The Conversions of Christianity

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:02:31]Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. We're delighted to have you here for this event whether you're in the how in person here or whether you're online.

[00:02:42]The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy. It's an educational charity, independent and non-party political with over 1500 fellows covering the full range of disciplines, science and technology, arts, humanities, social sciences, as well as having categories for business and public service. And it was founded in 1783.

[00:03:05]My name is Allison Elliot. I'm a fellow of the RSSE and a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to chair this seminar which complements the 2026 Edinburgh series of Gford lectures entitled the conversions of Christianity.

[00:03:24]But first, we've got to go through the housekeeping. Uh turn your mobiles to silent, please. And if the fire alarm sounds, then it's for real. And so, please exit the building uh through the same entrance that you use to enter. Um, and please follow the RSSE staff's instructions during an evacu an evacuation. During the event, you'll be have the chance to ask questions of our speaker and panelists and we kindly request that you have your questions ready for the Q&A section. Um, for our online audience, please submit your questions in the chat section and the RSSE staff will read them out on your behalf once we get to that point.

[00:04:05]So, on with the show. During this fortnight, we've been privileged to have a stimulating series of lectures that have immersed us in the religious life of the Eastern Mediterranean over some 500 years. How was it that a small Jewish movement became the Christianity that reshaped the ancient world and still reverberates today? Our guide for this has been Professor Paula Frederickson, one of the world's leading historians of early Christianity, who's generously shared her insights with a large and an enthusiastic audience.

[00:04:37]Professor Frederickson is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture Emmerita at Boston University and distinguished visiting professor Emmerita in the department of comparative religions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2018. She also holds honorary doctorates from the US and from Sweden in L University and is the author of many award-winning books. So may I now invite her to introduce the discussion of her lectures. Paula is afternoon or evening. Good afternoon and if it's evening it's supper time. So really welcome.

[00:05:29]Okay. The conversions of Christianity is about the type of mutagenic intensity that this movement had. It's constantly adapting and changing because of the social and religious context that it finds itself in. And that's why I have recently published a book with the word Christianity in the plural because there are so many different types. The goal of my lectures for the Gford series has been to trace some of those changes.

[00:06:08]But since I've been trying to stretch six lectures over 500 years and I've been given 20 minutes to talk this afternoon or 15 would be better, I decided to concentrate simply on two themes that emerged from u my lectures and it's the Christian response to its own diversity is one theme and the other is how a first century Jewish messianic movement became became an arm of the late Roman state.

[00:06:42]So, a quick acquaintance with the ancient Mediterranean. The ancient Mediterranean had two chief populations, gods and humans.

[00:06:53]Gods attached to peoples and to places, which meant that gods were present socially as well as spatially.

[00:07:04]Any god is more powerful than any human.

[00:07:08]And gods tend to be rather temperamental if they're not shown respect.

[00:07:15]There are as many different gods as there are different families and different ethnic groups.

[00:07:22]Religious variety was entirely normal.

[00:07:27]An index of successful empire is how many gods you have under the umbrella of a central government. as well as how many peoples you have under the umbrella of a central government. So it's a god congested universe where there is no central authority that can enforce any type of uniformity. And this glorious variety is what characterizes what we call paganism.

[00:07:58]Um, something about gods to bear in mind if you're dealing with one is that happy gods make for happy humans and the oppose is true. Unhappy gods make for unhappy humans. In other words, well-being on earth is contingent upon relations with heaven. That's an important thing to bear in mind. That idea precedes the period we'll be looking at and it certainly characterizes the period all the way through.

[00:08:33]So that's a generic Mediterranean description. Within that description, I want to place diaspora henistic Jews, Greekeaking Jews in the Western Diaspora.

[00:08:45]Like other ancient groups, Jews were in part defined by the God they worshiped.

[00:08:54]This god had a singular or a peculiar a peculiarity that he demanded of his people exclusive worship. Most other I mean paganism is is a if some is good more is better type of religious temperament. And yet the the god of Israel demanded that his people worship him alone. Worship in antiquity usually involves cult right offerings and sacrifices.

[00:09:26]This is not to say that Jews did not think that other gods existed. Other gods are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and other gods would have been their neighbors in the Greco Roman city which was itself a religious institution.

[00:09:46]I call the ancient city a religious institution because much of the municipal activity was concentrated on having good relations with the gods. what we think of as athletics or culture or um political especially political activity all those were re had a religious function and antiquity and if Jews are living in these ancient cities it means that Jews are part of this culture they can't worship these other gods remember I said that gods are located spatially also if you're in the territory of a god You have to deal with that god. Jews had to deal with other gods but not worship them. And they did deal with them. We have inscriptions that tell of the different relationships of working relationships Jews had with proximate gods. We have an inscription from a man who received an epiphany from two gods and which uh the the gods told him to put up an inscription in their temple and he did but he describes himself as a Jew Moscus Udios.

[00:11:07]So it's he's declaring his identity ethnic and therefore religious, but he's also showing courtesy to a god that's to gods that are not his. And this is the sort of modus operandi that most diaspora Jews seem to have settled into because it just remember any god is more powerful than any human.

[00:11:35]It shows courtesy which plates not only the God who's superintending the well-being of the city but also that God's people.

[00:11:47]Thanks to the Greek translation of Jewish scriptures, the Septuagent Jewish religious traditions were available in the equivalent of the international linguistic frequency.

[00:12:03]This means that Bible stories and Jewish traditions were broadcast in Jewish associations in a language that other people could understand.

[00:12:17]One of the results of this, I think, is that pagans occasionally attached in some way or another to Jewish communities. These people are called god-fearers in some of our inscriptions. They're called god-fearers in rabbitic um uh literature.

[00:12:42]They are associated as patrons of Jewish communities and they're involved in how they however they want to be with the Jewish community. So you if you have Jews in pagan places, which you do, the ancient city being the premier pagan place, you also have pagans in Jewish space, not only in the largest courtyard of the temple in Jerusalem, but also I think scattered throughout the diaspora in these Jewish associations.

[00:13:23]In other words, as far as these synagogue communities would have been experiencing their social activity within the city, paganism was entirely normal.

[00:13:39]Paganism was entirely normal which means that a practical religious pluralism prevailed and it was a it was accommodated by Jewish temperament as well. So one stream of Jewish tradition did problematize paganism and that is the Jewish traditions that we lump together under the rubric of apocalyptic esquetology.

[00:14:12]Revelations concerning the end times.

[00:14:15]The conviction that normal time is about to come to an end and that the God of Israel was about to establish his kingdom. Once that happened, according to some of these apocalyptic traditions, pagans would destroy the cultic statuary of their gods and also worship the god of Israel. In Isaiah, they even end up going to Jerusalem and worshiping in the temple. The endtime events associated with the coming of the kingdom is for example the resurrection of the dead sometimes the coming of a messianic figure and the universal sovereignty of the God of Israel.

[00:15:03]This is the message of Jesus of Nazareth. But he's not speaking to pagans. Jesus's ambut would have been Galilee and Judea, Jerusalem, which means he's dealing with one God, God, the God of Israel, who declares him his son at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark.

[00:15:33]Jesus is preaching the coming kingdom of God, but he's not thinking about pagans because he really doesn't have to.

[00:15:42]But once the movement spreads into the Greekeaking diaspora, pagans were encountered as these apostles would have moved within the network of synagogue communities. And it's there that they would have encountered a population that working in rural Galilee and Judea would not have prepared them for. They're encountering active pagans. How do they deal with pagans? Well, according to some of the tradition, non-Jews are going to be incorporated into God's kingdom as well.

[00:16:20]So the issue became not whether to incorporate Gentiles into the movement, but how.

[00:16:31]This is where we get to our earliest evidence for the Jesus movements. And I use the plural deliberately with the letters of Paul. With the letters of Paul, we already have evidence of vigorous diversity.

[00:16:49]Paul's not an enthusiast for it, but there is a there is an argument in his letters about how not whether but how to incorporate pagans as ex-pagans within the Jewish movement.

[00:17:06]So the movements that form around the figure of Christ are characterized by internal diversity from as soon as we have evidence.

[00:17:16]Paul is not the only Christ follower going to pagans to turn them into pagan ex-pagans in advance of the coming kingdom. But his are the only texts that we have from this moment of the movement in the middle of the first century.

[00:17:37]The gospels are bodies of literature that evolve afterwards probably sometime after the year 70.

[00:17:46]There are more than the four canonical gospels. But the fact that we have numerous gospels means that narratives about Jesus written in Greek written after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The variety of the gospels are it are them itself is itself evidence of Christian internal diversity.

[00:18:14]By the mid2n century, we find ex pagan intellectuals associating variously around the figure of Jesus as a heavenly redeemer.

[00:18:29]The question that monopolizes a lot of this theology is what god is the father of Jesus? The issue for the intellectuals is the definition of the high God who is radically transcendent previously unknown revealed exclusively by the sun because creation is not a statement of the highest god. Only a lower god manipulates material reality to turn it into cosmos. As soon as the God of Israel shows up in Genesis, he starts doing things. He's involved with history. He has chats with humans all the way through the Hebrew Bible.

[00:19:18]Which means that in the intellectual perspective, that God could not possibly be the father of Jesus if Jesus's father is the highest God.

[00:19:31]So, who is the God of Jewish scriptures?

[00:19:35]He's a lower God. Sometimes in some forms of Christianity, imagined as an opponent to the God of Israel and to his son, the Messiah, or sometimes as simply a lower deity who is not um is not in a sense related to Jesus in any way. But there's another option for interpreting the Septuagen and Justin Martyr is the figure most associated with this argument. Justin agrees with these other Christians whom he condemns as heretics.

[00:20:14]The God of the Septuagent, he says, is indeed a lower God.

[00:20:21]But that God is allied with the high God, he insists, because the lower God depicted in the Jewish Bible, says Justin, is Christ before his incarnation.

[00:20:36]So God the Father in Justin's theology can remain a radically transcendent God.

[00:20:44]And Christ is the God who manipulates matter, who talks to Moses, who deals with the prophets. He's the God who is active in history. This has the effect of turning Jewish scripture into Christian scripture. By the 4th century, Jewish scriptures will have been domesticated for the imperial church as the Old Testament.

[00:21:14]Justin further holds that Christianity is the true philosophy. Remember I said he's an intellectual.

[00:21:24]The emphasis on correct intellectual propositions characterizes philosophy. This is what we call doctrine.

[00:21:35]The diversity of the Christian movements is unddeinished.

[00:21:41]But Justin condemns this as unacceptable deviations of inherited truth.

[00:21:48]The concept of heresy, in other words, is a disavowel, indeed a condemnation of diversity.

[00:21:59]Orthodoxy takes place as the true singular version of Christianity that is uniform and universal Catholica.

[00:22:14]The coming of God's kingdom is variously reconceptualized.

[00:22:19]But this idea of doctrinal consistency and a disavowel of doctrinal diversity um is something that is already very strong in the midsecond century.

[00:22:36]This insistence on a single legitimate form of Christianity will continue once Roman government itself becomes Christianized. Beginning with Constantine's patronage of one particular church, the idea of a single uniform universal religion is itself a novelty within Mediterranean religions. Remember I said that a practical religious pluralism was the hallmark of Mediterranean religions. This is an entirely different mentality.

[00:23:17]Imperial law therefore gets entangled with the sensibility of orthodoxy versus heresy.

[00:23:26]Imperial law will criminalize Christian diversity, book burning, exile of leaders, impounding of properties and legal disabilities.

[00:23:41]More Christians were persecuted by the Roman state after the conversion of Constantine than before.

[00:23:51]Pagans and Jews will likewise be the focus of prejuditial legislation in the effort to impose uniformity of worship.

[00:24:00]But heretics, other Christians were the premier target.

[00:24:06]What was the motivation for this imposition of uniformity? I I think there are three factors.

[00:24:14]The insistence on universal worship of one God, which was an inheritance from apocalyptic esquetology.

[00:24:23]The timing of the end might have been pushed off, but the emphasis on universal worship of one God remained.

[00:24:34]A second factor is the internalization of the self-image of philosophy, an emphasis on doctrine, orthodoxy, adherence to particular doctrines as the measure of truth, a a a thirst and a demand for intellectual consistency and harmony.

[00:24:57]A third factor continuing with the attitude I sketched at the very beginning of this talk is that happy gods make for happy humans and the well-being on earth depends on keeping heaven happy. This remains true even after the denomination of heaven changes from being a pagan cosmos to being a Christian one.

[00:25:27]In terms of the government which is itself an exercise of religious responsibility, good good relations with heaven are achieved by the enforcement of orthodoxy.

[00:25:43]The enforcement of orthodoxy thus served as the particular responsibility of the government to establish and to maintain through law and through the select application of coercive force. It is in this way that one form of Christianity became an arm of the late Roman state.

[00:26:07]Thank you.

[00:26:25]Thank you very much for that introduction to our discussion. it. Um we have two panelists who are going to uh comment on both that and also on the other lectures which professor Ferguson, Professor Frederickson has already given. Um and first of all I'll ask Helen Bond to come. Helen is professor of Christian origins and she's co-chair of the school of divinity center for the study of Christian origins. She's interested in all aspects of early Christianity and the social, cultural, and religious context in which it emerged. So, she's well pleased to comment on Professor Frederickson's lectures. Helen, thank you very much, Allison. Um, and thank you to the RSSE for organizing this. I want to start by thanking uh Professor Frederickson for a truly outstanding lecture series. I'm aware that we're only twothirds of the way through and there's much more to come.

[00:27:31]Though we have had a tantalizing overview just now of the last two lectures, but what we've had so far has been beautifully crafted and engagingly presented. Paula has opened up the world of late second temple Judaism and the earliest Christ followers with clarity and a real sense of what things were like on the ground. I've particularly appreciated her ability to combine a big picture narrative with a wealth of detail, effortlessly bringing together Jewish esque esquetological thinking with a convincing portrait of the complexities of life in a Mediterranean city. Excuse me. I'm completely in agreement with Paula's portrayal of ancient Mediterranean religion. This is a world in her phrase teameming with gods where we can't really talk of monotheism in our modern sense. A world where religion isn't an individual voluntary choice based on a set of beliefs, but a matter of loyalty to one's ancestral customs.

[00:28:38]and where divinity is a matter of degree rather than a binary opposite to humanity.

[00:28:46]But as this is the Gford RSE seminar, I realize my job is not simply to heap praise on our speaker, but to draw her out on a few areas.

[00:28:58]I want to start with Jewish pagan relations.

[00:29:02]Paula paints a vivid portrait of Jewish life in the Greek diaspora cities. with Jews living in associations and exhibiting various levels of accommodation to Greco Roman culture and its gods.

[00:29:17]She rightly emphasizes the importance of the Septuagant, the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, as a way of not only helenizing certain Jewish ideas, but also of introducing interested pagans to Jewish ancestral traditions, many of whom, as God-fearers, regularly attended the Jewish synagogues without giving up their own pagan gods.

[00:29:44]She acknowledges that outsiders often thought Jews a little peculiar and she notes a handful of cases where Jewish pagan religions were particularly sorry Jewish pagan relations were particularly strained such as the situation in Alexandria or in Cesaria.

[00:30:03]But even so, I wonder if her portrait of city life is rather too optimistic, particularly after the disastrous revolt of 76 CE, which led to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.

[00:30:17]The new Flavian emperors used their victory to justify their seizure of the imperial throne, parading hundreds of Jewish war captives through the streets of Rome in an ostentatious triumph, flooding the Eastern Empire with coins depicting vanquished Judea and redirecting the former Jewish tax to the rebuilding of the Temple of Jupiter in Rome.

[00:30:43]Even if diaspora Jews were largely unaffected by the fall of the temple, it seems hard to imagine that their situation wasn't diminished in the post70 period, making these easy relations with pagans much more fraught.

[00:31:01]I realize that most of the porine material relates to the 50s, but very quickly the situation would have changed.

[00:31:09]Was there a wave of anti-Jewishness in the empire at this period as Josephus's against Aion, a work directed against anti-Jewish landers would suggest?

[00:31:22]And how did this affect Christ followers who wanted to present themselves simultaneously as part of a longestablished Jewish traditional religion on the one hand but perhaps wanted to distance themselves from what was being presented as a rebellious people on the other.

[00:31:43]Most of my questions however relate to Paul's reconstruction of Jesus of Nazareth, the topic of lecture three.

[00:31:50]An important building block in her portrait is the chronological discrepancy between the synoptic tradition, that's to say Mark followed by Matthew and Luke and the Johannine one. Somewhat unusually amongst historical Jesus scholars, Paula prefers John's account.

[00:32:10]So that in her reconstruction, the incident in the temple is no longer the reason why Jesus is executed. John has it at the beginning. of course, and Jesus's ministry itself lasted several years, as we infer from Jesus's frequent trips to Jerusalem.

[00:32:30]All well and good, but there's been a trend in recent scholarship to revert to what's actually a much earlier view that the author of John's gospel knew and used the others, particularly Mark, but perhaps all of them. I confess to having skin in this game, but a recent book by Mark Goodaker on the topic is attracting a lot of positive attention.

[00:32:54]I'd be interested to know what difference Paula thinks gospel relations makes for our reconstruction of the historical Jesus.

[00:33:03]If we're no longer dealing with two quasiindependent traditions, but rather the literary development of Mark's gospel itself, a literary construction into three later versions, doesn't that add a layer of complication to his historical reconstruction? Is it even possible?

[00:33:24]Even with a caveat that later receptions can potentially include more historical material.

[00:33:32]Part of the reason why Paula prefers John's account, she tells us, is that it's smoother and internally consistent.

[00:33:40]But isn't that precisely what a skilled writer would do if faced with the rather messy presentation of Mark?

[00:33:49]And if we can think of good theological reasons why John may have moved the temple incident, perhaps to make the raising of Lazarus central to Jesus's arrest and why he might have wanted to have Jesus appearing in Jerusalem for various feasts, perhaps to suggest that Jesus is their fulfillment.

[00:34:10]Isn't any reconstruction that depends on John's gospel rather shaky?

[00:34:17]Jesus's extended ministry is important for Paula. Her Jesus is a harmless prophet preaching the kingdom of God.

[00:34:26]The preaching that the kingdom of God will come soon.

[00:34:29]The lengthy ministry allows her to argue that Pilate and the priests were well aware of Jesus's message and knew it to be no threat to Rome.

[00:34:40]What changed at that fateful Passover was that the crowds were taken up with enthusiasm and proclaimed Jesus king.

[00:34:48]Thus, she draws a distinction between Jesus himself, who was no threat, and the volatile Passover crowd who were.

[00:34:58]I don't doubt that it was Roman unease over enthusiastic crowds that did for Jesus.

[00:35:05]But surely a prophetic figure with a message of a coming kingdom would be of concern to Rome.

[00:35:11]All the more if all the more so if Mark is right and that it was the incident in the temple, whatever it signified, that led to the arrest.

[00:35:21]And was Jesus really so koi about his own identity? He seems to have enlisted 12 disciples in addition to himself, presumably representing the 12 restored tribes of Israel.

[00:35:34]Doesn't this suggest he envisaged some role for himself in the new kingdom?

[00:35:40]Every apocalyptic preacher we know of from the first century was executed.

[00:35:45]There was only a need to put down followers with him if things had escalated to revolt. Otherwise, taking out the leader seems to have been enough. This was certainly the case with John the Baptist only a few years earlier.

[00:36:01]staying with the gospels or at least their writers. I wonder what importance these anonymous individuals had in the spread of Christianity.

[00:36:11]It's from them that we learn of the scripturalization of the story of Jesus, of the Davidic additions, of a growing interest in what kind of resurrected body Jesus had, of ways in which the earliest believers coped with the failure of the kingdom to materialize, and much more.

[00:36:32]Were the gospels just depositories of historical or theological information?

[00:36:36]Photographers freezing a moment in the emergence of a new movement?

[00:36:43]Or were the evangelists skilled literary authors creating a new identity with their works?

[00:36:50]How important was it to the spread of the movement that the message was put into narratives, specifically lives of Jesus from which believers could model their own. And of course, these are hugely popular texts at the time. Once Mark got going, he was copied by various others.

[00:37:13]Perhaps the evangelists were just important for this new movement as Paul.

[00:37:20]And finally, I want to pick up on something that Paula only hinted at in yesterday's lecture because it might loom larger in what's to come. She mentioned that by the third century, pagan writers had begun to blame Jews for the death of Jesus. Now, that's certainly the case. But aren't the seeds for this found already in the Jewish evangelists themselves?

[00:37:44]Writing after the war and with a duteronomistic sense that disaster stems from earlier sin. Even Mark blames the Jewish leaders for the fall of the temple. It was their role in the death of Jesus, the evangelist implies strongly, particularly in the parable of the tenants in the vineyard that led to disaster. Of course, it's a very different thing for a Jewish monarch to summon up his inner Jeremiah and to link the role played in the death of Jesus by the aristocratic priests with the Roman destruction of the temple and for pagans to blame Jews as a whole for the death of Jesus. But the accusation didn't come out of nowhere.

[00:38:31]Once again, then I want to thank Paula for a hugely stimulating lecture series.

[00:38:37]She succeeded in making this fascinating period of history strange and alien and yet at the same time accessible and understanding. Understandable. No means defeat. Thank you.

[00:39:05]Thank you. I should probably just stay up on the stage instead of having to come up and down like this. Um, thank you very much, Helen. And now, can I turn to Paul Foster who's our other panelist? Um, Paul is professor of New Testament, language, literature, and theology and early Christianity uh in the School of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh and he's a cannon of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Paul Thank you very much and good evening everyone. I begin with an apology. I will not be answering what I think is your pressing question tonight. And if I understand correctly, it is this. I do not know by the time you get home who will be prime minister.

[00:39:57]Instead of ephemeral matters, I turn to more important matters. I would like to begin by thanking Professor Frederickson for presenting her ideas with great clarity and good grace. She has drawn upon a lifetime of research and generously shared those ideas over two weeks. For that, we are immensely grateful.

[00:40:22]My colleague, Professor Bond, has focused on the figure of Jesus and has helpfully looked at points of contact that build upon your ideas. In this interrogation of those ideas, it may be said that Professor Bond has played the role of the good cop. However, as we know, there is another role to play in order to make the conversation interesting for the audience. In this case, I hope the role is not bad cop, but maybe just slightly naughty cop.

[00:40:57]One of your key contentions has been, as you've reiterated tonight, that in the ancient mindset, all gods exist. One might show a tribal loyalty to one's own god, but that did not imply a denial of other gods. At a general level, of course, that is true. The textual, inscriptional, and archaeological evidence and remains of the ancient world show that to be the case. You have also argued that the Apostle Paul shared this outlook. And in support of this, you have cited on several occasions the second half of 1 Corinthians 8:5. There are many gods and many lords. I wonder, however, if it might have been helpful not only to read the first the second half of the verse, but all of the verse and the surrounding material. I read from 1 Corinthians 8:4-6.

[00:42:01]Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through him. Here Paul seems to clearly state that only one celestial being is God. And while Paul and his fellow Christ believers may live in a world where there are many socalled gods venerated in heaven and on earth, there is only one God who gives existence and exercises power over all things. While obviously not articulated in postenlightenment terms, this seems to be close to what most people would understand by the term monotheism, which has been stated as not being a position held in antiquity.

[00:43:19]However, let's look further a field at what Paul says in another letter. As we have seen, context is important. The verse in question comes from Galatians chapter 4. In the wider context, Paul has been discussing the descendants of Abraham, stating that God sent forth his son to redeem those under the law. He then turns to address Gentiles or non-Jews. He begins by describing their former state before coming to faith in Christ. He writes, "However, at that time when you, you Gentiles did not know God, you were enslaved to those ones which by nature are not gods."

[00:44:10]Here Paul's key claim.

[00:44:13]Professor Frederickson has stressed in her lectures the emphasis of fussus, nature. She has argued that Gentiles remain Gentiles and cannot change their nature. Here, however, Paul attributes a nature, a fussus, to the gods that pagans previously worshiped. He states that their basic nature is nonexistence.

[00:44:41]We could add several further passages such as Paul's denunciation of offering meat to idols. In that context, he declares an idol is nothing. However, for the sake of weaker believers, Paul contends that one should not eat meat offered to idols in case they think one is worshiping other gods. Here we see Paul's pastoral concerns. He could, if he chose, consume meat offered to an idol because an idol has no real existence. However, rather than exercising that freedom, he puts the sensitivities of others first. In many ways, I think Paul is not out of line with the views of many contemporary Jews in believing that the God they worship is not just unique to their people God, but is in fact uniquely God, the one God, the only God. That looks like what most of us would describe as monotheism.

[00:45:49]The second point I wish to address is the claim that according to Professor Frederickson, Paul's mission was to turn pagans or Gentiles to the worship of the God of Israel. Again, in itself, I do not find that statement incorrect. My critique is that it is an inadequate description of what Paul thought he was doing and in the end it can be misleading as a description of Paul's proclamation.

[00:46:21]My contention is it leaves out what is most central and fundamental to Paul's message. And where would Paul find where would one find that central element?

[00:46:34]Let's read the opening line of nearly every one of Paul's letters. Romans, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle. First Corinthians, Paul called as an apostle of Christ Jesus.

[00:46:53]Second Corinthians, Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. and Galatians, Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ. I could go on, but you see the point. Without sounding pious, my question to Professor Frederickson is about the reconstruction of Paul's message. It is this. Where is Jesus? or as Mary Magdalene asked at the tomb, you've taken away my Lord and I do not know what you've done with him.

[00:47:32]So my observation is this. If you take Christ out of any description of what Paul thought he was doing among the Gentiles, then ipso facto that is a misreading of Paul's message. For instance, turning to Galatians chapter 4 again, Paul tells the recipients of the letter, not that he is working that they might worship the God of Israel, but rather he says, "I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you." Paul's mission was a Christ centered mission.

[00:48:09]What is the response that Paul expects from those who hear his message? Is it that they would worship the God of Israel? Well, maybe in part, but that's not how he frames his own message. In Romans 10:8-9, he says, "The word of faith which we are preaching is this. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Any attempt to represent Paul's message differently is somewhat skewed and perhaps more fundamentally I would argue fails to understand the radical Christf focused nature of Paul's gospel.

[00:48:56]This leads me onto my third and final point which in some ways seems to have been bubbling beneath the surface surface of much of what professor Frederickson has presented. If Paul is simply wanting Gentiles to worship the God of Israel, then this implies that Jews are already doing this and consequently that Paul would expect them only to continue in their ancestral religion. However, Paul is being far more radical than this. He is not an ethnic essentialist as we've been repeatedly told. Rather, he dissolves ethnic particularities and offers believers in Christ a new identity.

[00:49:44]Three times in his letters, he states, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile."

[00:49:51]Seeing as I've been turning to Galatians, let's turn to the example in that letter where Paul says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

[00:50:10]For Paul, the gospel he proclaims eradicates previous ethnic essentialism.

[00:50:17]In its place, his message offered a new identity open to all who confessed Jesus as their Lord. So what of his fellow Jews? What did Paul expect them to do?

[00:50:31]Did he simply believe they did not need to change because they already worshiped Israel's God? That would be a strange inference to draw on the basis of what Paul says. In Romans chapter 9, Paul tells his reader readers that he has a great sorrow and unceasing grief in his heart.

[00:50:56]What is the cause of that grief? Is it because not all Gentiles who have c have come to faith in Christ? No. The cause is the fact that his fellow Jews have not come to faith. He states, "For I could wish that I myself were a cursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." The reason for this is that although they have had the ethnic privileges of the promises of God, from Paul's perspective, they have failed to recognize the significance of God's Messiah. After a long recitation of the heritage enjoyed by Jewish people, long as a characteristic of Paul, Paul finally states that what grieavves him so deeply is the following. He says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for them, his Jewish compatriots, is for their salvation.

[00:52:02]For Paul, Jews, like Gentiles were need in need of salvation through Christ, God's Messiah."

[00:52:10]I find the description of Paul's mission and Paul's fundamental convictions as presented in the lectures to be slightly out of step with Paul's message. Paul is not simply calling Gentiles to worship Israel's God. There was an excellent question last night that at least to my satisfaction was not fully answered. It asked why Paul was persecuting the early Christian movement. If all it was doing was calling pagans to worship Israel's God. Contrary to the answer given, I do not think Paul was opposing Christ believers because they were destabilizing the Roman emperor empire.

[00:52:56]Personally, I don't think Paul was the type of person to care about the empire.

[00:53:03]Rather, he realized that the core claims of the Christ movement destabilized Judaism.

[00:53:11]As Paul came to proclaim his message, it was only by confessing Jesus to be Lord that one could be saved, whether that person was a Gentile or a Jew. Then and only then, when Jesus was recognized as Messiah, could the God of Israel, the one who in Paul's eyes was the only God, then and only then could that God be worshiped.

[00:53:39]In the end, expressed in their own first century terms, some Jews and many early Christ believers did in fact believe there was only one being that could be described as God. Moreover, according to Paul, the worship of the God of Israel could no longer be authentic unless it was coupled with the acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah and the source of salvation.

[00:54:07]Lastly, without distinction or partiality, the need for salvation through God's Messiah, Jesus, was universal, and it applied both to pagans and Jews. I hope we've given I've given you enough to discuss. Thank you.

[00:54:29]Will you come and join me here then, Paul? and uh Helen and Paula if you can come up as well and we have got some time for a discussion amongst ourselves on this one.

[00:54:42]Yes. Thank you very much. Well, that's a pretty powerful pro Paul version.

[00:54:50]Would you like to comment on that one?

[00:54:52]>> Um I'm torn between Jesus and Paul.

[00:54:57]>> Right. Um >> go for Jesus.

[00:55:02]Um, I think that gentile foosus is improved by the punuma and only by the punuma of Christ. And I think that's that's Paul's message. But I also think that he thinks that the transformation that's necessary before the kingdom comes is Jews also need the punuma of Christ because it's the penuma that is transformative. And this is why when he says that there is neither Jew nor Greek, he's not giving a social description. He's talking about incorporation of punuma into one body which is Christ. But I think socially he's still thinking in terms of Gentiles. I mean that's how he closes off Romans. But I think he also thinks and I wish he told me how he thought Jews would get the punuma of Christ. But I um thinking with Romans 11:25 and 26 where um once the fullness of the nations comes in then all Israel will be saved. I think that's the moment where we have to presuppose a universal giving of Christ's spirit because Paul complains about his fellow Jews not understanding that Paul is right and that Jesus really is the Messiah. He talks about there whenever they read the scriptures there's a veil um over it for them and it's only taken away from Christ. So, I really think he thinks that everybody needs Christ punuma. Um, but I do think he thinks that there are gods other than the god of Israel, but that's a different discussion.

[00:56:49]>> Thank you.

[00:56:50]>> We haven't got time for that. Helen, would you like to comment on on on on this point or >> pick up something not particularly, >> but you you were picking up on on um the questions of diversity and and >> yeah, what what the um the these Greek diaspora um cities were really like whether there was more negativity particularly after the after the fall of Jerusalem in uh 70 and of course Paul is writing his letters in the mid-50s but it's not very long and and before the the fall of Jerusalem and and clearly these discussions are ongoing for some time after that. So that was one of the the points I raised and and also to do with Jesus and uh where do we get our information from? And do the gospels play a bigger role in all of this than uh than than your lectures are perhaps suggesting? You know, these are hugely popular texts. Mark writes his gospel, then Matthew rewrites it. Matthew becomes massively popular. um Luke, John, as you said, you know, lots and lots of different versions of these, but are these gospels themselves part of their sort of Christian formation?

[00:58:07]>> Um, it's interesting to me that Justin refers to what we think of as the gospels as the apostles memoir.

[00:58:16]>> When he talks about scripture, he means the Septuagent. So I think there's a question of the authority um of those stories and um in terms of the construction of the stories where you talked about the differences between John and Mark and how I'm um in a minority position.

[00:58:37]Um it's not the characterization of Jesus and John certainly.

[00:58:42]>> Yeah. No, I >> it's only the chronology. And the reason I like to think that the chronology works better from from John um beyond its plausibility is the fact that literarily the chronology doesn't bear the burden of the story. The chronology is almost independent of the depiction of Jesus he's giving in the gospel. It's really all about Jesus's identity. That's why Jesus is always talking about himself in the Gospel of John. And therefore, given that the chronology is not as important to him as opposed to how important it is in Mark with that straight through um trajectory, I think that if I had to choose, and of course I don't have to choose and neither do you. Um, neither chronology could be correct, >> but of the two of them, I think that John is more plausible, which is not to say it's true, >> but that it's more plausible.

[00:59:49]>> Ellen was making the point that she thought that things weren't quite as smooth and and happy as you as you indicated. And certainly when you were talking >> Yes, I want to talk about that.

[01:00:00]>> You do?

[01:00:00]>> Yes.

[01:00:02]um Antioch right after the rebellion and the defeat of the Jews when um when Titus goes to Antioch, there's a renegade Jew who wants the all the Jews to be kicked out of Antioch. And what does Titus say?

[01:00:21]>> No, he in fact quiets the situation and refuses to take the Jews out. So it's there's not an even if even Titus who's the one who oversaw the destruction of the temple is um a liberal when it comes to maintaining the population of Antioch. don't see as a a general anti-Jewish um politics >> setting in after the book revolt you that's when you begin to get petristic writings that will emphasize it but in in terms of post70 um I'm not convinced that diaspora populations were at risk just because the Judean population had rebelled >> but there's a difference between being at risk and just just you know feeling a much more negative um response from other people towards you. I mean you know you have Josephus writing against Appion in this sort of in the '9s or so. Um presumably he's responding to a a a negativity towards uh Jews that he's picking up at least in Rome. um that might be true in Rome, but I don't see it as a universal miasma.

[01:01:42]>> That's um I'm sure that Jews resented having the two drama >> go to Jupiter Optimus Maximos.

[01:01:50]>> Um yeah, that's that's really what I think.

[01:01:56]>> I wonder if there is some other evidence. I I mean there's a story set in the time of dimmission where someone uh a man in his 80s or 90s um has his Jewishness physically examined to prove whether he's liable to tax. We have various tax inspectors here but fortunately they don't use those techniques. Um but then on a larger scale around 115 you've got the Traanic revolts um which are Jews in the diaspora revoling and you've mentioned this in passing in relation to Alexandria but this was m multi-sighted so there were there was some cause of unrest that spread quite quickly around certain urban centers in the empire so I I I mean, it's hard to know, as you said, um, we often have a lack of evidence, but we know there was something that stirred up lots of Jewish populations in different urban centers.

[01:03:01]So, maybe not consistently, but sporadically, there seems to be disqu, you know, maybe it wasn't this rosy picture after all. Yeah, I I think that um Alexandria is always a problem a problem city, right? And the uh the 115 117 revolt is is that rim of Africa, right? It's Sirenian. Um so there's a revolt there, but again, I don't see any evidence for um push back.

[01:03:38]And I'm thinking of um an imperial law from 202 that states that Jewish town counselors do not have to perform in their office any duties that would offend against their superstitio which means foreign cult at that point. So there's a kind of um e acceptance of difference on the part of of Roman imperial government for Jewish difference. And if there had been this wash of of um hostility um it's already evaporated um by then.

[01:04:22]Could I ask a bit about um the question of how the ear earlier period how people policed behavior um and how because you know you make the point several times that it's important that the gods are kept happy and therefore if people are not behaving properly um then presumably they there's a a wider social interest in that fact.

[01:04:48]Was there a lot of um of of what sort of sanctions were there against um behaving badly as it were with regard to your own gods?

[01:04:58]>> Um ancient the ancient empire was not a modern police state.

[01:05:04]>> Nobody is monitoring religious behavior until we have dishon um a lot of this turns out to be about taxes. the only universal um form that dishes could uh mobilize in order to prove that everybody was doing a correct um sacrifice to the gods were tax forms and um and that became a lielis that said you know yes you have sacrificed to the gods before that we don't we don't have anything so what's the evidence for unhappy gods disease bad weather, um, earthquake. I mean, it's it's situational and we if we can rely on the stories about the martyrs, it's that type of local episode that can stimulate um an anti-Christian an anti-Christian activity on the part of a city. So, it's environmental to know if a god is unhappy.

[01:06:09]>> And what you do is you try you do the right ritual activity. Nero after um after the fire in ' 64, >> one of the things he does is uh concentrate on on apotropeic ritual to try and figure out why the gods are unhappy. So there's it's a conditioned response, but something like a a massive fire would be an indication that the gods were unhappy.

[01:06:40]I I think in some you've mentioned the martyrdom text and in the case of Polycarp of Smyrna there does seem to be a policing of the fact that the Christians are unwilling to offer devotion to Caesar and the proconsul says to him um you know acknowledge the genius of Caesar, make the offering and take the oath away with the atheist.

[01:07:09]Now in those days it was the Christians who were the atheists because they didn't believe in all the gods. So I I guess there is a policing of that and you ask what the punishment is. Well it it was quite intense for Polycarb that's for sure. So I I guess it's localized, but if you're not willing to participate in the imperial cult, the sanctions can be quite high right from the beginning of the second century. I would say >> what's interesting with the imperial cult is that was mainly the activity of local urban aristocrats. It wasn't that everybody in the city had to somehow go and show obesence to the emperor. It was a very specific type of activity. I'm nervous about taking polycarpet face value. It's a very powerful literary representation which has clear and unambiguous Christian identity at the center of the story. I'm not >> but there there are multiplicity of marshm texts. I mean, unless one is willing to rule out the whole phenomenon of early Christians being put to death for non-compliance, the martyrs of Vienn and Leyong um around the same period, yes, the sources only go back so far like many of our sources, but I think to exercise that level of skepticism when they're multiple sources which often have the same cause at their heart is to me to be overly skeptical, but we may disagree on that point.

[01:08:57]>> Um I I'm thinking with the work of Canada Moss and um >> yes, I know it well. I'm not fully convinced.

[01:09:05]>> Well, um a lot of the um martyr stories are improved after dishes.

[01:09:15]>> Oh, I I accept that. But um yeah, I I mean I think there is a kernel to the fact that a historical kernel and I think it's certain that Christians were being put to death sporadically, not systematically during the second century.

[01:09:37]>> I would agree with that. Sporadically and not systematically.

[01:09:42]>> There's a point of agreement then.

[01:09:45]>> How did that happen?

[01:09:47]Um there's lots of people here who we hope have got questions that they would like to ask and there are also people online who have been putting questions in the in the chat and so if you have a question to ask can you please raise your hand here and I'll direct the RSSE staff to come to you with a microphone and uh the as I say the online questions are coming in on the on the chat I hope but how about any questions from the audience here. Can you put your hand up, please? Here's someone here right at the front.

[01:10:22]And can you please stand up and um speak into the mic when it comes?

[01:10:28]>> Yes. Oh my gosh. Um yes, thank you so much. And this is a really interesting discussion. It's been um it's been a privilege to hear it. Um and I wanted to kind of pick up on this theme of um of ancient cities and how tolerant were they really, how pluralistic were they really? And I've been kind of impressed by both sides of this argument and particularly by your I can't remember which rabbi is splashing in the bath um with his gentile >> bath gumal. Yeah. Which I think is very telling and very interesting as a kind of level of social integration that you maybe don't often see or or think about.

[01:11:07]Um but I think there there are also sort of very compelling signs that Jews were not always so welcomed or integrated.

[01:11:16]And I was thinking about um the story in Acts 16 in Philippi um where um Paul is is um kind of hauled before the magistrates and you know the his accusers say these men are Jews and they're teaching customs that it's not acceptable for us to to practice or or you know or listen to. and and obviously if you read the story, you know that that's it's actually that's kind of a front because it's really about um it's about economics um and it's about these um it's about the owners of the slave girl that um Paul has exercised and they're worried that they're losing their income and you know according to Luke and obviously acts historicity questionable. Sure. Um but I do think it's an interesting story >> so bad right?

[01:12:04]>> Yeah. Right. Right. No, I but I do think it's an interesting story and I I wonder if there's any plausibility in it um of and and what what strikes me as interesting about it is that kind of anti-Jewish feeling is being presented as a sort of acceptable framework even when it's actually something else that's at play that they're making um they're making this feeling the kind of the the facade. Um >> so you're asking about the plausibility of that particular question. Sorry, long question. Would you like to I thought it was a statement, not a question. Um >> okay.

[01:12:40]>> Um the question being, do I think that an economic situation might generate um a situation of social friction?

[01:12:50]>> That for sure. But also >> yes, do you think that Luke is presenting a plausible scenario in which >> I think that's going into two.

[01:13:00]>> Yeah. Keep hold as long as you're speaking.

[01:13:04]>> Sorry. Um, do you think that Luke is presenting a plausible scenario here in which kind of anti-Jewish feeling might be sort of weaponized in this way?

[01:13:11]>> Yes, fine. That's good. So, we've got an answer there. Thank you very much. Any other questions from the floor?

[01:13:21]And try and make them questions. Oh, Leslie, she's got something from the chat.

[01:13:25]>> You'll have to excuse my pronunciation here. Do we know much about the Golish, Pictish, Hibernian or Savonic interactions with early Judeaic tradition in the early 1st to 7th century AD? And if we do, what languages and kinds of cultures are those sources from?

[01:13:47]>> I I think the short answer looking at the panel is we we don't really know that much, but that never stops academics giving an answer. I mean, we know about some Roman interactions in these. I believe there might even be a wall that goes through part of Edinburgh and further west from here. So, obviously already there's an inter penetration, a mix of gods from different parts of the Roman Empire, but I think there's very little evidence for a Jewish presence or a Christian presence. maybe the very beginnings in the 3rd century St. Alburn's we all know St. had his head chopped off and picked at you know we won't worry about. So I think there's very little because there few written sources from this context >> and I know nothing about >> Well, neither did I. I was pretending.

[01:14:46]>> That was very well done. Then >> any other questions?

[01:14:52]>> That does raise the question of of the the importance of things being written down. And you you rais you were talking quite a bit in your comments Paula about the intellectualization of all of this as being another level. And I'm interested in how the um the story appears both at the intellectual level and also at the level of behavior and practice. Um any comments on on the importance of that? the importance of the intellectualization >> and and the way in which that came in it seemed to come in later.

[01:15:27]>> Well, the earliest evidence we have for this begins to cook in the middle decades of the of the second century.

[01:15:36]Um, but you know, >> but was there was there always that these two different levels? Were there always intellectuals making things more complicated than they needed to be and regular people who were just driving out demons in the name of Jesus?

[01:15:54]>> You know the answer to that, >> right? If if if the spread of Christianity had depended upon the work of the intellectuals, it really would have taken a miracle.

[01:16:06]>> Right?

[01:16:06]>> That's interesting.

[01:16:07]>> Okay.

[01:16:08]>> Although to some extent Paul himself is a Christian intellectual. He's been trained um in Jewish tradition. So he brings a higher register to the discussions about the movement and theologizes it in some sense. So maybe not to the level of Justin or Irenaeus and beyond but there is a trajectory even in the first century I would think.

[01:16:38]>> There's another question. No there's a question here. Yes, this one here.

[01:16:43]>> It's J.

[01:16:45]>> Well, thank you very much to the panelists. It's been a very stimulating discussion. I wonder if I could ask a Gford committee vice convenor question.

[01:16:57]The Gford lectures were endowed uh to explore natural theology that is to look for a sense of order in the universe and secondly to in to explore the foundations of ethics and morals.

[01:17:16]And I wonder if the panelists could comment at all upon about whether there is a distinctive social ethics that emerges from this Christian movement within the context of a Judeaic uh Greco Judeaic culture that Professor Frederickson has been exploring so brilliantly. Is there a distinctive Christian social ethics that emerges a morality? And if so, what are the characteristics of that ethics?

[01:17:51]>> Thank you very much.

[01:17:52]>> Wow.

[01:17:53]>> Um, I like Roman social media. I read a lot of sermons for fun and that's where you and what the Well, I don't get out very much. No. Um um what you get in the sermons are descriptions of what people are actually doing usually because the bishop who's giving the sermon is yelling at his congregation about doing something. So um one of my favorites is uh Augustine.

[01:18:26]So this is pretty late on um in the early fifth century dealing with a member of his congregation in theory trying to get the men of the congregation to stop having sex with their female slaves and the response of in the sermon of this Christian is can I do what I want in my own house? So I mean that's I'm not saying that every Christian was having sex with his female slave, but I'm saying that there's an idealization of ethics just as there is in Judaism, just as there is in paganism. There's an ideal of moral behavior. And then there's how people are actually behaving. And um it's from what I can tell people act like themselves more than they um level up.

[01:19:17]>> I I think I'd like to while not disagreeing with that, I I think there is something in the Judeo-Christian tradition that speaks to the value of all human beings because they're seen in some sense of being made in the image of God. And I think the value of human life begins to be seen in different ways in Greco Roman society because this Judeo-Christian teaching circulates. So um in one in in Paul's letters slaves uh seen as equal to free people and in fact often in the household codes although it doesn't give full emancipation Paul addresses the slaves first and talks about their lot and is sympathetic. I think also um while while Christians may align with the Roman Empire at times they bring about the end of the gladiatorial games and this bloodlust. So I think >> when do you think that happens? Um Augustine describes how his his friend Apilus was going to gladatorial fights and and well after Constantine >> but not all local governors were Christian and also after Julian the apostate there was a return to some aspects of paganism in the empire. So I'm not saying it occurs in a blanket way across all the empire, but there are moves to stop some of these practices based on Christian understandings and Jewish understandings of the value of humanity.

[01:21:06]>> Constantine did not get that memo.

[01:21:09]>> I won't say I didn't say he did. the the uh letter to Hespillum where he's uh it's even Christian emperors were worshiped there's a continuation of the cult of the emperor after and and during Constantine and Constantine has been approached what usually happens if you're going to have um a cult of the emperor is is your the emperor is solicited for permission to establish the cult and Constantine writes back to this town and the town is so happy to get the the letter that they they fortunately for us inscribe it in stone and um among the things Constantine saying is no blood sacrifices he considers those distasteful and pagan um but he also talks about how many gladiators they should have to celebrate his feast day. So there's I mean the in terms of Christians valuing life you get um people being told to stop exposing infants which means that people are still exposing infants. So I I think there's a discourse of ethical effort and a question about how much that penetrates >> inde and I may be wrong but I I believe there even some rulers today who claim to be Christians and still like adoration from their electes or I could be wrong about that. So it it's never been this way I think. Absolutely.

[01:22:44]>> Could I add in too um just in terms of social ethic that's that's um I think different within the the the Greco Roman world and and coming I think from from the Jewish tradition is all the material you have about the first shall be last be like a servant. It's about service diakonto. It's it's um and and also actually almost behave like a woman because these are womanly ways of of of um existing in the world and not striving for glory which is is so sort of you know pervasive in the in the ancient world. And of course that's not to say that all all uh Christ followers were doing this but it is a sort of an aspiration a social ethic I think that that is quite distinctive >> that's distinctive as opposed to the Jewish one.

[01:23:33]>> No I I I think I think it has its roots already. I mean the suffering servant I mean the idea that um that that service is um is is is an ethical way to to present yourself.

[01:23:46]>> Yeah. Exactly. supported the poor, all of these things. And that's not to say that they're not completely there in the the Roman world, but I think there's a different emphasis here that's that would be distinctive, >> right?

[01:23:57]>> Um, now there's a a question up at the back. Oh, yes, I see.

[01:24:01]>> Yes. Thank you very much. Um, >> could you stand up please while you asking if that's possible?

[01:24:08]>> Just got clobber on my lap. That's >> Oh, well, no.

[01:24:13]>> Just speak.

[01:24:13]>> Thank you very much. I'd just like to go back to something you raised earlier about the importance of the written word and I wonder if the panel could say something about um the link between the intellectual processes that we've heard a lot about and the importance of the written gospels and how popular they were and how that outreach worked for the illiterate part of the society. What what are the mechanisms that we're looking at to make that written message available to the presumably 90 95% of people who were not literate? And what what can you say about that interface, that mechanism, the repetition, the storytelling, the spaces, the people that were doing it? Were the 10,000 polls out there doing it all? I I don't know. I'd be interested in how that interaction worked.

[01:25:07]>> Right. ideas >> reading aloud. I mean, lectio, right? It would be communal readings of of texts is do you want to add to that since >> Well, yeah. I mean, that that's kind of one of the the things that I raised that I you know, Paul, okay, big guy, important, but I also think that the people who crafted these these gospels are intellectual geniuses in many ways.

[01:25:32]I think they are highly educated and that you can't I mean they they don't write like a Swatonius or a Tastas or any of these people. Um but they're, you know, they they they're able to to craft a life of Jesus. They're they're able to write um an engaging story that's going to um you know that that people like to listen to. It's an entertaining story, but it's also got um a lot of theology in it. And clearly these were very popular because you know no sooner has has Mark written his than than Matthew gets going, Luke gets going. Um as as uh Paul has said, you know, there's all sorts of different gospels. People seem to have loved listening to these. Um they are listening to them because most people can't read, but I think they have. I mean, and I don't think we should necessarily just think they're being read in sort of the equivalent to, you know, Christian gatherings, but they're they do, I think, foster a sense of community identity. We are the people who sort of coalesce around this story, around this person. And I think it's significant that they uh I mean, certainly Mark, we don't know if he's the first or not, but certainly Mark presents his narrative as a life of Jesus. It's a person. let's think about this person. Let's model ourselves on this person. And I think that's um that's a very powerful uh way to kind of express this this this focus on the one person. And it does seem to have been um enormously influential in his day. So all I mean for me it's terrible. We don't know the names of these evangelists. We we obviously call them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But I think they were some of the most important people in uh the formation of of early Christianity.

[01:27:21]>> And they don't hesitate to change Mark when they >> No, they're they're and and I think that's one of the exciting things about this early period, the fluidity of these traditions. They're quite happy to present Jesus that fits their their situation that responds to their needs that perhaps responds to some kind of uh prophecy in their in their circles. But yeah, the the the picture of the portrait of Jesus is very malleable in this early period. And um and I think that's one of the really interesting things about it. Um and going beyond this um specifically with with Jesus, one of the other incredibly popular um Christian bodies of writing are the martyr stories which are um eventually particularly in North Africa you have the cult of the martyrs where the stories of the martyrs um torture um is being read aloud the night before the day of the saint and you have Augustine again trying to get people in his congregation to stop going to the gladatorial fights and he says that he's presenting the story of the martyr and the tortures that the martyr is undergoing as an alternative form of curated violence and he says this is this is the real spectacle.

[01:28:49]So, it's that ethic is the same, but the the tone is changing, >> right?

[01:28:59]>> Any final questions because we're getting near to the end here.

[01:29:02]>> Oh, already. Gosh, >> nobody. Oh, yes, there's somebody down here.

[01:29:17]Um I wonder if you'd reflect on how Christian uh theology was influenced by um pagan ideas. I was thinking particularly of the idea of sacrifice which presumably was very widespread in the ancient world. And then I was thinking about the line in the Anglican liturgy about how Christ's death was the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. And presumably that language was adopted to um meet the language and to try and um speak to pagan ways of life in a way that they would understand but might not not have been possibly integral to early Christianity. So could we reflect a little bit on things like that?

[01:30:00]>> Um I don't think I completely understood the question.

[01:30:05]>> I I think in some ways the sacrificial language around Christ's death comes more from a Jewish context for early Christ believers than from a Roman context. But it's a world of sacrifices.

[01:30:21]And here I I think we fully agree that to pllate your god whether you believe in one or many you often did pour out blood on an altar. And with Christianity, Christ is seen as in some sense in some Christian thinkers ideas as the perfect end of that sacrifice, the final sacrifice in some ways. And some this goes back to the traditions in the gospels um about this being a sacrifice in Christ's blood for the forgiveness of sins. So I I would locate this more I think in conversational building upon Jewish ideas of atoning sacrifice rather than paganite but pagans can relate to this because they have their own sacrifices.

[01:31:18]So I I I think it's complex because the ancient world is very complex in this regard.

[01:31:25]>> But historically of course Jesus died around about the Passover. So I think it's a sort of a natural thing when you think about Jesus's death to think about it in connection with the feast >> and as soon as you get the gospels being written you know you have his him dying either on the day of preparation or the day of uh the Passover itself depending on which gospel you you look at but you know already in Paul you get him described as the pascal lamb and I think it's quite a a natural thing for you know metaphorically for for the evangelists and early Christians to think adds >> and other Christians imagined uh the death of Jesus not as a sacrifice but as an opportunity to gain knowledge.

[01:32:06]There's uh in the gospel of truth which is a non-cononical writing the the tree that Christ is nailed to becomes a tree of knowledge and it's it Christ gives knowledge and it's the knowledge that's res redemptive not it's not a blood sacrifice it's it's imagined completely differently so there are different Christians imagining the death of of Jesus and not using sacrificial language at all.

[01:32:38]>> Thank you very much. That's been comments from all three of you. Just to that one question which can wrap up the the discussion I think. I mean I was thinking of this as being an opportunity for clarifying some of the points in in in Paul's lectures but in fact it's opened up even more interesting questions and so we can take this away and uh and keep thinking about it and keep reading about it and so on.

[01:33:03]>> Oh good.

[01:33:04]>> Indeed. And I can certainly recommend uh Paul's books because I've been reading them before before this and there it's it's a real privilege to to to read these these texts. Um thank you all very much for being here and uh we'll don't forget that of course there are still more lectures. This is the seminar tonight but tomorrow there's a a lecture on what is it and when does Christianity become Christianity >> and that will be in the um informatics forum uh tomorrow evening >> 5 at 5 not at 6 we're slightly off of off out of kilter here and then again on Thursday there's the final one which is supposed to be wrapping it all up.

[01:33:50]>> Absolutely.

[01:33:52]So, well, thank you very much. And can we give a round of applause to all of our students?

[01:33:59]>> Thank you. He really hasn't That was