New Testament History

III Witherington Ben

Description

Essential to an understanding of the New Testament is a comprehension of the individuals, events, and social movements that shaped the setting from which Jesus and his followers emerged. Unfortunately, many accounts by historians can leave readers feeling overwhelmed and confused. New Testament History provides a worthy solution to this problem. A well-known expert on the social situation of the New Testament, Ben Witherington offers an engaging look into the world that gave birth to the Christian faith.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441205377
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood there in front of Jesus heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely, this man was the Son of God.”
Mark 15:37–39
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets partially and piecemeal, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
Hebrews 1:1–2

© 2001 by Ben Witherington III
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0537-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
To those institutions and their faculties that have nurtured me
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, Duke Divinity School, and the University of Durham
Also to A. J., a good friend and colleague, and to R. D. H., who has been the hands of Jesus in my life.
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Prolegomenon: Of History, Historians, and Biographers
1 From Alexander to Alexandra and Beyond (356–67 B.C. )
2 The Rise of the Herodians, the Birth of Jesus, and the Dawn of an Empire (63–4 B.C. )
3 The Herodians and Their Prophetic Adversaries: John and Jesus (4 B.C. – A.D. 27)
4 The Coming of the Prefect and of the Perfect: Pilate of Rome and Jesus of Nazareth ( A.D. 26–29)
5 The Trials and Tribulations of Jesus ( A.D. 29–30)
6 The Rising of the Son and the Birth of the Church ( A.D. 30–33)
7 The Roads from Jerusalem ( A.D. 33–37)
8 Dark Passages ( A.D. 37–47)
9 The Gentile Mission and the Jerusalem Council ( A.D. 48–49)
10 Good News Heading West ( A.D. 50–52)
11 The Expansion of the Enterprise ( A.D. 53–57)
12 Trials and Executions: Signs upon the Earth ( A.D. 58–62)
13 Through the Refiner’s Fire ( A.D. 63–68)
14 The Dawn of the Age of Inspiration ( A.D. 68–70)
15 Beyond Jerusalem, Jamnia, and the Julio-Claudians ( A.D. 70–81)
16 The Dominion of Domitian ( A.D. 81–96)
Scripture Index
Ancient Writings
Subject Index
Preface
At first blush it might seem perfectly obvious what “New Testament history” is and what the contents of a book about New Testament history would contain. On closer inspection this is not the case. Are we talking about a history of the New Testament documents themselves, or perhaps a history of the times in which the New Testament books were written? Or are we talking about an ordering and chronicling of the events mentioned in the New Testament? And if we are discussing the latter, how much of a running start does one need? Should we begin with the era of the Maccabees, or go even further back to the time of Alexander the Great, or even the exile? One may ask the same sort of question at the other end of the spectrum. Do we stop the discussion around A.D. 100, since all the New Testament documents seem to have been completed by then? Or do we carry on until we have chronicled the events that led to the collecting and closing of the New Testament canon? Further still, should New Testament history begin when, properly speaking, the New Testament era begins, at Pentecost, thereby leaving out the rehearsing of the life and times of Jesus himself? For better or worse, I have concluded that this latter approach, which focuses solely on the nascent stages of what came to be called early Christianity, is inadequate. We must begin at least with the beginning of the life of Jesus, because understanding the historical connection between Jesus and the movement he spawned is crucial to understanding anything that one might choose to call “New Testament history.”
Naturally, it is not possible for this book to cover all of these subjects within a reasonable amount of space, so I have contented myself with focusing on the New Testament era itself from about 6 B.C. to A.D. 100 with some necessary cursory treatments of the antecedents and postludes to this period. My approach to the matter will involve a focus not only on historic individuals and events, but also on social movements and crosscurrents that illuminate those persons and events. The New Testament peoples and their activities must be seen within their proper social and religious contexts if they are to be understood properly. The Jesus movement as a messianic movement was not an isolated phenomenon on the landscape of early Jewish history. Nor was the rise of the church an example of creatio ex nihilo . Things must be seen in their proper contexts.
We must also be prepared to say some things about our source material, for a historical work is only as good as the sources upon which it relies to reveal the truths about persons and events of antiquity. This means, of course, that this book cannot reveal everything we always wanted to know about Jesus or Paul or the early Christians but were afraid to ask. Many questions will remain unanswered because they are not addressed or because their answers are not hinted at in the sources. We must be content with what light the sources do shed on our subject matter and not let our conclusions outrun the viable and reliable evidence.
This book is possible only because of the hard work of experts in the fields of Jewish history and Roman history whom I have had to rely upon time after time. They will see their fingerprints throughout this work, and I wish to express my sincere gratitude for their invaluable help. Particularly, I would like to thank E. Schürer, G. Vermes, J. Hayes, S. R. Mandell, P. Richardson, and L. Grabbe for their work on Jewish history; P. Green for his work on the history of Philip and Alexander; and M. Goodman, F. Millar, and M. P. Charlesworth for much hard work on Roman history. My attempt in this book to integrate Jewish, Roman, and Christian history while at the same time showing how the books of the New Testament played their role in this history would have been impossible without the help of these scholars and many others.
We turn now to the task at hand, reminding ourselves of the opening words of the only work (a two-volume historical monograph) on a portion of New Testament history that we find within the canon itself:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1–4)
Ben Witherington III Easter 2001
Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton, 1969
BAR Biblical Archaeology Review
CIJ Corpus inscriptionum judaicarum
CIL Corpus inscriptionum latinarum
DJG Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Edited by J. B. Green and S. McKnight. Downers Grove, Ill., 1997
DNTB Dictionary of New Testament Background. Edited by C. Evans and S. Porter. Downers Grove, Ill., 2000
ICC International Critical Commentary
IG Inscriptiones graecae. Editio minor. Berlin, 1924–
ILS Inscriptiones latinae selectae
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
NAC New American Commentary
NewDocs New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity. Edited by G. H. R. Horsley and S. Llewelyn. North Ryde, N.S.W., 1981–
NTS New Testament Studies
SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers
SEG Supplementum epigraphicum graecum
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
TNTC Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
Prolegomenon
Of History, Historians, and Biographers
The term “history” can refer to a variety of things. “History” can refer simply to the flow of events in the past that are perceived to have had some sort of ongoing significance. It is taken for granted that not everything that happens in a human life is of “historic” significance. Thus, for instance, what Robert E. Lee had for breakfast on the first day of the battle of Gettysburg will not likely be revealed in the accounts of that important morning. Now, had his breakfast made him ill, so that he would have been unable to direct the Southern army on that day, then what he had for breakfast might be said to have some historic significance. Even trivial matters become important if they affect the crucial decisions and actions of those who shape history. The familiar aphorism is a good reminder on this front:
For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost. For want of a horseshoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the messenger was lost. For want of the messenger, the battle was lost. For want of the battle, the war was lost, and all for want of a nail.
In this study, when I use the term “history,” I will be referring usually to written history, not to the events themselves. Thus, for example, when I speak about Luke’s history of the early Christian movement as chronicled in Acts, I am not referring directly to the things that ha