EARLY CHRISTIANITY:
EMERGING from a small sect of Judaism in the 1st century CE, early Christianity absorbed many of the shared religious, cultural, and intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman world. In traditional histories of Western culture, the emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire is known as “the triumph of Christianity.” This refers to the victory of Christian beliefs over the allegedly false beliefs and practices of paganism. However, it is important to recognize that Christianity did not arise in a vacuum.
Jews claimed an ancient tradition with law codes for daily life (the Laws of Moses) and revelations from their god through Prophets. While recognizing various powers in the universe, Jews nevertheless differed from their neighbors by only offering worship (sacrifices) to their one god, Yahweh. After suffering several national defeats by the Assyrians in 722 BCE and the Babylonians in 587 BCE, their prophets claimed that God would eventually restore Israel to its former independence. In those ‘final days’ (eschaton in Greek), God would designate a descendant of David, an ‘anointed one’ (Messiah in Hebrew, or Christos in Greek), who would lead the righteous against the enemies of Israel. God would then establish a new Eden, which came to be known as ‘the kingdom of God.’
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