Rediscovering the early first century Jewish roots of Christianity

There were no Christians following Jesus

Christianity in the early first century was a rather homogeneous community of powerless, underprivileged, and disadvantaged Jews. It was not made up of well-to-do, powerful Gentiles, non-Jews, let alone White Evangelical Americans. It would not be until Constantine the Great that Christianity assumed a role of power some nearly three hundred years after the beginnings of Christianity in the early first century. Initially a sect of Judaism, Christianity had no place in the Roman Empire, especially with the treasonous gospel claim that Jesus–not Caesar–was Lord, King of kings, and the Son of God. In fact, it was not until the end of the first century that the term “Christianity” was applied to Christians, followers of the Way of Jesus (though, derogatorily, such followers were first called “Christians” in Antioch about midway through the first century).

Thus, to look back into the early first century of Christianity is to look back at something that was not there, especially as it has come to be known today. It is anachronistic to apply the term “Christianity” to Jesus, his disciples, and his many followers, as they were all Jews who believed in the Shema, which they recited daily, as well as the Torah, which is the Law of Moses, and the Jewish prophetic writings. The movement of Jesus would come to be known as Christianity, but did not begin known as Christianity. Neither, of course, was the Jesus Movement thoroughly entrenched in the Christian traditions of today, since no such traditions had as of yet been devised.

Indeed, if we were to pull back the veil of time and history and look back at Jesus in his day and age, we would likely see an unglamorous, ordinary-looking Jew of the first century, with nothing to attract us to him. His manner and mannerisms might even frighten us. His charisma would be without charm, but would not lack power. His confidence would be unbecoming for a person of his stature, both in way of height as well as societal position. He would probably look to us like some sort of unassuming radical.

Jesus was an “ordinary” first-century Jew

A man as any other of his time, Jesus was no extraordinary Jew, though neither was he an ordinary Jew of his day and age. He broke with the customs of shunning the outcasted sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and even Gentiles. He broke with the customs of family and familial ties. He broke with the customs of narrowly interpreting the Law of Moses in such an exact and precise way as to miss its true and obvious meaning. He broke with the customs of hating one’s enemies and advocated perfection in love and mercy, even for one’s enemies.

Still, he held to the Jewish Mosaic Law as fast as any Jew of his day. Seeing himself as the fulfillment of that Law, in fact, he endeavored all the more to demonstrate his fastidious faithfulness to the Law, even going so far as to say that he had not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them. He observed Sabbath and attended the local synagogue. He meditated on the Scriptures and knew by heart the Law of Moses as well as the writings of the prophets. He engaged in the dialectic debate common to the rabbis of his time. He spoke of the commands of God and interpreted how to obey them, in his day and age.

While his radical mission and actions thereunto have been pointed out ad nauseam in many books throughout the pages of history, it seems that rare has been the pen that has inscribed a word about the radical commonality of Jesus, who had nothing in his appearance to attract us to him and who would be scorned as smitten by God.

Jesus was an ordinary first-century Jewish laborer

The first thirty years or so of Jesus’ life are not written down in the canonical Gospel accounts, and though many apocryphal Gospels abound, less than a handful of them deal with the early years of Jesus’ life. The absence of literature on this matter seems to indicate something profound, such that the silence is, indeed, deafening– if we listen for it and to it. The silence on the subject indicates that nothing of great importance occurred in Jesus’ first thirty years of life on earth. Of course, his birth, his nativity was important and miraculous, but the rest of the time, his life presumably was rather uneventful.

As he was a son of Joseph, a “carpenter,” so Jesus, too, would have been a “carpenter,” or as the Greek biblical text puts it, tekton. In first century Palestine, someone who was a tekton could have been a carpenter, a stone mason, a construction worker, a contractor, a skilled craftsman or artisan. Much like Bob the Builder, Jesus was a skilled worker who would have performed many tasks similar to those of a construction worker or general contractor of today.

As the eldest son of his family and with the apparent later absence of Joseph from the text of the Gospels, Jesus would have been the provider of the family as well as the next in line to take on the family business. Thus, for Jesus to abandon his family as well as the business thereof to go wandering about preaching would have been like wishing his family dead. He was not a good Jewish son, according to the customs and traditions of his day. However, before he began his public ministry, he worked day in and day out in such a way as to be rejected by his hometown and his own family as anything other than “the carpenter.”

Furthermore, like as not, Jesus was not an affluent tekton, since he lived in Nazareth, wherefrom nothing good could come, as Nathanael so stated (John 1:46). While less than a two-hour walk from Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee, Nazareth was something like a small backwater home to about some 300 Jews of no nobility, rank, or wealth, most of whom were poor shepherds or meager farmers, eking out a living. Being a tekton, Joseph with Jesus would have likely made the trip to Sepphoris to labor, where there was much work to do. The Romans had destroyed Sepphoris when Jesus had been a baby, and Herod Antipas had it rebuilt during Jesus’ youth. Hence, Jesus would have likely been part of the rebuilding of Sepphoris.

As fascinating as this may be to us, for Jesus and those of his day, it would have been the humdrum, run-of-the-mill, daily grind. There was no glamor in this, nor was there any fame or glory to be had. Jesus worked day in and day out as a manual laborer, perhaps making the nearly two-hour journey by foot twice a day to Sepphoris, carrying his supplies or guiding a donkey to do so for him–if his family had been fortunate enough to have had one.

Jesus was crucified as a common criminal

While the fact that Jesus was crucified as a common criminal is a fact too obvious to note, the fact itself seems often obscured by the devotion many adherents have to Jesus himself. We ought not so glamorize or spiritualize his death and the crucifixion therewith that we lose sight of the fact that Jesus in his final hours was rejected by the religious leaders, the ruling elite, who spoke on behalf of both God and the people of Israel; that Jesus’ words, works, and wonders were rejected as nothing more than mere charlatanry, magic, or demonically-inspired subterfuge; that Jesus was seen as nothing more than an ordinary Jewish man of no noble order or birth, making outlandish claims as to be God or the son thereof and the King of the Jews.

The fact that Jesus was crucified should pique our historical interest, as only non-Romans (and a few traitorous Romans) could be crucified under Roman law. Since Jesus was crucified, he was perceived by both his own people as well as the governing Roman authorities as no one worth caring about, no one worthy of life. This screams of the commonality of Jesus, even after having had a time of ministry wherein he worked miracles and spoke words of power. Since Jesus was not a Roman citizen, either by birth or purchase, he was not considered as worthy of life or humane punishment as some others, namely, Roman citizens or the Jewish ruling elite.

What we can glean from this brief survey

The fact that Christianity began with a Jewish man of extremely humble origins, whose life was cut short with a most gruesome and humiliating death, should alert us to a note of importance: if the man Jesus was so humble and so poorly treated, whom we might call Lord and Savior, how much more should we ourselves be so humble and expect no better treatment than he? It seems that when the Church received power with the rule of Constantine, she has ever since been in a state of power. The underdog Lord and Savior seems to have little to no room in our churches, our homes, our hearts–not because he does not wish to enter in, but because he is not welcomed in.