3.4 Before the Great Revolt II: The Apocalyptic Christians

History in the Bible

Garry Stevens

History, Christianity, Judaism, Bible, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 693 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this show I discuss the state of the Christians on the verge of the Great Revolt in 66 CE/AD. The Seleucid empire created a new way of conceptualising time. This provided the Jews with the intellectual tool to create a new body of literature, the apocalypse. The apocalypses solve a vexing theological problem. Why are the Jews suffering under the Seleucids, when the Jews have done everything that the old prophets told them to do? The apocalypses explain that the Jews are pawns in a cosmic struggle. Christianity was born as an apocalyptic movement. I also cover the earliest Roman references we have to Christians, by Suetonius and Tacitus. I think some of these are misinterpreted.

Theme music "Inspiring Teaser" by Rafael Krux, https://filmmusic.io/song/5672-inspiring-teaser, license https://filmmusic.io/standard-license.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Giday, I'm Gary Stevens.
0:09.9	And welcome to the third season of the History in the Bible podcast.
0:15.2	In this final season, I explore how the Jews and the Christians constructed new religions when they were sent
0:23.9	spinning into the void after the destruction of the temple. All of the history, about all of the
0:31.4	books beyond the Bible.
0:44.4	Episode 3.4. Before the Great Revolt Part 2, the Apocalyptic Christians.
0:51.4	In the last episode, I discussed the state of the Judeans, just before the Great Revolt in the year 66.
0:55.9	Let's look at the Christians.
1:00.9	Now, before I continue, let me remind you of the time frame.
1:05.4	The Great Revolt erupted 30 years after the death of Jesus and just a few years after the deaths, Peter and Paul.
1:13.8	Before the Great Revolt, the struggling Jesus program, as we now know, was one amongst many Judean apocalyptic cults, those preaching
1:20.6	that the end of the world was nigh. Until the late 19th century, Western scholars thought
1:27.4	that the Jesus movement was unique
1:29.3	in preaching the end of times. Only then did they investigate a curio that had been in their
1:37.8	possession for a century. A curio dismissed as the work of exotic Africans. This was the first book of Enoch, written in Giers,
1:48.0	the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
1:52.0	First Enoch was recovered by the Scottish-led James Bruce.
1:57.0	I mean, how Scottish a name is that, apart from Hamish McCamish.
2:01.4	I mean, Bruce was a remarkable man, and a formidable one.
2:07.0	His flaming red hair matched his temperament.
2:10.4	Standing at six feet four, not far short of two metres, he was one of the tallest men in Europe.
2:20.5	He entered his prime just before the American War of Independence. At the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution,
	...

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