Transcripts For WETA Frontline 20091228 : vimarsana.com

frontline is madpossible by contributions tyour pbs station from vwers like you. thank you. with major funng by the john d. and catherine t. marthur foundation. committeto building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. and by the park fodation. committed to raising publi awarens. with additional fundg for this program from e arthur vining dav foundations. ( choir singg ) the angel gabriel was nt om god to a city of galilee named. narrator: every sunday, in every corner of the wod. .the virgin, betrothedo a man whose me. narrator: .ople gather to hear a story. .andhe virgin s name was mary. narrator:or more than 2,000 years, thastory has been told and retold. .and tbear a son. narrator: along the w, each generation has found iits telling its own meaning an interpretation. .yoshall call his name jesus. narrator:hat story, of a man called jesus of nazaretha man who became jes christ, was originallyold by his first followers. .d be called the son of the most hig narrar: and then retold in accountsy later believers in the gospels. the gospel according to . luke. nartor: so began the buildi of a religion. in the firstwo parts, with the help of scholars and htorians, we tried to reconstruct s times, a how, after his death, small jewish sect began to spread the wor night, how that story was told, and hoa faith overcame an empire. ( musiplaying ) narrato jewish resistance was not comptely snuffed out after the sack of jerusam. rebel fighters held out for ur more yrs. the jewish historian josephu who had taken pa in the war, counted the story: there was aortress of very great streth not far from jerulem which had been built bour ancient kings. it is called masa. the rock of masada, one of the most gloous places in all israel, became the majorefuge point for some of e most extremist elements opping me. the zealots, and theirost ardent suppoers, fled right in the middle of the wato masada. ( dramatized ): here had been stored mass of cn amply sufficient to lastor years, an abundance ofine and oil. there was also fou a mass of armsf every description hoarded up by e king and sufficient for 10,000 n. narrator: from the heightof mada, the defenders could see the roman armyurrounding them. the outlines of thr camps and siege works e still visible from the air. if you we a roman soldier approaching masadai think your heart would sink bause you know that you would have to. first, to spend a loof time building a lot of mps, massive ramps, to mo the army up the sidein order to breach the walls. but you would know in th procesthat you were on a suicide mission, becausell the ile, the fortifiers and guardis of masada would have been pelting y with any number of lethal obcts at, no doubt, eat losses to the army. narrator: joseps described the siegand its aftermath: ( dramatiz ): the romans expectedo make an assault upon the fortre, which they did. buthey saw nobody but a terrible solitude onvery side, as well as aerfect silence. the irony, ofourse, is that when the soldiers breachedhe wall, finally, it was nothey who had been subject to the suicide attackit was those who had been guarding masa who had coitted suicide. nrator: according to josephus, the defends had killed themselves ther than submito the romans. but modern archeologistsave found little evidence of mass suicide amg the ruins. wh really haened there remaina mystery. but josephus rsion of t story turned masada into the powerfulymbol of a noble failure. the failure othe first revolt rlly was a traumatic event for everyone living inhe wish homeland, jews and christians alike. as a rest, they had to start rethinng some of their own asmptions. en jerusalem was destroyed, whole new ries of questions had to be asked. what do we doithout the mple? wheres the source of our faith and our authority? what does god wt us to do? this era was ange of denition, not just for christianity, bualso for judaism. it mks the emergence, for the first me, into the light of history of aew group and a w culture, and a new literature and aew way of thinking and wting. narrato without the temple, the priesthood that hapresided over its rituals lt its power. there emerged new leads, the pharisees, rabbis whwould lead the jewish people in aew direion. and the rabbis reprent for us a new age of finition. is the rabbis who now emerg as a new kind of judai, and it is this judaism which will endure frothe second century ofur era down to our own age. ( music playing ) narrator: theailure of the firsrevolt also created a cris for early christians who were still a parof judaism. e kingdom had not come; the messiah had not arrive the followers jesus coped by telling stories out the man they had expected wouldeliver the new kidom on earth. we ha to remember that jesus died around 30. for 40 years there s no itten gospel of his life, unl after threvolt. during that time, we have ry littlen the way of written records within cistianity. our first iter in thnew testamenis paul, and his first letter is dated arou 50 to 52; so still a good 20 yearsfter jesus himsel but it apprs that in between the death jesus and the writing of the first gosl, mark, that they clearlare tellinstories. they re passg on the tradition of what happed to jesus what he stood for and what heid orally, byelling it and retelling it narrar: meeting in each othershomes, early christians told stories of jesu parables anmiracles, and of his suffering and death. these were not historica accountsbut shared memories shed by a common past. legend and myth and hymand prayer are t vehicles in which oral traditis develop. one coul for example, imagine that the oldest way in whi the early christians td about jesus sfering and death was the hymnhat paul quotes philippian2: ( dratized ): and being found in human form, hhumbled himself and became obedient the point of deatheven death on a cross. pauquotes this hymn in the rly 50s of the first centur he qtes this as a hymn that probably was sung in the christian mmunities, ten or 20 years earlier. that is e way in which you first tell thetory, and that you tell the story in the rm a hymn also shows that the telling ofhe story is anchored in the worip life of the community. soere is really the beginning of the oral trition. it seems that, ov time, some of these storiecame to be written down, d. or what came to be thoht of as the gospel, thgood news, the story of jesus. ( dramatized ): the beginng the good news of jesus christ, the son god, as it is written in the proph isaiah. preparthe way of the lord. ke his path straight. narrator: the gospeof mark is the oldest the new testent. it was written sn after the faile of the first revolt for a community that was suggling to roncile its expectations of jesus with the loss the temple. we know a little bit out mark s community from me things in the gospeltself. mark s audiee reads greek and noaramaic. mark always has to expin the aramaic phrases that jus uses. ( dramatized taking her by the hand, he said to her titha cumi, which means, little girl, i y to you, arise. mark is written f a jewish- christian auence living somewhere outside the meland, and th reflecting on the events of the fit revolt, from that vanta point. narrator: mark s auence may have watchedoman soldiers parading throughhe streets, bearg plunder stolen from the temp. they would ctainly have seen, even been forced to use, the coins that depted the terrible defeat. ark is clearly reflecting on thdestruction of the temple as part of his unrstanding of the significance of the lifend death ofesus. narrator: imark s story, jesus predicts thathe temple will be destroyed beuse it has been desecrated. jesus is standi against the temple in mark s gospe and mark wants us to underand that that s siificant to why he musdie and why jerusalem will be destroyed. dramatized ): do you e these great buildings? not one stone wille left here upon anoer. all will be thrown down! the gospeof mark is extraordinary anstrange, the ory, if you read it apart fr the others it a story of this country teacher coming from where, with incdible power descending upon him, aling people, orcising people, speaking !%cising people, speaking things, and startling everyo. ( dramatized ): he said to th, why are you afraid, have you no faith? and they were filled with aw d they said to one another, whos this, then, that the wind and sea obehim? arrator: mark was the first torite the story of the life of jesus. he took disparate elementsf oral tradion and a few early wrten sources and wove them together to crte a new rrative.aq(!rñ w0 mark seemto have a knowledge at least one and maybe two or thr different colltions of miracle stories. e fact that mark takes these earlsources of jesus miracle stors suggests that, in fact, one of the earlit ways of understanding jesus is as a miracle worker. but miracle workers e a dime a dozen in thencient world. we hear abouall sorts of people w can perform miracles, so that doesn t really sm to set him apt. narrator: in mark, what does setesus apart is that he is a peculiar ki of miracle rker. in one case, he s to attempt the miracle twice get it rit, and at another time, he can t perform micles at all. t seems to be one of the pointsf mark s gospel to say, he s not just a mirae worker; he s more. narrator: jesus emerges fro mark s gpel as a strange and somewhat enigmic figure. jesus is mystious. jesus tentionally keeps people from understanding who he rely is at times. ( dramatized ): he said to them, for tho outside, everything comes in parabl in order that they may, indd, look but not percee, and may, inde, listen but not understand. narrator: the jesus in ma s gospel both reals and conceals his truedentity a paradox sclars call the messianic seet. it seems to me that the messianic secret is deed that the true messiahip of jesus cannot be recoized in his miracles, and that the messiic seet of jesus is that he is e son of man who has come to sufferand not the messiah who isoing to do great miracles. and that thawill become clear only at the very end othe storof jesus. the suffering andeath of jesus reveals the secret. narrator: since t destruction of the temple, rk s community has come to s the death of jesus ia new light. mark is chlenging the prewar image of jesus as an apocaptic fire. mk, coming out of the experience of the rst great war th rome, after the destruction of the teme, mark seesesus, like many of the christianshat mark knew all abt in his own community, as god s persecuted one dying, almost feeli abandoned. it s a very unrontic jesus. it a terrifying image, because at s what their experience was. ( dramatized ):hen it was noon, darkness camover the whole land until 3:00 in the afternoon. 3:00, jesus cried out with loud voice, my god, my d, why hast tu forsaken me? martells us that jesus died being mocked and in agony. and think mark is writing for the experience of people in e 70s who are dying le that, d who need the consolation that jesus had died that way before feeling andoned by god. narrator: in ma s original gospel, sus dies and his body is placed in a tomb. when the tomb discovered, jesus is gone. mark ends with an emptyomb and a waiting for the retu of jesu he ends, almost, witan absent jesus, becau that s what his community has exrienced in persecution,n absent jesus. now, nobody after ma is going to accept that. matthew will change it. luke will chge it. johnill change it. the scris will even change the gospel of mark to put othe endings there. mark crees the empty tomb, as far as i c see, as his way of enng the story. and the lt words of the original gospeare, and they were trified. would be very bad news if i weren t that underath this rather darstory is an enormous pe that this very unpromisin story and its terrle, anguished endings, vertheless, not the ending; that there s a mtery in it, a vine mystery of god s revelation that will hapn yet. and i think it s that nse of pe that is deeply appealing. narrator: marbegan the gospel traditi with his dramatic story of thlife and deh of jesus. the lategospel writers would continue the tradition b drawinon the story told by mark. matthew and luke th used mark athe core, sort of the basic ory line that they tell, because mark is comptely incorporated, chapters, into bothatthew and luke. matthew and luke pend on mark, whicis why those three gospels matthew,ark, and luke a called the synoptic gosps, because they can be derstood together. once scholars had decided that mk s gospel was used by matthew and luke, itas possible to compare th and to reize that there was also materi with a common sequence and common content that wasn t in mark. scholars served that there s a part of thsayings in matthew that a exactly identical with saygs in luke. in fact, they re ideical in greek, sings of jesus. w, think: jesus spoke aramai so if you were transting aramaic and if i were translating araic, they d come out different, these translations. so you would oy have entical. you would only ha jesus speaking identicalayings in greek if you had a writn translation greek of his sayings. and scholars suggested that there must he been, besides mark, something se written downhat would have been a list of the sayings of jesus translated into eek. and they callethat quelle, which means source in gean, and they calit, for short, q nobodyver has found this source written. we can reconstruct it beuse we guess that there was suca written source. narrator: q was compose before the war. would have esented jesus an apocalypt figure, the very image of the messiah tt mark lt compelled to change. ( dramized ) there will be weeping and ashing of teeth when y see abraham, isaac, and jacob, and a the prophets in the kingdom ofod, and you yourse thrown out. narrator: but this is also complex jesus who sometimes speaks wor of wisdom. ( dramatized ) coider the lilies and how they grow. they neither toil nor spin, t i tell youven solomon. narrator: q does not te the stories of the lifand death of jes. it ctains only his sayings, so reveals a different way of undetanding jesus. whoever collect the sayings of q wasn t inrested in the deatof jesus, wasn t intested in the resurrection of jus, thought the importance of jesus was what he sai what he preached. now, oer people thought, it s not enough to have t sayings of jes. you have ttell about his. about s death, and his crucifixion, and h resurrection that s the important thing no somebody put that all together, and call it matthew, and we ca it luke. dramatized ) blessed e you or, for yours is the kingdom of g. blessed are yothat hunger now, for you shalbe satisfied. narrar: q was probably composedn the jewish homeland of palestine. scholarso not agree on the location of mark, matthe luke john. they were serated not only by ography, but also by time. writindecades apart, they composed tir gospels for tiny communities thatere developing their own eas about jesus, dependently of each other. dramatized ): blessedre the poor in spirit, for thei is the kingdomf heaven. essed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. narrator: about 15 years after mark, matthew wrote hi gospel for community caught up in the transfoation of judaism after the fallf the temple. matthew gospel is clearly written for a jewish-chrisan audienceiving within the immediate proximity of t homeland itself. matthew s the most jewish of l the gospels. narrator: mthew s community ved in villages in the upper galilee, or lower ria. after e war, many who had been forced out of jerulem moved north and settled inhese villages. w leadership was evolving he with the pharise, the rabbis who gave fresh interpretatioto the ancient jesh traditions. matthew s communy felt threatened by these chges. the followe of jesus were certnly very much on the fringe of the jewish communi. obviously, the earlyreachers had hoped that thewould convert the whole jority of theipeople. but they were bittly disappoied to find that only a very few accepted their ther improbable stories. and they remained very mh on thfringe of the jewish communits. ( dramized ): the gospel of matthew is concern with the position of these early christian chures within israel. d it s very important that jesus, for matthew, is fully man fromsrael. therefore, matthew begs his gospel by takingprobably, all the geneogy of jesus and now traces this back to abraha for matthew, jesus is a soof raham. that is, he is truly a man fm israel. the way matthewhen tells the story jesus draws on a lot of symls from jewish adition. jesugoes up onto a mountain to teach and there lks about the w. looks like moses. ( dramatized ): when jesus saw e crowds, he went up to e mountain and began to spea and taught them, saying, you are the light of e world. jesus delivers fi different sermons of this sort, st like the five books of tora think nothat i have come to abolish theaw and the prophets. i have come not abolish, but to fulfill. in matew, jesus is a proponent of torah piety, st like the pharisees ( dramatized whoever breaks one of thescommandments ll be called least in the ngdom of heaven. for i tell you, unless you righteousnesexceeds that of the scribes anthe pharisees, u will never enter the kingd of heaven. narrator: the jes of mthew singles out the pharisees foa bitter attack. ( dramatized ): woe to you scribes and pharees, hypocrites. for you arlike whitewashed tombs whicon the outside look betiful, but inside, they are full of the bones of the dd and all kinds of filth. now, in jesus own times,he pharisees wen t that prominent a group. y does matthew tell the stor this way, so that group that was less consequtial during jesus own letime now becomes the main oppent? it s precisely because tt s what going on in the life of matthew s counity after the war. the pharisees are becomi their ponents, and we re watching two jewi groups matthew s christiajewish group and the local pharisaic grou in tension over what would be t futu of judaism. narrator: in matthew, w see a debate between twoewish groups. tensions created bthis debate will entually fracture judaism and lead to e split with christianity. most ofhe gospels reflect a period of disaeement, of theogical disagreement. and the w narrative history that evolves in e form of. of t new. new testament tells a story of aroken relationship, and at s part of the d story that evolves between jewsnd christians, because is a story that had ch awful repercussions in later times. nartor: by the time matthew was writing, the trauma of t war was receding. nohis followers and the arisees were competing for t hearts and mds of the jewish villagers er the future direction of judsm. this may be one ofhe reasons matthew s account of the dth of jesus is so diffent from mark s. matthew wasaying to himsf, i have to conclude this gpel. m talking about something th happened, say, in thyear 30, but i have to bring my gpel up to the year . now, what the last climactic statement ofesus? where do i loce it and what doese say, and to whom? matthew is readi mark. there s a massive consensuof schorship on that. he fds that mark ends with the women fling and telling body. is tt the way matthew tells it? no. he has jesus meet the women. annow the women, then, go and tell, because jesus rt of corrects mark s gosp. and the last scene in atthew, of course, ijesus, who meets the disciples on a mountain galilee, where the story ban, athe sermon on the mount, and they re told to out and preach to the world. he gospels are very peculiar types of literatur they re not biographie i mean, there arall sorts of details about sus that they simply a not interested in givi us. they are kind of religious advertisement. what they do is procim their individu author s interpretati of the christian ssage through the device of ing jesus of nazareth as a spokesperson for the evangelist s positio for somebody whthinks that the four gospe are like four tnesses in a court trying to tell exact how the accident happened, as it were, thiss extremely troublin it inot at all troubling to , because they told me, quit honestly, that they were gospels. and a gospel is good news good a news updated interetation, so i did not expect jrnalism. there are several diffent portraits of jesusnshrined in the shape ofhe traditions about him, and that ese seem to gback to very early times. the major issuefor me, is whether the people who td us the stories in the ancientorld tookhem all literally, and now we re so smart thawe know to take them symbolical; or they alintended them symbolically and wee so dumb that we ve been taking them litally. and i really am with the secd tion. i think weave been misinterpreting the stories, because the people who wri th don t seem the least bit worried abt their diversity. we see t problem, and then we want to insist that theye literal. i ink we have misread the scriptures, not th have miswrien them. ( dramatiz ): since many have undertaken to set dowthe events that haveeen fulfilled among us, i, t, decided, after investigating everything carefully, to write anrderly account. narrato luke s gospel takes the separati from judaism one step furth, because luke was almostertainly a gentile, writing for a main gentile audience. and the story he haso tell is how word ojesus reached the rest of thworld. theesus of luke is an enormously powerful figu. i mean, he comesn the scene as a prophet straight o of the hebrewible. i mean, his first appearance in his hetown synagogue, he quotes the pphet isaiah. ( dramated ): the spirit of the lord is upon me. he has sent me to oclaim release to the captives d recovery of sight to the bnd, to let the oppressed go free jesus goes to the synagogue. he takes thecroll of isaiah. he is literate ocourse he can read and he is acholar. he can find his way arnd an unpointed hebrew scrl and find exactly the place heants, and reads and comments on it. jesus is a solar. jesus is rather like luke, actually. narrator: tradition claim at the author of luke was traveling companion ofhe apostle paul, and obably lived in onef the cities where paul founded a ristian community. luke wrote a story about jes, buhe also wrote the book of ts, the story of the growth thearly church and its spread throhout the empire. ( dratized ): it s very important to remember at the spel of luke is only one-hal of a major work. anwe make a mistake by reading the goel of luke just as the story of jesus. what luke wre was a story that began with john the baist and ends witthe arrival of paul in rome. so e author of luke/acts anthat s what we call them now, that s two-volume work is telng us a bigger story, a grandestory. in factit s such a good story that many scholars he mpared it to the novelistic terature of the time, and ha interpreted luke/acts , really, a christian. early- christian romance, wh all the ingredients of romance, wn to shipwrecksnd exotic animals and exotic vegetion, cannibalistic native- all kinds of embelliments that one finds in theomance literature of theime. ( dratized ): we were being pounded the storm so violeny that, on the next day, they began to row the cargo overboard. and on the third d, with their own hands, thethrew the ship s tackle overboard when neither s nor stars peared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope our being ved was at last abandoned. the style of ke s gospel is probably the highest litary quality of anything inhe new testament. so it very different than mark n that score, which has a much cruder quality to t grammar. anyone from the literary culturof the greco-roman world who might have picked upuke s gospel would have felt mh more comforble with it. it s much more likreading a greek novel. narrar: tradition holds that luke was a physicia he clearly possessed aine command of greek. and his composion addresses a dilemmfaced by christian communities across thempire. one of e major concerns that the cposite work of lu/acts addresses is whether christians can be od citizens of the romanmpire. after all, their found was executed as a politica crimal, and some people would have tught of them as incendiariesas revolutionaries. luke, in his portrait, wts to show that jes, himself, taught an ethic thawas entirely compatible with od citizenship of the empire, and that, dpite the fa that paul was himself executed, l of that was a seris mistake and had nothing to do with the political progm. it wn t in any way dangerous. narrato in fact, in luke s version history, the book of acts, paul is trted kindly by his man guards. ( dramatized ):he death of pauls not told. it ends on a tumphant note, in a way, thapaul is speaking, eaching freely the gospel, unhindered. the counterpart to the realization that le is telling the story foa greco-roman audience with a kindf polical agenda is what happens to luke treatment of the jewish tradion. lukes much more antagonistic wards judaism. narrar: when luke describes paul s visito a synagogue, he shows the jews in a hoile light. ( dramatized ): paul and barnabas went to the jewish synagogue, but the uelieving jews stirred up the gentil and poison their minds against the brothers. narrator: le/acts is also thfirst time we see the followers of jesus explitly caed christians. this ethnic self- consciousness th s being reflected byuke/acts is beginning to say that we, th christians, the ones whore telling thistory, are no nger in quite the same way just jews. luke is flecting the development of the chrtian movement more away fm the jewish roots and, in fac developing more ward the roman political and socialrena. as you read the sry in the acts of the apostles, u get the imprsion that everything moves westward from jerulem to rome. that s where the sto ends, when paul gets to rome you uldn t know, for example, reallythat there was an egyptian church. you wodn t know there was a syriac crch. evything would be a roman church and that s t story that luke wants to tell. when the gospel gets to ro, the pital of the empire, that s the end of the sty. ( dramatized ): in the benning was the word, and the word wasith god. and the word w god, and the word became flesh and dwel among us. narrator: the fourth and la gospel now contained in the w testament is t gospel of john, written abou70 years after the deh of jesus. it is the storof a community where the relationship beten christiansnd jews has become more virulent, almost tohe point ofreakdown. ( dramated ): i am the light of the wld. he who folws me will not walk in darknes but will have the ght of life. in the urth gospel, jesus is a very serene figurwho can speak at length about matter divi. a very difrent kind of speech from the speh which we hear in the synoptic gosls, which is uslly much more pithy, much more directe much more witty. in john, it s reflecve and revelato. john s gosp is different from thether three in the new testamt. that fachas been recognized since the early church ielf. already, by the year 200, hn s gosp was called the spiritual gospelprecisely because it to the story of jesus in symbolic ways that differ sharply, atimes, from the other three. let me compare ark with john o explain how two gospels do it diffently. in. we call it the agy in the garden. now, there is nogony in john, and there is no gardenn mark; but we call it the agony inhe garden because we p them together mark tel the story in which sus, the night before he die is prostrate on the ground begging god, if this all uld pass..but i will do what you want, and theisciples all flee. now, that s an awf picture. that makes sense to me becse mark is writing to a psecuted community who knows. who know what is like to die. that s howou die, feeling abandoned god. over to john. jesus isot on the ground in john. the wholcohort of the jerusaleforces come out, 600 oops come out to capture jesus, and they end upith their faces on t ground in john. d jesus says, of course i will do what theather wants. and sus tells them to, let my sciples go. he in command of the whole operation. you have a jesus out of contl, almost, in mark, a jus totally control in john both gospels. neher of them are historical. don t think either of them know exactly what happened. esus dies on a different day in johs gospel than in mthew, mark and luke. inhe three synoptic gospels, sus actually eats a passover me before he dies. john s gospel, he doesn t. the last sper is actually eate before the beginning passover. so here the scene in john s gospel: the day leading up t passover is the day when a the lambare slaughtered, and everyoneoes to the temple to get their lamb for the pasver meal. in jusalem, this would have meant thousands of lambs bng slaughtered all one time. d in john s gospel, that s t day on which jesuss crucified. so that, quite literal, the dramatic sne in john s gospel has jes hanging on the cross while the mbs are being slaughtered for paover. ( dramized ): here is the lamb of god, who tak away the sins of the world. jesus doesn t eat a psover meal; jesus is the passover meal. ( dramatized ): my flh is true food, a my blood is true drink. those wheat my mortal flesh and drink my blood abiden me, d i in them. buthe idea of drinking blood is absolutely horrent to jewish dtary regulations. so the vy language and the symbolism that is rich within john sospel also has a decidedlpolitical tone to it in terms of the olving relationship between jews an christians narrator: thrghout the roman empire, judam itself was evolving. the le of the synagogue was changing from a meeting ple to a place of worship. worshiin the synagogue increasily centered on torah as t word of god. but hn s community saw jesus as the word ofod, and for this conviction they would be ford out the synagogue. ( amatized ): the jews had agreed thaanyone who confessed jesus to be the messiawould be expelled from e synagogue. as i read john i come to two conclusions. one is that this is a jewish group. if you want to call them cistians, they re jewish- christians. they re ongroup within judaism. the second conclusion is tt they a being more and more marginalized. that is, theirppeal to lead all of judaism ibecoming less and less liky. they re becomingmaller and smaller and smalle and they can refer to their other. their fellojews as the jews. they are fling profoundly alienated from tir own judaism. inlain language, they re losing, and that mns the language of inveive gets nastieand nastier. ( dramatized ): the js answered him abraham is our father. jesus sa to them, if god were yourather, you would love me. you are from youfather, the vil. so mark talks about therowd being againsjesus. but by matthew 15 ars later, say, inhe year 85 it s all the people. and by the time u get to ohn, in the 90s, it is the jews who a against jesus. narrator: the conflt between jews and christians at john described ihis story of jesus was stila local exrience. but it soon would swept up in the rising political conflt beeen jews and romans over roman rule in jesalem. the relationship betwee judaism and christianity aft the turnf the second century would beco more and more hostilas time went on, partly because other political forces tt continued to develop. narrator: in the ar 132 of thcommon era, jerusalem bristl with rumors that the emper hadrian planned to rebuild the city a the temple, dedicatingt to jupiter, the patr god of the city of rome. for many jews, ts was an abomination worthy of divine ngeance. the polital expectations of apocalyptic did not simplyie out after the fit revolt. some people, both within christian tradition anwithin jewi tradition, still expected a taclysmic event to bring a new kidom on earth soon. ( dramatized ): behold, the days are coming,nd it will happen when the time of the worlhas ripened and the harvest of the seed the evil ones and t good ones has come. whin 60 years after the first revolt, there uld arise a new rebellion. we tically call this the second jewish revolt agait me, or the bar kokhba revol and it samed after a famous rebel leader who rlly becomes the central figure othis new politil period. s called bar kokhba. bar kokhbwas a pseudo messiah, supportedy large gments of the population. he cimed to be a descendent of king david. he claimed to behe messiah mself, and was supported by none other than one of t major fires of the day, rabbi akiba. so this war was ve different. was a millennial revolt. it was a msianic revolt. anit touched chords that were not touched inhe first revolt. ( dramatized ): the earth habitants and its rulers wil hate one another a provoke one another to war. apparently, hdid take jerusalem for so time. and ins are found now that say, the year one of th redetion of israel. they really think ey have established thnew kingdom. you mig think that there would never benother war like the fit war. but e second war with rome, the bar kokhba war, was probly even worse than e first war. even though jerusalem wa t destroyed, the dastation might have even beenreater. some people in the cond relt tried to press other jews, including chstians, into the relt, saying, come join us to fight against the roms. you believe god isoing to restore the kingm to israel, don t you? joins. but the chstians, by this time, e starting to say, no, hean t be the messiah. we already have on narrator: not long o, in these incessible cliffs only a few miles from t fortress of masada, archeologists hit on scovery that has finally revealed the ultimate fatef bar kokhband his followers. apparently,he rebels that foowed bar kokhba hid in these caveduring the last stages of the war. but we know that theomans knew where they were and sily camped up on top of thhill waiting for th to starve to deator come out and give up. narrator: rubble om the roman lookout posts still there, blocking e only escape route. one of e caves is called the cave of horrs, and it contains over 40 sletons of men, womennd children who preferred to d rather than give in to the roms. another cave is called the ve of letters and in it were found ches of pottery and coins another things of daily life. now, among the letters foundn the ca of letters is at least one from bar kokhba hielf. and it s a very intereing letter because iasks his certain things to e caves. so there expecting to hold out foquite some time. narrato 60 years after masada became a symbolf failed expectations, the ca of horrs now stood for the final failure ofewish resistance to rome. with the dth of bar kokhba, jewi expectations of a coming messiah reced, and christianskíú now loed to the distant future for the returnf their messiah. the kingdom of god was becomg less an apocaltic vision than a spiritual abstraction. he self-consciously apocalyptic and messianic identity of bar kokhbaorces the issue r the christian tradition. and at thapoint, we really see e full-fledged separation of jewish traditi and christian tradition becoming cle. narrator:t is a defining moment in history. the two heirs ofn ancient faith, rabbinijudaism and upstart christiaty, would now follow separate paths. ( crowd channg and cheering in background ) narrator: in the man coliseum, ath became mass entertainment. amphitheaters monstrated the poweof the emperor. convictecriminals were sent here to be devred by wild beasts. in time, tse criminals would include christians. ever since the timof caesar august, all religions were tolerated byome, provided that their worshippers performe their civic duty and sacficed to the cult of the empor. it was ts that eventually brought christians io conflict with roman autrity. but at t end of the first century,hristianity was still the religion of a w. the romaempire was overwhelmingly pagan, d it seemed imposble to imagineój#rr sect could challenge its influence. eligion in the ancient world is very much a part of publi life. ey had no idea of a separati of religion and ste. paganism is theich, native, religious stew of the traditionasociety in the mediterranean. it s a spiritual universe at s thickly populatewith gods and irits. when you lk up into the stars at nightyou see the souls of heroes. narrator: panism was very torant of other religions. the olympian godwere revered, but this did not prevent the detees worshipping other gods. you he low-tech religions like magic. peopleoutinely go to magicians. if you have a sinus inction, if you need sobody to fall in on a horse and you ve lo the past three races, you go to professional. narrar: at the same time, re and more people were seeking sola in more spiritual and personal forms of relion. a fresco in pompeishows worshiers celebrating the solemn res of the ancient dionysian stery cult. and newer cults, oen from foren parts, were taking hold arou the empire. ( dramatized ): greatest of the ds, first of names, thou rulest over thmid-air and the measurable space. thou art the lady ofight and flame. one would have found,n the major cities of th mediterrean basin, a cult of the egyptianods. egyptian cul would have inuded, probably, isis as the asndant deity. isisas perceived by her devoteess being remarkably attentive. isis would respond to you wh you were in trble. she wod answer your prayers. e had that reputation. one of the most imrtant presentations of isis is wha we call the is lactans ; that s isis suckling her offspring at her breast. this is a kind of iconography that apprs to have been rribly determinative in the early iconogphy of mary and jesus. narrator: worshippe of the age-old persian god miras gathered in secret chapels throughout the empire. they would e sacred meals togeth and celebrate their god s birthday odecember 25. the egyian cult and mithraism werewo of the great religioumovements of the time and ceainly woulhave posed some othe most difficult competition for chriianity. most people whotudy the origins of christianity e rious about how this unlikel moment would have succeeded in such a powerful d dramatic way. and s not an easy question to answerwhy this movement sueeded when others did not. if you thinkbout the gods of the ancient world and u think about at they looked like, they looked li the emperor and his urt. but is religion is saying that evy person man, woman, ild, slave, barbarian, no matter who is maden the image god, and is therefore of enormouvalue in the eyes of god. now, in a ciety that s three- quters slave, that s an extrrdinary message. narrator: b the message of christianity was by means uniform. in egy, an astonishing discovery made in 1945 sd light the enormous diversity of early christian thoht. other than thdiscovery of the dead sea scrolls, e most portant archeological find f much of the early chriian period ithe manuscript discovery atag hammadi on the nile river in egyp there, in 19, was discovered a cache of muscripts in clay jars buried in the hillse side the river. the discory at nag hammadi began with an arab villager, whose name was mohmed ali, going wi his brothers on an ordinary errand. they took their camelsnd rode up to a clifwhich is honeycombed with thousands o caves. they were digging under th cliffs for ferlizer, that is r bird droppings, which fertilized the crops. and mohammed ali said his. he struck something when was digging undergund. and curis, he kept digging, and he was startled toind a six-foot jar, sealed, and xt to it was buried aorpse. mohammedli said he hesitated to break the jar becausee ought there might be a jinn it. but hope overcame ar. he said picked up his mattock and smasd the jar and saw particles of gold fly out it, much to his delight. but a moment lat, he realized it was oy pieces of. fragments of papyr. inside the jar were 13 volum bound in toolegazelle leather. nartor: what mohammed ali had discovered we books written in the ancient egyian language known as coptic able to read them, ali took them home. later, himother said that she took some them and threw them intthe fire for kindling when she was bakinbread. what hdidn t know until. what we didn t knountil much lar is that these contained some of the most precious tes of the 2h century, that they havencovered for us a whole new way of seeing the rly ristian world. nartor: what the books showed was that early chriianity was even more diversthan scholars had suspected,ith many different ways of interpreng jesus. thereere 52 texts altogether, appantly; unless some of th were burned that we don t know about. and theyontain secret gospels such as thgospel of thomas, the gospel of philip. they also contain convsations betwn jesus and his disciples that cim to go back to jesus and his diiples all kinds of literature from thearly christian er a whole discovery of text rather le the new testament, but alsvery different. christianity,r one would rather say christianies, of the cond and third centuries were, agai a highly variegated phenomen. we really can imagine christnity as a unified, coherent, religious movent. wprobably ought to think of it as a kind of reonal diversity. that is, the christiity of ro was different than christianity in north rica in certain ways, and that was different from what we find egypt, and that different om what wfind in syria or back in palestine. narrator: some of the oldes christian communities were i western turkey, where paulnd his foowers had established many of the rliest congregations. at the end of thfirst century, christians here found themsees in a confrontion with roman power and authorit about the yea112, an important event kes place that brings uon the stage in a new way in the hisry of earliest chriianity. the scenis in the roman province obithynia, in modern- day turkey. athat time, there is a relative new governor sent to take over. his na is pliny the younger. pliny w a friend of the emror trajan, and was an extremely respected roman official narrator: one opliny s duties was to maintain order in this capaty, he was presented with a lal and ethical problem which descbed in a letter to the emperor ajan. ( dramatized ): having never beenresent at any trials of e christians, i am unacquainted with the methodor limits tbe observed either in examininor punishing them. so we have to imagine pliny seed in the form of a roman administtor, a roman magistrate, all cked out in his finery, enthroned inhe tribunal with his guardsnd his bailfs and his courtiers around him. and fore him stand these christns, and pliny can t figure out who they are or w they re there. apparently, they vdone something that get their neighbors mad at the the neighborhave complained that the temples are ety, and no one is bung certain things for the gods, and they r chstians. and , somehow or another, iny is forced to deal with this as a crimal matter. liny genuinely was perplexed because he sees what appr to beood, law-abiding citizens being hauledp on trumped-up charges of bng a christian, and simply on that basis, convention, being subject capitapunishment. i think pliny allows us a rare glimpse into the ral and legal conundrum th christianity posedor scrupulous, molly scrupulous roman officis. ( dramatized ): the method have observed ishis: i interroged whether they were christians. if they coessed it, i repeated the queson twice again, adding the threat of pital punishment. they still persevered, i ordered them to be ecuted. pliny allows, in his corresponden, how this really is one of the most stuorn grou of people he s ever encountered. and th in itself seems to warrana rather. a rather strident attack on the christia. ( dramatiz ): i judged it so much the moreecessary to extract e real truth, with the assistance of torture, fm two female slaves who weretyled deaconesses. but i uld discover nothing mo than depraved and excessive superstition. he says, ty don t really do allhat much. they meet beforeaybreak. they sg hymns antiphonally. and they worship chrisas if he were a god. and then he says, ty take an oa, but not an oath to do ything bad, rather an oath only to be good not defraud people, not to danything evil and so on. ( dramatized ): those who denied thewere or had ever been chrisans, who repeated afteme an invocation to the gods and offered adorati to your image, ese i thought it proper to discrge. and he says to the peror, do you think i ndled it correctly? the emper then writes back and says, ounds okay to me. but don t go out looking for these christians. and if you get some anonymou chargeagainst people, don t ke that too seriously. we d t want to set any bad preceden here. narrator: befe pliny, legal precedent still held that chstians were a sect of judaism. because it waconsidered a part of judaism, christiity was consided to be protected by the leg status of jewish trition within the roman empire. so, when we see pliny taking no of christians as a separate group, it really marks a departure, a change in the status of christianityboth in its relationshipo judaism and in its relationship tohe roman empire. christians are warred upon by the js and are persecuted by the greeks, a those that ha them cannot state the cause of tir enmity. pliny s program evolved int a very explicipolicy of execution that probablwas the model throughout aood deal of asia minor hat s now modern turkey. and that policy was to a the question; if the answer no, fine, gsacrifice. if they couldn t sacrifice, en that was pro that they were christian, and they coulbe executed. soliny thought, ultimately, thatnce the matter was settled, that he was doi the ght thing, that he was savin e empire from the spread of dangerous and seditious moment. narrator: it s precisely their unwillingness make publicacrifice to the emperor and the gods that made christians seem antisoal and seditious. religion was one of the mt importanfeatures of the maintenance ofhe state. onoffered sacrifices on certaidays as a part of the celebration of the. the founding of the state. one offed sacrifices on the birthday of the emperor. cities very ten mounted these enorus celebrations to lebrate the emperors, and al the populace would have en expected to me and join in. narrator: at the great public ceronials, christians were becoming altoo often conspicuous by their absence when the christians really become much more prominent i the social arena of greek an roman cities, the paga start to take no of their absence from important festivadays and their unwilliness to participate in certain aspts of social li. judaism had long ago co to a legal agreemenwith the emper that they would. jews would t be forced to particate in pagan rituals. and pagan tuals are part of the normal fabric of lifin a roman city. jews were empted from this beuse romans knew the jews were odd about this kind of thing. now, along come thinew group, the chrtians, and they re having the same way, t they obviously aren t cient. they start under pontius pilate; they say so thselves. so it s novel. but if it s novel, from th roman point of view,t cannot be a religion. religion is, by defition, ancient, from roman rspective. so, if it s w and novel, it s..it s a superstition, it s not a relion; and surstition is, by definition, not a good thing. we have a good example the pagan perspective onhristians om a little graffiti found i rome from the palatine hill. annscription scratched very crudely into the walsays, alexamenos worships his g. in theicture, we see alexamen bowing down before e man on the cross, but the n on the cross has the head a donkey. christians have made themselves outlaers in their own town. and, trefore, they are used as an explanatory devicwhenever ere are the usual natural insults human existence ague, earthquake, flood. it secause christians, as gentiles whore not doing their duty to heaven, are. why should the gods donything for the city then? arrator: though persecution was still mainly lal and spadic, it was becoming a crime to be a christian. christiansho were charged faced a terrible choic to recantnd make a sacrifice to the peror, or crifice their own lives for the fait ( crowd cheering in baground ) in the bod of the martyrs lithe seeds of the church. ne of the most amazing documents histians of early chriianity are privileged to have is the prison dry of a younwoman who was martyred, i think, in the ar 202 or 203, in carthage, as partf a. a civic celebration. her name is perpua, and she insisted on beinkilled. ( dramatized we were lodged in the prisonnd i was terrifd, as i had never been in suca dark hole. perpetua has ought herself to thettention of the govern, and she is really insisting on bng put into the arena. there s an incredibly werful trial scene where perpua s father is. is plding with r and finally, actually, trying to beat her and e governor has him subdued by his soldis. and the governor says,please, wot you cooperate? and perpua says, no, i m. i m a christian. now, tre s no dragnet out for christians. peetua is visited by other chriians in prison. if theovernor were trying to get all the christians in carthagehe just could have arrested whoever is going to visit peetua, but he doesn t. she s pregnanduring part of this story andnly gives birth just before shherself goes to r death. she s to give her own child away at the ment that she is about to give helife away. ( dramated ): in my dream, i saa ladder of tremendous height, made of bronze, rehing all the y to the heavens. at the fooof the ladder lay a drag of enormous size, and it woulattack those who would try to climb up. he will not harm me i said, n the name of jesus christ. the autntic diary ends before perpetuis led into the arena. what we have concling the diary is a descrtion done by somebody whos presenting a hero tale. ( dramatized the day of their victory dawned, d they marched from t prison to the amphitheater joyfully, aif they were going to hven. she s led out into th amphitheater before the crow d about to be set upon by beasts. she really goes with a great deal of.f authority, and stature,nd serenity. ( crowd cheeri in background ) ( lions grling in background ) she faces down the imals. and finally, after being tormenteby several animals, a young gladiator is seninto the arena toispatch her. and his. it s justn incredibly moving scen hi.. hand is trembling so much he can t. he can cut her, and she grabs his nd and guides his sword to her ow throat. crowd cheering in backgrnd ) the sries of the martyrs that have come down us are all ro stories, and they re all intended, obvisly, as ways of strengthening the faith o those o remain. if we read only those mart ories, we would suppose that all christians were roes, and that the church flrishes because of thaheroism. obvisly, this is an ideazation. if we actuly tote up the number of martyrs that we n idenfy, it s a really quite all number over the three centuries during whi christnity was in the position of being theutsiders. we don t have tenof thousands people being martyred. what we do havis tens of thousands people admiring the few who are martyred. ( crowd cheering in ckground ) the story of the mayrdom of perpetua is very important milestone in t development of early christianity bause of at the story tells us about the perceptionf christians at that tim can see the contrast rather sharply. at the time ofliny, at the beginning of t second ceury, chriians are an unknown commodity. and so even whene executes themhe really doesn t know quite what to make of th. thin 100 years, by the year 203, when rpetua meets her death a martyr, christianity has become recognizable commodit ( crowd cheering in backgrou ) the ath of perpetua is a story of a very significant chge in the status of christnity. it had begun to be a part ofhe roman world. now that christianity has emerged as a gup, as a church, as sometng not judaism, the question that christns now confronteds what is christianity? the secondentury is an age of chriian self-definition in whicthe christian church itself was trying figure out exactly what is e new message. what exactly is the new chch? certain, there were some religis organizations, such as the ecclesiae, the urch, the leadership, the shop, the deacons, the psbyters. there were institutions developing in some christian churches, t only in some, and this wasot universal, byny means. we have, in effec different brands of christnity living, often, side by side, evein the same city. atne point, in rome, justin martyr has his christi school one part of the city, and t gnostic teacher valentus in another school irome, and another so-called heretic byhe name of marcion is ao in rome just down the reet somewhere all of the alongside of the offial papal tradition that developeas part of st. peter s see in rome. narrator: the were still debates about w christians shld relate to judaism. one group followinthe jewish calend felt that easter should fall on the same days paover. others tught they should follow the rom calendar and celebrate during t solar festivalf the spring equinox, on a sunday. and marcion nted to strip away everything thasmacked of jewish traditions. marcion was a weahy ship owner. he came to rome, and hgave the man church a lot of money, a they welcomed him wi open arms. but he felt that the orinal christian spel was no longer preserved, and hthought that only the apost paul had the true gospel. and he set out to find this ue gospel, and he tk the gospel of luke and purifiedt from whatever he thght was jewish and said, this shld be the scripture for the chch, and this should be the only scripture for the church. and the roman church becamvery suspicious of his manipulaons with the gospel ofuke. its reported that they gave the money ba to him and said, thank you very much, buwe don want you and your gospel. this is whe we start to see a kind of proliferation of gospels tradion all over the empire. and by the third and ear four century, there are more gospels an you can actually coun and certainly more than you can sily read within a bibl the gospel of mary gdalene, for example, shows us christiacommunity in which mary magdalenes regarded as a disciple, as a leader, as e of the major teacrs in the group, and one who clai that women should be able to teac another tt called the gospel of truthis not a narrative of the dth and rerrection of jesus at all. it s a symlic reflection on certain themes that me from scripture and arassociated with the lifand teachings of sus. we also hear other kinds of gospels tt develop, stories of the bir that tell you th.. in lurid detail, really, how true it really was or ho marvelouand miraculous it was; stories of traveng apostles to all kinds of strange lds thomas, who goes to india, andrew, who goes o to some strange world, and so on. these kinds of stories priferate through the second and third ntury. narrator:ne of the portant discoveries at nag hammadi was a completeopy of the gospel of thomas. written in syria in the seco ntury, this collection of sayingproved very influential. and startng. the gpel of thomas is thing but sayings of jesus. it simply es along and says, jesus said this, jesusaid at. well, some of ese things that sus said, according to the gospel of thomas, are quit familiar. ey re very similar to things in the canonic gospels, but not identil. give to caesar what longs toaesar; give to god what belongs to god; angive to me wh is mine. narrator:hese sayings of jesuare filled with familiar, rust images, like the parable of the mustard seed. but others are stran and unttling. look to the ling one as lo as you live, for you might die. anthen try to see the living one and you will be unab to see. my favorite of these is saying number 70which says, if yobring forth what is within you, what you bringorth will save you. if you do t bring forth what isithin you, what you do not bring fortwill destroy you. now, what is typical abt the sayings is that, in each instance, the sayings want to say that, if you wt to understand what jesus said, u have to cognize yourself, you haveo know yourself. narrar: with its emphasis on self-knowledge anjesus as the reveal of secret wisdom, some solars think that the gospel of thomas bece a source for a competing stream of christian tradition known as gnosticism. paul and pauliachristianity would havelaced all of the emphasis on jesus eath and surrection and the saving poweof that death and resurrection ostic christianity, on the otr hand, would have placed its principle emphasis, in ft, its prime emphasis, on the message, theisdom, the knowdge that jesus transmits. narrator: most ostics believ that jesus was so divine that head never entered into human form and, so, cld not have been crucified. this bught gnostics into colict with other christians. it was very importanto insist on jesus as rlly suffering and dyg on the cross, because christis were being caed upon at that time to sfer and die as witnesses, as martyrs to their ith. and if, with some gnostics, u could denigrate the physical suffering of jesus, you migh ll into question that oblition to stand and to br witness for e faith. bisp irenaeus, who wrote in the second ctury in what is now france, was out 18 to 20 years old when his ltle community was absolute decimated by a devastating persecutn. theyay that 50 to 70 people in two small towns re tortured and ecuted. 50 to 70 people execed in public is a devastating destructn of that beleaguered communy. and iraeus was trying to unify those who wereeft. what frustrated m is that they didn t all believe the sam ing. they didn t algather under one kind of leadership. anhe, like others, was deeply awe of the dangers of fragmentation. narrator:renaeus thundered against ose he saw as hereti, including the so- called gnostics. ( dramized ): let those personwho blaspheme the creator, as do all the fsely so-called ostics, be recognizeds agents of satan by all who worship god. bishoirenaeus coined the term we call orthox. now, literally in gree orthodox eans straight thinking. it like orthodontia means straight teeth. i me, orthodox means strght ideas. and those who didn t agreeith his ideas, he called hetodox that means simply thinking othwise or heretics,which means people o make choices about what to thk. irenaeus didn t want peoe making choices, he wanted th thinking what thbishop told them to think. narrar: irenaeus had to contend, notnly with those who beeved in vastly different gospels, b also with the followers marcion, who believed that jes should be represented by just one gosp. he looked for a compromi. irenaeus sa that the number the gospels is properly fou these are the earliest, ese are the best, bufour is the right number. after all, there four corners to the world; thers four wis; there are four areas of heaven; d there are four beasts who revl god s will in the apocalypse four is the right numb; these are the four. the story implied is th there is some smoke-fill room somewhere in the sond century, and bunch of these cigar- smokg christian big shots got together and they decided who was going in and w was going out. it was a wra they clod up, and then everything else s on the cutting roomloor, and the janitors took awayhat didn t get in the canon. i think precisely the contra closer to a more responsibl histical reconstruction, and that is that theres some kind of consensus among peoplin the jesus movement as to wha constitutes reliable tration, reliable literate literature that they nt to read, that they want to hear overnd over again, andther kinds of literature that they don tant to hear. narrator: one criteon for clusion was whether the gosp told the story of the suering andeath of jesus. this was cruci to the emerging nse of orthodoxy because the centerpiece of christianitual, thcelebration of the eucharist, cannot live whout thattory. and it is out othat movement that the ur-gospel canoarises. and it comes, interestgly enough, as a canon that preserves diversity-within mits, but it preserves diversity. there is no claim th this canon represents four spels that are all sing the same thing. it is, rathe an attempt to bring togeth as many christian communitieinto one major church narrator: by the middlef the third century, christian re buried alongside jews and pagans in catacombs, uerground tombs beneath e outskirts of rome. there is evidence here of e growing homogenizaon of the christian story. thartwork on the tombs shows little sigof gnostic imagery. they are largely sces from the canonical gosps which are now merging to one single story. what s interestinis what they choose, becau what they choose of jesus is especiay thhealer. he appears beardless, so hs a young. he a new, young god, as iwere. he sot an old fuddy-duddy like asclepius, the god ohealing. and what s extraordina is he would eith have his hand or even a wand onhe person he s healing. now, nothinghat i know of in the entire gre-roman world ever shows asclepius withis hand on somebody he s heing. jesus is an asclepius who mas house call i thinthis is one of the great things thahelps this spread. jesus is not shown as a transcendental being, he sown there in the mud of human story with his hand on people s heads. narrator: the art othe catacombs also illustrates t chstians attempts to integrate into gre-roman society. s christianity moved out of the jewish sphere to the more pagan here, then all sorts of pagan eas and all sorts of pagan thes and images and pictures start pouring io christianity. we have this figure of e shepherd with the sheep drap over his shoulders wenow, may tend to think of that as reflting the gospel stories of jesus of the lo sheep or jesus as the go shepherd from the gospelf john. inoint of fact, from roman perspective, this ishe virtue of philanthropy, of love o humaty, and it s one of the most imptant virtues of roman civiand public life. narrator: allround the diterranean world, the ancie pan gods lingered in their age-old temples and memorial shris. but theipower was under threat. roman society, roman law,re both highly tolerantf religious diversit as long as you the things which every roman is expecd to do sort of those religio acts which e your civic duty. nobody cares what u believe in ur heart of hearts. th appears christianity, which is excluve, which is intolerant, which ll not allow you to do atever everybody else does. anit s a profound shock to those who get to kw it well. it appears aa dangerous rival to the present siety as it begins to grow strong. hristian writers throughout e middle and later secd century veloped the techniques of trying torgue that ristianity was really a superior religion, because i was monotheisticover against polytheistic, anit. christians exemplied higher virtue in their ves than did pagans. they pointedo examples of christians living chastity, great virtue, selfacrifice and so o throughout their lives. these chriian apologists also madeun of pagan religion in a way that might n have been too prudt. they laughed at the various eek myths that formed the basis for so of greco-roman relion. they laughed at thstories of the gods their adulteries, their jealousies, theigoings- on wh each other, et cetera and could real make mincemeat ouof these traditions. narrator: thedeas that had startewith the carpenter s son were beingeinterpreted. the uncompromising language of apocalye, jesus had preachedhe message of the coming kinom of god. now, jesus himse became the message. and the sourcof eternal life. the message that was preaed he promised spiritual gifts to peop that went beyond the everyday life experience and promised also immortalit promised future life which wod be liberation from sickness a from disease, and from poverty, and dividual isolion, and whatever. there is a future for the individual, but one should n e the success of christianit simp on the level of a great religious messag narrar: to the subjects of the romaempire, christianity offerethe individual dignity in thilife and hope in the afterlife. t it was also winning conver by offering a helping hand t the needy. ú,m÷ó[i elements of the wish community, the flowers of jesus tended to fe the]úáé destitute, take care of pele who were widow so that they wodn t become prostitutes, and orphan and so forth. at was a primary obligation jewish piety, and jesus foowers certainly understood th. of course, there was no welfare system, so tspeak, in the ancient worlk wealthy romans hadiven money for prrams such as the feeding children, d so on. bueven such programs that we know of didn t compare in ze and ope to what the churches were dng. so christianity reay established realm of mutual social support for the memrs that joined the chur. and i think that this s. was probably, inhe long run, an enormouslymportant factor for the suess of the christian mission. arrator: by the year 250, christianity h grown so much that a stronr church organizationas needed to minister the welfare system. it was becoming a statwithin a state. meanwhile, rome rulers felt their control of t empire slipping ay, and christian undermining ofraditional belief was no longer to tolerated. the middle of theúv. century is oen identified as a4 crisis in the roman empire this is a ti when the emperor is feeling under gat pressure. there is a sense that we are being besieged on the border + cong in at any moment the persiansre dangerous, the geans are dangerous, and so on. and there s a great sense that anything at upsets this ancit contract between thebk romans and t gods has got to,ç be dangerous to us. after a long period which the peecutions of christianity we really spasmodic, local, involved very few ople, suddenly, in t middle of the third century, the year 250,he emperodecius decides that christians are a real enemof the roman order, that theyust be dealtith. they must be dealt wh empire- wide, with all the policpower that the emper can bring to bear upon them. hristians could be arrested simply because they re the name christianu christian. that was enough, und roman convention, toonvict one of a capital crime, and t crime was being a christian. so put yoursf in the. in the position of societif. you know, if you were.ay, a mehant and wanted to limit your competition, all yohad to do was point finrs at your competitors and y, well, you knowi think they re chriians. well, by roman conventio those people thecould be hauled down on capital charges. what you have to do is get ticket. a bellus. it s a chit sang that you have sacrificed for the welbeing of e empire. and yogo and you do your sacrice, and there s a whole various response othe part of different christian communies. you can have yr servant go and do it for you. he might also be a chrtian, but, y know, that s his problem. pahim, he ll get two chits, and then you re cored for purposes. or you can pay for theicket bunot actually do the sacrife if you can bribe a friend of yours whis a magistrate. or youan just go ahead and get. you know, sacrice, knowing that theseods are nothing. after all, that s right paul s letters, thathese gods are nothing. ( dramatiz ): as to the eating of food offeredo idols, we kw that no idol in the world rely exists and that there iso god but one. narrator: decs was determined to completely ruthless in persecing those who refuseto make public sacrifice. for the first time, ordiry christians were thodically unded up. and the odd thing is fails. the net efct of this is that a new cult of the martyrs appes in chrisanity which strengthens e church. ( crowd chring in background ) narrator: b ironically, very few cistians were willing to be marted. many christians were t made of the kind of moral fer of the people who went to their deathss martyrs that they had been willing to recanthe faith, to offer a pih of cense to the emperor. christians were sort of taking tthe hills. we know this from the soalled psus controversy. what do you do witthose christians whoook to the hills and saved their souls aspposed to standing their ound and dying as martyrs? a this made a grave problem for the chur when the persecutions were over, beuse many of the people then wanted to come back into the chur. there were many controveies out this. narrator: 50 years late the emperor ocletian made one last attempt to wipe outhe christians. he tarted those who held publicffice, but the persecution failed pary because christian institions were now so entrched in roman society. chrtians wanted to have their membs knowledgeable and capablof reading the bible. , we find that a large numbe of people inmperial admistration are christians, because they could read an write, which constituted aig oblem with the persecution o the christians bause they were thrown out of their office fst when the persecution beg, and suddenly, the. the government didn t wk anymore. y that time, the christians e so numerous that they can possibly be ericated; they ve already grown that much. so, in a sense, the peecution really doesn t catchp until it s already too late. narrator: bnow, the jesus vement had spread its messag to every corner ofhe roman empire. theast decades of the third century, you get a great insge ofeople into christianity. there are some schols who think that, in egypt, for ample, by the 320 s, there would actually be majority of christians maybe a rher slht majority, but nonetheless a sizable number of chstians. narrator: the turning poi in theistory of the christian movement occurrein the first decades of the fourth centy. it was a transformatn filled with inies. it w brought about by a roman general who worshied, not jesus, but allo, the god of the sun. one othe most surprising christiaheroes in the entire tradition, i thinkis constante. he is,irst of all, a successful general. he is,lso, the son of a successful general and at th ad of the army of the west, and he fighting another successful gener, struggling for who is going to bet the top of the heap this. the veryigher echelons of roman vernment. what happens is at constantine has a vision. in e dream, a cross appears on the sun. the n was very important to constaine, anyway. he h a thing about helios and very often rresented himself with the sun god t the intrusion of the cross was.as something new, and below this vision was an. was an inscripon, were the words by this, conquer, en touto ni. d he interpreted this dream mean tt, by this symbol of the cross,e could defeat his. his archemy at the battle of thmilvian bridge and become sole emperor. d so he had his so the sto goes he had his soldrs paint the cross on tir shields. constantine won e battle of the milvn bridge, became the sole emperor othe roman empire, d then, in a dramatic shift of geopolics, relocates the center of roman rulerom the eternal city, rometo a new city, constantople. narrator: to reunita divided pire, constantine moved the capital fromome to a more strateg location, the ancient city of byntium, and named it constantinople. an important part of whatas going on here was jockeying the imperial administratio clearly, by the enof the third century, christianity was major forcto be reckoned with throughout the empir and something th had to either be suppressed or had to b integrated. galerius, consntine s rival, who was one of the major instigators ofhe persecution, favorethe option of suppression. constantine d his associates favored the option of integration. cstantine was a consummate pragmatist a a consummate politician and i think he gauged well t upsurge interest and support christianity w. was receiving, ando played up to that very nicely and exploit it in his own rule when constantine came int power anstarted to favor christianity, he did do ny things that plaiy showed a support r christianity. heave money for the building ofhurches, money for the copying of scriptures, he exemptedlergy members from having to perform vic duties town councils, that kind of thing. theishops are able to take advantage of consttine s mood and his curious inteectual interest in thin like christology and the inity and churchrganization. they rable to have bibles copied at publicxpense. they re filly able to have public christian arctecture and big basilicas. so there s a comfortab symbiotic relatiship between the empire and t church. all that certainly stands i favoof his true christian commitment on the other hand, he diretain the coinage with the s god on it. heid say the day of the sun would be mada day of rest, but it s verunclear whether the daof the sun meant the day dedicated to the sun god or e day dedicad to jesus and his resurrection. whateveone finally decides abouthe nature of his nversion whether it s a real, sincere nversion or not it has profound imct upon the futurof christianity, upon the future of wtern civilization. constantine s patronage esn t just mean that lot of new chches get built, though it means that. it doesn t just mean that e saries of bishops go up astronomically, thgh it means that. it doesn just mean that christians havfreedom, now, to worship as they choose. it means tt it has become part of t imperial establishment, and obviously,hat is going to an profound chans for the society anfor christianity. narrator: conantine showed his support by massive buiing programs, especily in jerusalem. onically, the city that was destroyed byne roman emperor s being rebuilt by another. but the new holylaces in this traditional centerf judaism were now all cistian. to strengthen his new chch, constantine call for more unity in organizatn and teaching. but such uty came at a cost. one of the first things nstantine does as emperor is starpersecuting other chstians. e gnostic christians are targeted, marcionite chrisans and other duelt christians christns who don t have the old testent as part of their cano- are targeted. the list of emies goes on and on. there s a kind o in a sense, internal purge of e church as one emperor ruling one empir trs to have this single church to preciate the remarkable, dramatic evolution that had occued in so short a period, one might counterpose the age of pliny in his courtroom der the peror trajan, sending christians o to their execution simply for being called christians, to the majesty of consttine presiding over thereat gathering of bishops that he d called to relve particular questions. the perium, on the one hand, beg used clearly to extinguish a religious movent; the imperiumon the other hand, being used clearly to dergird and support a relious movement, the me religious movent, in so short a period ofime. narrar: the cross, the hated symbol of death and defeat, now erged as the symbol of triuh. and in the eyes of som the apocaltic prophecy of revelation hadt last been fulfilled. ( dramatized ): the kingdom of the world has become the kingdoof our lord and of his christ. narrator: the kinom of god and the ron empire had now become one and the sam jesus of nazareth had beme jesus rist, and his church had beco a power on earth. a new chapter in histo was out to begin. there s much more to expre at oureb site. watch the progm again on line, and explore the arche of material offering portrait of jesus rld. y peel back layer after layer after layeof interpretation. .detls on the first christians. we can ll the story by looking the way they kept his memory alive. .why cistianity succeeded. originally, they were attracted to the cims of salvatn, regeneration, eternal life. .and the origi of the gospels and their differen tellings of jesus life an meage. the wordshat were put in jesus mth in mark, why have you forsaken me? plus, explore ps, pictures and background on the ri of christianity. then, jo the discussion at pbs.org. next time on frontline. in a country ravaged bdecades of war, a tradition bann by the taliban has been secrey revive young boys sold by the families to wethy merchants and warlords taut to dance and to enterin. frontline takes you side the illicit sex trade offghan boys. frontline from jesus to christ: the first christians is available on dvd. order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-plapbs. ptioned by media access gup at wgbh access.wgbh.org with majorunding by the john d. and catherine. macarthur foundation. committed touilding a more just, verdant, andeaceful worl and by theark foundation. committed to rsing public awarens. wi additional funding for this program fm the arthur vining davis foundatns. this is pbs. be happy at you re not alone. rushkf: yeah, thanks. good. my ne is douglas rushkoff, and i ve been writing abouthe internet for 20 years. now that we re in thishing, i kind of want to push t pause button. and thluxury of doing a documentary is that you are rced to freeze time. you e forced to look squarely what is it like to live in world that cyber space hasaken over. ( lling ) ( gunshots ) why is theilitary using this stuff so boldly and at are the de effects? i say clear! this generation were in thr xbox and playstation so all the training you see heais almost video game-li. we re the kids in arica whoa e re the kids in ameri whoa erybody live for the music- go-rnd. rushkof what do we actually know about what means if you spend 50 hours on-li versus if you spend five? how is a cyber-enhanced classroom better or rse than an uncyber-enhanceclassroom? the same students tha struggled with indendent reing, the same students that struggled with fus, they are flourishing th laptops. normally, when we me documentaries, we do so in kd of a priva way. and it s only really afterhe film airs that we hear from e public. this projects turning that upside-down. our web site is chance for the public to get access to at we re ooting, what we re thinking, fore the film goes on the air rather than afterwards even though y can technicallcall me a digital nave, i try to be latively tech free. we want to create a sort commal notebook, so that people c contribute and collabate with us. rushkoff: i moping to find out that hanity is resilient, and that most of us are deeply connecd enough to a core sense what it means to be human. that no amount of technologil immersion can alienate u i wa to find out that when push comes to ove, people will use an inter-conctive technologyo connect. when i was growing up, used to dream about becong a movie star, t it takes a lot more th dreams to get ahead. if i didn t learn to rd, i might not have de it to hollywood. give the kids you love ahance to live their drea, too. read to a child night. for ideas and advice on helping kids learn to rea please vit readingrockets.org, the best reading rource on the web.