Ezrider: Thanks for writing! Here's what I wrote in the Bible Chronology project with respect to your inquiry.
Category 12 - From Christ to Revelation and Beyond. (Part 2 of 2)
This final segment covers the plight of the Jewish people after Christ and the Christian era after the 1st century.
After the death and resurrection of Christ the books of the New Testament were written by those He commissioned. They were written between 58 and 99AD.
The Plight of the Jews After Christ
Of all the Roman empire, it was the region of Judea that gave Rome the most trouble. It has been noted earlier in segment 11 that the Jewish people took great exception to Roman rule. In 66AD Jewish extremists known as the Zealots rebelled. Jerusalem and the surrounding land was taken over by them. The Roman garrison overseeing the area was besieged and massacred.
The Roman emperor Nero, also known for his severe persecution of Christians, sent the Roman military to Judea. The Jewish rebels struggled to defend Jerusalem. During this time Nero committed suicide and the commander in charge of the offensive in Judea became emperor. He left his son Titus to finish the job and in the year 70AD thousands of Jews were either starved to death, crucified or killed by the sword. The Temple was destroyed. The war went on from 66 to 73AD.
The Jewish people continued their disrespect for Roman rule when Emperor Hadrian vowed in 131 to rebuild Jerusalem and dedicate it as a Roman colony. The Jews began a campaign of guerrilla rebellion and accumulated considerable arms; hiding them in strategic locations within the region. In 134 the Romans assembled a massive force and opened a full scale assault of the region.
Those Jews who were not able to flee were killed or enslaved. Jerusalem became a Romanized city and completely resettled by gentiles. The Roman god Jupiter was worshiped where the Temple once stood. The Jews were dispersed; a people without a homeland. And, so it was until 1948.
Christianity’s Growth and Transformation
By the end of the first century the books of the New Testament had been written. The groundwork had been laid for living the Christian life and the doctrines for the Church of God. (Church of God was the only title given to God’s church and is mentioned by name 8 times in the New Testament.)
By the end of the 1st century there were as many as 300,000 Christians living throughout the Mediterranean area and as far as Cologne to the north. Most were concentrated in the Asia Minor region. It was inevitable that divisions would arise among the churches. (1st Corinthians 1:10; 11:18.) There were a number of Christianized cities in the region, but none had the stature of Rome which lay in the heart of the empire.
During the next 200 years Christianity would be embraced and then severely persecuted by Roman emperors. The first official persecutions were in 64 and 95. Persecutions lessened a bit until 161-80 when, in the face of gaining real strength, the Christians were forced to renounce their faith or suffer death. That phase passed and Christianity continued its growth.
In 249-51 Emperor Decius sent forth a proclamation to revive the worship of traditional Roman gods. Large numbers of Christians refused to participate and efforts to exterminate them began. The bloodletting stopped in 261. In 303 a final effort to rid the empire of Christians failed, but many Christians were killed and their places of worship destroyed. Nevertheless, the sheer numbers of Christians was too overwhelming.
New Christian Doctrines Established
Finally, in the year 325 the emperor Constantine saw it was in the best interest of Rome and his personal interests to establish Christianity as an official religion of Rome. He convened a council known as the Council of Nicaea. 300 bishops attended to hash out the new Christian doctrines.
The new doctrines formed the basis from which most Christian denominations adhere to today, i.e., Easter, Christmas, the Trinity doctrine, Sunday worship (Ancient Rome’s day for worship of the sun), etc.. Every effort was made not to incorporate anything Jewish into the new doctrines i.e., Sabbath worship, Passover, God’s Holy days, etc.
* What the Bible Says About Changing Its Doctrines: 2nd Corinthians 11: 3,4;
Romans 16:17; Galatians 1:6-9
Roman Catholic Church - Reformation - Martyrs
The Roman Catholic Church was the face of Christianity up to 1054 when the Eastern Orthodox Church split. The RCC wielded enormous power over its subjects and even over kingdoms. Parishioners pled allegiance to the church and gained what little biblical knowledge they had from the priests.
By the 1500’s several men began a movement known as the Reformation; well known names like Martin Luther and John Calvin among them. These men took issue with the catholic doctrines which they considered unbiblical and self serving. They exposed the oppression of the common folks and corruption within the church.
In the early 1500’s Martin Luther translated the Bible into German and gained the wrath of Rome and the Pope. Meanwhile, a British native William Tyndale, began his work to translate the Bible into English.
The Pope had so much power it was up to him to grant the King of England, Henry VIII, a divorce. The power was used to track down Tyndale, but he fled across the sea into the area around Belgium where he finished the New Testament. He also wrote other booklets exposing the false teachings and oppression of the Roman Catholic church. The Pope authorized the burning at the stake of anyone possessing anything related to Tyndale’s writings. Dozens, perhaps hundreds were martyred in that fashion, including Tyndale.
The Reformation went on for 200 years and gave way to the creation of hundreds of Christian denominations. Today in America, there are more than 1500 different faith groups professing many diverse and conflicting beliefs. It would be an understatement to say that Christianity is a severely divided faith.
