Christianity evolved and expanded within this setting of declining classicism and heightening otherworldliness. Christianity offered a spiritually disillusioned Greco-Roman world a reason for living: the hope of personal immortality.
A Palestinian Jew named Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities during the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), who succeeded Augustus. At the time, few people paid much attention to what proved to be one of the most pivotal events in world history.
The Romans, who ruled Palestine, had little interest in Jewish intrareligious disputes. They feared Jesus as a political agitator, as a charismatic leader who could ignite Jewish messianic expectations into a revolt against Rome. After Jewish leaders turned Jesus over to the Roman authorities, the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, sentenced him to death by crucifixion, a customary punishment for someone guilty of high treason.
Some Jews, believing that Jesus was an inspired prophet or even the long-awaited Messiah, had become his followers; the chief of these were the Twelve Disciples. At the time of Jesus’ death, Christianity was not a separate religion but a small Hebrew sect with dim prospects for survival.
What established the Christian movement and gave it strength was the belief of Jesus’ followers that he was raised from the dead on the third day after he was buried. The doctrine of the resurrection enabled people to regard Jesus as more than a superb ethical soul, more than a righteous rabbi, more than a prophet, more than the Messiah; it made possible belief in Jesus as a divine savior-god who had come to earth to show people the way to heaven. For early Christians, Jesus’ death and belief in his resurrection took on greater importance than his life.
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