The context from which Jesus emerged, a "crucible" of sectarian and political violence

Review of Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World by Philip Jenkins

The purpose of this book is the illuminate the 300 or so tumultuous years in Palestine prior to the common era (CE). This involves a confluence of political, cultural, philosophical, and theological issues that range from essential and basic to indescribably obscure. The “crucible era”, as Jenkins calls it, forged the theological building blocks of what would become rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and later Islam. Jenkins concentrates on both the final formation of the canonical Old Testament and a number of discarded texts, including Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and many others that were found either as archaeological artifacts or as the living canon of such sources as the Ethiopian Old Testament. Unfortunately, the book is rather academic in tone, which often makes it a slog as a read, however interesting many sections of it are.

On the political front, the time is one of extraordinary violence. On the one hand, there are foreign powers seeking to dominate the region. In the beginning, there were the Ptolemies and Seleucids, both of them Hellenistic Greek Empires that arose after the death of Alexander the Great. Palestine served as a kind of buffer zone between them, changing hands many times. As these local superpowers weakened, the Maccabees emerged as successful revolutionaries who established an independent Jewish state, eventually called the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans had to war against many rival claimants to the true faith, e.g. the Samaritans, who had their own communities and city states. Finally, toward the end of the period, the Romans conquered the region, bringing their own style of oppression and influence.

On the other hand, there was a civil war from within: rabbinic Judaism was in formation, pitting a traditional priestly aristocracy against popular, scholarly rivals who claimed to better understand God's intentions. Culturally, moreover, there is a great ferment of ideas, ranging from Greco-Roman philosophy and polytheism to alternative forms of monotheism in Persia, all of which impacted and were absorbed to different degrees.

What emerged in the religious sphere was the development of a number of notions that were alluded to only vaguely in the Old Testament, if indeed at all. Many of them sought to address some of the issues that sprung from monotheism, e.g. how can evil exist and flourish when God was omnipotent and purely good? The answer was to elaborate conceptions of the afterlife, where the good and just would live in immortal paradise while the wicked would suffer eternal punishment.

Moreover, evil was explained away by the existence of devils and demons, fallen angels and human-demon hybrids that God for inexplicable reasons allowed to live in a banished realm, Hell; identifiable angels and demons proliferated in this period. Furthermore, given the imminent dangers of death and destruction, the concept of the Apocalypse – the end fight between good and evil forces – emerged as a central concept. Finally, a messiah would be the instrument through which the righteous would be guided and then saved. Thus, Jesus appeared as one of many apocalyptic messianic prophets at the end of this period.

As a result, a vast array of new groups emerged, each touting some interpretation of these ideas and incorporating varying elements of foreign notions to address whatever dilemmas they deemed were needed, often in isolated communities that gave free range to fanatical devotions that they elaborated in apocalyptic detail. Here you find the early Christian sects, rabbinic Judaism, but also the Manichees, Zoroastrians, and innumerable others. Moreover, canonical texts were established while many of the older ones were revived and occasionally edited to better fit the times. As you can imagine, this is complexity itself. I found it fascinating and, as an atheist, wonder how anyone could believe that one interpretation would be correct over the others and hence eternally sacred.

It is not always clear where the book is going, particularly as Jenkins felt compelled to cover all of the variations in lengthy, turgid descriptions of what various sources say. I found it hard to keep them straight, even as an amateur scholar of early Christianity and the late Classical era. I also would have liked much more coverage of the impact of Hellenistic ideas on all of this, though Jenkins alludes to it to a degree. Though Jenkins is a conservative Episcopalian, I would note that the tone of the book is secular and not in any way advocating for a particular sect.

The level of the book is quite advanced. With much knowledge assumed, many basic concepts are not completely explained, such as the mechanics of the Roman administration or the innovations of Neo-platonism. This makes much of the book hard going for the uninitiated, though also stimulating for the curious (and dogged).

Though I am not a specialist, I believe this to be an important book. I enjoyed looking at the footnotes for further source materials, always a sign that I was engaged deeply. I recommend this book as a fun intellectual adventure, however lugubrious many passages are.

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