JEWS PEOPLE UNDER ROMA EMPIRE

VALDEMIR MOTA DE MENEZES

Polybius's capture and transport to Rome in the second century, Rome was
in a way an empire before it was an empire.
In the area of Judea, internal struggles in the Hasmonean dynasty led
both sides in the conflict to appeal to Rome for a solution even before
Rome was an empire.
In 63 BCE, the Romans entered Jerusalem.
This is the end of the Hasmonean rule over Palestine, and Rome established a
new dynasty there, a dynasty established by Rome and
thus loyal to Rome.
This dynasty included Herod the Great, who reigned from 37 to 4 BCE, whose
Jewish identity could be contested.
Some would say he isn't purely Jewish.
He tried to be king over all and not just Jews.
He built pagan cities, temples, as well as Jewish cities, and rebuilt
parts of the Jerusalem temple.
It was a time of heavy taxation and unrest.
Shortly after the period of Herod the Great, Romans slowly moved from rule
through vassal kings to rule through Roman administrators.
These Roman administrators were even less sensitive to the
needs of the populace.
We read in Josephus, for example, of brutality under the procurator Pontius
Pilate, under whom Jesus was killed.
By 66 of the Common Era, Jews were revolting against the Roman power, but
they weren't that well-organized.
At the same time, there was chaos at the head of the Roman Empire.
In 68, Nero committed suicide.
The general Vespasian was biding his time.
He sent his son Titus to take over Palestine and destroy the temple.
And Titus destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE as his father
Vespasian came to take power at the head of the Roman Empire.
This isn't the end of Jewish conflict with Rome.
We know of revolts in 115 to 117 in Cyrenaica in Northern
Africa and in Cyprus.
And in 132 to 135, a Jewish figure named Bar Kokhba, or "Son of a Star,"
rose up and took back Jerusalem, minting his own coins.
Hadrian put him down violently, and Jerusalem came to be called Aelia
Capitolina by the Romans.
The larger region was no longer called Judea, but Palestina, and became part
of a larger province of Syria.
This coin sums up the relationship between Rome and Judea--
although not all Rome and all Jews--
quite well.
Minted first in 71, after the destruction of the temple, it
celebrates and publishes the news of the Roman victory over Judea.
On one side we find the emperor Vespasian, beefy and satisfied,
wearing a laurel crown.
On the other side we find a small sculpture that
summarizes Roman triumph.
The palm tree divides the image.
On its left is a soldier, arms tied behind his back and his weapons piled
uselessly behind, a trophy now for the Romans.
On the palm tree's right is a seated woman, seated in a posture of grief,
with a veiled head in sorrow, and her head is low and held up by her hand.
Provinces in Greek and Latin are grammatically feminine: Judea, or
perhaps Jerusalem the city, is here depicted personified
as a mourning woman.
Various forms of the Judea capta--
Judea conquered-- coins were minted for twenty-five years.
Let's take a breath and think about that again, with Jerusalem as our
focus, that powerful site for Jews and Christians and Muslims, that holy city
on earth and for some a holy city in the heavens, a New Jerusalem.

COURSE: THE LETTERS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL - HARVARD

Scribe Valdemir Mota de Menezes student with his teacher Nasrallah in course  THE LETTERS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

Syllabus

 

HDS 1544x.1-3

 

The Letters of the Apostle Paul

 

There is no Christ outside Saint Paul. Žižek, The Fragile Absolute, 2.

 

Teaching Staff:

Dr. Laura Nasrallah, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard Divinity School/Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University

Jennifer Quigley, doctoral candidate, New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard University: The Divinity School

J. Gregory Given, doctoral candidate, New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard University: Committee on the Study of Religion

Chan Sok Park, doctoral candidate, New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard University: The Divinity School

Tyler Schwaller, doctoral candidate, New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard University: The Divinity School

 

Course description: 

 

The letters of Paul are the earliest texts in the Christian scriptures, written by a Jew at a time when the word “Christian” hadn’t yet been coined. What is the religious and political context into which they emerged? How were they first interpreted? How and why do they make such an enormous impact in Christian communities and in politics today?

 

Archaeological materials and ancient writings will help you to enter the ancient Mediterranean world and to think about religious groups, power, poverty, health, and the lives of elites and slaves in the Roman Empire. We’ll explore how controversial and important these letters were in the ancient world and for understanding the ancient world. We’ll also spend some time thinking about how these letters still make a tremendous impact today.

 

Whether you’ve been studying Paul’s letters for years or are merely curious about what Christian scriptures are, this course will provide you with information to deepen your understanding of the ancient contexts and present-day controversies about these texts.

 

Course Objectives

 

1) To investigate the Pauline correspondence as a record of struggle and debate over key social, political, ethical, and theological or religious issues.

2) To learn about the Roman Empire in which the Pauline correspondence was penned.

3) To come to your own understanding of what the Pauline correspondence reveals about first-century debates about key issues, and to take responsibility for your interpretations.

4) To engage ancient texts with disciplined intimacy, understanding that these texts are both strange to our world and intimate to it. This disciplined intimacy involves learning and practicing close reading, as well as placing texts within their social, political, cultural contexts. 

 

Course Expectations:

 

This course will run for five weeks, from 6 January 2014 to 5 February 2014. Participants seeking a certificate of completion should complete the course materials and assignments. This might include, but is not limited to, watching video lectures, reading texts, engaging in annotation assignments, and participating in discussion forums.

 

Students who cannot complete all of the course materials and assignments are welcome and encouraged to audit this class by engaging with the course materials to the extent that they can.

 

All content will be released by 12 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on the day indicated on the syllabus.

 

Readings:

 

All required readings for the course will be provided to you in edX as part of each day's material. Course readings will also be made available through a HarvardX collaboration with poetrygenius.com. Additional or extended readings will also be available on that website. Please complete the readings for the day before watching that day’s videos, unless otherwise noted.

 

Questions:

 

All questions should be made on the FAQ Discussion Thread. We apologize, but given the possibility of many queries, emails or tweets sent directly to the course teaching staff will not be answered.

 

 

Syllabus of Readings

 

We recommend that you read the New Testament texts in the New Revised Standard Version (which will be provided for you). You may use any translation, but remember to check now and then to notice differences between your translation and the NRSV.

 

6 January 2014 Day 1: Welcome and Introduction

Letter to Philemon

 

8 January 2014 Day 2: What are the Letters of Paul? 

Letter to Philemon (again)

The prescripts to Paul’s letters 

 

10 January 2014 Day 3: The Historical Context of Letter-Writing 

Romans 16 

“Letter from a boy” (P. oxy. 119)

Letter of Isias to Hephaistion

 

13 January 2014 Day 4: Rhetoric in the Ancient World. . . and Today

Galatians, especially 1:1-3:1

Romans 1:1-17

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail 

 

15 January 2014 Day 5: Canon, Part I: What were some ancient responses to Paul’s letters as scripture or authoritative? 

1 Cor. 15:1-11; Galatians 1-2; Philippians 3; 2 Peter 3:15-16

Athanasius Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter 

Eusebius History of the Church 3.25.1-7 

Wayne Meeks and John Fitzgerald, eds., The Writings of St. Paul (2d ed.; New York: Norton, 2007) 228-235, 285. © This includes:

“Ascents of James” (Epiphanius, Pan. haer. 30.16.6-9)

The Cerinthians (ibid., 28.5.1-3)

“Letter of Peter to James” (Kerygmata Petrou selections)

Selections of Clementine Recognitions

Irenaeus Against the heresies 1.41.1 on Marcion (p. 285) 

 

17 January 2014 Day 6: Canon, Part 2: What are some modern responses to Paul’s letters as scripture or authoritative?

1 Cor. 7:12; 1 Cor. 7:25 

Howard Thurman, interview  (read response to the first question)

Stendahl, Why I Love the Bible, Harvard Divinity Bulletin

A New New Testament.“Forward” by John Dominic Crossan

A New New Testament. “Introducing A New New Testament” by Hal Taussig

F. F. Bruce, “Tradition and the Canon of Scripture,” 59, 69-74 (in The Authoritative Word) 

 

20 January 2014 Day 7: A Succession of Empires and Roman Imperial Power

Polybius Histories Book 1.1.2-2.8 and 1.4.1-11.

Daniel 2

1 Corinthians 10-12

 

22 January 2014 Day 8: Roman Imperialism and Jewish Diversity

Josephus, The Jewish War 2.119-166; 2.254-270

Josephus Antiquities 18.1

 

24 January 2014 Office Hours

 

27 January 2014 Day 9: The Roman Empire: Politics and Religion

“Letter of Paulus Fabius Maximus and Decrees by Asians Concerning the Provincial Calendar,” in Frederick W. Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis, MO: Clayton, 1982) reading 33 (pp. 215-224; Priene inscription)

Tacitus, Histories 4.81 and John 9:1-13

1 Corinthians 1-4 

Romans 13

 

 29 January 2014 Day 10: Introduction to 1 Corinthians and Slavery and Freedom in Roman Corinth

1 and 2 Corinthians

Aristotle, Politics I.1-13 (1252a-1260b)                                 

Justinian Digest 21

 

31 January 2014 Day 11: Wisdom, Prophecy, Knowledge in 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians

Galatians 3-4

2 Corinthians 10-12

The Wisdom of Solomon

 

3 February 2013 Day 12 : Early Christian Communities Interpret 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 

Aristotle, Politics I.1-13 (1252a-1260b)

1 Timothy (esp. chapters 2-3), Colossians 2:20-4:1; Ephesians 5:21-6:20 

Acts of Paul and Thecla 

Tertullian On baptism 17 

 

5 February 2013 Day 13: Conclusions