From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians - Part 1

For really smart people, they sure do speculate a lot. They also use vast generalizations on Roman life at the time. I get the significance of the DSS but they are incredibly vague and offer little insight. They're basically a near-Fatwa of some sort with next to nothing revealing useful specifics on everyday life. Like, the Essenes who wrote them weren't an all-star crew of reporters and scholars. They were gypsies and hippies.

Also, to essentially classify crucifixions as "no big deal back then" is beyond preposterous. Every indication was that they were not frequent enough to laugh off. Every one was must-see TV for the peasantry. Crucifixions were laborious and needed logistics and planning.

The fact that this was made in 1998 and is being rehashed now in 2020 (of all years) is all you need to know

When I first saw this 4 hour documentary mini-series, well it just blew me away.. Considering the subject matter, its a miracle how neutral it represents the period it covers.. Its secular vantage point allows someone to learn many,many things about those times... If your an historical buff than its a "MUST SEE"..

Documentary focusing on Jesus, the early church, and Paul. Many of the scholars, such as John Dominic Crossan, are quite liberal and I question some of their conclusions. Wayne Meeks, one of the scholars, is the most balanced of them. At its best it goes into the first century Jewish and Greco-Roman world very throughly, with many new things to learn.. Despite some flaws, a well made documentary.

Some in the Evangelical Community in the United States have criticized this documentary because they feel that it neglects "their side" of the Jesus story; in other words, the documentary neglects to portray Jesus in terms of a "literal" interpretation of the Canonical Gospels and other writings from the Bible. However, this is not what the documentary's goal. The evangelist and fundamentalist positions are quite well-documented, and can be easily found through nationwide television. These include such entities as "The Family Channel", "The 700 Club", and the late "Dr Gene Scott". (And, by the way, each may be slightly different depending upon which denomination is doing the propagating, be they Baptists or Methodists or Lutherans.)

Removed somewhat from preconceived and prescribed religious interpretations, "From Jesus to Christ" is PBS Frontline's attempt to explain in layman's terms the current state of historical scholarship concerning a man named Jesus of Nazareth who probably lived 2000 years ago and whose name and story would eventually be the basis of a world-wide religion. Primary sources (i.e. sources written or created during the actual time) concerning Jesus are nearly non-existent. A couple of scant sources survive that were written a few decades after Jesus' death, such as a short passage from the writings of Josephus. It has also been hypothesized that a source of Jesus' sayings, nicknamed "Q" by scholars, also existed in the first decades after Jesus' passing. The first gospel of Jesus was probably written circa 70 CE, a good 40 years after Jesus' death. From an historian's perspective, this is not a tremendous amount of historical evidence by which to reconstruct the historical life of Jesus as independent from the Jesus of faith.

Several scholars in the documentary make a distinction between myths about Jesus that come from the Bible versus theories that are derived from evidence. For example, most scholars agree that none of the Gospel writers were disciples of Jesus during his lifetime. Luke was probably a Gentile and not a Jew. John's gospel was written at least in the year 90 CE and possibly as late as 100 CE. Another misconception is that the word "Gospel" means "biography". "Gospel" is Greek and means "The Good News". The four gospels that have become "standard" in the Bible are not really biographies. They are allegorical, i.e. philosophical stories, with Jesus as the central figure to convey a kind of philosophical perspective. And the four canonical Gospels are not the only gospels. There are a host of other gospels that have been uncovered, each portraying a slightly different Jesus with varying messages. For example, the Gospel of Thomas is strictly a sayings gospel lacking a narrative story.

There is enough differentiation between the four canonical gospels to imply that they were written for different philosophical goals. In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus is much more of a Jewish messiah. Jesus' persecution in Mark reflects a similar persecution suffered by Jews during the first revolt from 66-70. In Matthew, much of Jesus' story parallels Old Testament scripture, and a genealogy tracing Jesus' lineage from his father Joseph back to Abraham is included. Later, in Luke and in particular John, Jesus is a messiah that is more like a Gentile than a Jew, and these Gospels emphasize Jesus being in confrontation and in tension with Jews. The Gospel of John is probably the most allegorical and mystical of the four Gospels and was referred to as "The Spiritual Gospel" by the early church. Jesus is portrayed as an almost serene figure who routinely blasphemes in the synagogues, a very different character than the man portrayed in Mark's gospel. One of the main points made by the scholars is that these gospels were understood to be read philosophically and not literally.

These are the kinds of issues that are discussed in the documentary. It is not that Evangelical teaching is not of value, but it is not relevant to a documentary in which scholars are trying to piece together historical evidence to tell a story. The story that they tell is that Jesus is not the first Christian. Jesus was given the title "Christ" by a sect of his followers sometime after his death. Jesus of Nazareth became Jesus Christ long after he had died.

This is a reasonably well made series on the life of Jesus and the early church. However well done the shows are, however, one thing got to me after a while...the music. Now I know that this might seem petty, but after a bit I almost felt like screaming at it. Gregorian chants and Jewish cantors singing again and again and again really made me wish that the show had been a lot quieter!

The show has a decided bent--and this is something that bothered me a bit. A lot of theologians are interviewed but they represent a very narrow band of thought. Ivy League schools and Union Theological represent a more liberal school of thought and tend to look at the New Testament in a very non-literal and more of a historical point of view. No rival thought is given a chance to say anything during the film. So, if you have a very literal interpretation of the Bible, then this may not be something you'll want to watch. If, on the other hand, you don't believe so strongly, then you'll probably get much more out of the show--a show that has a decidedly humanistic point of view. Still, there is a lot to admire about this series--it's worth a look.