A00006 - The Historical and Religious Backgrounds of Early Christianity: Survey of Post-Exilic Judaism: Overview

The Christian movement began its development in Palestine, in a Jewish environment, and therefore can properly be understood only in the light of contemporary Palestinian Judaism.  It is true there was a larger Judaism, extended over the Greco-Roman world, which exercised a profound influence over the Judaism of Palestine, and also played a great part in the expansion of Christianity in the apostolic age and later.  However, in an initial examination of the historical and religious backgrounds of the Early Christian Movement, it is important to get in closer touch with the manifold foreign influences which streamed in from the pagan world.  These pagan factors should be considered in reconstructing the salient features of the Palestinian environment of two thousand years ago.