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John W Nielsen
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Monday, April 4, 2016
BREAKING: Oil Tanker Explodes "People On Fire" Egypt
Published on Apr 4, 2016
In Alexandria Egypt an oil tanker explodes catching at least 10 people on fire http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com alsohttp://crusaderjournal.com/2016/04/04... also Help Us Spread the Word https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
URGENT: 3 Asteroids To Near Miss Earth April 5, 2016
Published on Apr 4, 2016
3 Asteroids will near miss Earth on April 5, 2016 as the increase of Asteroids continue http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com also Help Us Spread the Word https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... also http://www.spaceweather.com also http://crusaderjournal.com
BREAKING: The Panama Papers "Putinophobia" Vladimir Putin
Published on Apr 4, 2016
The "Panama Papers" has caused an investigate approach to check out World Leaders, Business Men, Global Elites, and Powerful Movie and Sports Stars also Vladimir Putin says "Putinophobia" http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com also Help Us Spread the Wordhttps://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... also http://crusaderjournal.com/2016/04/04... also http://www.timesofisrael.com/panama-t... alsohttps://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-aide...
US Visa Website Fails to Mention Israel Not only was the Israeli flag not displayed next to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the word "Israel" was omitted all together
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"You Can Handle This"
Published on Apr 4, 2016
How to handle spiritual trials in these last days http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com also Help Us Spread the Wordhttps://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... also http://crusaderjournal.com/category/c...
Over 50% of the Church would Take The Mark of the Beast if Anti-Christ W...
Published on Mar 22, 2016
and many of the Pastors and leaders in the churches today would lead their sheep right to him. Lord, have mercy. Wake Your People up oh Lord. Have them to gird up their loins as You open the eyes of their understanding on how late the hour is and how deep the deception is oh Lord. Show them this Truth for You are Truth. Lead them into paths of righteousness for Your name's sake. Have them to cast off the works of darkness, many of them taken captive by Satan to do his will. Cover us oh Lord, redeem and save us, sanctify us oh Lord for the day of the Lord is at hand...
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Is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life: http://www.anitafuentes.com/
Have you been blessed by our ministry broadcast? Please show your support and appreciation for the hard work invested by donating: Online:http://www.anitafuentes.com/Donate.html or mail: PO Box 9570 Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91701. Thank you and God richly bless you in Jesus name, Amen.
Be sure to visit our website and make yourself at home: http://www.anitafuentes.com/
----------------------------------------
Is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life: http://www.anitafuentes.com/
Have you been blessed by our ministry broadcast? Please show your support and appreciation for the hard work invested by donating: Online:http://www.anitafuentes.com/Donate.html or mail: PO Box 9570 Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91701. Thank you and God richly bless you in Jesus name, Amen.
Be sure to visit our website and make yourself at home: http://www.anitafuentes.com/
Last Days: "Prophet" Brian Carn REPENT! Stop Lying to the Holy Spirit!
Published on Mar 22, 2016
God is not feared in these last days. The Church has become so fleshly, so worldly, so greedy that they will continue allowing such necromancy in the house of God. Judgment WILL begin in the house of God first and when it does God have mercy on you, you worker of iniquity...
Jeremiah 14:14
Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
2 Peter 2
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
Jeremiah 14:14
Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
2 Peter 2
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
Israeli Navy Fires & Sinks Palestinian Boat
Published on Apr 4, 2016
Israeli Navy Fires on and Sinks a Palestinian Boat for breaking though the Naval Blockade http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com alsohttp://crusaderjournal.com/2016/04/04... Help Us Spread the Word https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... alsohttps://www.almasdarnews.com/article/...
THE JEWISH PAUL AND THE ROMANS (7 MIN TO READ)
THE JEWISH PAUL AND THE ROMANS (7 MIN TO READ)
Among both clearly Pauline and the so-called “contested” letters attributed to the Apostle Paul, two particular letters define Paul’s vision for the Nations that follow the Jewish Christ as non-other – these are: the letter to the believers in Rome, and the letter Apostle Paul sent to the saints residing in the region called Galatia. We are presented in these two letters with two sharply different ideas set forth by Paul the Pharisee. Usually Paul’s writings are quite easy to deal with. We simply harmonize the two letters as if they have one and the same context, presenting only one message to these very different recipient communities. We justify this by saying that Paul had only one teaching to give to people. While that may be true in one sense, after all Paul “preached Christ and him crucified”, it is certainly not true in another. Apostle Paul tailored his letters to the particular situations in which these communities found t hemselves, usually seeking to either cast a new vision or correct some wrong teaching or practice among them. This means he did not write one and the same thing to both of them. As we will see later, the Galatians and the Romans were in completely different circumstances and needed pastoral guidance from Paul that was particularly applicable to each of them.
The difficulty with understanding Paul’s (apparent) contradictions lay in the following: One letter is defending and affirming of the Jewish people (Letter to the Romans), while the other is seemingly disparaging of the Law (Torah) and covenantal identity of the Jewish People as such. So, in what follows, I will show why what Paul wrote to each congregation makes perfect sense in each case.
Paul in Jerusalem
We need to begin in a somewhat unusual place – the eyewitness account of Luke (Lucius), who documented much of Apostle Saul Paul’s life. The reason I say it is an unusual place to begin is because people normally go straight into Romans or Galatians, seeking to reconcile Paul’s words right there and then. However, I think this kind approach would be premature, because most of what Paul writes there, does not have to do with his own practice regarding Torah, but how the Nations should live in worship of the same God that the faithful remnant of Israel continues to worship. In other words, whilst we know what Paul wrote to the Nations in Christ, we do not know from those letters what advice he would have given his fellow Jews. How Paul himself lived, interestingly enough (and perhaps predictably), is covered in more detailed by Luke, to whom we now turn for this information.
We begin in Acts 21:17 when Paul arrived in Jerusalem with his co-workers in the Gospel, where they were warmly greeted by the Christ-following community. Once Paul and is crew had a chance to rest from their journey, the following day they attended a meeting with Yakob/Jacob (whom the English Bibles incorrectly continue to call James) and the elders of the Jerusalem congregation/s. Once the meet-and-greet time was over Paul began to relate his story about God’s amazing (and unexpected to most of them) work among the Nations through an unlikely medium – his own ministry (Acts. 21:18-19). Once the elders and Jacob, who seems to be the presiding elder among them, heard about this, they praised God with true sincerity, but then quickly turned to a matter that struck much closer to home – the rumors about Saul Paul, which they believed to be false. We read in Acts 21:20-21:
It is important to remember that this is not the first time Paul met
Jerusalem’s elders. He was there at the so-called “Jerusalem council” and
joyfully accepted “the decree”, carrying the apostolic letter with its decisions
(Acts 15-16) and implementing it among his congregations/churches. From the
above text it is clear that there was one central accusation and two supporting
ones. Each of these accusations had to do with the misinformation that, in his
teachings, Paul applied to the Jews the same directives that he applied to the
Nations.
Paul’s slanderers accused him of teaching the Jews to forsake the Torah, by means of 1) not circumcising their sons, and 2) departing from the Jewish ancestral ways. The core of the accusation was that Paul was allegedly instructing Jews to convert away from Judaism. As we have seen in previous sections of our study, the reverse was in fact the case. Just as Paul believed that the Nations must stay as the Nations, he was equally convinced that Jews must stay as Jews (refer back to the rule that he set up in all his congregations as per 1 Cor. 7:17).
Jacob, along with the elders, came up with a simple test that, if Paul passed publically (which they were convinced he would), should silence all the lying tongues:
Jacob and the elders were not confused. They knew exactly where the false
rumors came from - they came from people who did not understand that the
Jerusalem council clarified that the members of the Nations who came to worship
Israel’s God are only under obligation to observe the requirements enjoined in
the Torah upon the sojourners with Israel (Acts 15:22-29; Lev. 17-21). That
decision never implied that the Jews in Christ should now be free to have a ham
sandwich and enjoy some forbidden seafood. The elders understood this, and so
did Paul.
Paul did exactly as Jacob suggested, affirming the very point Jacob made about him: that he “walk(s) orderly, keeping the Torah” (Acts 21:24). Even though Paul was not known to be “a flip-flopper” and always stood for that in which he firmly believed, we read in verse 26:
NEWS: In few weeks audio version of THE JEWISH GOSPEL OF JOHN: DISCOVERING JESUS, KING OF ALL ISRAEL will be released. Any one who have helped to support one of my projects financially in the past will recieved this high quality work for FREE (upon a simple email request). All my currently available books can be found HERE. Would love to hear any feedback from you especially those who are still reading it or just read it.
Roman Empire and the Jews
As is evident from Paul’s writings, the Apostle did not plant the congregation in the imperial capital that he is addressing in the book known as the Epistle to the Romans. This fact alone makes this letter to the Romans different in approach and style to the one he sent earlier to the Galatians. But the basic reason why the message of the book of Romans is so very different to the book of Galatians is because the Romans found themselves in a completely different context to that of the Galatians, and therefore challenges met by both groups of Jewish Christ-following Gentiles were very different.
First of all, a few words about the numbers and strength of the Jewish population in the Roman Empire as a whole. Most people are surprised to realize that the Israelite movement in the Roman Empire consisted of anywhere between 6-10% of the entire population, which means there was a very formidable minority present in every city, including the capital itself – Rome. This minority was large and influential enough to cause a real headache to the Roman government. Rome itself boasted at least eleven exquisite Jewish synagogues. Remember that the synagogue, although a completely Jewish institution today, was not so in the time of Paul. Synagogues, or the places of gathering, were Roman public institutions that were heavily used by the Jewish community, but continued to be open to the Roman public as well. This fact sets Acts 15:21 in its proper historical context. When Jacob/James announced that it was his opinion that members of the Nations who follow the Jewish Christ needed to ensure they observed the set of laws enjoined by the Torah upon the sojourners with Israel, he explained his reasoning:
Here are a few examples of positive, although confused, statements about the Jews by the Greco-Roman authors:
Josephus writes that one Clearchus of Soli (ca. 300 B.C.E.) narrates a story in which his teacher, Aristotle, had met a Judean. Aristotle was duly impressed and finds the Judean to be “Greek in both language and soul” in spite of the fact that Judeans are “descended from the Indian philosophers.” (Josephus, Against Apion 1.180 = Stern no. 15).
Tacitus, a Roman senator and a historian and orator, famous for his surviving works Annals and Histories, writes: “As I am about to describe the last days of a famous city, it seems proper for me to give some account of its origin. It is said that the Jews were originally exiles from the island of Crete who settled in the farthest parts of Libya at the time when Saturn had been deposed and expelled by Jove. An argument in favor of this is derived from the name; there is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida, and hence the inhabitants were called the Idaei, which was later lengthened into the barbarous form ludaei…” (Tacitus, Histories 5.2)
Even the great Roman writer Varro, who was a Roman scholar and prolific writer of hundreds of books on jurisprudence, astronomy, geography, education, satires, poems and orations, when he argues that the gods of Rome must not have pictures, pointing out to the Jews and their God.
He [Varro] also says that for more than 170 years the ancient Romans worshipped the gods without an image. “If this usage had continued to our own day,” he says, “our worship of the gods would be more devout. And in support of his opinion he adduces, among other things, the testimony of the Jewish race.” (Varro, Antiquities, c. 116-27 BCE, cited by Augustine, City of God 4.31, c. 354-430 CE)
Here are a few examples of negative statements (these are some that I did not mention in previous sections) about the Jews by Greco-Roman authors, some surviving only in much later sources as quotations:
Joseph relates a common Roman myth as used by Apion about the Jews: “kidnap a Greek foreigner, fatten him up for a year, and then convey him to a wood, where they slew him, sacrificed his body with their customary ritual, partook of his flesh, and, while immolating the Greek, swore an oath of hostility to the Greeks.” (Josephus, Against Apion 2.94-96)
Or consider this: “…the Judeans then took up residence in Jerusalem and its environs and “made their hatred of people into a tradition” and “introduced outlandish laws: not to break bread with any other race, nor to show them any good will at all.”
(Photius, Bibliotheca 244.379)
When speaking of the Jews, Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist, says: “Meanwhile the customs of this accursed race have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. The vanquished have given laws to their victors.” (Seneca quoted by Augustine, City of God, c. 5 BCE–65 CE)
As we can see, the attitudes of the Greco-Roman authors were varied and no doubt in some way represented the situation on the ground among the citizens of Rome as well. It was difficult because when the Roman God-fearers first joined the Jesus movement in Rome, they did so just like others - in connection with the Jewish community. As far as they were concerned they were now in some way part of the Jewish-friendly community that, in a sense, acted as a political buffer zone between the Jews and the Nations residing in the confines of the Roman Empire. However, at some point Emperor Claudius expelled all the Jews from the city of Rome. This is how Ancient Roman history relates it: "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestos [misspelling of Christ?], he [the Emperor Claudius] expelled them from Rome." (Divius Claudius 25)
This is the same Emperor who executed several members of his own family for conversion to Judaism, seeking to show himself as the true protector of the honor and service of the Roman gods. The New Testament decisively confirms this account: “After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.” (Acts 18:1-2)
NEWS: In few weeks audio version of THE JEWISH GOSPEL OF JOHN: DISCOVERING JESUS, KING OF ALL ISRAEL will be released. Any one who have helped to support one of my projects financially in the past will recieved this high quality work for FREE (upon a simple email request). All my currently available books can be found HERE. Would love to hear any feedback from you especially those who are still reading it or just read it.
Political pressure on Roman Christ-followers
Now, taking all of these things into consideration, imagine yourself a follower of the Jewish Christ in Rome. Can you see yourself and others like you being under tremendous pressure from your family and other governmental/patriotic forces that would naturally push you to disassociate from the Jews? I think the answer must be given in the affirmative - but that is not all!
Not only were the Roman Gentile Christ-followers pressured to disassociate from the “Jewish community”, but the mainstream Jewish community also, were not happy with their allegiance to Jesus and there was a very important political and social reason for that – the Roman Godfearers served as a buffer zone between Jews and Romans for decades. They were the most powerful advocates for religious freedom for the Jews within the Roman Empire – they were indeed the buffer zone the Jews badly needed. But now things were changing rapidly. Gentile Roman citizens were now joining this new Jesus Jewish movement by the thousands, and that threatened to change the slowly dripping status quo in Roman-Jewish relationships, putting into grave danger the otherwise comfortable political climate achieved between Jewish leadership and the Roman authorities. The Roman Empire-wide Gentile Jewish Jesus movement was politically unacceptable to both the Roman gover nment and the Jewish leadership that lived under its firm, but more or less benevolent, reign. Both opponents hated it for the same reason - it was bound to change the status quo.
As you continue to place yourself, through the medium of God given human imagination, into the shoes of the first century Roman followers of Jesus, you can now see that both Jewish and Roman opposition would pose some real challenges to your faith and practice. The close connection with Israel and the Jews in Rome, unlike in Galatia, simply did not make sense. “It was wildly counter-intuitive and fully unproductive”, thought the Roman Christ-followers. Apostle Paul, however, sought to advocate for his people according to the flesh (Israel/Jews) and convince the Roman Christ-followers that, in spite of governmental opposition to the Jews in general, and in spite of Jewish leadership that was able to influence the majority of other Jews in opposition to the Messiahship of Jesus, their participation in this spiritual “Jewish coalition” was very well justified.
Write me back with your comments, but make them thoughtful, please.
NEWS: In few weeks audio version of THE JEWISH GOSPEL OF JOHN: DISCOVERING JESUS, KING OF ALL ISRAEL will be released. Any one who have helped to support one of my projects financially in the past will recieved this high quality work for FREE (upon a simple email request). All my currently available books can be found HERE. Would love to hear any feedback from you especially those who are still reading it or just read it.
Among both clearly Pauline and the so-called “contested” letters attributed to the Apostle Paul, two particular letters define Paul’s vision for the Nations that follow the Jewish Christ as non-other – these are: the letter to the believers in Rome, and the letter Apostle Paul sent to the saints residing in the region called Galatia. We are presented in these two letters with two sharply different ideas set forth by Paul the Pharisee. Usually Paul’s writings are quite easy to deal with. We simply harmonize the two letters as if they have one and the same context, presenting only one message to these very different recipient communities. We justify this by saying that Paul had only one teaching to give to people. While that may be true in one sense, after all Paul “preached Christ and him crucified”, it is certainly not true in another. Apostle Paul tailored his letters to the particular situations in which these communities found t hemselves, usually seeking to either cast a new vision or correct some wrong teaching or practice among them. This means he did not write one and the same thing to both of them. As we will see later, the Galatians and the Romans were in completely different circumstances and needed pastoral guidance from Paul that was particularly applicable to each of them.
The difficulty with understanding Paul’s (apparent) contradictions lay in the following: One letter is defending and affirming of the Jewish people (Letter to the Romans), while the other is seemingly disparaging of the Law (Torah) and covenantal identity of the Jewish People as such. So, in what follows, I will show why what Paul wrote to each congregation makes perfect sense in each case.
Paul in Jerusalem
We need to begin in a somewhat unusual place – the eyewitness account of Luke (Lucius), who documented much of Apostle Saul Paul’s life. The reason I say it is an unusual place to begin is because people normally go straight into Romans or Galatians, seeking to reconcile Paul’s words right there and then. However, I think this kind approach would be premature, because most of what Paul writes there, does not have to do with his own practice regarding Torah, but how the Nations should live in worship of the same God that the faithful remnant of Israel continues to worship. In other words, whilst we know what Paul wrote to the Nations in Christ, we do not know from those letters what advice he would have given his fellow Jews. How Paul himself lived, interestingly enough (and perhaps predictably), is covered in more detailed by Luke, to whom we now turn for this information.
We begin in Acts 21:17 when Paul arrived in Jerusalem with his co-workers in the Gospel, where they were warmly greeted by the Christ-following community. Once Paul and is crew had a chance to rest from their journey, the following day they attended a meeting with Yakob/Jacob (whom the English Bibles incorrectly continue to call James) and the elders of the Jerusalem congregation/s. Once the meet-and-greet time was over Paul began to relate his story about God’s amazing (and unexpected to most of them) work among the Nations through an unlikely medium – his own ministry (Acts. 21:18-19). Once the elders and Jacob, who seems to be the presiding elder among them, heard about this, they praised God with true sincerity, but then quickly turned to a matter that struck much closer to home – the rumors about Saul Paul, which they believed to be false. We read in Acts 21:20-21:
And when they heard it they began glorifying God;
and they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the
Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Torah; and
they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among
the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor
to walk according to the customs.
Paul’s slanderers accused him of teaching the Jews to forsake the Torah, by means of 1) not circumcising their sons, and 2) departing from the Jewish ancestral ways. The core of the accusation was that Paul was allegedly instructing Jews to convert away from Judaism. As we have seen in previous sections of our study, the reverse was in fact the case. Just as Paul believed that the Nations must stay as the Nations, he was equally convinced that Jews must stay as Jews (refer back to the rule that he set up in all his congregations as per 1 Cor. 7:17).
Jacob, along with the elders, came up with a simple test that, if Paul passed publically (which they were convinced he would), should silence all the lying tongues:
“What, then? They will certainly hear that you
have come. Therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a
vow; take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so
that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the
things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk
orderly, keeping the Torah (Law). But concerning the Gentiles who have believed,
we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols
and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.” (Acts
21:22-25)
Paul did exactly as Jacob suggested, affirming the very point Jacob made about him: that he “walk(s) orderly, keeping the Torah” (Acts 21:24). Even though Paul was not known to be “a flip-flopper” and always stood for that in which he firmly believed, we read in verse 26:
Then Paul took the men, and the next day,
purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the
completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each
one of them.
For any Jew by whom Paul might have been judged by his deeds, the case was
settled. He himself did walk orderly, keeping the Torah, and therefore could not
possibly be instructing his fellow Jews to do otherwise - but to the Nations who
followed the Jewish Christ, he taught that they should follow the letter earlier
authored by the elders and the apostles in Jerusalem. There was no inconsistency
- that was the truth - pure and simple.NEWS: In few weeks audio version of THE JEWISH GOSPEL OF JOHN: DISCOVERING JESUS, KING OF ALL ISRAEL will be released. Any one who have helped to support one of my projects financially in the past will recieved this high quality work for FREE (upon a simple email request). All my currently available books can be found HERE. Would love to hear any feedback from you especially those who are still reading it or just read it.
Roman Empire and the Jews
As is evident from Paul’s writings, the Apostle did not plant the congregation in the imperial capital that he is addressing in the book known as the Epistle to the Romans. This fact alone makes this letter to the Romans different in approach and style to the one he sent earlier to the Galatians. But the basic reason why the message of the book of Romans is so very different to the book of Galatians is because the Romans found themselves in a completely different context to that of the Galatians, and therefore challenges met by both groups of Jewish Christ-following Gentiles were very different.
First of all, a few words about the numbers and strength of the Jewish population in the Roman Empire as a whole. Most people are surprised to realize that the Israelite movement in the Roman Empire consisted of anywhere between 6-10% of the entire population, which means there was a very formidable minority present in every city, including the capital itself – Rome. This minority was large and influential enough to cause a real headache to the Roman government. Rome itself boasted at least eleven exquisite Jewish synagogues. Remember that the synagogue, although a completely Jewish institution today, was not so in the time of Paul. Synagogues, or the places of gathering, were Roman public institutions that were heavily used by the Jewish community, but continued to be open to the Roman public as well. This fact sets Acts 15:21 in its proper historical context. When Jacob/James announced that it was his opinion that members of the Nations who follow the Jewish Christ needed to ensure they observed the set of laws enjoined by the Torah upon the sojourners with Israel, he explained his reasoning:
“For the Torah of Moses has been preached in
every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every
Sabbath.”
While Jewish influence in the Roman Empire and Rome itself was significant,
the opinions of the Roman power-brokers varied from adoration and great respect
for the Jews, to complete disgust and distrust.Here are a few examples of positive, although confused, statements about the Jews by the Greco-Roman authors:
Josephus writes that one Clearchus of Soli (ca. 300 B.C.E.) narrates a story in which his teacher, Aristotle, had met a Judean. Aristotle was duly impressed and finds the Judean to be “Greek in both language and soul” in spite of the fact that Judeans are “descended from the Indian philosophers.” (Josephus, Against Apion 1.180 = Stern no. 15).
Tacitus, a Roman senator and a historian and orator, famous for his surviving works Annals and Histories, writes: “As I am about to describe the last days of a famous city, it seems proper for me to give some account of its origin. It is said that the Jews were originally exiles from the island of Crete who settled in the farthest parts of Libya at the time when Saturn had been deposed and expelled by Jove. An argument in favor of this is derived from the name; there is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida, and hence the inhabitants were called the Idaei, which was later lengthened into the barbarous form ludaei…” (Tacitus, Histories 5.2)
Even the great Roman writer Varro, who was a Roman scholar and prolific writer of hundreds of books on jurisprudence, astronomy, geography, education, satires, poems and orations, when he argues that the gods of Rome must not have pictures, pointing out to the Jews and their God.
He [Varro] also says that for more than 170 years the ancient Romans worshipped the gods without an image. “If this usage had continued to our own day,” he says, “our worship of the gods would be more devout. And in support of his opinion he adduces, among other things, the testimony of the Jewish race.” (Varro, Antiquities, c. 116-27 BCE, cited by Augustine, City of God 4.31, c. 354-430 CE)
Here are a few examples of negative statements (these are some that I did not mention in previous sections) about the Jews by Greco-Roman authors, some surviving only in much later sources as quotations:
Joseph relates a common Roman myth as used by Apion about the Jews: “kidnap a Greek foreigner, fatten him up for a year, and then convey him to a wood, where they slew him, sacrificed his body with their customary ritual, partook of his flesh, and, while immolating the Greek, swore an oath of hostility to the Greeks.” (Josephus, Against Apion 2.94-96)
Or consider this: “…the Judeans then took up residence in Jerusalem and its environs and “made their hatred of people into a tradition” and “introduced outlandish laws: not to break bread with any other race, nor to show them any good will at all.”
(Photius, Bibliotheca 244.379)
When speaking of the Jews, Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist, says: “Meanwhile the customs of this accursed race have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. The vanquished have given laws to their victors.” (Seneca quoted by Augustine, City of God, c. 5 BCE–65 CE)
As we can see, the attitudes of the Greco-Roman authors were varied and no doubt in some way represented the situation on the ground among the citizens of Rome as well. It was difficult because when the Roman God-fearers first joined the Jesus movement in Rome, they did so just like others - in connection with the Jewish community. As far as they were concerned they were now in some way part of the Jewish-friendly community that, in a sense, acted as a political buffer zone between the Jews and the Nations residing in the confines of the Roman Empire. However, at some point Emperor Claudius expelled all the Jews from the city of Rome. This is how Ancient Roman history relates it: "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestos [misspelling of Christ?], he [the Emperor Claudius] expelled them from Rome." (Divius Claudius 25)
This is the same Emperor who executed several members of his own family for conversion to Judaism, seeking to show himself as the true protector of the honor and service of the Roman gods. The New Testament decisively confirms this account: “After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.” (Acts 18:1-2)
NEWS: In few weeks audio version of THE JEWISH GOSPEL OF JOHN: DISCOVERING JESUS, KING OF ALL ISRAEL will be released. Any one who have helped to support one of my projects financially in the past will recieved this high quality work for FREE (upon a simple email request). All my currently available books can be found HERE. Would love to hear any feedback from you especially those who are still reading it or just read it.
Political pressure on Roman Christ-followers
Now, taking all of these things into consideration, imagine yourself a follower of the Jewish Christ in Rome. Can you see yourself and others like you being under tremendous pressure from your family and other governmental/patriotic forces that would naturally push you to disassociate from the Jews? I think the answer must be given in the affirmative - but that is not all!
Not only were the Roman Gentile Christ-followers pressured to disassociate from the “Jewish community”, but the mainstream Jewish community also, were not happy with their allegiance to Jesus and there was a very important political and social reason for that – the Roman Godfearers served as a buffer zone between Jews and Romans for decades. They were the most powerful advocates for religious freedom for the Jews within the Roman Empire – they were indeed the buffer zone the Jews badly needed. But now things were changing rapidly. Gentile Roman citizens were now joining this new Jesus Jewish movement by the thousands, and that threatened to change the slowly dripping status quo in Roman-Jewish relationships, putting into grave danger the otherwise comfortable political climate achieved between Jewish leadership and the Roman authorities. The Roman Empire-wide Gentile Jewish Jesus movement was politically unacceptable to both the Roman gover nment and the Jewish leadership that lived under its firm, but more or less benevolent, reign. Both opponents hated it for the same reason - it was bound to change the status quo.
As you continue to place yourself, through the medium of God given human imagination, into the shoes of the first century Roman followers of Jesus, you can now see that both Jewish and Roman opposition would pose some real challenges to your faith and practice. The close connection with Israel and the Jews in Rome, unlike in Galatia, simply did not make sense. “It was wildly counter-intuitive and fully unproductive”, thought the Roman Christ-followers. Apostle Paul, however, sought to advocate for his people according to the flesh (Israel/Jews) and convince the Roman Christ-followers that, in spite of governmental opposition to the Jews in general, and in spite of Jewish leadership that was able to influence the majority of other Jews in opposition to the Messiahship of Jesus, their participation in this spiritual “Jewish coalition” was very well justified.
Write me back with your comments, but make them thoughtful, please.
NEWS: In few weeks audio version of THE JEWISH GOSPEL OF JOHN: DISCOVERING JESUS, KING OF ALL ISRAEL will be released. Any one who have helped to support one of my projects financially in the past will recieved this high quality work for FREE (upon a simple email request). All my currently available books can be found HERE. Would love to hear any feedback from you especially those who are still reading it or just read it.
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