A SCHOLAR LOOKS AT THE EARLY CHURCH . . . . .PART IV (II) The Apostolic period: ca. 30-66. (A) The Community and Its Life. Granted that Jesus shows little interest in a formally distinct society, it is remarkable how quickly the Christians became community minded. Although Acts 19: 1-5 indicates that there were followers of Jesus who had not received Christian baptism, the unanimity of Acts, Matt, Paul and John suggests that this baptism very quickly became a standard feature of Christian life. As a visible action it helped to designate those who “belonged”--a veritable indication singularly absent from Jesus ministry. The wide distribution of the term KOINŌNIA, “community,” “communion,” in the NT shows that those who were baptized felt very strongly that they had much in common (see the next three paragraphs. . . ). Indeed, KOINŌNIA may reflect in Greek an early Semitic name for the Christian group, like the Qumran self-designation as YAHAD, “the oneness,” “unity” (see article “Apocrypha”, paragraph 83). Another early name may have been “The Way,” e.g., Acts 21: 14: “According to The Way. . . .I worship the God of our Fathers” (Also Acts 9:2; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:22; cf. 16:17; 18:25-26). This was also a Qumran self-designation: “When these people join the community [YAHAD] in Israel, they . . . go into the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord (1QS 8:12-14). Followers of John the Baptist who became to believe in Jesus may have brought along this ideology associated with their masters movement (all four Gospels), which in turn reflected the idealism of the return of Israel from exile.(Isa 40:3), the second Exodus, when Israel came along the way prepared by God to his promised land. The designation that became the most popular, ie., EKKLĒSIA, “church,” plausibly reflects the first exodus, into which Israel came into being, for in Deut 23:2 the LXX rendered QĀHĀL, “assembly,” by EKKLĒSIA to describe Israel in the desert as “the church of the Lord”. Paul would use “the church of God” to remind regional Christian communities that they were patterned on and imitative of the Church in Judea. Thus, just as the case of “The Twelve,” so also the various terms of early Christian self-understanding reflect continuity with Israel. And that may be the original symbolism of the Pentecost theme in Acts 2 as well, because we know that among the Jews this feast (Weeks) celebrated the renewal of the Sinai covenant; and at Qumran it was the occasion of the entry of new members into the community. The tradition in Acts portrays that, amid Sinai-like wind and fire, God renewed his covenant for Israel, a covenant now intimately based on what he had done in Jesus of Nazareth. Again, try to read the first three also before commenting. . . Your thoughts ?
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 09:27:08 +0000
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