Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Reading Early Christian Literature in Context
- Part 1 The Graeco-Roaaan World: Context For Early Christianity
- Part Two The Teaching of the Historcial Jesus (27-30 Ce)
- Part Three The Earliest Christian Literature (30-70 Ce)
- Part Four The Christian Literature of the Late First Century (70-100 Ce)
- Part Five Beyond the New Testament: The Making of Christianity and Its Emergence Into the World
- Index
1 - The Emergence of the Graeco-Roman World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Reading Early Christian Literature in Context
- Part 1 The Graeco-Roaaan World: Context For Early Christianity
- Part Two The Teaching of the Historcial Jesus (27-30 Ce)
- Part Three The Earliest Christian Literature (30-70 Ce)
- Part Four The Christian Literature of the Late First Century (70-100 Ce)
- Part Five Beyond the New Testament: The Making of Christianity and Its Emergence Into the World
- Index
Summary
The Graeco-Roman world in overview
The conquests of Alexander (from 333 BCE to 323 BCE) and the establishment of the successor kingdoms changed the face of the known world. The world had known large political empires before: the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Medo-Persians, but none on such a grand scale and covering as vast a territory and including as many different peoples as the Graeco-Macedonian empires. At their height, the Graeco-Macedonian empires stretched from Greece and Macedonia on the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Cyrenaica and Egypt on the southern shores, right across Asia Minor, the Middle East and Persia into northern India (see Figure 1.1).
The world had shrunk and it is this shrinking that is of concern. What effects did it have on the people inhabiting that world? What was it like living in such a world? These are pertinent questions, since this very complex and diverse world formed the living context in which Jewish, and eventually Christian, communities found themselves. Living in the Graeco-Roman world shaped their responses to the world and events around them, their manifold identities and their outlook on the divine as much as it had changed that of the adherents of other religious traditions.
So what was new about the Graeco-Roman world?
HELLENISM AND THE GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD
The term Hellenism has been used since the nineteenth century in scholarly literature to denote the spread of Greek (= Hellenic, from Hellas’ Greece’) culture in the ancient world in the wake of Alexander the Great's conquests. The term also implied a break with classical Greek culture in that Hellenism was understood to signify the mixture of oriental and Greek cultures. As a quasi-political term, Hellenism was thought to give way to the period of the Roman Empire after the battle of Actium in 31 BCE which saw Octavian (the later Augustus) defeat Mark Antony and his consort - the last Hellenistic ruler - Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Historical periods, however, do not allow such easy demarcations. From epigraphic evidence it is clear that Greek culture had penetrated the Near East from Asia Minor to far beyond, well before Alexander's conquests.
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- Information
- From Jesus Christ To ChristianityEarly Christian Literature in Context, pp. 11 - 32Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2001