Multiculturalism and the Church in Acts
6.6. Ethnicity and Ethos
of the community. In Jerusalem, community of goods extended over a section of the community of the Hebrews. It was not binding on the whole group, and was probably not reproduced not in the Hellenists community at Antioch and beyond in the Pauline mission (Bauckham 1995: 353-354).
A eunuch going home to Ethiopia from Jerusalem is won over by Philip (8: 27- 39). The convert Cornelius, a Judaising Roman centurion in the Italic cohort, is a man admitted by the entire ethnos of the Jews (Acts 10: 1-2,22).
It is from the scenes set in Jerusalem that comes the unique evidence for a split between the group known as 'Hellenists' and the group known as 'Hebraists' in the earliest church (Acts 6:1), evidence which has given rise to much theorising over the centuries . This evidence is supplemented by as later statement that Saul in Jerusalem debates exclusively with the Hellenists (Acts 9:9) (Baukham 1995: 3).
These are concerns which belong, of course, to the author of Acts, writing perhaps in Antioch, and possibly well after AD70. Yet they purport to describe the situation on the ground in pre-70 Palestine, and, to make sense of them, we needto understand that situation. This study of the cultures of 1st century Palestine has such understanding as its purpose, and the way ethnic and cultural distinctions operated there. The exercise is not to draw a map of cultures: indeed, it would be hard to so, since on many crucial matters we have no information. Any description of 1st century Palestine which does not allocate a prominent place to Josephus' perceptions misses golden opportunity (Bauckham 1995: 2-3 ).
Reisner in Bauckham (1995), further writes that, studies on the theology and practice of the Jerusalem church are legion. These studies usually point out that early Christianity was closely tied to Judaism, practised some kind of voluntary communism, had the twelve apostles and later the Seven as leaders and, of course, proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah.
This undertaking will examine the composition of the primitive Christian community. What sort of people were these sociologically and culturally? Did the Christian movement, the 'Way', attract only the poor or other classes as well?
Were these people culturally diverse?
We shall maintain below that although the early Jerusalem church was entirely Jewish, it was nonetheless socially and culturally pluralistic.
Indeed, the primitive church reflected to a great extent the rich diversity of Jerusalem itself, the most influential city of the east. A city of 60,000 or more inhabitants, Jerusalem in the early Roman period contained the fabulously rich as well as the unbearably poor. Further, most of the inhabitants were probably Palestinian natives, but the city also had a sizeable minority of Jews from the Diaspora ( and of course some Gentiles as well) (Bauckham 1995 :214).
The predominantly Jewish city, writes Fiensy in Bauckham (1995) that Jerusalem was bicultural. Most of the residents spoke and understood only Aramaic; some were bilingual; still others could probably speak only Greek. Certainly the mother tongue of most Palestinian Jews was Aramiac. The native languages tended to remain strong even under the cultural assault of Greek in the eastern part of the empire and Latin in the west.
Yet many, especially the educated and educated and merchants, did learn Greek either out of an interest in Greek literature, a desire to appear sophisticated, or for business reasons. The incursions of the Greek language and culture into Jewish Palestinian society is quite evident on many fronts. Coins were minted in Palestine with Greek inscriptions; the Hebrews and Aramaic languages adopted numerous Greek loan words; many Palestinian Jews had Greek names; the architecture of the residences and the pottery show Greek influences; the government-as far back as Herod the Great - was Hellenized; there was a gymnasium; numerous inscriptions - papyri and ostraca in Greek have been found (Bauckham 1995: 230-231).
In excavating the houses of the wealthy, the pursuit of things Hellenistic was not uncommon in Jerusalem, particularly among the Hellenstic nobility. The same pursuit existed in most cities and towns in the eastern empire. To be Greek to some was highly desired by the wealthy. But others were Greek culturally, because they grew up in Greek centres of the Diaspora. Even their tomb and ossuary inscriptions were chiselled in Greek.
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Most of the rest are in Semitic language only, but some are bilingual. The Greek speaking population numbered about 10% to 20% of the total population. There is evidence that many if not most of these Jews grew up in the Diaspora. The New Testament refers to other Jerusalem residents that came from the Diaspora: Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21), Barnabas of Cyprus (Acts 4: 36), Nicolas a proselyte from Antioch (Acts 6:5). Therefore, we conclude that a considerable number of Diaspora Jews had immigrated to Jerusalem by the 1stcentury AD.
In addition to the residents of Jerusalem that spoke Greek, there were thousands from the Diaspora that came to the feasts. Estimates vary as to the number of pilgrims that came to Passover and other feasts. Some estimate between 300,000 to 500,000. Of these tens of thousands were from the Diaspora and the rest from Palestine.
These pilgrims had to stay somewhere, and it appears that they stayed in community centres built especially for them. Archaeologists have discovered several buildings south of the Temple mount with a large number of rooms, ritual baths and many cisterns. There was also an inscription found that indicated that one Paris, a Jew from Rhodes, had donated a pavement in the vicinity evidently for community centre for pilgrims.
The Lower City, especially the City of David and the Ophel, was the locus for Greek-speaking Jews. The noble proselytes had palaces there; evidence of hospices;
one of these hospices was connected to a synagogue for Greek-speaking Jews;
archaeologists have uncovered what could be guest rooms (Bauckham 1995: 232- 233).
6.7. The Socio-Economic Composition of the Jerusalem Church