Need Help - Scholarly Internet Articles on Origin of Christianity

[Z]

OK, background: my English class meets prior to 10:00 am, and we've had several 'snow days' (although one of them was clear, dry, and not a spot of snow near the college). Now, we have to make a day up (or at least, a day's worth of work), so she gave us an exercise.

This sheet contains a number of questions - most in 'Circle the Correct Answer' form, and some in 'True/False' form; each also has space to write in a URL. She wants us to use the Internet, but not any form of 'pedia, Wiki or otherwise (fair enough, she has good reason), but instead wants us to find good, solid, scholarly (college-level) sources for our responses.

Most of these questions are OK - what country does the Potato originate from? what country does language originate from - but one I got (curses!) is: Where did Christianity originate? (Choices are: Palestine, Rome, Germany).

I'd usually respond Palestine in a knee-jerk reaction; but then again, there's the fact that the term Christian wasn't applied until the movement fled to Antioch, which was Roman at the time.

Anyway, let's not get too concerned about what the answer actually is at this point - almost every source I can find so far has either been a Wiki of some form, a heavily biased (and largely incoherent) Christian website, or a heavily biased (and often even more incoherent) anti-Christian website.

So what I need, if anyone would mind giving me a hand, is internet resources that give clear-cut answers to the origin of Christianity that are college-level, scholarly, unbiased (as much as is possible), and give a clear origin of Christianity as being one of those three choices.

(Then again, wasn't Palestine Roman-occupied at the time of Jesus' minestry?)

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Z

[This Guy]

Yes, Rome ruled during Jesus' life/ministry.

Not sure if this (http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=called+christian&qs_version=9) is the answer you need or not, but it is an answer :)

Acts 11:26
And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

[HereticHulk]

Have there been any historical documents left by the Romans that support the theory of a historical Jesus?

I was under the impression that the Romans were pretty meticulous about documenting important happenings. I would imagine killing a man as notorious as Jesus and then witnessing the first ever potential resurrection of a human a noteworthy occasion.

[TX50]

Have there been any historical documents left by the Romans that support the theory of a historical Jesus?

I was under the impression that the Romans were pretty meticulous about documenting important happenings. I would imagine killing a man as notorious as Jesus and then witnessing the first ever potential resurrection of a human a noteworthy occasion.

There are references in Suetonius, Pliny Secundus and Tacitus but all of
those references are to christians and to popular opinion of them. They are
not historical evidence of the man per se. A passage in Josephus which
mentions him is suspected to be a later interpolation.

[This Guy]

I think if you remove the improbabilities from the New Testament accounts, and consider the events in historical context, there is reason to believe a man called Jesus did/said many of those things described there.

The basics of the stories, minus the miracles, fit the times and locations fairly well. What he did fits with what many other Jewish "Prophets" did around the same time, in the same area. What happened to him (arrested by order of the High Priest, who was responsible to the Roman rulers for preserving peace among the Jews, at the cost of Roman soldiers coming in and settling things down by sword), sent to Pilate, who was known to have a tendency to execute without trial, and with little reason. Many consider the "whitewashing" stories in the Gospel accounts to be attempts by early Christians to appear friendly, and non-threatening to the Roman rulers. Thus Pilate is seen to "find no wrong" and "wash his hands", giving in to the demands of the angry crowds of Jews. It's more likely he accepted the High Priest's recommendation, and sent Jesus to the cross with little or no concern.

I think if you include the miracles, then, yes, there should have been much more recorded history to use in defense of the existence of Jesus. But minus the miracles, it wasn't such a big deal, and did not deserve much attention.

I'm sure there have been threads on that topic, and this one is probably not the best place for an extended discussion of the matter though. :)

[This Guy]

Getting back to the OP, I've looked around abit, and really haven't found anything outside of WIKI type links that give an unbiased answer to your question. There must be several links fitting the bill, but I can't seem to find any. :(

[TX50]

[..]
Acts 11:26
And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

In which case none of the multiple choice question options (Palestine, Rome
or Germany) are correct. Antioch was in Syria.

[This Guy]

In which case none of the multiple choice question options (Palestine, Rome
or Germany) are correct. Antioch was in Syria.

Yea, I think the answer is Palestine. Finding a link fitting the requested criteria is another matter :)

[drkitten]

Most of these questions are OK - what country does the Potato originate from? what country does language originate from - but one I got (curses!) is: Where did Christianity originate? (Choices are: Palestine, Rome, Germany).

Christianity originated in Gallilee, which is a part of Palestine.

The actual quotation is:
Christianity evolved from an obscure group of Gallilean Jews to become the religion of thousands, most of them non-Jews.

and later
Jesus the Jew and his first followers lived in the Jewish homeland during the period when it was coming under the sway of the Roman Empire

The source is A World History of Christianity (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kL5-5Z2QGFsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR10&dq=history+of+christianity&ots=N0RMMdK6hn&sig=eb7eaW8neL78cfFw_SrAGh28JWw#PPA7,M1), by Adrian Hastings, p. 7.

Available through Google Scholar.

[drkitten]

what country does language originate from

That's an "okay" question?

What in hell is the answer? Language appears to predate countries by multiple thousands of years if not multiple hundreds of thousands of years. That's like asking in which country the asteroid belt originated....

[This Guy]

That's an "okay" question?

What in hell is the answer? Language appears to predate countries by multiple thousands of years if not multiple hundreds of thousands of years. That's like asking in which country the asteroid belt originated....

Communist Russia. Thought everyone knew that! ;)

I'm guessing the question refers to what the area language originated in is called now? Maybe?

And while I've read on how research into the roots of language have pretty much tracked with the spread of early Humans, I can't remember where it is believed the first actual language developed. I think it would be somewhere in Africa, which means it's probably the Middle East :)

[Roboramma]

Communist Russia. Thought everyone knew that! ;)

I'm guessing the question refers to what the area language originated in is called now? Maybe?

And while I've read on how research into the roots of language have pretty much tracked with the spread of early Humans, I can't remember where it is believed the first actual language developed. I think it would be somewhere in Africa, which means it's probably the Middle East :)

From what I know some believe language is only on the order of something like 40,000 years old or so, originating at the time of the "great leap forward", the period in which we start to see artwork (like cave painting and carvings) appear in europe.
Others think it's hundreds of thousands of years old. If the latter, necessarily it originated somewhere (or multiple places) in africa. If the former, it may have arisen somewhere in europe, asia, africa, or simultaneously in multiple places around the globe. Though that last speculation seems odd to me.

None of this suggests that we have any clue as to where exactly language originated from, let alone a country in which it did.

Maybe they mean to ask where writing originated, but even that is tricky as writing was developed multiple times independently.

[This Guy]

From what I know some believe language is only on the order of something like 40,000 years old or so, originating at the time of the "great leap forward", the period in which we start to see artwork (like cave painting and carvings) appear in europe.
Others think it's hundreds of thousands of years old. If the latter, necessarily it originated somewhere (or multiple places) in africa. If the former, it may have arisen somewhere in europe, asia, africa, or simultaneously in multiple places around the globe. Though that last speculation seems odd to me.

None of this suggests that we have any clue as to where exactly language originated from, let alone a country in which it did.

Maybe they mean to ask where writing originated, but even that is tricky as writing was developed multiple times independently.

Yea, too bad those aliens that planted us here didn't keep a diary of our development to give us so we could know these things ;)

I need to remember what I read, and where I read it, and break it out again for a refresher. I made the mistake of sleeping since I read it :(

[Z]

That's an "okay" question?

What in hell is the answer? Language appears to predate countries by multiple thousands of years if not multiple hundreds of thousands of years. That's like asking in which country the asteroid belt originated....

Ooops.... I meant, where did WRITING originate. And she apparently means alphabetic-style writing, not symbolic or pictographic writing.

Glad to see my English class assignment has stimulated such good discussion!

On the OP - I think I'll turn to ReligiousTolerance.org. Good site. And she mentioned it in class today. :D