The Roman World of Jesus: A Historical Overview, posted by James Tabor. The transcript’s MS Word version is in his Dropbox Directory.
Extracted Opening: Copyright 1982 by Norman Perrin and Dennis During. This article, with very minor modifications, was written by Dennis Duling, Professor Emeritus of Canisius College. It was published in the 2nd edition of Norman Perrin and Dennis Duling, The New Testament: An Introduction (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1982), pp. 4-35, now out of print. This excellent work, revised, expanded, and continually improved, is now published by Wadsworth and is in its 4th edition with Duling as the sole author. I [Dr. Tabor] highly recommend this fine NT Introduction to my readers and have used it for many years since Norman Perrin, with whom we both studied at the University of Chicago, published the first edition in 1974 .
Claude.ai’s Summary is below.
Overall, it’s a solid, accessible orientation to the Hellenistic-Roman context of the NT, now somewhat dated (1982) but still useful as a broad introduction to the political, social, and religious currents that shaped early Christianity.
This post is a reprint of a chapter by Dennis Duling (from the 2nd edition of The New Testament: An Introduction by Perrin and Duling, 1982), hosted by James Tabor as a resource for contextualizing Christian origins. It surveys four main areas:
The Political Scene
The Hellenistic world that produced the New Testament arose from Alexander the Great’s conquests (356–323 BCE), which spread Greek culture, language (koine), and civic infrastructure across the Near East and into Egypt. After Alexander’s death, his empire fractured into the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms, which competed for control of Palestine. Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Antiochus IV (167 BCE) led to brief independence, but Roman control of Palestine arrived in 63 BCE, ending that independence.
The post then walks through the Roman emperors in sequence — Augustus (under whom Jesus was born), Tiberius (who appointed Pilate), Caligula (who demanded divine honors and nearly triggered a crisis by ordering his statue placed in the Jerusalem Temple), Claudius, Nero (who blamed Christians for the great fire of 64 CE), and the Flavians. Domitian (81–96 CE), who was tyrannical and persecuted Christians, provides the backdrop for the book of Revelation.
The Cultural Scene
Hellenization was primarily urban — cities were the venues for Greek ideas, dress, and civic infrastructure (baths, theaters, aqueducts) — while traditional rural cultures were less transformed. Early Christianity emerged from Galilean countryside roots but quickly moved into cities where it was reshaped by Hellenistic thought. Society included a large slave population, a free poor barely subsisting, and a wealthy aristocratic class whose philanthropy earned public status, with a vast gap between the extremes. Social dislocation from rapid urbanization left many people spiritually adrift, creating fertile ground for new religious movements.
Popular Philosophy
The piece surveys the key philosophical schools and their relevance to the NT. Platonic dualism — the transient material world as shadow of true eternal reality — is visible in texts like Hebrews, and influenced Gnosticism and Johannine theology. Stoicism, grounded in the concept of the Logos as divine Reason suffusing the cosmos, emphasized inner peace, ethical self-sufficiency, and a cosmopolitan egalitarianism that extended in principle to slaves and women. The Cynic tradition of austere street preaching has structural parallels with early Christian apostolic mission, and Cynic-Stoic rhetorical forms (vice and virtue lists) appear in Paul. Epicurus taught that happiness lay in avoiding pain and pleasure in this world, not in fear of the gods — a position his critics labeled atheism.
Religions and Religious Movements
This is the richest section. It covers:
- Astrology and magic — widespread beliefs about fate determined by the stars, and ritual formulas for controlling demonic powers; the Magi’s star in Matthew is the most obvious NT reference.
- Mystery religions — cults of Dionysus, Cybele/Attis, Isis/Osiris, Mithras and others, offering initiates secret rites, immortality, and communal belonging. There is no clearly direct influence of the mysteries on early Christianity, but they shared a common environment and many non-Christians would have perceived Christians as members of an oriental Jewish mystery cult.
- Gnosticism — not a single religion but a diversified phenomenon, rooted in the conviction that the material world is evil, created by a lesser deity, and that the divine spark within humanity can only be liberated through revealed gnosis. The Gnostic Redeemer myth — a figure descending from light, teaching saving knowledge, then re-ascending — is debated as a possible influence on Christology, especially in John and Paul.
- Divine men and saviors — the category of the theios anēr (divine man) — itinerant miracle-workers and wise men venerated for supernatural feats — is illustrated by Apollonius of Tyana, who was said to have healed the sick, raised the dead, gathered followers, and appeared to disciples after death. Imperial titles like “Lord,” “Son of God,” and “Savior” were also applied to Roman emperors, making their use for Jesus politically and religiously charged.
Overall, it’s a solid, accessible orientation to the Hellenistic-Roman context of the NT, now somewhat dated (1982) but still useful as a broad introduction to the political, social, and religious currents that shaped early Christianity.
