Summary of Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott & Hal Taussig's After Jesus Before Christianity

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The crucifixion of Jesus is the most obvious example of the violence at the heart of Roman rule. Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of those they conquered, and such government crucifixions were intentionally undertaken as public torture and terrorism.
#2 The city of Rome’s domination began and ended with military conquest. Roman generals regularly raped enemy soldiers who survived their battles, and Roman citizens were not tortured, but no legal protections prevented conquered peoples from being tortured.
#3 The Roman Empire was built on, and grew by, enslaving more and more people. Slavery was everywhere in Roman society, from the government to private individuals.
#4 The Romans were a conquering empire that pillaged the art of Greece, the ancient treasures of Egypt, the silver mines in Spain, and the countryside from North Africa to Britain. But they were never satisfied. They always took tribute from conquered nations.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• HIStory
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 23 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781669359111
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Erin Vearncombe and Brandon Scott & Hal Taussig's After Jesus Before Christianity
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The crucifixion of Jesus is the most obvious example of the violence at the heart of Roman rule. Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of those they conquered, and such government crucifixions were intentionally undertaken as public torture and terrorism.

#2

The city of Rome’s domination began and ended with military conquest. Roman generals regularly raped enemy soldiers who survived their battles, and Roman citizens were not tortured, but no legal protections prevented conquered peoples from being tortured.

#3

The Roman Empire was built on, and grew by, enslaving more and more people. Slavery was everywhere in Roman society, from the government to private individuals.

#4

The Romans were a conquering empire that pillaged the art of Greece, the ancient treasures of Egypt, the silver mines in Spain, and the countryside from North Africa to Britain. But they were never satisfied. They always took tribute from conquered nations.

#5

Rome’s policy was to displace the people it conquered, and it did so by building new cities and colonies. This lure of work in distant parts of the empire destroyed families, neighborhoods, and villages.

#6

Rome’s imperial religion was developed in ways that supported the city’s violence and power. It was based on the emperor being considered a god, and votive offerings were made in temples and public venues.

#7

The early Jesus groups were a mix of resistance and creativity, and they were not afraid to use both. They were active and clandestine in their opposition to Rome, and they carved out spaces that were free of Roman oppression.

#8

The stories of Jesus’s crucifixion were meant to demonstrate the resistance of his followers to Rome. The stories proclaimed that Jesus was vindicated and raised up by God, which was an anti-Roman claim of victory over Roman violence.

#9

The word translated as gospel, meaning good news, occurs 101 times in the New Testament across eighteen books. It is an expression that celebrates a joyful event as a sort of public statement or proclamation.

#10

The early Jesus movements were characterized by stories of Jesus’s crucifixion and others being tortured, which were often shared at their meal gatherings. They challenged and mocked Rome’s empire.

#11

The Gospel of Mark is a writing of good news that was probably drafted in the aftermath of Rome’s grinding war against Israel in 68–70 CE and the resulting Flavian propaganda. It makes fun of the idea of happy or sad endings, and instead offers a dark humor that makes fun of the terror of such violence.

#12

Thecla, a companion of Paul, was sentenced to death in the arena for encouraging men and women not to get married but to join her and Paul in wandering around teaching and healing. Hundreds of women threw perfume into the arena, and the animals lay down drowsily, leaving Thecla safe before them.

#13

The Jesus movements were a range of partially formed social identities that were created as a response to the violence of the Roman Empire. They were not simply the beginning of an otherworldly religion, but complex, growing, and creative humans struggling toward the good news of the Empire of God.

#14

The first two centuries involved two good news parties: the Romans and the Jesus peoples. The meaning of good news was explained by the Roman Empire, which proclaimed that the beauty and might of its emperor, who destroyed his enemies, made everything right with the world. The fledgling Jesus schools and supper clubs proclaimed good news that celebrated a crucified Anointed One and looked forward to a new creation.

#15

The good news of Jesus and friends was spread through small groups that practiced compassion and joy. These groups resisted Roman power and violence, and their ideas of what was good news became popular.

#16

The term good news was first used by Rome’s first emperor, Gaius Octavian, who received the title Augustus from the Senate for his defeat of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, which ended a long-running civil war.

#17

The Roman Empire believed that good news traveled fast. The Gemma Augustea, a small engraved onyx stone dating to the early first century CE, encapsulates the Roman worldview of good news.

#18

The lower panel of the Ara Pacis, depicting a turbulent world of Roman victory and non-Roman defeat, despair, and desperation, is separated from the upper panel, which focuses on the world of power and peace, by a subtle and important connection: beneath the feet of Augustus and Rome are the shields of the defeated contestants, overlapping into the world of contest and turmoil below.

#19

The Roman Empire’s good news is that the elite rule over the rest of the world with an iron fist by divine fiat. The empire’s good news is that military might drives peace and prosperity.

#20

The good news that the Anointed preached was not about his birthday, but about his death, burial, and resurrection. It was about being saved, but its signs were very different. It was about the Anointed who was defeated and whom God vindicated.

#21

The first two centuries of the Common Era saw a growing set of practices and lifestyles that were not delusional or simply imagined. These alternatives to the good news proclaimed by the Roman Empire were joyful and had integrity.

#22

Communal meals were the practice that was closest to being universally characteristic of the earliest Jesus groups. These meals attracted people who had lost other connections through violence, poverty, or the disruption of family connections.

#23

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas, depict Jesus and his students teaching in marketplaces, at community meals, on roads, at seasides, and in fields. Their teaching was directed mostly to people at work, on the way someplace, or in their neighborhoods.

#24

The Roman Empire classified peoples it had conquered as barbarians, meaning not fully human. The majority of the population needed to rethink and reinvent themselves. The inventiveness of this new identity lay in its explicit invitation to all kinds of different ethnic, gendered, and enslaved people to think of themselves as a part of Israel.

#25

The practice of trust and confidence was the engine that put heart into these communities.