To the Jew and Also to the Gentile

Eschatology and Apocalypticism

“Unsure” and “unsettled” are words that characterize the time and place of the coming of Jesus Christ. The Roman Empire, which would endure for centuries afterward and whose cultural tradition still affects the world, was a relatively recent phenomenon.¹ The uncertainty of this world affected both Judaism and earliest Christianity, each of which exhibits elements of both eschatological yearning and apocalyptic thinking. Eschatology and apocalypticism are separate but related concepts, and together they represent a substantial thread that runs through much of the New Testament writings and informs how the individual books were received.

Eschatology is the interest in and wait for the end of the world (the term derives from eschaton, Greek ἔσχατον, a word that means “end”). Hence, “eschatology” refers to the various ways in which a given religious group understands and anticipates the end of the world. This can take many different forms, including images of destruction of the wicked or a return to a longed-for primeval event. Generally speaking, the more disenfranchised a group feels, the more likely they are to develop eschatological forms of thinking. This can be seen in the early days of the restored Church. Long before the Civil War engulfed the United States, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was very concerned with eschatology and thought that Jesus Christ’s Second Coming was imminent.² On the other hand, as the Church in America has become relatively more prosperous and gained acceptance within mainstream society, eschatological feelings have tended to subside, although they have never fully gone away.

“Apocalyptic” properly refers to a specific ancient genre of literature. The name derives from the most famous exemplar of this kind of literature: the Revelation of John, as found in the New Testament.³ This genre is primarily a Jewish and Christian one, although texts that can be categorized as apocalyptic do appear in other languages and cultures.⁴ While the name comes from Revelation, the genre itself appears to be much older; the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible is one example of a Jewish apocalypse that was sufficiently early to be included in the Old Testament canon. These texts are often associated with the notion of the current world order being overturned in favor of a divinely appointed order. Groups that are looking for or waiting for that overturn are often characterized as “apocalyptic” or holding to “apocalypticism.”⁵ There is, therefore, some clear overlap between apocalyptic groups and eschatological groups. Sometimes apocalyptic texts and groups see the overturning of the order as part of an eschatological event, but that is not necessary. Thus there is some overlap between eschatology and apocalypticism, but they are not the same thing.

The Christianity represented in the New Testament is certainly eschatological. Matthew 24 and 25 are explicitly about the “end of the world” (Matt. 24:3).⁶ Although the word eschaton does not appear in these verses and does not appear in the synoptic Gospels referring to some sort of end-time, it does show up that way in the Gospel of John, where Jesus speaks of “the last day” on numerous occasions (see John 6:39–40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48). It is clear from the context of these sermons that the “last day” so referenced refers to some kind of end-time event. Even with the specific lack of the word eschaton, ancient Christians were very concerned with the end of regular human history and the victory of Jesus Christ over everything.

Orality and Literacy

The world of ancient ritual was one where orality prevailed; indeed, the passing on of ritual regulations and laws was primarily an oral event. There has been a wealth of recent studies on the nature of orality in the ancient world, in both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts.⁷ These studies highlight the great fluidity that existed between the written and oral word in the ancient world. According to many early Christian scholars, even texts that quickly became “scripture”—with all the rich associations of writing and tradition connected to scriptures, such as the Gospels—possessed a basic core of oral traditions that circulated through the early Christian movement. Letters, although written for ease of transmission, were read out loud and were thus experienced as oral texts.⁸ Speaking generally, in the New Testament world and the early Roman Empire, people heard literary texts, and these oral texts were later written down, codified, and studied. Therefore, there was a strong fluidity between what was oral and what was written in the ancient world.

The texts of early Judaism and Christianity were both part of this oral tradition. Paul Achtemeier suggests that the New Testament, being a product of the broader ancient Mediterranean, came about in a world of “residual orality,” even in literary creations.⁹ Achtemeier goes on to argue that silent reading to oneself was very rare and something that would arouse great surprise. Although Achtemeier’s notion of the rarity of ancient silent reading has been called into question, his observations about the general orality of the ancient world and the fluidity between oral and written are accepted.¹⁰ Catherine Hezser argues that oral communication between rabbis was the primary medium for shared information in the tannaitic period because there is no record of written communication between the sages of that time period; she contrasts this with early Christianity’s tradition of epistles.¹¹

It is common in the modern world of compulsory public education to think in terms of literacy and written transmission rather than oral transmission. In the ancient world, where writing was a professional skill practiced by a limited guild, most information would have been transmitted orally. Although writing remained an arcane skill to most inhabitants during late antiquity, there was a possibility that something written down could be read by someone who was not privy to the technical skills of the ritual practitioner, so secrecy was very common. In addition, ritual information had the added status of being privileged or secret.¹² Even if texts were written down, these kinds of texts often used a purposefully obscure language in order to safeguard their secrets.¹³ Today, the nature of preservation bias means that we experience the material we do have from the ancient world through texts even when a given text was once oral.¹⁴

In addition, although Jewish and Christian scripture in the ancient world was eventually written down, it was primarily experienced orally.¹⁵ Daniel Boyarin has pointed out that even the act of reading was a performance in the ancient world since texts were read out loud in community environments.¹⁶ In Hebrew, the etymological root of the word “to read” (qaraʾ) is “to recite, to call aloud.”¹⁷ Reading was often a social activity as much as it was an academic one. An example of how this worked out appears in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus opens his mortal ministry by quoting from the biblical book of Isaiah:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. (Luke 4:16–20)

The people in the synagogue in Nazareth were not reading along in their own personal copies of the scriptures. Even among the people who were literate, the cost of producing scriptures by hand meant that personal reading copies would be rare. They were not nonexistent but would have been limited to the elite class. Thus most people encountered the scriptures in the context of shared oral readings, as seen in the above example from Luke. Jesus read the scriptures to the people in the synagogue, but they experienced and processed them orally.¹⁸

As the early Christians began to spread the good news of Jesus’ Resurrection, they also spread his teachings, which circulated orally before they were written down in the Gospels and preserved in the present-day New Testament (see Mark 6:7–12).¹⁹ Scholars have long postulated a source containing Jesus’ sayings known as “Q” (from the German Quelle, meaning “source”) that was utilized by both Luke and Matthew.²⁰ The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas among the texts at Nag Hammadi showed that this kind of sayings collection was, in fact, valued by early Christians. The original words of Jesus Christ appear to have circulated among early Christians orally and were only later collected and written down.²¹ This phenomenon also helps explain the similarities and differences between the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew 5–7, and the Sermon on the Plain, as recorded in Luke 6:17–49. The teachings in both sermons are clearly related but deployed in different contexts in the two Gospels. Jesus likely dipped into these same teachings in a number of different contexts,²² but it is also likely that his important teachings, which the Sermon on the Mount clearly frames, circulated orally among his followers. Hence, one possible solution to differences in the Gospel accounts is oral transmission.

One other element in the discussion of literacy in the ancient world is the presence of multiple languages in the Roman province of Judea. The Holy Land was, in many ways, a corridor for different empires, and each of these empires and societies left cultural and linguistic marks on the land and the people. When Jesus is hung on the cross, Pilate orders that a plaque be put up, inscribed with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (Luke 23:38; John 19:20). Because this inscription appears to have been intended to be read by random people passing by the Crucifixion site, it gives insight to expectations of basic literacy in ancient Judea. It also gives insight into languages that the Romans expected their Judean subjects to be able to read. The presence of three languages could indicate the expectation that people would be able to read one but not necessarily all the specified languages.

The original language of the Jews was Hebrew. This is the language of the scriptures, but Hebrew also existed as a living language in the New Testament period, as evidenced by texts like the Mishnah and the Bar Kokhba letters.²³ The Jews who returned from Babylon brought back with them the Aramaic language. This language is related to Hebrew, and there was influence on both sides. Mishnaic Hebrew was influenced by Aramaic, and Jewish Aramaic was, in turn, heavily influenced by Hebrew. All of Jesus’ recorded statements in the New Testament appear to be Aramaic, suggesting that this was his primary language of communication. There are times when the New Testament authors (especially John) identify a statement as Hebrew, which is actually Aramaic, such as John 19:17. This makes it possible that the Hebrew inscription over Jesus’ head on the cross could have been written in Aramaic (see Luke 23:38 and John 19:20). However, Jesus lived in a world where Hebrew and Aramaic existed side by side and served as constant influences on one another, so a simple inscription in either language was likely to be readable in the other.²⁴

Beyond the Semitic languages were the languages of imperial control. The language of the Roman Empire was Latin, but in the eastern part of the empire, most official empire business was conducted in Greek.²⁵ It might have been possible to hear Latin at the Antonia Fortress (although there is good evidence that the “Roman” soldiers in Judea were Samaritans or other auxiliaries and thus not Latin speakers)²⁶ or in the legionary camps after the Jewish revolt. But even there, one could easily find someone who knew some Greek. Latin was obviously the native language of the Roman procurators and prefects who governed the province, but like all upper-class Romans, they would have been tutored in Greek. During the Roman period, Greek (and its attendant cultural associations) was the language of commerce and communication between the various parts of the eastern Roman Empire. This was the language that Paul spoke on his missionary journeys and was the idiom of his epistles. It is likely that some of the other Apostles knew some Greek, and there is even some evidence that Jesus himself knew Greek, as his interview with Pilate seems to indicate.²⁷ Although the earliest converts to Christianity would have likely had the strongest background in Aramaic (and, to a lesser extent, Hebrew), Greek carried the day and was the language of missionary work and New Testament writings.

Varieties of Judaism

Judaism was a complex system, or series of systems, during the period immediately preceding and following the rise of Christianity. Some scholars, such as Jacob Neusner, have suggested that instead of saying “Judaism,” it is more correct to describe the ancient situation as “Judaisms.”²⁸ Jews living around the time of Jesus Christ divided themselves into various parties or groups (what Josephus, in a probable attempt to make them understandable to his Greek-speaking audience, called “philosophies”), which were essentially independent and different forms of Judaism. The names of some of these parties, such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees, are very familiar to readers of the New Testament. In many cases, their appearance and general description in the New Testament is supported by descriptions and portrayals in other places. Other groups, such as the Essenes or the Therapeutae, are more obscure to the present-day reader. These parties did not seem to affect the authors and editors of the New Testament as directly, so they are not included. Despite their differences, these groups shared enough similar beliefs that New Testament scholar E. P. Sanders postulated the existence of a “common Judaism.”²⁹

Probably the most important of these Jewish groups for the New Testament and later Judaism is the Pharisees. The name is usually understood as a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew term perushim,³⁰ from a root that indicates separateness.³¹ In his Jewish Antiquities, the Jewish historian Josephus describes the Pharisees as living an austere life, respecting elders, believing in a doctrine of free will, and believing in the persistence of the soul³² after death (Antiquities 18.1.3). He goes on to suggest that the Pharisees were the most influential among the Jewish people. The Gospels, especially the Gospel of Matthew, paint the Pharisees as being opposed to Jesus. But of all the Jewish parties, the Pharisees appear to have the closest beliefs to the earliest Christians, as may be seen in the conversion of several known Pharisees to nascent Christianity, the most famous of these being Paul.³³ This closeness suggests that some of the recorded difficulties the Pharisees found with Christ were a result of boundary maintenance, or the practice of creating and overemphasizing boundaries that were not part of the actual law of Moses; they focused chiefly on food laws regarding preservation and preparation. In addition to the Pharisees presentation in Josephus’s writings and the New Testament, they are generally seen as the intellectual ancestors of the sages of the rabbinic movement, although there were some key differences in practice and scriptural interpretation.³⁴

The Sadducees are the second of the Jewish parties that are most familiar to New Testament readers. This is in part because of the role they played in the judicial system of Judea, including the trial and Crucifixion of Jesus.³⁵ Their name is generally understood as deriving in some way from the Hebrew name Zadok, the high priest in the days of Solomon and the progenitor of the priestly line.³⁶ Josephus informs his readers that the Sadducees believe in only the law of Moses as it is written and that the soul dies along with the body.³⁷ According to Acts 23:5–9, Paul is able to escape a legal judgment by turning the Sadducees in the court against the Pharisees on the topic of the resurrection and the immortality of the soul. Josephus suggests that the Pharisees were the more powerful group, so the Sadducees kept their distinctive opinions to themselves when in formal, elevated positions. (Josephus claims to be a Pharisee himself, and this may have influenced his portrayal of this position.)³⁸ As portrayed in both Josephus’s writings and the New Testament, the Sadducees were largely made up of the priestly elite. The “chief priests,” referenced especially in the arrest and trial of Jesus, were likely members of the Sadducean party.

The third group, who Josephus called the Essenes, do not explicitly appear in the New Testament, although some scholars have postulated their connection with early Christianity. After the spectacular discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the community associated with that site has been identified with the Essenes. According to Josephus, Essenes were sufficiently separate from the rest of Judaism because they believed the Jerusalem Temple was spiritually fallen. As a result, they did not take part in the Temple sacrifices, although they would send offerings. According to Josephus, a certain subclass of the Essenes lived in celibate communities apart from other Jews.³⁹ Like the Essenes, the Qumran community also believed that the Jerusalem Temple was fallen and gathered in separatist communities. The similarities between the Qumran sect and the Essenes described by Josephus point most scholars to the consensus that they are the same group.⁴⁰ The Qumran community called themselves the “sons of Zadok,” suggesting a connection with the Sadducees or at least an appeal to a similar ideology and history.⁴¹ Although the Essenes and the Qumran people do not have the same immediate connection to the New Testament as the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the War Scroll from Caves 1 and 4 near the Dead Sea illustrate the apocalyptic and utopian impulse in first-century Judaism, an impulse with strong connections to nascent Christianity.

In addition to the three groups, Josephus mentions the Fourth Philosophy; it is the subject of much debate, not the least because he does not even give it a name, although he does mention the founder. Josephus suggests that, in terms of practices and beliefs, followers of the Fourth Philosophy are in line with the Pharisees. He also suggests that they are revolutionaries who will have no king besides God. The Fourth Philosophy came into prominence during the Jewish revolt of AD 66–70. The Zealots, with whom Jesus’ disciple Simon Zelotes was apparently associated, can perhaps be connected to this group.⁴² The name “Zealot” comes from the story of Phinehas in Numbers 25, who rescued Israel through a violent attack and was commended for his zeal in verse 11. It is unclear from both Josephus and the New Testament how organized and monolithic the revolutionary impulse and the Fourth Philosophy movement were among the Jews. The lack of large groups of revolutionaries suggests that the movement was not widespread. What is clear from the various sources is that, although Jews did not organize against the Romans, there was an undercurrent of revolutionary teaching and thinking in the Judaism of the early Roman Empire. The presence of an apparent Zealot among Jesus’ closest followers suggests that revolutionary ideas were also present in earliest Christianity, although Jesus’ own teachings put a very different spin on what was intended by the revolution.

For Latter-day Saints used to thinking in terms of the Restoration and the “only true and living Church” (D&C 1:30), the multiplicity of approaches to Judaism can seem strange. This is especially true in light of the fact that, although each division within Judaism had diverse ideas about the nature of God and the law, they were broadly united in their Jewish identity and had more in common with one another than they did with the religious systems of non-Jews described in the next section. They were united in their adherence to the law of Moses and the Jerusalem Temple. Jesus’ superiority to the Temple and the law of Moses, as laid out in the New Testament, meant that the earliest Christians had an ambiguous relationship with the foundational elements of Judaism, but the fact remains that they still had a relationship with them.

Religious Experience in the Roman Empire

As we look at the world of ancient religion and the New Testament, it is important to note that the term “religion,” as applied to that time, suggested far more than one set of beliefs and practices. Within the ancient world, there are a wide variety of activities that scholars have identified as “religion.” Many of these activities were part and parcel with the social and political life of those living in the orbit of Roman power. There were mystery cults alongside official civic cults. Magicians and itinerant street philosophers plied their wares to the mixed populace of a Hellenized world. Gods from all over the Mediterranean were worshiped side by side—Isis and Aphrodite, Jupiter and Baalshamin.⁴³ It was into this world of religious pluralism and practice that the promised Messiah of Judaism came and the New Testament was produced.

In fact, one of the primary features of “religion” within the Roman world was not only its variety but also the fact that this variety took place within a single system. In his very useful introduction to religion in the Roman Empire, James B. Rives notes, “The diversity of religion in the Roman world was not that of separate and distinct ‘religions,’ each with its own set of core beliefs and principles and its particular scriptures, clergy, shrines, rituals, and customs. . . . [T]he coexistence of religious conceptions and practices that would seem incompatible to people used to the idea of ‘a religion’ was apparently taken for granted in the Roman Empire.”⁴⁴ This variety allowed for a number of different, but related, practices to flourish in the empire, often side by side. Thus an ordinary citizen of the Roman Empire could expect to sacrifice to the local god of the city, to attend a festival in the honor of the divinized emperor, and perhaps to be a member of a mystery cult. None of these things would have been seen as parts of separate religious systems.

Judaism and then Christianity were, in many ways, exceptions to these observations. Because of the injunction against the creation of images and the worship of gods besides the God of Israel in Exodus 20:3–5, Judaism could not and would not fully integrate with non-Jewish religious practice. However, Judaism in the Second Temple period still existed in a Roman world and so shared with the surrounding world their notions of “religion” and ritual practice. Christianity also inherited from Judaism the covenant concern with worshiping false gods. Because it was a missionary religion that drew its new converts from both Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds, early Christianity used elements or vocabulary from the world in order to make its point, whether in Paul’s or Jesus’ use of “mystery” or in specific quotations from Greek or Roman poets. Thus, even while rejecting the Greco-Roman plurality of gods and tolerance of practice, Judaism and early Christianity remained part of the ancient religious world.

Although viewed as part of a single spectrum, ancient religion may be thought of in several categories, such as the ancient customary cults, the Roman imperial cult, and the mystery cults. There is a considerable amount of overlap to these categories, but they provide useful spaces for modern thinkers to understand the variety of ancient religious expression. The customary cults were the everyday cults dedicated to the gods worshiped in various cities and communities in the Roman world. The priesthood of these cults was often hereditary and part-time, and the rites and rituals were handed down from time immemorial. The imperial cults represented honors given to reigning and former emperors and were an important part of the social and cultural notions of rulership in especially the Greek east (where most of the New Testament has its formation and context).⁴⁵ Mystery cults were special, often secret, ritual associations that promised esoteric doctrines and teachings to their adherents, both in this life and the life to come. One, the Cult of Mithras, was actually a rival to Christianity for members among certain segments of Roman society.⁴⁶ We should again underscore that the average citizen in a Roman city would take part in any or all of these over the course of his or her life. This is partly why Judaism and later Christianity were viewed as antisocial and insular by their polytheistic neighbors.⁴⁷ They partook of a particularism that simply did not make sense in the Greco-Roman worldview.

The plurality of religious practices in the ancient Roman world points to an important difference in ancient religious thought about how religion is described. We often use words like “faith” or “belief” to describe religion, while the ancient world was much more likely to describe the ritual practices associated with the worship of a given god. Part of this development is visible in the New Testament itself, of course, but much of this comes from later Christian religious discourse. Because of this, when looking at the variety of religious experiences in the ancient world, it is helpful to note that they would have been understood and characterized as experiences. In both Judaism and Roman religion, the primary words used for describing religious practices are words of action and doing—not words associated with faith and belief.

Of the three broad categories in the Greco-Roman religious spectrum, the local cults were the most ancient and were largely assumed as part of the general cultural world.⁴⁸ These local cults were the traditional practices associated with the various gods, as understood by their communities. In the eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was often made up of Hellenized cities, the original ancient deities were often understood and referred to by their Greek names and worshiped in a somewhat syncretic fashion. The most famous example of this from the New Testament is Ephesian Artemis, called Diana in the King James Version of Acts 19:24–35. Greek Artemis was a goddess of the hunt and was considered by her worshipers to be a virgin goddess.⁴⁹ In contrast, the Artemis worshiped in Ephesus and the rest of Asia Minor was a mother goddess associated with animals and fertility.⁵⁰ The ancients understood these syncretic gods variously as aspects of the same god or goddess or as different gods worshiped under the same name.

As the example of Ephesian Artemis illustrates, the rituals of each cult tended to center on one individual temple and included the idea that the associated deity’s power rested within that place. Like the surrounding Greco-Roman world, Judaism had a strong locative element, with the Temple being the center of their world and the place where God himself was said to live. According to the Tanhuma, a late antiquity collection of Jewish Midrashic materials, the land of Israel is the center of the world, Jerusalem is the center of the land of Israel, the Temple is the center of Jerusalem, and the Foundation Stone is the center of the Temple.⁵¹ Although relatively late in regards to the Judaism of the New Testament, there are similar notions of the centrality of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Temple in the New Testament itself, such as the assertion in Matthew 5:35 that “it is the city of the great King.” In ancient Mediterranean religion, place was one of the most important things (see, for example, “the place” in Luke 22:40).⁵²

As with Judaism, the worship practices of a local cult could spread, and occasionally, a cult or practice could develop into a Panhellenic cult that was honored and practiced all across the Greek or Roman world. The cult of Apollo and the Oracle at Delphi forms one such example.⁵³ Apollo was considered by the ancient Greeks to be the god of prophecy, and his priestess at Delphi was able to answer questions for cities and individuals throughout the Greek-speaking world.⁵⁴ The influence of this Panhellenic cult was even felt in nonofficial capacities. According to Acts, Paul encounters a woman who is able to prophesy. In the King James Version, the girl is “possessed with a spirit of divination” (Acts 16:16). The Greek for “spirit of divination” is pneuma pythona, a “Pythian spirit.” The girl’s ability to prophesy, even in the hostile version, is characterized in the New Testament as being related to Apollos Pythios and the Oracle at Delphi. It should be noted, however, in the case of both the Jerusalem Temple and the worship of Apollo Pythios at Delphi, that even as they spread, these Panhellenic cults remained strongly centered in their associated place. For example, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as a center point would have far-reaching effects on how later Judaism and Christianity would develop.⁵⁵

Although still rooted in their place of origin, Panhellenic and local cults began forming more moveable ideologies and practices. This includes Christianity’s notion that the believers in Christ became the temple of God. This is seen in 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 and Ephesians 2:21. It achieves what is probably its fullest expression in the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas 16:1–10. There, the physical temple in Jerusalem was rejected in favor of a temple made of redeemed humanity. Judaism, as exemplified by the rabbinic sages, continued to emphasize the Temple even after its destruction and created a system rooted in the memory of a standing temple, even as they moved beyond the Temple’s specific institutions and location.⁵⁶

Mystery cults were voluntary associations that claimed to give their initiates special knowledge or a superior position in the afterlife. Sometimes, like the cults of Mithras and Isis, they were adaptations of non-Greek and non-Roman cultic systems.⁵⁷ Other mysteries, like the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, were thoroughly Greek in their history and outlook, having grown up on Greek soil.⁵⁸ What these systems held in common was a claim to special knowledge that could only be given to those who were ritually prepared. This creates some difficulties for modern students of these cults because this special knowledge was guarded as a secret, and many of those secrets still remain uncovered or unknown.⁵⁹ The secret rites inducted people into the presence of the deity who was the mystery’s patron. Hence, the New Testament usage of the word “mystery” should probably be understood, at least at some level, in continuity with the broader Greek and Roman usage of the term.

When explaining the parables to his disciples, Jesus Christ tells them, “It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given” (Matt. 13:11). Here Jesus deploys “mystery” in the sense of some kind of knowledge that is reserved for those who are spiritually in tune (in this case, the disciples). In addition to the Greco-Roman conceptions that feed into the Greek word, there are also likely connections with Jewish and Hebrew or Aramaic usage of the word raz, which means “secret” or “mystery.” Thus one interpretation of this parable is that some of Jesus’ own teachings were not intended for all audiences. It also may have had a connection to knowledge meant to be protected and kept secret and sacred.

For Latter-day Saints, this has strong connections to certain elements of modern temple worship. This is not to say that every time Jesus or the New Testament authors employ the word “mystery” they are specifically alluding to the ceremonies and doctrines practiced in the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ today. However, the idea of truths that are hidden from the world at large because of their importance and sacredness is a notion that resonates with Latter-day Saints today. Many take comfort from Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matt. 7:6). The ancient world was one where the religious experience was divided between those who knew and those who did not. This is one place where modern Saints find themselves in continuity with the inhabitants of Roman Judea. This is true even when the specific mystery has a different referent in ancient versus modern Christianity, let alone among Judaism, Christianity, and the various polytheistic religions of the ancient world.

At the other end of the spectrum from the ancient “local” cults was the imperial cult, although it is important to remember that we are, even here, still dealing with a spectrum. For example, there was no such thing as the imperial cult as one entity. It was, instead, a series of local honors offered to the emperor and was never centralized or controlled by the emperor.⁶⁰ In some ways, this practice was just as strongly local as the local cults discussed above. The local expressions of the imperial cult were viewed and understood as recent innovations and were usually framed as spontaneously arising from a given city’s appreciation for the emperor.

Within the Roman world, the primary method of religious expression was sacrifice. This was true in Greco-Roman religions, it was true in native cults in Syria and the Near East, and it was true in Judaism. In the New Testament, the prevalence of sacrifice is presumed, both by the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:29) and by Paul’s specific advice to the Corinthian Saints (1 Cor. 10:16–21). In many ways, one of the goals of the Epistle to the Hebrews is to work through the connection between animal sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple and Christ’s sacrifice. Because sacrifice was so important in both Roman and Jewish ritual practice, it is important for modern readers of the New Testament to allow for the centrality of this ancient practice rather than impose more modern notions of religious expression.

Gender Dynamics

When dealing with the question of gender and gender roles in the world surrounding the New Testament, it is especially important to remember the observation of novelist L. P. Hartley: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”⁶¹ The status of especially women was, in many ways, strongly curtailed in the ancient world. The scriptures themselves are largely written by men from a male point of view and are generally male facing. This can sometimes obscure the female perspective. It would, on the one hand, be a mistake to downplay the importance of figures like Mary, Martha, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, within the scriptural narrative of the New Testament. On the other hand, it would be a disservice to suggest that the prevalence of these particular women somehow covers the fact that the New Testament is largely unconcerned with the female experience. The writings of Paul, in particular, have elements that have been used shamefully in the past to explain or justify the oppression or ill-treatment of women. It is, therefore, especially important when discussing gender roles and women to keep in mind the cultural background informing the New Testament authors and editors in order to allow us to be “more wise” than they had been (see Morm. 9:31). Latter-day Saints do not believe that the scriptures are without error,⁶² and this can be a place for discussion and improvement.

Generally speaking, women were not property in the Mediterranean world that served as the cradle for Christianity, but there were elements of their lives that were treated as part of property law, especially their reproductive capability.⁶³ The New Testament is, in many ways, the result of a hybrid Jewish and Greco-Roman world, and so it is helpful to see how these two cultures understood and legislated about women and women’s roles. It is also worth noting the ways in which the New Testament is in continuity with those ideas as well as the ways that it rejects them.

Marriage is one way that society expresses notions of gender and gender roles. Michael L. Satlow wrote a book on Jewish marriage in antiquity, drawing mostly on rabbinic evidence with some reference to Second Temple Jewish literature.⁶⁴ In regard to the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish conceptions of marriage and gender, Satlow asserts, “There is nothing essentially Jewish about ‘Jewish’ marriage in antiquity.”⁶⁵ He suggests that ancient Jews living in Judea were influenced by Greco-Roman ideas of marriage, especially Stoic ones. These ideas held that marriage was a natural state established by the gods and that a person’s primary purpose was to set up a household and have children.⁶⁶

The New Testament seems to continue this idea and contains elements of the appeal to the “natural” and therefore God-given character of marriage, but the text also dismisses the idea of a household as the only ideal. When asked about divorce, Jesus responds by appealing to the story of the creation of Adam and Eve—a story that does not play very much into marriage in the Hebrew Bible but appears extensively in Second Temple sources.⁶⁷ In fact, Jesus ends his teachings on marriage with the statement “What . . . God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6). The assumption behind this teaching is that God created marriage with Adam and Eve, and marriage is therefore a “natural” state. On the other hand, Jesus suggests that following him and his order supersedes the household with its attendant domestic responsibilities: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matt. 10:34–36). Jesus is paraphrasing Micah 7:6 here. Jesus’ reference to the household is very likely significant in light of the prevailing ideology of marriage being primarily concerned with the establishment of a household, as laid out by Satlow. We see that Jesus allows for his surrounding culture but rejects some of its ideas and ideologies.

The strongest rejection of the ancient notions of gender (and class) in the New Testament is found in Galatians 3:28, where Paul asserts, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” The breaking down of traditional social orders, including gender roles, is something that is visible in both Paul’s and Jesus’ teachings. We should note, however, that Ephesians also contains a statement that seems to place women within their traditional marriage role of being subservient: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto to the Lord” (Eph. 5:22). This is followed by an explanation comparing the wife to the Church and the husband to Jesus, suggesting that a similar relationship should exist between husbands and wives. The Greek word translated as “submit” does appear in the best manuscripts. This is still a problem, since verse 22 actually has no verb, and so something must be added to make sense of the verse. Something like “submit” seems to make the best sense, distasteful as it is to current sensibilities, especially based on the presence of the Greek verb for “submit” in verse 21.

Among the intriguing aspects of gender in the ancient Roman world are questions about family, celibacy, and the nature of man- and womanhood. In keeping with its often eschatological approach, in which the kingdom of God was seen as imminent, the New Testament seems to appeal to a certain kind of celibacy—something that makes Latter-day Saints occasionally uncomfortable. This is, once again, a place to remember to not impose modern notions or expectations on ancient Christians and believers in Jesus. Contrary to how Latter-day Saints sometimes speak, later Christian notions of the importance and glorification of celibacy derive from statements that are presented in the New Testament as we have it.

In Matthew 19:3–9, Jesus was involved in a controversy with the Pharisees over the appropriateness of divorce (according to rabbinic sources, this was a moving concern of the Pharisaic schools in Jesus’ day).⁶⁸ Jesus very famously says that divorce was not approved by God, and that divorce for any cause is invalid, with the exception of adultery. He does so by appealing to the creation and marriage of Adam and Eve discussed above.

His disciples are amazed by what they perceive as the strictness of Jesus’ pronouncement and suggest that it is better for people not to marry at all. Jesus’ response is somewhat ambiguous and difficult to understand, a fact that Jesus is aware of, since he prefaces his statement by saying, “All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given” (Matt. 19:11). He then proceeds to talk about eunuchs, using the Greek word from which the English word derives:⁶⁹ “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matt. 19:12). The base lexical meaning of this Greek term, as in English, refers to castrated males. Jesus is not, however, necessarily referring to eunuchs in the solely technical sense. In fact, the context of the disciples’ questions seems to indicate that marriage could be the topic here, so Jesus may be talking about a voluntary state of celibacy that some adopted for the purpose of the kingdom of heaven, as in modern missionary service.

For Latter-day Saints, some of these teachings are very difficult, especially in light of the revelation about the eternal nature of the marriage covenant. Eternal marriage is one of the distinctive doctrines of the Restoration, and accordingly, Latter-day Saints would like to see eternal marriage in all ages of history. A clear example of this may be seen in the writings of Elder Bruce R. McConkie. For example, speaking of Paul’s perspective on marriage, Elder McConkie suggests, “Knowing what he did about the doctrine of celestial marriage and exaltation, it is unthinkable that he would have counseled against marriage, except in some peculiar circumstance. There might be cases today in which individuals should not marry, but it is not the general rule, and the principle of not marrying is not the doctrine of the Church now any more than it was in his day.”⁷⁰ One of Elder McConkie’s assumptions is that Paul knew the same doctrine of celestial marriage and exaltation as taught in the Church today.⁷¹ This assumption does not necessarily follow. In fact, speaking through Joseph Smith on the ordinances of the temple, God told the Church in 1841, “And verily I say unto you, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people; For I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fulness of times” (D&C 124:40–41). Thus we cannot assume that the ancient New Testament authors fully understood the doctrine of eternal marriage.

As seen above, notions of marriage were different in the ancient world than they are in modern context. It is important for Latter-day Saints to remember that the relatively modern buzzword of “traditional marriage” is not the same as our doctrine of celestial marriage. Joseph Smith’s revelations about eternal marriage, and especially plural marriage, flew in the face of ideas of traditional marriage.⁷² In many ways this is a reminder to read the scriptures in the manner suggested by Brigham Young—as though we are in the shoes of the ancient authors.⁷³ This includes not assuming they approached things the same way that we do in the modern age.

Slavery

Slavery is another topic that is distasteful to modern readers, but it was a vital part of how the ancient world existed and understood itself.⁷⁴ It even finds expression in the New Testament, as Paul often refers to himself as a “slave” to Jesus Christ. Although English maintains a semantic distinction between “servant” and “slave,” the Greek of the New Testament does not do so. It is also useful to note that the most distinctive feature of especially American slavery—race and skin color—was not part of the ancient conception of slavery.⁷⁵ This should especially encourage us to be careful to look at notions within their original social and societal contexts.

As with many things in the ancient world, the situation of slaves in the New Testament is a result of two worlds: a Greco-Roman one, based on the surrounding culture and laws, and a Jewish one, based on interpretations of laws found in the Hebrew Bible. There were similarities in the two legal worlds, such that the types of slavery in both systems more resemble each other than they resemble historical American chattel slavery. There are also clear differences. Understanding the New Testament position on slavery requires acknowledgment of the influence of both these legal worlds. In some ways, the first and most important thing to reiterate on this point is that slavery was legal and expected in both the Roman and the Jewish systems. Biblical law (which served as the basis for later Jewish law) presumed the existence of slaves. There was no universal manumission mandated by the law of Moses.⁷⁶

The Hebrew Bible has in-depth laws about the disposition of slaves and outlines rules governing the care and acquisition of slaves. Exodus 21:2–6 is typical:

If thou buy an Hebrew servant,⁷⁷ six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges;⁷⁸ he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever.

This section illustrates a number of important points about ancient slavery, many of which were current in the hybrid Jewish and Roman environment that served as the matrix for the New Testament. There are several telling things that can be inferred from this law.

The first is to recognize that Exodus is making a clear distinction between an Israelite slave and a non-Israelite slave. In this section, there is no specific mention of non-Israelite slaves, but the specification of Israelite slaves implies the existence of non-Israelite slaves. The fact that Israelite slaves were set free in the seventh year indicates that non-Israelite slaves had no such protection. Leviticus 25:44–46, speaking on the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, addresses this point specifically:

Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

Leviticus thus explicitly notes that while Israelites go free in the Sabbatical year (Leviticus actually differs from Exodus in allowing Israelites to be enslaved), non-Israelites do not go free. We note that although the rule for non-Israelite slaves features an imperative in the King James Version, it is in the imperfect tense, which can have, as with the English future tense, an imperative meaning. It does not, however, need to be read that way. It could simply be read as a permissive, forbidding the Israelites to take Israelite slaves but allowing them non-Israelite slaves without expressly approving of the practice. On the other hand, Leviticus 25:46 seems to suggest a favorable perspective on the possession and retention of non-Israelite slaves.

In addition, although the slave himself was able to leave a free man (and this seems to have been a basic right of Israelites or Jews enslaved to other Jews), if a master gave him a wife and she had any children, those children were the property of the master.⁷⁹ This indicates, incidentally, that one of the things owned under the law of Moses was a female slave’s reproductive abilities.⁸⁰

The biblical book of Deuteronomy contains a nuance on this idea. In the version of the Ten Commandments preserved in that book, the law of the Sabbath had a different reason given from the version in Exodus:

Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. (Deut. 5:12–15)

In this passage, the Lord commanded Israel to not work on the Sabbath, in part to prevent their slaves from working on the Sabbath. Israel was to remember their own status as slaves in the land of Egypt before being rescued by God.

In all these discussions, part of the difficulty is understanding which statements have legal weight and which are primarily intended as ideological statements. A similar difficulty exists in discussing Roman slavery.⁸¹ Under the Roman system, a person could become a slave by being born to a female slave or by being captured in war. Those who held Roman citizenship could also sell themselves or their children into slavery.⁸² One of the features that characterized Roman cultural and legal engagement with slavery was fear of both individual and generalized slave rebellion. The historical fact of various slave rebellions, including the famous Spartacus rebellion of 73–71 BC, fueled this fear. Tacitus speaks of an example wherein a slave murdered his master, and all the master’s slaves were crucified according to the law. There was some discussion of this in the Senate, but the majority voted to uphold the law, since it was the only way to be safe from the large Roman slave population.⁸³ The ideology about Roman slavery was predicated on these notions of fear and the distrust of slaves.⁸⁴ It is in this context that the New Testament position on slaves and slavery needs to be understood.

As with women, the New Testament position on slaves is a result of Christian revolutionary teachings coupled with support and reification of the existing social order. Ephesians contains what is probably the most complete example of this:

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God⁸⁵ from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him. (Eph. 6:5–9)

Christianity, therefore, represents an attempt to strike a middle road between its message of universal freedom for humanity through Jesus Christ and the recognition of the realities of living within in a world where slaveholding was common and expected. Ephesians attempts to put the regular social order in the terms of humanity’s relationship to God and his demand that all human interactions be suffused with goodwill.

Although slavery remains unacceptable today, it was a fact of life in the world of the New Testament, being a feature of both Roman and Jewish law. Although biblical law assumed a world without the fear of slave rebellions that featured prominently in the Roman sources, it still assumed slavery. The New Testament authors deal with slavery in ways that were revolutionary in their spreading of the gospel message of salvation to both slaves and masters, but they do not condemn slavery as an institution. Given the charged political nature of slavery and the distrust of the Christian system, this was likely good sense because it allowed for the spread of the Christian message free from accusations of fomenting slave rebellion.

The experience of the primitive Church and the delicacy involved in navigating social expectation are mirrored by the experience of the restored Church. Antebellum America, which served as the matrix for the Restoration, was, of course, highly racialized, as well as a country where slavery was largely legal and heavily debated. Like early Christian discourse, Latter-day Saint discourse about slavery was at once coming from its surrounding culture and its opposing scripture.⁸⁶ The Book of Mormon contains the bold statement that “[the Lord] inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile” (2 Ne. 26:33). This statement, along with others, illustrates the ideological background of the earliest Latter-day Saint experiences with notions of race and color.

Conclusion

Nephi reminds us that the Lord speaks to people “according to their language, unto their understanding” (2 Ne. 31:3). This process of speaking according to the understanding of the people is evident in the New Testament. The authors and audiences of the various New Testament books were part of their cultural world, even as they sought to transcend it through the gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ. Understanding the contexts in which the New Testament authors and their audiences lived can help us to better understand the New Testament and further apply its teachings to our lives.