Lecture 5: Paul and Christianity’s First Expansion
and even persecution, forcing early believers into frequent and
difficult travel.o Christianity had to accomplish five transitions without a
long period of stabilization and without strong institutional
or textual controls: (1) sociological, from a rural itinerant
movement to an urban household association; (2) geographical,
from Palestine to the Diaspora; (3) linguistic, from Hebrew
and Aramaic to Greek; (4) cultural, from dominant Jewish
institutions to dominant Gentile culture; and (5) demographic,
from Jewish majority to Gentile majority.• The diversity found in the writings of the New Testament, in terms
of genre, perspective, and argumentation, are rooted at least in
part in the diversity of experience and circumstance of the earliest
Christian communities.The Life of Paul
• During the roughly 40-year period of 30–70 C.E., three
developments in Christianity occurred simultaneously.
o Communities (churches = ekklesiai) were founded and nurtured
in cities from Jerusalem to Rome; these communities had
shared rituals, such as baptism and meals, as well as practices
of preaching, prayer, and teaching.o In such social settings, oral traditions concerning Jesus were
handed on in anecdotal fashion to legitimate and guide the
practices of the community.o Leaders of churches, such as Paul, James, and the author of the
Letter to the Hebrews, wrote letters to communities that were
read aloud in the assembly.• Paul’s life is sketched both in Acts, where he dominates chapters
9–28, and in more fragmentary form in his letters.