Transcripts for CNN CNN Presents 20131226 00:26:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
believers in jesus also provided answers to the central mystery of life. the questions pagans were asking were, what was going to happen to me when i die? how do i get forgiveness from sin? the christian church said, we can provide you those answers. believe in the resurrected jesus and win eternal life. that was the message that had appealed across the roman empire. a message that first spread throughout the huge jewish community outside israel. over a million jews in egypt and alexandria, jews in damascus, jews in antioch, jews in athens, certainly jews in rome. and for the early christians, these early followers of jesus, some of these jews would have provided missionaries a home, missionaries a base by which they could reach other jews as well as gentiles. the romans had provided roads
understood by the jews, then opposition to this movement is no longer a political thing. it s a very strong religious thing. in fact, it will come to bitterly divide the family and lead to centuries of persecution. but now in the years after the death of jesus, his followers needed to keep his message alive. and they get two messengers, who could not be more different. peter, the simple fisherman from galilee, who was jesus chief apostle. and paul, the sophisticated pharisee. together they will create a religion that would change the world.
it marked the beginning of the public split with judaism. you both claim the same heritage going back to abraham. at some stage, you begin to give yourself a label or perhaps other people begin to give you a label. and labels themselves begin to set up differences. they begin to make you aware of differences. but delivering the jesus message put paul and peter in conflict. paul s open door mission to the pagan gentiles was a huge problem for peter, who thought the resurrection of jesus was for the jews alone. if you wanted to follow jesus, you had to become a jew and obey jewish law. and peter wielded considerable power back in jerusalem, power given to him by jesus. according to the gospel of matthew, jesus says to peter, you are peter, the greek term
it was a huge triumph for the new faith, and especially for paul, whose argument had won the day. the jesus message was for the whole world, and those who believe that message would win eternal life. but the biggest test was yet to come. just how would the jesus message go down in the pagan heart of the roman empire?