Snapshots of Jesus - Through the Lens of History

The Aftermath - Splinters 

(I have left the Resurrection for the next and final Snapshot)

Shock! Disbelief! Denial! Anger! Questions! Trying to make sense of it all! The followers of Jesus are not just one group of apostles, but many groups scattered around the area, more than you can count on two hands – each one creating its own coping mechanism for Jesus’ death. We have gathered photos of Jesus from the beginning until the seeming end. Yet, just like the Jesus followers after the crucifixion, we need a few more answers and a clear direction. So, grab your cameras as we go back to the first century.

      Remember all those photos of disparate groups calling themselves followers of Jesus? Well, they are still here - each with a different take on what happened after the crucifixion. Some are really ticked off that just two years after they lost John the Baptist shrieking that the end of the world was near, their next great prophet extolling a new world, has been killed. And there is still no sign of a new world.

     Some followers retell the stories and parables that Jesus shared, to begin a rich source of hymns that will form the basis of the gospels. Notice and take some snapshots of how some of these groups are creating a lineage of stories reflecting an original apostle. There is a Mark group, Matthew group, John group, Thomas group, Mary group – each singing their memories of Jesus during their weekly home meetings.

     The original gospel of Mark, the first to be written down a good twenty years after Jesus’ death, ends not with resurrection but simply an empty tomb. It will be only later that stories of a resurrected Jesus will be added to the hymns and then gospels. The Matthew and Luke gospels, written decades after the original Mark, take huge swaths of exact lines from the Mark gospel and glue on the resurrection story. Only a long time later is the resurrection added to the gospel of Mark. 

     Historian now have large and small fragments from many gospels circulated back then, and all need to be seen as just as important as the four chosen three hundred years after Jesus’ death to be the only ‘official’ ones. Historians now agree all the gospels were created as propaganda pieces for particular groups of Jews and/or gentiles. They never were considered ‘history’, just memories to be handed down.

     Fifties years after Jesus, the Romans finally burn down the Temple, most of Jerusalem, and the angry, heartsick Jews spread out across the world. Jews no longer have a single identity tied to the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews are a shattered and splintered people creating new and different sects - the Jesus followers become some of them – all trying desperately to recreate a new Jewish identity. By this time the original apostles, as well as a man named Paul (who took the tale of Jesus to the Gentiles), are all dead. Most killed by the Romans.

     Take a snapshot, for it will be during this confusing time the name ‘Christian’ starts to be used. Gospels are now written and shared. Letters copied and sent around to blossoming communities around the Mediterranean. . .Christianity is born.