The Inside Story
The values of liberal democracy overlap with Judaeo-Christian values, both of which are currently under threat. We have the latter values thanks to the Decalogue in the Tanakh, the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels, and the admonitions of the apostles recorded in their letters.
These values include due acknowledgement and love for the Almighty, care of neighbour, respect for governing authorities, lifelong commitment in marriage, responsible upbringing of children, and the expectation of working to provide for the family.
Judaeo-Christian values assume the priority of the individual against the centralism of the state. This explains the antipathy of the collectivist systems towards Judaism and Christianity, ‘the peoples of the book’ that enshrines and applies these values.
A question worth asking is whether these values have evolved from diverse philosophical discourse, or from some more direct personal source. This short paper asserts the latter, specifically the influence of Jesus including via his apostle, Paul.
This response to the question is pursued through historical enquiry, specifically regarding Jesus. Jesus as a figure of history is attested by hostile sources Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. His deeds and teaching are recorded in the four (canonical) gospels written circa AD 65-80. The origins of Christianity and the story of the early church are narrated in the book of Acts which is an adjunct to the Gospel of Luke, also (according to many) written in the AD 70s.
The span of Jesus public life was AD 30-33.
By the standards of historiography, a time lapse between Jesus and Mark the earliest Gospel is not great, just over thirty years. By contrast Suetonius wrote his “life” of Tiberius more than eighty years after his Military Prefect had Jesus crucified.
Luke’s two volume opus Luke-Acts covers the era from the birth of John the Baptist until the imprisonment of Paul in Rome, a span of approximately seventy years. Although Luke wrote so long after the events he chronicles, he did so based on existing shorter texts (notably but not exclusively Mark) and oral history. Luke as a historian has his critics, but many eminent scholars rate him highly, not all of them believers.
There is another source, the persecutor-cum-proclaimer Paul. By his own account this leading younger scholar had attempted to destroy the church in Jerusalem, and its “faith”. Paul’s violent assaults occurred within the two years immediately after the lifespan of Jesus.
In a relatively short letter to a cluster of churches in Roman cities in the Province of Galatia he explains his volte-face near Damascus where, he said, God commissioned him to proclaim the Son of God among the Gentiles.
After three years in Damascus and “Arabia” (Nabataea, capital Petra) he returned to Jerusalem. There, the former persecutor lodged with Cephas, leading disciple of Jesus and president of the church in Jerusalem. Paul also “saw” James, the Lord’s brother. The meetings of the former persecutor with leaders of the movement he had attempted to destroy imply their recognition of the genuineness of his conversion and calling.
Chronology is important here. Paul’s letter (written c. AD 48 from Antioch) attests that within two years of Jesus the church in Jerusalem was well established, its two principal leaders named, and its “faith” already formulated. In the years to come it was Paul’s practice to “deliver” that “faith” to the churches he established.
Equally noteworthy, through his connection with James and Cephas, Paul now had access to the life of Jesus from his early years in Nazareth through to his baptism by John, his call to his disciples, his miracles and teaching, his arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. This is sobering data for those who depict Paul as having had a merely mystical experience unrelated to the real Jesus.
In the course of his short encyclical Paul reminds these new congregations of a new-found, radical unity. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Through his message to them they are now relieved of crippling religious duties, whether originating from gentile or Jewish culture. It didn’t matter anymore whether an individual was Jew or Gentile the important thing was that they were “free”. He wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”. Against the circumcision activists Paul wrote, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” and…“through love serve one another”. Paul called on his readers to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”.
These were not the values of the pre-Damascus Paul. He makes it clear that during his “life in Judaism” he “persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it”. In other words, the values and behaviour that he now advocates are the direct opposite of his hateful attitudes and actions prior to the Damascus event.
It is reasonable to assume that when he returned to Jerusalem c. AD 37 Cephas and James informed Paul of the teachings of the Jesus about loving God and loving neighbour.
The book of Acts narrates early Christianity written decades later based on various earlier written and oral sources. In its finished form, however, it is a chronicle written by someone who was an outsider, an onlooker whereas Paul’s Galatians letter is written by an insider, a participant in the events he describes.
Furthermore, Paul was not writing to inform the Galatians de novo about his story, details about which he would have told them when present with them. Note his words, “You have heard of my former life in Judaism…”. Rather, the details he provides in the letter are elements in his apologetic to demonstrate to his readers that through what happened at Damascus God had made him an apostle, so that his calling and his ministry to them did not depend on the imprimatur of the Jerusalem church. He is answerable to God and not to the church in Jerusalem.
His letter to the Galatians contains more historical and chronological details than any other of his thirteen letters. But it is a slanted history written to answer his critics, and the more valuable for that reason. We reasonably assume that that Paul took care not to be faulted over details.
In the years c. AD 37-57 this man established faith communities in five Roman provinces (Syria and Cilicia, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia) and wrote nine letters to address various issues that had arisen. It’s safe to say that the greater part of his moral teachings depended directly or indirectly on what he had learned from those who were “apostles before him”.
The four gospels when they were written some years later had also depended on the writings and recollections of the first believers, which in turn had come to them from Jesus. It is to be noted, however, that while Paul depended on the earlier apostles and through them to Jesus, it seems that Paul’s own writings did not influence the contents of the gospels.
Judaeo-Christian values did not evolve over time through philosophical discourse but flowed out of the Tanakh (notably the decalogue, the Wisdom texts, the prophets) and from the New Testament from Jesus as found in the letters of Paul and others, and from the four gospels.
It is reasonable to observe that the diminishing interest in such values coincides with loss of interest in the message of the Bible, or outright opposition to it.