THE FIRST CENTURY NEW TESTAMENT WORLD

The following are some brief comments on the first-century economic, social, domestic, and religious world into which Jesus was born and lived out his ministry.

ECONOMICS

Palestine was an agrarian economy, with a rich variety of grains, vegetables and fruits, and sheep and goats. Wealthy landowners farmed their lands by leasing them out to tenants, sharecroppers and day laborers. In addition to farmers, there were stonemasons, carpenters, butchers, bakers, weavers, potters and other craftsmen and merchants. Village life was primitive and never easy. Travel was by foot and very slow (fifteen to twenty miles a day). Rome levied taxes on crops and imposed tolls and duties on people and merchandise: Jewish law required both tithes and grain offerings to be made at the temple. Civil taxes and religious tithes could amount to as much as 40 to 50 percent of one’s income.

SOCIETY

Jewish society was less rigid than Roman society. At the top were hereditary priests who officiated at the temple and offered sacrifices for the people; they were assisted by Levites. The priestly group and the lay aristocracy - wealthy individuals who were not members of priestly families - formed a socio-religious political group that exercised control over the lives of the people. Below the priests, Levites and aristocracy were the common people (farmers, craftsmen and merchants), and below them slaves who ended up on the wrong side of a conflict or who were born to women in slavery or who could not pay their debts. Those living in rural villages in Galilee and elsewhere were more conservative than those who lived in large cities like Jerusalem, and there was constant tension between the two groups.

DOMESTIC LIFE

The family was the basic unit. Marriage and procreation were considered religious obligations (“Be fruitful and multiply”). Marriage were normally arranged by parents, frequently when children were quite young, and often to family relatives like cousins. Girls were married between the ages of twelve and fourteen and males between the ages of eighteen and twenty. Women were restricted to the home and were second-class citizens, excluded even from certain areas of the temple. It was unusual for men to converse with women in public, even their wives. Sons were more highly favored than daughters, but boys were “nobodies” until the age of twelve or thirteen.

RELIGIOUS LIFE

Jews were either full-blooded Jews (those born Jewish) or proselytes (those who converted to Judaism). Two other groups were “God-fearers,” those attracted to Judaism but who never converted to Judaism, and Gentiles, a term to anyone who was not Jewish, including the God-fearers. The most important Jewish institution was the temple in Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish sacrificial system. Two other important institutions were the Sanhedrin, the chief judicial and legislative body within Judaism, and the synagogue, from a Greek word meaning “place of assembly.” The synagogue was more important that the temple for the people living outside Jerusalem; it functioned as a place of worship, prayer, study and fellowship.

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