there if you look for them for example abba which means father 0:14:26 in english is an aramaic word and another term talitha kum probably mispronounced that it means 0:14:32 little girl arise so this is one of the miracles of jesus apart from those few words in aramaic 0:14:40 jesus's own words have all faded from memory so there we don't have jesus's words in the new 0:14:48 testament at all we have just a couple well just three words as far as i can see abba and talitha 0:14:54 come and that's it unlike say in islam where we have the words of the prophet uh in authentic 0:15:01 you know reliable hadith in the collections of bukhari a muslim and so on in christianity we 0:15:06 don't have the words of jesus they simply have disappeared no traces of them have survived 0:15:12 quote unquote uh the fact that the new testament was handed down in greek not the language of jesus 0:15:20 played an essential part in the transformation of the original semitic gospel into a hellenistic 0:15:27 religious system created by philosophically educated greek church fathers wow just reread that 0:15:36 because it's such an important statement the fact that the new testament was handed down in greek 0:15:41 written in greek played an essential part in the transformation complete change 0:15:48 of the original semitic gospel written in the words of jesus in aramaic into 0:15:55 a hellenistic religious system so in other words a heavily uh influenced pagan philosophical 0:16:03 thought world a way of seeing religion a way of seeing jesus and his life created by he says 0:16:10 philosophically educated greek church fathers so here we have a linguistic cultural and religious 0:16:17 transformation according to one of the world's leading experts on early christianity and jesus 0:16:24 to continue the synoptic gospels of which mark is thought to be the earliest composed about 0:16:31 70 a.d followed by matthew and luke between eight were followed by matthew and luke about 80 to 100 0:16:38 a.d offer a theologically less developed life story of jesus of nazareth who is he for him 0:16:47 gizer varmish a galilean charismatic healer exorcist and teacher who preached a message of 0:16:55 repentance and invited his followers to prepare themselves for entry into the kingdom of god 0:17:02 so if you look at the synoptic gospels you get this uh impression of a jesus a jewish figure 0:17:10 who is much less theologically developed than saying paul or in john and he is according to 0:17:16 giza varmish a charismatic leader exorcist teacher who preached repentance and so on now this is 0:17:23 a commonplace uh amongst historians this is a very common view that they have concluded with 0:17:29 and they usually one word sums up uh who jesus was in scholarship it is a prophet that's who he he 0:17:36 was his mission according to giza vermish was cut short by the intervention of the roman governor 0:17:44 pilate who on charges leveled against jesus by the jewish priestly authorities condemned him to die 0:17:53 on the cross his disciples claimed however to have seen him alive in repeated visions 0:18:01 and were convinced that the success of their charismatic healing and teaching activity 0:18:06 in the name of jesus was the proof that god had raised him from the dead and that's the end of 0:18:14 that chapter absolutely fascinating there are many interesting chapters in this book i might 0:18:19 read some more of them in the future but he he rightly stresses giza verbis rightly stresses the 0:18:25 the total transformation of the original jewish movement uh familiar to jesus and 0:18:31 his actual disciples to the later hellenistic philosophical system involving a trinity and a 0:18:38 dying and rising savior figure very common motif in the ancient greco-roman world by the way this 0:18:46 kind of religious system fits very comfortably in the graco roman pago pagan world but giza webber 0:18:53 should argue and as it's a common place really that was not the original religion of jesus it's 0:18:59 not what he preached to his galilean countrymen i hope you found that of interest until next time