2. Why look at church history?
We believe that history is God’s history
Help in interpreting Scripture
Laboratory of different approaches to politics, culture and science
Help in seeing what is primary and central
Humility, gratitude and praise
View of the breadth of the church
1. We believe that God acts in history and continues to do so; 2. The Breeze of the Centuries (C. S. Lewis) – we can learn both from errors (slavery) and from fights for the truth (Trinity), cautioned that we don’t see our own culture and that we should be wary of novelty (19th century movements); 3. E.g. how churches have dealt with music, power, retreat/engagement; 4. Perspective on what has always constituted orthodoxy and what has come and gone or only appeared recently; 5. We are tiny. Stand on the shoulders of Giants. God building his church despite human sin; 6. The unsettling breadth of the church (Ian Hamilton).

3. JEWISH MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS
The Spirit of God would return to-the covenant land.
God would send the Messiah to free His covenant people and the covenant land from the Romans
A Davidic Kingly Messiah
The Prophet like Moses (and the last Elijah)
A Great High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek

4. VARIOUS GROUPS AND HOPES
1. Pharisees – Full OT, exegesis of Law, Diaspora, Hope, Personal piety, Discipline, Resurrection Hope; 2. Sadducees – Temple, Torah, No discipline, No Resurrection Hope; 3. Essenes, Qumran, apocalyptic, eisegesis and search for hidden meanings; 4. Zealots – nationalism, kingdom by force

6. THE TEMPLE

7. THE TEMPLE

9. Read Luke 21:5-24

10. 66 AD revolt (First Jewish War)
Vespasian, 68 AD turns back, Mark 13:18
Flight to Pella
Titus, 70 AD, 6 month siege, destruction

13. 3 year stand at Masada

14. How help us with NT? Jesus was right!
Jesus and the apostles ministered in tumultuous times on the brink of revolt
Possibly all NT documents written before 70 AD

15. The Parting of the Ways Early Church was Jerusalem-centred
12th of 18 benedictions against Nazarim and minim (pre-70AD?)
Bar Kokhba revolt ( ), messianic claims; imperial exclusion of all ethnic Jews from Jerusalem
‘It is simplistic to look for a decisive moment in the parting of the ways... There was no sudden break... but rather an ever-widening rift’
(P. S. Alexander)
argues pre 70AD for benedictions.
P. S. Alexander, ""The Parting of the Ways" from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism," in J. D. G. Dunn (ed), Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135; the Second Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism (Durham, September 1989), (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999) pp. 4-19
Bar Kokhba revolt put down by Emperor Hadrian

16. The Parting of the Ways
Did Christianity break off from Judaism or did Judaism break off from the Way?
Acts 7, 24, 26
Paul argues Christianity is not a break away weird sect it is mainstream Judaism.

17. The Canon John 14:26 Key criterion – apostolic
2 Peter 3:16; 1 Tim 5:18
Ignatius (110 AD) cites Matthew as Scripture
Marcion (144 AD)
Better lists
Athanasius (367 AD) Easter Letter
Departing from Judaism or Judaism departing from the Way?
Marcion is v contemporary – bad OT God; edits Bible.
Canon almost as present by 200 AD and totally confirmed by 367
Constantine

18. Implications Glory not at the Jerusalem Temple
Jesus is the Temple (John 2:21)
Don’t need to visit Jerusalem
The Church is the continuation of the OT people of God
Christ is coming back
Radical liberal John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, places all the NT documents before 70 AD.
Re. Church = Israel – there is still an ethnic people of Israel of whom the LORD has a special concern (Rom. 11) but there is only one people of God – the tree into which Gentiles are ingrafted by faith (Rom. 11). Cf. Galatians 6:16.