2. Jesus, the Average Ancient?: The Cultural Fuse
Time brings all things to pass.
—AESCHYLUS
Nothing great is produced suddenly.
—EPICTETUS
“I saw this coming even before Tammy disappeared . . .” Michelle’s voice seemed fragile and emotional over the speakerphone. In our conference room, Kyle was taking notes as I tried to adjust the volume of the call.
“How?” I asked. We had identified Michelle as Steve’s half sister, and we located her in Michigan, where she had been living for many years. We called her to ask a few questions about Steve’s relationship with Tammy, and we were surprised at Michelle’s candor.
“Back in those days Steve was hanging around the wrong crowd. He’d already been married once before, and most of his friends while he was married to Tammy were players, even the ones who were married themselves.”
“You mean they were sexually promiscuous?” Kyle tried to clarify.
“Yes, and they were always introducing Steve to girls.”
“Do you think he was unfaithful to Tammy?” I asked.
“I know he was unfaithful, especially around the time Tammy disappeared,” she replied without hesitation.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I accidentally discovered his text messages to some girl named Charley,” she replied. “I didn’t have a phone that could text in those days, and Steve had just gotten a new phone. He was outside talking to a friend while I was visiting, and he got a text. I was curious about what the text would look like on the new phone. I shouldn’t have read it.”
She paused.
“But it was obvious Steve was having an affair,” she said solemnly. “The messages were quite vulgar.”
“About how long was this before Tammy disappeared?” asked Kyle.
“Maybe a month or so? And that’s the thing: I distinctly remember him texting Charley that they would be together soon . But he was married to Tammy, and they were always together. I couldn’t even understand how Steve would have had the time or opportunity to start a relationship behind Tammy’s back. But here’s the weird thing: after Tammy disappeared, Steve moved this Charley girl into their house within about two weeks!”
“Did you ever contact the police about this?” I asked, even though I knew there was no record of an interview in the original casebook.
DOES CHARACTER COUNT AS EVIDENCE?
Jurors are allowed to consider the character and trustworthiness of witnesses and defendants when evaluating their statements. Michelle’s testimony reveals something about Steve’s character. In a similar way, the character of Jesus can be evaluated by the statements of those who recorded the accounts of his teaching and ministry.
“No . . .” she paused again.
I waited for her to offer a reason, but none came. “Why didn’t you report any of this?”
“Look,” Michelle said, carefully searching for the right words. “I didn’t want to believe Tammy was dead, and Steve was family. At the time, I wasn’t sure what happened. I just knew that something happened. I didn’t want to believe he would hurt her.”
“Then why tell us now?” asked Kyle.
“ You called me . And it’s obvious at this point. Something bad happened to Tammy, and I’m not covering for Steve anymore. He burned a bridge with me recently, and I don’t ever want to see him again.”
THE CULTURAL FUSE
Over the next few days, Kyle and I wondered if Michelle was telling us the truth about Steve, especially since Michelle was angry with him and wouldn’t tell us how he had “burned a bridge” with her. But as we spoke to others, Michelle’s version of events was confirmed.
Two strands of the fuse were coming into focus, and both were related to the culture in which Steve was living.
First, Steve’s friends created an environment that encouraged the formation of an extramarital relationship. If this aspect of Steve’s world hadn’t been in place, he may never have initiated the affair.
Additionally, the texting technology played a role in Steve’s developing relationship with Charley. Had it been 1990, prior to the invention of cellular texting technology and the culture of texting, it would have been much harder for Steve to cultivate an extramarital relationship without detection. The world around Steve—his social group and the timing of the available technology—contributed to the fuse that burned toward Tammy’s disappearance.
A COMMUNICATION STRAND
“So why all the interest in ancient non -Christian history?” asked Susie as I finished dressing for work.
“I’m trying to figure out why Jesus appeared when he did,” I responded.
“I’ve always wondered about that too,” added Susie. “If Jesus is God, he could’ve come whenever he wanted, right? Why not come in the time of Moses? Or much later in history, maybe when we had the ability to tell the world about him on the internet?”
“Well, if he’s not God, it wouldn’t really matter when he arrived.” I was a long way from believing in God or considering Christianity as something that mattered. I still saw Jesus as either a work of fiction or a typical ancient sage.
But Susie’s questions rang in my ears for several weeks after our conversation, despite my initial response. Was there an aspect of ancient history—a strand of the “Jesus fuse”—that would identify Jesus as more than an average ancient and explain why he came when he did?
OBJECTION: WHY DIDN’T JESUS COME LATER IN HISTORY?
If you’re active on social media, you probably recognize the crowded, noisy nature of the information age. In addition, technology has advanced to the point that “miraculous” events are easily fabricated in movies and videos. Surveys often find that young people are skeptical and distrusting about many claims made in this environment. Would the message of Jesus be more (or less) likely to resonate in this environment than in the past, when these distractions and innovations were still in the distant future?
I eventually discovered the answer to that question, and part of it was hiding in the history of communication.
While it’s true that the internet provides an excellent means by which to communicate claims about Jesus, there’s a much older approach that can be just as effective, and you’re using it right now. Books and manuscripts are excellent messaging tools. They’re inexpensive, portable, easy to produce, and require little in terms of technology. But like much of the information we find on the internet, even the oldest books and documents are dependent on a prior historic invention: writing.
The first and most ancient forms of writing (dating back to around 3500 BCE) are now called pictographs (or proto cuneiform ). Symbols representing objects were pressed into wet clay with primitive writing tools. When dried, these clay tablets were used to retell events and to serve as trading documents between merchants. But pictographs were limited. They could describe only simple topics that could be easily communicated with visual symbols.
Had Jesus arrived at this point in history (prior to 3500 BCE), complex concepts involving his nature and teaching would have been impossible to communicate in writing. Worse yet, the tablets would have been incredibly fragile, given the nature of clay.
But another advance in writing technology would solve at least one of these problems.
By 3000 BCE, the development of simplified cuneiforms allowed writers to communicate concepts by adding phonograms (symbols for vowels and syllables) to the communication palette. This allowed writers to better express themselves, but their surfaces (clay tablets) were still fragile and temporary.
That all changed when the ancients began using papyrus.
The Egyptians can be credited with this communication advance, as they were the first to use papyrus (a writing material made from a reed that grows around the Nile River). Around the same time that cuneiform writing emerged, Egyptians began pressing strips of papyrus at right angles, and this naturally bonding material, once it was exported, became the most popular writing material of the ancient Greek and Roman world. Papyrus, unlike clay tablets, could travel safely.
WORD CHOICES MATTER
As a detective, I commonly use forensic statement analysis to evaluate the word choices of suspects who provide a written statement. But this requires a robust common language and alphabet that allows me to assess potential “deception indicators” in the statement. None of this would have been possible prior to the development of writing and alphabets. Even today we can assess and investigate the claims of the Gospels using forensic statement analysis, thanks to the innovations in writing and language described in this chapter.
While these developments were helpful, another advancement would be necessary to further the cause of communication as we know it today. The world was still waiting for a true alphabet.
The Phoenician alphabet is an excellent example of early efforts in this regard. Their alphabet is seen consistently in writings dated to approximately 1050 BCE. It is a relatively simple collection of twenty-two consonants and no vowels. It became the most widely used alphabet in antiquity, modified by several other cultures.
Had Jesus arrived at this point in history (around 1050 BCE), even with these advances in writing technology, it still would have been difficult to communicate the truth about him across the known world. While the Phoenician alphabet was well established, most humans on the planet didn’t use it. But other alphabets were on their way.
By 800 BCE, the Greeks, for example, added vowels to make their twenty-seven-letter version of the alphabet, and for the first time, differences between words like sad , said , and sod were clearly understood.
About one hundred years later (700 BCE), the Etruscans, who lived in the region we now call Tuscany, Italy, adopted and modified the Greek alphabet, changing the shape of several letters. When the Romans conquered the Etruscans, they embraced the Etruscan alphabet. By 100 BCE it became the alphabet of the empire, and it followed the Romans to every region they conquered (the Latin alphabet is a direct descendant of the Etruscan). As the Roman Empire conquered the most expansive region of civilization, it also taught the world how to read and write using this alphabet.
The Romans exported another important communication tool in addition to an alphabet: the Greek language . Even though the Romans had conquered much of the region, the linguistic legacy of the Greeks still overshadowed the culture. A common form of this language, known as Koine Greek, dominated trade and civic interactions throughout the empire.
Even the Jews used it to speak to Gentiles.
Only at this point in history—once the Roman Empire had adopted the Etruscan-modified Greek alphabet, embraced Koine Greek as a common language, and adopted the use of papyrus—could the message of Jesus be effectively communicated with a shared language and letters. Had Jesus arrived prior to 100 BCE, this would not have been possible.
Writing and language alone did not allow the person and message of Jesus to change the world. An even more forceful strand of the fuse was critical. This one required the growth of an empire.
A COLONIZATION STRAND
The Roman Empire began, according to legend, when Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of the war god, Mars, defeated the king of Alba Longa and founded Rome in 753 BCE. Initially a monarchy, Rome became a republic in 509 BCE after its seventh king (an allegedly cruel tyrant named Lucius Tarquinius Superbus) was overthrown in an uprising. Still only a city-state, Rome did not control the entire Italian peninsula until 264 BCE.
Had Jesus appeared at this point in history, his life and message (as he lived and traveled in what is now called Israel) would have been confined to the obscure language and government of the Jewish region. But the growth of the Roman Empire would soon change that.
By 149 BCE (after two wars with the powerful city-state Carthage), Rome also controlled Sicily, the western Mediterranean, and a large portion of Spain. By 146 BCE, Rome conquered Carthage and, as a result, controlled a portion of northern Africa. Rome also defeated King Philip V of Macedonia and possessed what is known today as Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo.
In the years that followed, consuls ruled the empire, setting the stage for several power struggles and murderous, political dramas. Rome was only a “republic” in name during much of this time, and leadership was often divided and contentious. But by 27 BCE, a Roman statesman and military leader named Gaius Octavius defeated all other contending leaders and became the sole leader (and first emperor) of Rome.
He assumed the title of Augustus Caesar.
Augustus dramatically enlarged the empire, capturing Egypt and regions around the Mediterranean. Compare the empire under Augustus with the prior empires of antiquity at their height—Egypt, Persia, and Greece:
At the pinnacle of Roman rule, most of Europe, Asia Minor, the Balkans, the Middle East, the coast of North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea were unified under the same economic, military, and linguistic systems. Had Jesus arrived on the scene prior to 27 BCE, his impact on the “known world” would have been much smaller and more difficult to advance, especially beyond the boundaries of the empires that preceded Rome.
The size of the Roman Empire allowed Jesus’s teaching to spread within its expansive borders, but it was also the power of the empire that allowed the message of Jesus to be heard.
A DOMINATION STRAND
Prior to the rule of Augustus, peace was rare among ancient warring nations. In fact, the history of antiquity is cluttered with power struggles and tales of bloodshed.
Starting as early as 3250 BCE, people groups declared and waged war on one another with startling regularity. Few ancient groups were immune from the hostilities. Egyptians, North Africans, Akkadians, Sumerians, Persians, Babylonians, Hittites, Kassites, Assyrians, Jews, Greeks, and Romans repeatedly engaged in brutal warfare. Engaging in more than simple battles, many of these groups waged generational wars. Even under the powerful leadership of Alexander the Great (at the height of the Greek Empire), peace—at least on a global level—was elusive.
The wars these nations waged crowded the timeline of history, especially as the appearance of Jesus approached. But that changed under Augustus.
The Roman Empire unified much of the Western world, bringing the entire Mediterranean region under common rule. Many of the same people groups that warred against one another in more ancient times were now in shared submission to Rome.
Under Augustus, a time of Roman peace began, known as the “Pax Romana.” It lasted from 27 BCE to 180 CE and allowed Jews living in cities like Jerusalem to retain their culture and customs (so long as residents paid a tax known as the “Fiscus Judaicus” and obeyed the Roman laws).
This small window of Roman peace provided the perfect setting for the teaching and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The relative tranquility resulted in a surprising development that would assist those who wanted to spread Jesus’s message.
A TRANSPORTATION STRAND
Roman resources previously dispatched to wage war were now reallocated to several domestic improvement projects, including the development of a remarkable system of roads.
The history of transportation set the stage for this technological achievement. Wheels appeared early in history, for example, perhaps as soon as 5000 BCE in ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia). From the same region came the first two-wheeled cart (c. 3000 BCE), usually pulled by donkeys called “onagers.”
Four-wheeled carts came later in history (around 2500 BCE) and were used primarily for farming. By 2000 BCE spoke-wheeled chariots emerged in southern Siberia and Central Asia.
These developments certainly aided the ability to move materials and wage war, but their use as “social” transportation devices was limited to the quality of roads in each region. Most roads were little more than cleared pathways, susceptible to weather and war. Had Jesus been born at this time in history, his message would not have traveled far from the region in which he lived.
But as road technology advanced, so did the opportunity to advance the message of Jesus.
Persians were among the first to build significant roads. Darius the Great refurbished an existing roadway and created the “Royal Road” in 500 BCE, connecting regions as far apart as Susa (now the Khuzestan region of Iran) to Sardis (now the Manisa Province in western Turkey). This reduced travel from ninety days on foot to nine days on horseback.
NATURAL AND PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES
According to California Criminal Jury Instructions, a “natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes.” In evaluating the cultural fuse leading up to the appearance of Jesus, it is reasonable to ask if Jesus’s impact (described in the fallout section) was the inevitable result of the events leading up to his birth or if an unnatural (“unusual”) force was involved.
Surprisingly, the powerful Greek Empire contributed little to the advancement of roads, primarily because of Greece’s difficult, mountainous, and rocky terrain, their reliance on sea travel for trade, and their inability to protect travelers with official oversight. Until 400 BCE, with some exceptions (like the thoroughfares between major cities and surrounding holy sites), most roads were difficult for wheeled transportation.
Had Jesus arrived at this point in history, his followers would still have faced the limits of transportation within nations in less-than-perfect road conditions. But as before, the Roman Empire provided a solution.
As the Roman Empire grew militarily, so did its need for roads. As a result, Roman roads were widespread and usually well paved. Wherever they conquered, the Romans built long, relatively straight roads to make the movement of military equipment easier. This desire to avoid curves necessitated the advanced engineering of bridges, tunnels, and viaducts to traverse mountains and valleys. Roman roads were well built and often populated by the military, making them much safer to travel than their Greek counterparts. Spanning nearly 250,000 miles, these roads became a symbol of Rome’s power, connecting diverse subcultures within the empire.
Construction of probably the most famous of Roman roads, the Appian Way, was started in 312 BCE. Called by Romans the “Queen of Roads,” it set the standard for the many famous roads Romans would build leading up to the lifetime of Jesus.
The Romans weren’t the only ones contributing to the advance of transportation. By 130 BCE, the Silk Road (also called the Silk Routes) was formally opened for travel by the Han dynasty of China. This ancient network of connected trade routes would be used to facilitate trade between the East and the West for many centuries.
As the Romans built the infrastructure of secondary roads and perfected the engineering of bridges and tunnels by 100 BCE, the stage was set for the peacetime expansion of the Roman highway system that occurred as Jesus’s followers began to share his message and ministry.
At this point in history, early in the first century, the Roman Empire had unified and refurbished the road systems of conquered nations, connecting the various systems into a network of roads that spanned the empire from Britain to Syria. This network provided a new opportunity to trade and share ideas, even ideas about Jesus , and it did so largely by laying the groundwork for another important development.
A CIRCULATION STRAND
For much of ancient history, the only way to communicate a message was face-to-face (for spoken words) or hand-to-hand (for written documents). Until, of course, the invention of postal services.
According to historical references, the ancient Egyptians may have had a postal service (of sorts) as early as 2000 BCE, but the Persians are typically credited with the first true mail carriers. From around 1700 BCE, the ancient Persian kings needed a way to communicate their decisions, and their relatively primitive courier systems later (under the leadership of King Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE and King Darius I in 521 BCE) became a network of roads and couriers connecting what is now Western Iran to Western Burma.
In China a system for delivering mail emerged early during the Zhou dynasty (c. 1122–c. 221 BCE), but this system was limited regionally and was used primarily by the government to deliver official mail. In a similar way, India, during the Mauryan Empire (322–185 BCE), developed a mail system to transmit political and military intelligence. Greece, during the Hellenistic period (323–30 BCE), developed a system like other ancient empires, but relied heavily on private couriers.
If Jesus had appeared during the period of history in which these empires reigned (from 2000 BCE to 30 BCE), none of these systems would have benefitted him (or his followers) beyond the limited regions each nation occupied.
Once again, Rome would provide a more sophisticated solution.
Augustus created a service called cursus publicus from 30 to 25 BCE. At the time of its creation, it was the most advanced system on the planet. It did more than deliver messages; it also transported officials and tax revenues from distant provinces to Rome. The network relied heavily on Rome’s superior transportation system (nearly 47,000 miles of new roads were built by Augustus and his successors) and the security and strength the Roman Empire offered. Using the Persian system of “relays,” the Romans built forts and stations on their exceptional roads, each positioned about one day’s ride apart. The cursus publicus was fast and reliable, especially compared with its predecessors. More importantly, the system was built to circulate information across the geographically expansive Roman Empire, with the ability to reach beyond its borders.
By the time Jesus appeared on the scene, the Roman Empire was ready to transmit his message. But more importantly, their attitude toward religion would allow the teaching of Jesus to take root.
A TOLERATION STRAND
Most ancient civilizations were anything but tolerant of the gods of competing groups. Conquered nations were usually forced to adopt the gods of the victors and reject those they had previously worshiped. Had Jesus been born in any of these ancient societies, his emergence as a global religious leader would have been far more difficult.
The Roman Empire, however, was another story.
At its peak, Rome controlled a portion of three continents and the Mediterranean Sea. With each conquest, the Romans annexed another culture, along with its languages, traditions, and gods. Rome’s early strategy was simple: allow each people group to retain its gods and traditions and embrace these deities as part of the larger Roman pantheon. Rome had done this earlier with the gods of Greece and had, in fact, adopted the Greek gods as their own, “Romanizing” the Greek pantheon.
This effort to tolerate the gods of conquered nations served the Roman Empire well in most cases. Annexed regions were encouraged to worship their own gods, and Rome even built temples and facilitated animal sacrifices to the gods of captured groups. All they expected in return was for the annexed groups to submit to Roman authority and to make offerings (however nominal) to the Roman gods.
OBJECTION: CHRISTIANS WERE NEVER REALLY PERSECUTED
The Roman historian Tacitus described the persecution of Christians in Rome (c. 64–68 CE) in Book 15, Section 44 of Annals (written c. 116 CE). Modern scholars (even skeptics of Christianity) still regard Tacitus as one of the greatest Roman historians, although in very recent years, some have tried to deny his claims about Christian persecution. But other early manuscripts, including Pliny the Younger’s letter to Emperor Trajan, written c. 112 CE, support Tacitus’s early report of Christian persecution.
But this requirement was not acceptable to Jewish believers within the empire. The Jews were monotheistic and refused to make offerings or take part in Roman religious festivals. Their refusal to present even cursory worship to the gods of Rome tested the tolerance of Roman authorities who saw this worship as a sign of loyalty to the empire.
They made an exception for the Jewish community, however. The Romans conquered Judea in 63 BCE but later allowed the Jews to retain their monotheism, recognizing Judaism as a legal religion. The Romans allowed the Jews to coexist among the conquered people groups, even though they would not worship the Roman gods. Rome tolerated Judaism, even if it didn’t trust it.
In the earliest days of Christianity, Rome did little or nothing to stop its growth, in part because Roman authorities initially saw Christianity as simply a branch of Judaism, partly because of Roman tolerance for local gods in general, and partly because the Christian community was still relatively small. As Christianity grew in the first two decades, Rome may also have tolerated the sect because they hoped it would weaken Judaism.
In any case, a thirty-year window of opportunity opened to spread the message of Jesus (prior to Emperor Nero’s maltreatment of Christians in 64 CE). And even though some Roman emperors in the years ahead would persecute Christians, others returned to a version of Roman tolerance, allowing Christianity to flourish in every region under Rome’s control.
Jesus arrived at this point in human history, when the Roman Empire embraced a version of religious tolerance unique to the history of the ancient world, providing a small window of opportunity. This window allowed Jesus to preach a message his followers could communicate to the world.
SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN
“I saw this coming even before Tammy disappeared . . .”
Michelle could “read the tea leaves.” Even though she wasn’t sure what would happen, she knew something would happen.
As Kyle and I assembled the fuse leading up to Tammy’s disappearance, it became all too obvious that Steve’s culture and friends were pointing him in the wrong direction. Even Michelle could see it coming.
Any careful investigator of ancient history could also see something was about to happen in what we now call the first century.
A cultural fuse was burning, preparing antiquity for whatever would eventually initiate the Common Era. The Roman Empire had unified much of the known world, adopted a popular language, provided a shared alphabet, established peace, constructed roads, developed the world’s best postal service, and embraced just enough religious tolerance to detonate an explosion. Even before the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth, it ought to have been apparent to any careful student of history that events within the Roman Empire were aligning for someone special to arrive and for something special to happen.
But what kind of someone? What kind of something? The more I examined the fuse, the clearer the answers became.