Lecture 3: The First Cultural Context—Judaism
o As we will see in the next lecture, Jesus was not a messiah
according to standard Jewish expectations; indeed, he
overturned those expectations.o Moreover, the claims made for Jesus by Christians—above
all, the claim that he was the risen Lord—appear as heretical
within Judaism.o The interpretation of Torah from the perspective of belief in
Jesus exacerbated the strains with Judaism.o From the beginning, the inclusion of Gentiles with Greco-
Roman perceptions placed additional strain on the relationship
with Judaism.The Diversity of Judaism
• Judaism in the 1st century was not the religion of ancient Israel as it
is depicted in the writings of the Old Testament but was a changing,
complex, diverse, and vibrant religion within Greco-Roman
culture that drew considerable attention both from outsiders and
new members.• Both to Gentiles and to themselves, Jews appeared as singular
among Mediterranean peoples, a “second race,” because they
shared the symbolic world of Torah.
o Torah refers, first of all, to a set of texts (the five books of
Moses, then the rest of Scripture), then to the story of a
people contained in those texts, the commandments to which
that nation was obligated, and the wisdom that suffuses
those commandments.o Jews were bound by certain convictions and practices that set
them apart. In contrast to Gentile polytheists, they were strict
monotheists and considered themselves a chosen people joined
in a covenant of loyalty with the one God of Israel.