Let's see, I thought today we could open by looking at the end of Matthew. Last time we looked at the beginning of Matthew, and today it might be good to look at the end of Matthew. Part of the reason for this, of course, is to say that the beginning in the end of a story is often very important, especially at signaling what the author wants you to get out of it all. So what we're going to look at today is in some ways, what did Matthew want us to get out of the story? You'll recall that last time we talked about Abraham and David and the exile and how these three themes were relevant to Jesus. So the beginning and end of a story is often very significant for determining what it was that the author wanted you to get out of the whole thing. Abraham, David, exile, opening the story of Matthew. And we noted especially last time about that, that Jesus, then, is the Davidic Messiah, he is the one who is coming in the line of David. He is therefore the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, and that he's also in the lineage of Abraham, and that Abraham was giving promises that not only would he be blessed, but he would be a blessing to all the world, basically. To all the nations, if you would, and that when you come to the end of the story, at the end of the book of Matthew, the great commission says go therefore make disciples of all the nations. And so you see this fulfillment at the end of the promise at the beginning that this Messiah, David, is in the line of Abraham, who will be a blessing to all the nations. We also saw the very first day of class, some themes that tie in or a major theme that ties into the end of the story. There we saw it in Matthew chapter 2 with the Magi, and the way that they came to worship, and that that theme of worship is also tied into this end of the story of Matthew. Because what happens when the 11 disciples proceed to Galilee, and they see Jesus, they worship Him. So that is, I think, significant. Although the worship in the Magi isn't the beginning, strictly speaking, of the story in Matthew, it is the first time you meet Jesus in this story, and the first response to Jesus in the book of Matthew is worship, and the last response to Jesus in the book of Matthew is worship. So we see those two themes. Now, all that to say, by means of review, that we've touched on some of the themes in the so-called great commission, which is at the end of the story of the book of Matthew. And I want to look at that today. I'm going to limit myself just for a sake of time. We need to get back to our discussion of backgrounds, and so I'm going to just whatever we can do in the next 15 minutes, and I'll just stop. And if there's any more to be done with great commission, we'll go on later. Now, as soon as I do this, I do it with some hesitation, because I know, especially if you've worshiped an evangelical church for some period of time, you are very aware of the great commission. And we've become dull of hearing, because we hear so often. We just had a mission conference at our church, and it goes through the end of this week. And we had a wonderful sermon on the great commission on Sunday. And that is not the whole reason I had already planned on talking about this, but it motivated me yet again to talk about the great commission. And yet, I mean, I have to say that every time the sermon comes up in the great commission, I mean, deep down, just, honestly, between you and I, nobody else. Okay, turn off the video. You don't have Trump video, but just between you and I, you know, I'm kind of like, oh again. Okay? So if you have the oh again feeling, I understand it. Let me suggest that generally, because the great commission only comes up at missions conference time, that we've missed a lot of what's going on in the great commission. Okay? I already pointed out the worship theme, which I have yet to hear somebody bring out in any significant way in any sermon on the great commission. And yet, I think that's one of the most striking themes in the whole of Matthew, and here in Matthew 28. So let's look at a few other things here, and along the way, we will have the talk about missions. Can't omit that. In fact, we would be in sin, I would almost say, if we did. But there's other stuff going on here as well. So if you would turn with me to Matthew 28, I'm going to start in verses 16 and following. But the 11 disciples, and it's of course 11 because Judas has just previously killed himself in the book Matthew, okay, for his betrayal. But the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. Now, by the way, I often think of the great commission as being in and around Jerusalem. I mean, the last part of Jesus' ministry is in around Jerusalem, but he's up north in Galilee yet again. So he's back in his home territory. This is removed from Jerusalem, removed from where we think of as the center of the beginning of Christianity, with Pentecost, et cetera. This is much more up in the Galilee where there's more of a mixing of Gentiles and Jewish people. Also, Jesus is countryland. So anyway, that's where we are. Proceeded to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshipped him. And we've already talked about the importance of that. They worshipped him. But some were doubtful. Now, I don't know about you, but that word bothers me quite a lot. I mean, here they are seeing the risen Jesus, and this isn't the only time. They are seeing the risen Jesus, who is about to deliver to them his last and greatest commandment, and we're dealing with, according to this narrative, his 11 disciples. It doesn't mention anybody else. There could have been other people present that might have been part of the sum, but the natural way to read this is this is the 11 disciples. These are the people who've been with Jesus in the beginning. They've seen his crucifixion, they've witnessed his resurrection, they've heard his teaching, et cetera, et cetera. And so you would think all of them will be bowing down in full faith and submission to him, and yet the narrative says that some were doubtful. Now, what do we do with that? Well, I'm not wholly sure, honestly, but I have a few ideas, and let me toss a few of them out at you. One is, do you realize that this goes against what a lot of people say is going on in the Gospels now? If you talk about the secular world that's out there, they will say of Jesus's followers, especially with regard to his miracles, that these people were inclined to believe pretty much anything. They were back there in the dark period before science, before you had computers and palm pilots, and before people were aware of the nature of this cause and effect and the sequence of events. And so, therefore, they had no problem blind faith going in and believing that anything that Jesus did is a miracle, even if he was actually walking on a sand bar rather than walking in the middle of the lake, which is, by the way, found in a number of commentaries to explain Jesus is walking on water. Now, when I come to this passage, I see instead a realism that is here by Matthew as author, he's not going to just simply say, everybody followed him, he's going to acknowledge that some people were doubtful. And actually, if you look just above this in previously in Matthew 28, there's this whole little narrative about the guards who were supposed to guard the tomb, and all of a sudden the tomb is empty, and so what in the world are they going to do about this? In theory, the guards should be put to death, but the high priests and people around him take counsel and they offer money to the soldiers instead to say that the disciples stole away the body. Now, and then he says that, by the way, this story was widely circulated to this day. This also shows that Matthew not only is aware of alternative possibilities for the resurrection, but he's aware of the stories that are going around in his day, and he just frankly acknowledges them. And thus we shouldn't be surprised that he frankly acknowledges people's doubt, even when they see the risen Lord. In my mind, this actually increases the historical reliability of the author. Now, aside from that, I do have to wonder if there are some possible theological themes going on in Matthew at this stage. And there are a couple of other places in the book of Matthew where a doubt is explicitly mentioned, especially with regard to Jesus' disciples. So one is found in Matthew chapter 14, and the word itself shows up in Matthew 1431, but the context, and I think if I just read this, you'll get enough of it. And Jesus said, come, and Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord saved me, and immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind stopped, and those who were in the boat worshipped him, oh there's our word worship again, saying you are certainly God's son. A very interesting combination of worship and doubt, simultaneous with one another. So this seems, it's certainly in Matthew chapter 14, this is in dieting Peter, yes, for his doubt. But implicitly, I mean, did any other disciple hop out of the boat and walk around to Jesus? No, would you hop out of the boat and walk to Jesus? And I think, as we read the narrative, we're supposed to ask that question of ourselves. And to the extent that there's any little part of us that would say no, Jesus would reply, oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? Now I'm not saying we need to hop out of every boat then. Jesus has to be present, and it has to be clear circumstances for a miracle, but the point is, just where are the limits of your faith? And where do you doubt?
The other place where the word doubt shows up is in Matthew 21, and here it's in Matthew 21 verse 21, but if I start again, back in verse 19, I think you'll get enough of a context to feel what this is about. So Matthew 21, 19, and seeing a lone fig tree by the road, Jesus came to it, and found nothing on it except leaves only, and he said to it, no longer shall there ever be any fruit from you. And it wants the fig tree withered, and seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying, how did the fig tree withered once? And Jesus answered and said to them, truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, if you have faith and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, it shall happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. Now that's the end of the narrative. What's striking to me is the next thing that follows in the narrative in Matthew 21 is this. And when Jesus had come to the temple, the chief priest and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? Well of course in Matthew 28, right after they're doubtful, Jesus comes up and speaks to them and says, all authority has been given. So there are some interesting connections with the Matthew 21 fig tree passage as there are with the Peter and the water passage, and both of them call the disciples to determine what the limits of their faith are and to ask, why do you have any doubt at all? And so although I am not certain why in Matthew 28 at the beginning of the great commission, Matthew reports that they worshiped him and some were doubtful, I suspect, and this is just a suspicion, that it is calling all of us to ask ourselves at that point at the end of this wonderful narrative about Jesus. At the end of the whole story of Jesus, from his birth, through his miracles and his teachings, through his crucifixion, through his resurrection, to ask us at the end of the narrative, are we among those who are doubtful? And I suspect that that's what we're supposed to do at this stage there. By the way, just to be overt in my methodology, notice what I did here, I didn't go outside to compare doubt and John or doubt in the book of Acts or doubt anyplace else, although there is some validity to that. I principally am interested how this word and the associations with it work in the book of Matthew, and therefore at the end of the book of Matthew when he uses that same term, because Jesus used it and he's using it thematically to bring up against the motifs that were earlier in the book. What is going on in the book of Matthew? That's what I'm asking there. And I suspect he's asking us to ask our own faith stance there. So verse 17, and when they saw him, they worshipped but some were doubtful. So where are you at in respect to Jesus? Are you doubtful? Where is your faith? And then secondly, what is your response? Are you really worshipping God? In all of your life. But first 18 goes on and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Now again, these are words that we read over. Usually the preacher uses them as an opportunity to talk about how great Jesus is on the way to getting you convinced that you need to be doing missions. But we need to ask if there's more to this word authority in the book of Matthew, whether this too is a theological motif throughout the book of Matthew. Here's some examples in terms of authority and Matthew. I'm going to go through these quickly. I just have a list in front of me so I'm going to go through them quickly. And although it would be best to look at these entirely in context for sake of time, I think just giving you the clip that I give you may be sufficient. Matthew 729, people are amazed for he was teaching them as one having authority. Jesus teaches them as one having authority and not as they're described. After he finishes teaching, this is the end of the sermon on the mount, the first great long passage of Jesus's teaching in the book of Matthew. At the end of it, the response is they are amazed why because he's teaching as one having authority. So there Jesus is claiming authority vis-à-vis his teaching. In Matthew 9-6, you will know that this is at the end of the healing of the man who is a paralytic. Right after Jesus has forgiven him his sins, Matthew 9-6 says, but in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, then he said to the paralytic, rise, take up your bed and go home. Now there's two interesting things with authority in that context. One is the display of Jesus' authority comes via the miracle, but the authority he's actually claiming is the authority to forgive sins which is something of course that belongs only to the prerogative of God. So in some sense he's already claiming the authority of God Almighty, from the perspective of the scribes and Pharisees he is usurping the authority of God Almighty. So he's claiming the authority to forgive sins. And the response uses the word as well, but when the multitude saw this, this is in verse 8 of chapter 9, they were filled with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men.
It is interesting that right after that, or shortly after it in chapter 10, Jesus chooses to send out his disciples which after all is exactly what is doing in Matthew chapter 28, back in the Great Commission. And he says in having summoned his 12 disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. There, Jesus not only possesses authority, he possesses the authority to give away authority, and then his disciples have the authority to perform some of the same miracles that he himself has. And ultimately this leads us to the question which we saw earlier in Matthew 21 when we were talking about doubting that when Jesus comes to the temple after performing again, a number of amazing miracles, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? So there his authority is being challenged yet again and Jesus answered and said to them, I will ask you one thing too, which if you tell me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. And in that respect, he challenges them with another narrative, I don't want to go into all of that. So Jesus is claiming authority, they recognize his claim to authority, but the question is claim to authority.
There is another place, that's by the way, those are the main places where the same Greek word for authority is used throughout the book of Matthew. So that's how I found those locations, quick word search. But those are not the only places where authority is claimed. In other words you can do something without using the actual word. And probably one of the most interesting ones and one that we'll return to later is in Matthew 26. And this is where Jesus is on trial, I would prefer to think of it as a kind of preliminary hearing before the Sanhedrin. We'll talk more about why I argue that in a few days. So he's in on a preliminary hearing before the Sanhedrin in Matthew 26, starting in verse 57 and following. And there are a number of false charges that are being brought against him and they are looking for some excuse to put him to death. You guys know the context. And the high priest stands up and says to Jesus, I'm in verse 62 of chapter 26 for those of you who are following along. Do you make no answer? What is it that these men are testifying against you? But Jesus kept silent because they're giving false witness against him and he just keeps silent. And the high priest says to him, I endure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said it yourself which is a backdoor way of saying yes, I am. Nevertheless, I tell you hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his robe saying he has blasphemed. Now, we will talk in a few days about the implications for the trial of Jesus as to what's going on here but there is a question as to what constituted the blasphemy here. It is typically among evangelicals thought just because we read this narrative maybe a little too quickly. That the claim to authority, excuse me, that the claim to being the Messiah is what led to Jesus's downfall into the claim of blasphemy. But you know if you read ancient juris sources, it is not blasphemy to be claimed to be the Messiah. Also, excuse me, if you read juris sources you'll find that Jesus was not the only person to claim to be the Messiah and they weren't typically put to death for blasphemy. So it can't simply be his claim to be the Messiah. I would suggest to you that what led to the charge of blasphemy against Jesus is when he says the Son of man sitting you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Why was that blasphemy? Because he is claiming to have the very authority of God Almighty. He is claiming that he is going to be the one sitting on the right hand of the Son of God, the right hand of God. Notice he says the Son of man, everybody knew that that was Jesus's own self designation for who he was. So when he says you'll see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power. You mean you yourself are going to be sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty in heaven dispensing his authority to the rest of the nations? That's the very authority that Jesus is claiming there.
Now he is put to death for claiming that authority because frankly honestly if he was not the Son of God then it was blasphemy because he is claiming to be God Almighty. So frankly is that going off? You might want to take it out Adam if you can, so it doesn't annoy other people. Thank you.
So in short if he is not who he claims to be they were right to put him to death according to the Old Testament law. But the whole deal with Matthew is the resurrection proves that he was who he claimed to be and therefore he has the authority he claims. And so that if the end of the book of Matthew when he says all authority in heaven and on earth is vested in him, we are called to say yes and deed. That's exactly right. And so what you have through the book of Matthew is this escalation of realization as to who this person is. At the beginning people come to worship him wide because he is born a king of the Jews. So there's some inherent authority implicit there. We start to see that working out when he starts teaching with authority. He heals with authority. He forgives sins with authority that's claiming the prerogative of God himself. He dispenses his authority to his disciples. You see the escalation keeps going on? He dispenses his authority to his disciples. And then finally at the end right on the moments before he's going to be put to death he claims to have the verity authority of God himself. And then he's crucified. But then the resurrection proves that all of those claims to authority are in fact the case. And so when at the end instead of saying he's claiming the authority to heal, authority to forgive sins, he says all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. And when we see that, I mean we should be blown over. But I think we are so dull of hearing because we think of him as God incarnate that we don't realize just how amazing a claim that was. And how amazing a truth it is as well. Now we didn't actually even get into the so-called great commission did we? We'll have to leave that for next time because I guarantee that there's stuff going on there especially in the Greek that you guys need to be aware of that you're not because your English translation smoothed over. So we'll talk about that a little bit more later. But this is who our Jesus is. He is worthy of our faith and therefore we have to encounter the degree to which we are doubtful. He is worthy of our worship and he's worthy of all of this because he possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. Let's pray and then we'll move on to our next topic for discussion. Jesus as we look at a passage such as this we have to I think rightly first of all ask your forgiveness. For we recognize that there is a part of us that is indeed doubtful. That there is a part of us that is really does have little faith. That we may believe the right things we may be able to utter the right things and even deliver a good and earnest theology. But in our day to day life there are times when doubt is manifested because we refuse to step out in faith even to the extent that Peter himself refused to look confidently on you and simply walk across that water. And yet Lord we recognize in the midst of this that you do forgive us and we thank you for that. We would desire that our whole lives be an acknowledgement of the authority which you yourself possess. Give us the faith to believe that all authority is indeed vested in you and to worship you in all aspects of our lives using even these next few minutes in this class to that end. Any wonderful name we pray. Last time we were discussing a bit of the history and the backgrounds of early Judaism right in the time of Jesus. We had done a few things. Let me just remind you of some of those. We had talked about the geographic context in which Jewish people in the time of Jesus found themselves. We had noted that it was a very pleasant land in many ways because it had agricultural property especially to the west of the Judean hills and the coastal plain and also down near the Jordan River. That it was therefore not just good agricultural land but also made for significant economic trade because the fertile crescent from Mesopotamia into Egypt went right through Israel. And this explains much of Old Testament history because Israel found itself constantly between the warring nations of Egypt and the various rulers of the Mesopotamian areas in lands. That this was also true even at the time of the New Testament or at least right before it. When Alexander the Great had marched through as the great Hellenistic conqueror and he was brought with him the Hellenism with its language, Greek, with its literary culture, with its culture of plays, with its worship of multiple deities, many of which were added to the kind of recognized deities in the local lands throughout the Mediterranean world. Also with its sense of commerce and the desire to link many territories and trade, that's what Alexander brought with him. But after Alexander you'll recall that he died at a very early age, his 30s, and that he didn't leave a designated heir and in fact his generals both basically broke up the territory and the two territories that we were most concerned about were the Solucid territory and the Ptolemaic territory. The Ptolemaic ruled what? Egypt and the Solucid ruled what? Persia, yes Mesopotamia, Persia, ancient Persia, and that right in between again was Palestine. That up until 198 Palestine was in the control of the Ptolemas but after that it went into Solucid control and the Solucids had a much more aggressive Hellenization process that they wanted to inflict on Palestine, especially when Palestine didn't provide sufficient assistance to Antiochus epiphanies in the midst of his war against the Ptolemas. He insisted on setting up a worship to Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem and for that reason that time and he is known as the Abomination of Desolation, a term which comes up again in a New Testament and a term which came from the Book of Daniel. After Alexander the Great you had the rise of the Romans in the West and as the Romans conquered Carthage and Greece and Macedonia and then ultimately Asia Minor they were heading further and further east until they became a power that the different rulers in Judea eventually had to reckon with. It is notable that when we get to the time of Herod the Great, Herod's power was ultimately established by the Romans. You'll recall that Herod, his only potential claim to Hasmanian throne was that he was married to one of the great-granddaughters of the Hasmanians. So he had no direct lineage himself in fact there were other proper claimants to the throne but because he had Rome on his side he was able to take Judea. By the way he had to divorce his first wife in order to marry the Hasmanian second wife in order to even have that claim to the throne. And of course eventually he divorced her and married three others. So Herod's claim to the throne was extremely tenuous. Also he was Idomian of descent and so at least he was at best a half blood if you would and so he didn't have the right Jewish claim to the throne either. Herod the Great, you'll recall from your reading in FF Bruce is especially known for his building programs. He is known for having built the temple again. Now the temple had been built under the time of Ezra but it was a paltry example of a temple. It didn't look, it was his glory was not the same as the glory of the first temple despite the prophetic promises. And ultimately Herod took upon himself to build this temple into a great and glorious temple. Now this did two things for him. One is it made his Jewish subjects pleased. Actually there's probably three things to do. One is it made it Jewish Shub's ex pleased because here he was building the Great Temple and even the rabbis who really despised Herod even 200 years after Herod right about the glories of that temple and expressed some appreciation to Herod for that even though they had a lot of other reasons to dislike him. The second of the three things that occurred to me as I was talking was it provided for quite an economy in Jerusalem itself. Probably a large part of Jerusalem's economy at the end of the first century BC and well into the first century AD focused entirely on the temple, a majority of their economy did not all of it but a majority of it did. Both in the normal temple worship practices and the need to buy animals and to sell animals which of course Jesus overturned the money changers and all of that and the temple precincts. Also in the funds that came from the temple tax that all good Jewish people were expected to pay to the temple but also in the construction project that Herod engaged. You can think of contemporary events that people love to build buildings around cities and city councils will go after major building projects because they know it will bring a lot of work to the city especially when you recognize that the construction of the temple which ultimately in all of its things it wasn't actually done until just shortly before the temple was destroyed. The bulk of it was done by Jesus' day enough that the temple was very much engaging in temple worship practice etc but it wasn't even completely done until just before it was destroyed. So this project went on for decades which brought a lot of economic needs to Jerusalem. But the third thing that this did for Herod apart from his own Jewish people is it showed how great a Romanized king he was. Step back for a second. The Romans when they overtook territory were often pleased to leave the indigenous leadership intact as long as the indigenous leadership realized that they were under the thumb of the real power the Romans. So if you go to a city such as Corinth I was just talking about Corinth with another class they have a place known as the Julian Basilica where the Roman governor sat and then just shortly around the block if you would just down the Agra from the Julian Basilica was the Boulotarian where the boule or the city council basically met in Corinth. And so there was the indigenous leadership of the city the city council and also do of years and ideals and such were in place in Corinth but the real power was just around the corner in the Julian Basilica name of the Romans. So you left powers intact well in kingdoms such as Judea they left the king intact and made them into a client king. The term client is a technical term meaning that they were indebted to their patron who was the emperor himself. So they were client kings. Now client kings throughout the Roman Empire had two main characteristics that showed off their glory aside from just the opulence of their wealth. They had a palace and they had a temple and the more glorious your palace in your temple were the more glorious you were as a king as seen in the eyes of the rest of your Roman colleagues. So the fascinating thing about this temple is that it worked in two different ways. It worked well with the Jewish people because they saw it as a glorious place for God to be and for him to be worshiped and it worked outside of the Jewish context and a Gentile context because it showed just how wonderful a king Herod was. We can see a multiple of motives there and Herod's building programs didn't were not limited to Judea like a good client king like a good benefactor in the ancient world he gave money to multiple cities to build temples to deities outside of the one God. So he gave money to that he gave money to games which were all held in honor of certain deities etc. So when we look at Herod we can't say oh he was a Jewish king because in the eyes of at least some of the people they would have looked at all of that and they would have said hey he's Idomian so it doesn't have the right lineage. He was never of the Hasmini in line see yes he builds us a temple but look at all the pagan temples he's building elsewhere and so you can imagine some of the concerns about him. So anyway there's some things to say about Herod. Now you will know from your readings that Herod managed to kill off much of his children. He had five wives so he had several children to choose from and he knocked off most basically his oldest children when he went through and ultimately had to at the last minute draw up a will near the time of his death that left his kingdom divided into three different parts. So two of the leaders were good and as I said last time one of the leaders was not worth much and that was the leader unfortunately he put over Judea. And therefore after his death in 4 BC the person that he had declared to be his successor ruled for about 10 years until the Romans just got fed up and said we're going to depose this guy and we're going to put in our own leaders and make it into a Roman province. So that's what happened by AD6. Now let me go back a couple of things. I had a question after class. When was Jesus born then? Odds are that Jesus noticed that Jesus was born Matthew 2 while Herod was still around. 6 BC probably. We tend to think of zero there's actually no year zero but we tend to think of AD meaning and the year of our Lord BC before Christ therefore zero was when Jesus was born. Well probably it was closer to 6 BC and when the Gregorian calendar was established they missed the date and that's probably the case. By the way if Herod's willing to put to death his own children I don't see any problem with him putting to death a few youth in Bethlehem in hopes of quenching any claim to the king of Judea. Judea is a Roman province from AD6 to 41 and there's a number of Roman prefects that come through. The most important of which is Pontius Pilate who was governor of Judea for 10 years 26 to 36, a very long reign long in part because the emperor that he was under Tiberius liked to give long reigns to his governors but also still strikingly a very long reign. Now the stories of Pontius Pilate are recalled in some ways respects in your FF Bruce book and remember that he did a lot of things that really hacked off the Jewish people. I mean he almost had a revolt at two or three times during his reign and among these is that he brought in symbols to Jerusalem probably on two different occasions that would signal to the Jewish people that he was bringing pagan deities into Jerusalem. And this caused huge uproar. There is between Josephus and Filo both of whom are Jewish authors in the first century. There is hardly a kind word to be said about Pilate. Now as a brief aside when we end up talking about the trial of Jesus one of the things that is asserted against the gospels with regard to the trial of Jesus is that Pilate is too rosy a picture the picture pilots too rosy in the gospels because remember Pilate he doesn't really want to put Jesus to death. I mean it's almost like he wants to have mercy on this poor guy and that's not consistent people will say with his Jewish context. Now in point of fact Pilate probably was acting in very strong self-interest there. For one if he was a governor a Roman governor and he put to death somebody who was innocent he could be held in account of that to the people above him and ultimately to impure himself. So there was good reason for him not to want to put to death an innocent person. Secondly if you read the gospels carefully Pilate is afraid basically of a revolt. And remember he's already had a few of these instances and ultimately it is an instance of a revolt-ish kind of thing that happens at the end in A.D. 36 sorry I need to put that thing to sleep. That he loses his position in the Roman Empire and as a governor of Judea. So he probably had a whole mixture of motives going on there that were in some ways conflicting. Doesn't want to put to death an innocent person but he also doesn't want to have a little rebellion on his hands. Now after Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea there were a sequence of other prefects but then eventually we end up with a grip of the first king of Judea. A grip of the first was actually a king and one of the other territories that were initially established when Herod divided his kingdom into three different parts. But a grip of showed himself to be enough of a leader that the Romans eventually gave him his desire to be king over Judea. This would have been very exciting to the Herodian party, to the people who looked back to the grand old days of Herod because there were people who liked and benefited from the reign of Herod the Great. He was a king at least at least it was better than having these Romans directly in charge and he also exhibited a kind of power and undoubtedly there was a wealthy elite that benefited very much from having him in charge. And so there is a group known as the Herodians who were very excited to have another of the Herodian dynasty or lineage on the king but unfortunately a grip of the first died at a very early age in 44. Of these dates, notice that there are four that are emboldened italics and this is true also in your handout. You should know these four dates. 63, Pompey takes Jerusalem, 37 to 4 when Herod the Great ruled Judea, that's BC, AD, 6 to 41 Judea, Roman province and especially 26 to 36 Pontius Piler governor of Judea. I'm going to stop there. I've recalled a lot. I've given you some more material in the Roman period. Do you guys have any questions at this stage? What is the date for Jesus' crucifixion? Well, this is debated in terms of what exact year we're in and it has to do with relationships between Passover and what day that was on and things like that as well as issues of dating as to when the apostolic church arose and things like that and dates there. Our sources don't give us exact dates so we have to acknowledge that. The gospels don't give us an exact date. So probably between 30 and 33 here during the reign of Pontius Pilate so right in the middle of his reign sometime in there. Okay. Dating things in the New Testament is quite tricky. What you usually have to do is rely on some sort of relative chronology. So you know from other sources when Herod the Great ruled Judea. So you figure out from that that when Jesus was alive. You know when some of the other figures in the book of Acts some of the rulers there and in around Judea are in place so you can do some calculations based on that. One of the most significant dates her dating the whole of the New Testament aside from the fall of the temple in 70 but around the time of all of this is that we know the exact year in our system years. But the exact year that Gallio was in charge in Corinth and we know that Paul in the book of Acts went before Gallio in Corinth. And so that provides one of our very few firm dates in the whole of the New Testament because usually we're dealing with you know 10 years when Pontius Pilate was governor so when in that period was Jesus crucified. And anyway some discussion on date there. You know the normal way that you told dates in the ancient world as you said in the 10th year of Tiberius you know or in the 12th year that well let me go back in the second year that Varro was governor of Syria or something like that. Varro was governor of Syria. So that's you would do a relative chronology such as that but even the gospels don't tend to do that for us. So that's where we're at. 6bc, yeah probably 6bc somewhere in that that range. Yes it doesn't add up. You said you've already been told your whole life that Jesus was 33. I've heard that a lot too. Sorry. We don't know the narrative doesn't describe sufficiently what Pontius saw in there to know whether the arc and the covenant and other things were in the Holy Holy. So that he was shocked that he didn't see an idol because that's what you'd have in any temple. You would have the main cult idol in there. I'll show you a picture of a cult idol. I think I have a picture here later. Okay excellent questions. All right continuing through the Roman period. After a grip of the first dies now we have Roman procurators ruling Judea so further Roman leadership ruling all of Judea. And the way that Josephus describes this is is that the sequence of procurators gets worse and worse and worse and worse and so he blames a lot of the Jewish revolt on the poor leadership that was chosen for Judea. He's very careful not to blame it on the emperor himself. In part because you'll remember that Josephus as a writer of Jewish history is actually being funded by two emperors, the Spatian entitus later. But he is careful to also indicate that the Jewish people had some reason even on Roman terms for revolting and so he indicates the series of poor leadership. Now when we get to the revolt against Rome 66 to 73 with the crucial date being the fall of Jerusalem in 70, we have to understand that there had long been resentment against the Romans at that stage. The party known as the zealots which probably was less of a party and more of just kind of a general movement in society was looking to reestablish true Jewish rule in Judea so that the high priest could be autonomous because you'll remember that the vestments of the high priest are actually held for much of this period by the Roman leaders themselves. So when it was time to go into the day of atonement the high priest had to go over knock on the door he probably didn't do it but knock on the door he said excuse me can I have my robes so I can go and do the day of atonement and they'd have to scrounge around the basement pull out the robes dust them off you know this is the kind of thing that they had to go through you can imagine how belittling that was and how dangerous that was from a religious perspective because it meant that the high priest was no longer autonomous in any way. So there was a whole movement a zealot movement to conquer the Romans when we get to 66 I'm going to just shorten the account and basically say that there were some initial kind of engagements with one another and the unfortunate thing frankly is the Jewish people won because that gave them hope that they could actually beat the Roman empire and that was just silly. The Roman Empire was extended over such a long area and involved so many kingdoms that the only way that they could hope to suppress rebellion is as soon as one rebellion came up the danger would be that it would catch like wildfire to other areas they're like well they rebelled in Judea you know let's get some autonomy for ourselves too. So as soon as a rebellion came up they had to absolutely and firmly and categorically squash it and make people pay so dearly that no one would want to do that again and that's what they did here okay. The importance of this rebellion and the way that the Roman sought can hardly be underestimated underestimated. I think on your chart there do I give you a series of Roman emperors there. Do you notice that there's a year of what's known as the year of four emperors with Galba and Otto and such. Do you notice who ends up winning I mean there's a sequence of they just keep turning through emperors because people are being poisoned and all these things are kind of going on and no one can hold on to the imperial mantle. What ultimately has to happen is is that the army as you would expect in kind of any coup but the army comes and marches towards Rome and says this is the person we think should be emperor and eventually the Senate just kind of says okay. That's fine you're the army and they chose a general and the general they chose was the spatio and the spatio was the general who had conducted the Jewish war and when the spatio became emperor and there was still a little bit of mopping up to do including taking Jerusalem. The spatio put in place his son Titus who then becomes emperor after him. That's how important the Jewish revolt was it led to two people becoming emperor. So this was no small matter when they took Jerusalem they besieged it they crucified people outside they held onto it people were dying out of out of lack of nutrition there's an account in Josephus that a woman ate her own child in Jerusalem. They captured Jerusalem then came in the temple itself was fortified it took a while to capture the temple by this point the Jewish revolt is actually revolting against one another they can't get along with one another and so they're fighting themselves in the temple precincts while the the Romans are waiting outside to capture the temple. Josephus records the narrative of the destruction of the temple like this the night ahead of time I told you this before the night ahead of time Titus sits outside Titus sits outside with his main generals and they decide what are they going to do with the temple are we going to burn it are we going to keep it. And there's a whole group of people who say burn it because the core of the revolt of Jewish people seems to be their religion therefore if we break the back of the religion by burning the temple that will be it. But others speak at how glorious the temple is how it's one of the most amazing buildings ever built and they give other apologies for the temple. And according to Josephus Titus decides to let the temple stand of course who sponsored Josephus's writing of the book that recounts all of this Titus. So he's certainly making his sponsor look very good so it's hard to know what the exact truth is there it's possible but we don't know in any case Josephus records that in the process of taking the temple it is accidentally if you would say if you would say set on fire and the whole temple is burned to the ground. And the result is if you've seen pictures of the wailing wall in Jerusalem to this day you know people go up to the wall that is where the temple mount used to be but up on top of the temple mount it was flat. There's actually a mosque up there now but the wailing wall is not the wall of the temple. It's the foundation wall it's if you would it's that it's that the wall that's built so they could put the land on top so they could put the temple on top. In other words there was no temple left it was completely gone and that ended the worship forever in Jerusalem. Masada some of you may have heard of Masada this great desert fortress in the south actually falls sometime in 73 possibly 74 and roughly in that time period is when the revolt really ends because those are the last stalwarts if you would but with the fall of Jerusalem I mean it was over basically. After this you would think that that would be the end of Judaism as you knew it however has Jerusalem in the temple ever fallen before yeah the Babylonian exile right how long did that last roughly 50 years something like that 70 years to the reconstruction of the temple. And so there was precedent for hoping that the temple could be reconstructed right and evidence of the idea that the temple could be reconstructed and that the Jewish people could regain their autonomy much as they did after the Babylonian exile is found in the revolts that followed. One is the revolt under Trajan these is mostly our sources at least indicate that this is mostly outside Judea in the diaspora especially in Egypt but there's a small revolt under Trajan Trajan was the emperor at the time. The one that we're most interested in is the so-called Barkokba revolt under Hadrian the reason is called the Barkokba revolt is there's a there's a man who came up considered himself to be Messianic at least sufficiently to calm self Barkokba you know what Barkokba means son of the star it's a Messianic title. So he took on a Messianic title and claimed that their revolt would do away with the Romans and they could reestablish worship in the temple precincts Hadrian through his generals ultimately put down that revolt in 135 and the result was that the edict went forth from the emperor himself that no Jewish person was to ever step foot in Jerusalem and as soon as the Jewish person was found in Jerusalem they were to be immediately put to death. And that is what really ended the hope of the refounding of the Jerusalem temple because after that Hadrian built a temple to Zeus on the precincts of the former Jerusalem temple. So you should know those dates of those other revolts the one under Trajan and also under Barkokba and then in circa 8200 roughly the Mishna which is the first major written codification of rabbinic law was written. And so you had a transition from the temple worship being the center of Judaism to the synagogue and the rabbis ruling in the synagogues being the main center of Judaism there was overlap between those two but that was evidence of that. Alright now I don't know if you can see very well from where you're sitting but you'll notice here's a map of the Mediterranean, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, Mesopotamian area, Egypt, Syrinica which is modern day we're heading into Libya when we get in this direction. See all the dots up there all of those dots represent centers of Jewish population in the Herodian period. So when you think Jewish you typically think Palestine but you realize you have to realize that in the ancient world the diaspora had moved the Jewish people the diaspora the dispersion that means the dispersion had moved Jewish people throughout the whole Roman world. Which is why if you read through the book of Acts although Paul calls himself the apostle to the Gentiles pretty much every time he stops in a new city where does he go first the synagogue if there's a synagogue to be had. And he talks to the Jewish people into the Gentile proselytes and Godfirs at that place. So that's part of the reality of the nature of Judaism in the ancient world as well. Some key terms these are all listed on your thing but you want to take some notes probably at this stage. In terms of Roman social class today in modern America we tend to think of social class as an economic reality. What class of person are you well it has to do with how big a car you drive and how big a house you have. Whether you live in Trump tower or whether you live in a hobble someplace in the inner city that's the kind of distinctions we make in America. There's probably a lot more complexity to American class structure than that but that's where we typically start. The Roman world was different. There are at least three different kind of identifying marks of class in the Roman world. Three different systems and they overlap and they interplay with one another. And the first was you were either a slave or a freed person or a free or somebody who's free. Now free makes sense. You're not a slave. Slave makes sense. You're a slave. By the way a slave in the ancient world is we typically want to read 19th century American slavery into passages about slavery in the New Testament. And we have to draw some parallels but also some distinctions there. Slavery in the ancient world like in slavery and much of history means that you are possessed by somebody else. So that's a parallel. Slaves in the ancient world could have a very atrocious life where they could have a very good life depending on where and in what capacity they were slave. If you were a slave in the mines it meant you just had a few years to live because if you can imagine the kind of mine accidents that we have nowadays and all of that imagine doing that without contemporary modern technology. So people lasted very few years in the mines and they were often slaves who worked there. If you were slave in the fields in agriculture it was a hard life but not an awful life depending on who you're overseer was and how gently they treated you. Some could treat you very gently. In fact some of the books about slavery in the ancient world encourage gentle treatment of slaves because they become more productive then. It's an economic decision. It's not the best of notice but it's just saying that people could be treated somewhat gently. The best place to work if you were a slave usually was in the house and so you had household slaves. These were considered part of your oikas which is the Greek word for family. Your family consisted of your husband and wife, children, extended family members and your slaves. Your slaves are part of your oikas, part of your house, part of your family. And they could receive a variety of treatment there but especially household slaves could be given very important duties. They might be one of the most educated members of the household and charge perhaps of educating a child or leading them to their education being a so-called pedagogue. Or a slave could be an accountant for your business or a slave could actually run your business for you. So slaves could take on some very high and important responsibilities. There were slaves and Caesar's household that were more wealthy than most of the rich people in all of Rome. Especially when they were ultimately freed. Now the other class in society were freed persons, freed slaves in other words. When you were freed you were given the responsibility, continued responsibilities to your former slave owner but they also had responsibilities to you to see your way through society and to establish you in a viable business and to encourage your way through society. So we'll talk a little bit more about those later. Here's a quote about slaves showing that they can be considered instruments for cultivating the soil alongside oxen and carts. That level of kind of thing. However, no overseer should not be allowed to force obedience with whips rather than words if words can achieve the same result. This is some pictures I showed a class yesterday. This is an Ephesus library that still stands to this day. Library of Kelsus right here. And then this is a very big archway. You can see the people down there as people go into the Agara. And the interesting thing about this archway is that it's dedicated to the to Augustus, the Emperor Augustus, the son of the divine Caesar, son of the divine Julius, who was called High Priest and who also possessed the Tribune Power, etc. And to Olivia Caesar Augustus. And then it's also dedicated to Mark's Agrippa. Now, the interesting thing is the person who dedicated it identified as Missias and the Thritides to the patron. You can see on this picture here, Missias was on the previous picture but here the name of the Thritides is specifically mentioned. These appear because of the nature of their name because they don't have a full identifying name. Usually would say the Thritides son of Lucius or something like that. This just says the Thritides. Probably that means he is a former slave. He was a freed person, dedicating this arch to his former slaveholders who have now freed him or now his patrons. And his patrons, i.e. his former slaveholders were Marcus Agrippa and also the Emperor himself. Now, the kind of money it took to build that arch is phenomenal. And that's the status that a freed person could come to in ancient society. So, slave freed person are free. Another category in ancient Roman thought was, are you a citizen of Rome or not? If you were a citizen of Rome, you had legal privileges and responsibilities that other did not have. So, for instance, if you did a particular heinous crime and you were not a citizen, you would be put to death usually by a very horrible means possibly crucifixion. If you were a citizen, it was very unlikely that you would be put to death. If you were, it was probably by the sword, so a quick beheading very quick, not very painful as opposed to being stuck on a cross for days until you died. Another example of citizenship is the most likely penalty if you were a Roman citizen and you did something really heinous as you would be sent to exile. So, there was this huge disdivirity between those who were citizens and those who were not. Citizenship was increasingly being expanded beyond the mere inhabitants of Rome, to the inhabitants of Italy, and then ultimately to much of the rest of the Roman Empire. And it's in transition in our time period, but there are still people who are citizens such as Paul and people who are not. And the distinction was very important in this period. I'm not as worried about this because this doesn't affect the New Testament as much, but basically these are some of the upper members of society, petitions and the playbians. This had to do with your family lineage in Rome itself. And among the petitions which were the upper classes, there were the senators and equities. And these basically had to do with how much money your family had. And that doesn't affect the New Testament so much. Another whole issue in terms of Roman social class was the relationship between patron and client. A patron was somebody who agreed to oversee the welfare of a group of people who were known as his clients. And this was described as a friendship relationship. This would mean that the patron would give money to the client, that the patron would make sure that they got good deals, that they would help their client get the best spot to open up a shop or something like that. And return the client would honor the patron by giving them inscriptions, as such as we just saw here, by showing up daily on their doorstep and greeting them, and by helping them run for political office, should they ever choose to run for political office. So patron and client relationships. And I have here a quote that talks of these patron and client relationships. And I'll read this quote and it will stop there because we'll be moving on to another topic in our next time. Many of the lower class have only one way of either earning or repaying favors from our class. And that is by working on our political campaigns and following this around. So you see one class is patrons, the other class is clients, and you follow them around and you work on their political campaigns. Political campaigns are very different in the ancient world than we typically conceive of them, at least we like to conceive of them. If I was running for office, I would promise that I would build a building for the city if you elect me. I'll build you guys a new set of stairs to the theater, those musty old stairs, you know how poorly those are constructed. I'll build you new stairs if you elect me to the position of duovere to leadership of the city. And if you agree to that, then I'm obligated to do that, out of my own money, my own pocket. And that's how political office was achieved. Honors accrued with it, you also gained power which could help your own business because you could throw the contract rebuilding the stairs to people who worked for you. That kind of stuff. And so that's why you ran for office. Well the clients would serve in their political campaigns, etc. This constant attendance which we have come to expect from men who are honorable and generous as an appropriate activity for friends, there's our technical word, for friends who are of a lower class that should say and who are not as busy basically. Allow these men who hope to gain everything from us to have something which they can give us in return. As they themselves often say they cannot plead cases for us or pledge securities or invite us to their homes. Well that implies that that's what the patron does for them. You go to court, I'm your patron, I'll plead your case and that therefore you're more likely to succeed. You want to open a business, I'll put down my money, a security that your loan will be paying. You want to show up at somebody's home, I'll invite you to my home, if you'll be my client. That's the kind of thing you want. So that's the nature of patron client relationships. In other words if you wanted to advance your course in society it was best if you came a patron. There are two ways to do that. I could walk up to John, I could say John would you be my patron? They say sure. Or secondly I could say John I want to be your slave. Because after seven years of slavery I become your freed person and you become my patron. So often people sold themselves into slavery as a means of social advancement.