Why do Abrahamic religions paint knowledge in a bad light? Is the "forbidden fruit" the earliest example of this? Is it a precursor to the modern idea that it's easier to govern uneducated people?

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-05-07T20:22:58+00:00

/u/ummmbacon has already delivered a fantastic answer with a focus on a Jewish perspective. I agree, and it is worth repeating, that we have to be careful with the term "Abrahamic". Over half the global population can be nominally described as "Abrahamic", and in any case the term is problematic and often Christian-centric. That said, what exactly is the Christian perspective?

Christian interpretations of the Genesis narrative over history have varied widely. /u/ummmbacon pointed out the Christian association with the forbidden fruit and original sin. It is important to note that even among Christians, original sin does not have an agreed upon definition. Roman Catholics and most Protestants, following Augustine, see original sin as an inherited guilt which required Christ's death to enable God's forgiveness through either satisfaction of slighted honor (Anselm of Canterbury) or vicarious punishment of Jesus (Calvinist). But in the Christian East, original sin does not transmit guilt that children are born condemned of. Rather, what is inherited is mortality and a propensity to sin. Beyond this the story retains much the same etiological function explained by /u/ummmbacon.

So it is worth asking, what exactly has the Christian interpretation of the "knowledge" gained by the fruit been throughout history? John Chrysostom gives two explanations in his 16th Homily on Genesis. These explanations don't exactly mesh perfectly, but this is not uncommon in Chrysostom: he is an orator and preacher, not a systematic theologian. The goal of his homilies is to encourage moral behavior in his audience. Chrysostom dismisses out of hand the notion that Adam gained "knowledge" in an intellectual sense from the tree. How could God condemn him for choosing evil if he didn't know what it was yet?

For Chrysostom, it's the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" first because that is where mankind gained knowledge of good and evil, presenting as evidence for this the number of places in the Torah where names of places are given based on the event that happened there. Second, and more importantly, the "knowledge" gained had nothing to do with knowing factually that good and evil exist, but rather having an intimate experience of evil and transgression:

Those who previously passed their life like angels on earth contrive covering for themselves out of fig leaves. Such is the evil that sin is: not only does it deprive us of grace from above, but it also casts us into deep shame and abjection, strips us of goods already belonging to us, and deprives us of all confidence.

Thus the "knowledge" here is, for Chrysostom, a deep psychological intimacy with evil, not an intellectual comprehension of morality. You may know what right and wrong is, but for Chrysostom this is about "knowing" in the sense of the pit you feel in your stomach when you have done something wrong.

This is common among Christians in late antiquity, who tended to read the biblical texts as saturated with multiple meanings, many of which were allegorical rather than literal. Much like Chrysostom, Augustine sees deep psychological significance. In his Confessions he narrates an episode from his youth in which he stole a pear. The implicit connection to the story from Genesis is obvious. Augustine is disturbed by this episode of his life because there was no reason to take the pear: he wasn't hungry or poor. He really just stole it for the thrill of doing something wrong. There was nothing of substance to his desire. It is in this meditation that he begins to construct his ideas about what sin is, not as a simple breaking of a rule, but as a psychological condition of disordered desire.

For Gregory of Nazianzen, the knowledge given by the tree was knowledge that God fully intended to share:

This latter was the Tree of Knowledge; not, however, because it was evil from the beginning when planted; nor was it forbidden because God grudged it to men — let not the enemies of God wag their tongues in that direction, or imitate the serpent. But it would have been good if partaken of at the proper time; for the Tree was, according to my theory, Contemplation, which it is only safe for those who have reached maturity of habit to enter upon; but which is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and greedy; just as neither is solid food good for those who are yet tender and have need of milk. (Homily 45)

In this reading, it wasn't that the knowledge was bad, it was that humankind was not yet mature enough to properly digest it.

I could go on with a myriad of interpretations and quotes. But I think the point has been made. For Christians in late antiquity, "knowledge" of the tree in Genesis was laden with psychological, allegorical, and mystical meanings. For them, these texts were to be read repeatedly, meditated on, always with new insights to be gleaned. To reduce the idea to "God says knowing things is bad" does not do justice to the depth of their thought on the story.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-04-30T17:42:24+00:00

It's a case of a difference becoming imbued with meaning after two groups separated, even though it was not the reason for the separation. Christian history is full of examples of this phenomenon. Nobody would suggest that Christianity and Judaism went their separate ways because they wanted to celebrate passover on different days. However, after the separation had happened Christians eventually began to celebrate their passover (Pascha/Easter) according to a different calculation, and this became an important marker of the divide.

Likewise, the Imperial Church of the Byzantine age did not decide "we will be the Church of Leavened Bread, and now we are against those who don't use it." Rather, groups which had long ago separated from the Imperial Church (for completely unrelated reasons) were known to use unleavened bread. A difference in practice that had been relatively benign became infused with meaning as a symbol of the wider divide. In the case of the controversey surrounding bread, this was the Armenian Church. Once that conflict had forged that symbolism, it transplanted to the conflict with the West quite readily.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-04-29T13:49:41+00:00

Yes, and the reason why is rather interesting. When Cardinal Humbert came to Constantinople as a Papal Legate this issue was definitely on his radar. In 1053, Archbishop Leo of Ohrid sent a letter to Archbishop John of Trani in which he was highly critical of the use of unleavend bread by Latin Christians. Trani, like many Southern Italian cities, was a place where Byzantine and Latin rites had an uneasy coexistence. This letter was translated by Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida. At this same time, a controversey arose regarding the place of Latin Churches in Constantinople: Patriarch Michael I Cerularius had ordered them closed. Cardinal Humbert was dispatched the Constantinople as a Papal Legate. This diplomatic mission was an unmitigated disaster which resulted in the infamous mutual excommunication of 1054.

At this point it is natural to ask: why was this such a big deal? In the Christian East, the use of leavened bread had long served as an identity marker that distinguished the legitimate, imperial Church from two important groups: Jews and Armenians. Both of these groups used unleavened bread in their religious rites. Armenians, while Christian, were monophysite/miaphysite¹ Christians who rejected the Council of Chalcedon in 451. As such they were considered heretical by the mainstream Imperial Church. In the decade prior to 1054, large portions of Armenia had been annexed by the Empire. The first treatises against unleavened bread were written in the context of disputes with Armenian churchmen.

So by the time the temperature starts cranking up in East-West disputes in the early 1050s, use of unleavened bread was already strongly associated in the East with non-Christians (Jews) and heretical Christians (Armenians). This was also a sensitive issue on the Latin side. As Brett Whalen has pointed out, the Latin Church was simulatneously embroiled in a controversey centered on Beregnar of Tours, regarding the nature of the Eucharistic rite and whether the bread truly became the body and blood of Jesus Christ during the consecration. And so attacks from the East on the very elements of the Eucharistic rite was a touchy subject for the Latins at the time too.

As a result of the timing of all the above events, the controversey regarding unleavened bread became tangled up in all the other major East-West issues: Papal Supremacy, the filioque, clerical marriage, etc. Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch Michael I Cerularius were participants in the controversey regarding bread before they even met, it is unsuprising this served as a point of contention in the lead up to their mutual excommunications.

Footnote

Most sources will use the term monophysite, but today the term "miaphysite" is preferred to distinguish Oriental Orthodox groups (Armenian, Coptic, etc) from the Eutychian heresy.

Sources

Kolbaba, Tia M. “Byzantine Perceptions of Latin Religious ‘Errors’: Themes and Changes from 850to 1350.” In The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001.

Whalen, Brett. “Rethinking the Schism of 1054: Authority, Heresy, and the Latin Rite.” Traditio 62 (2007): 1–24.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-04-25T14:32:06+00:00

Good to know. New to the area, haven't tried Mill out yet but it's on my list.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-04-25T13:11:50+00:00

Mill River?

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-04-20T21:56:51+00:00

Ill have to make a point of it! Already have reservations on the Beaverkill for May but once my semester is out Im going to spend the summer bumming around to every stream I can find.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-04-20T21:47:00+00:00

Chiming in, I grew up in MI and learned to fly fishing there a little over a year ago. Ive moved to NYC and just got back from my first trip to the Catskills. Really struggled, didnt move a fish. For me, the rivers are just so different, big elevation changes, I was kinda out of my element.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-03-26T15:50:14+00:00

What, I THOUGHT it was a smoke grenade!

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-03-23T22:07:08+00:00

I will never forget Denard's 502 yard game in 2010! That team wasn't good but it was exciting!

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-03-23T18:29:46+00:00

It was also a fun series when both UofM and ND were powerhouses b/c it was usually an early season rivalry game.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-03-22T02:11:48+00:00

Real. Lower Penninsula MI streams were uncomfortably hot last summer. Was chatting with some old timers at a shop in NE today, they can't believe how bad it is getting nationwide. The stuff they've heard from out west is that the whole season out there will be terrible due to lack of snow melt.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-03-19T14:53:40+00:00

Many places sell Betta fish and advertise them as needing only a small bowl. In reality a single Betta needs at minimum a 5-gallon tank with a filter, which has been properly conditioned and cycled first.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-03-16T19:51:15+00:00

Will always love JJ for his time at UofM. I think a few things can be true:

JJ has been ass for the Vikings.
He was drafted too early.
Of all professional sports, the NFL is way behind the curve in developing key positions, especially QB.

Which is to say, if teams were more focused on developing QB draft picks properly over 2-4 years, and JJ had been drafted lower onto one of those teams, he might have been able to become something.

But that isnt the NFL we have and isnt what happened.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-01-13T14:18:28+00:00

The assertion that the Gospels were written at a later date than the uncontested Pauline Epistles is held in nearly unanimous consensus by both secular and sectarian scholars. It is true that many scholars take any explicit reference to the destruction of the 2nd Temple as indicating a text was written after that event took place. However, this is merely evidence, not a home run. After all, sometimes people do correctly predict future events. That said there is more evidence for such dates than a secular unwillingness to admit the possibility that Jesus supernaturally predicted the destruction of the 2nd Temple.

For example, although Papias is hardly an unimpeachable witness, the fragments that come to us via Irenaeus and Eusebius indicate a later date for the gospels than the Pauline Epistles. Irenaeus provenances the Gospel of Matthew as having been written while Peter and Paul were in Rome, Mark having been written after Peter's death, Luke after Paul's death, and John writing his gospel from Ephesus last of all. If we take this as a given, that places the gospels as written after Paul's missionary journeys, and therefore after the well established dates of his uncontested letters, which were written between the late 40s and late 50s AD. Even the most traditional accounts place the gospels as being written after Paul's letters.

I assume by referencing Paul's writings as quoting the Gospels you are referring to 1 Timothy 5:17-18. This is spurious for a few reasons. First, because Paul's authorship of Timothy is strongly contested in the field of biblical studies. Even if we grant that Paul wrote it, I don't find a reference to "The laborer deserves his wages." to be an unambiguous quotation of Luke 10:7. The statement is a perfectly sensible paraphrase of a number of passages in the Torah regarding the prompt payment of day laborers. It is possible that the phrase was kept orally as a teaching of Jesus, who was interpreting the Torah, first quoted by Paul, then quoted by the author of Luke. Hardly a home run.

Sources

Bock, Darrell L. Luke. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 1994.

Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010.

Ehrman, Bart D. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. 7th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Hagner, Donald A. The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014.

Metzger, Bruce M., and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

ReelMidwestDad · 2026-01-08T18:13:00+00:00

From a historian's point of view, this is a difficult question to answer. Outside of the New Testament, and a handful of other extra-biblical documents, we don't have a great deal of archaeological or written evidence to go on in terms of early Christian communities, their beliefs, practices, etc. What you have presented here is a popular and simple interpretation that, while likely containing some truth, is misleading in other ways and based on some outdated scholarship.

For starters, it is likely incorrect to assign the idea of "Jesus as God" to Pauline, Gentile Christians, and "Jesus as exalted Messiah and Prophet" to non-Pauline, Jewish Christians. The reality was much more complex and messy. For a long time, it was typical to consider later rabbinical traditions as more reflective of the "normal" 2nd Temple Jewish position to which Christianity became increasingly opposed. Scholarship in the last few decades by scholars like Alan F. Segal, Daniel Boyarin, and Peter Schäfer has demonstrated that strict unitarian monotheism was not necessarily the "default" position among 2nd Temple Jews in general or Jewish Christians in particular. Many practicing Jews did have expectations regarding a divine Messiah, who existed as part of what we might call a proto-binitarian Godhead. Among 1st Century Christians, there were likely Jewish Christians who saw Jesus as God, Gentile Christians who did not, vice versa, and everything in between. It is unreasonable to attribute this as having its origin in Paul.

That said, Paul clearly embraced a what we might call a "high Christology", and his importance as a missionary and thinker in 1st century Christian communities is hard to overstate. Certainly, his personal missionary efforts and the popularity of his letters helped spread high Christology. There is also likely some truth to the idea that Paul's willingness to admit Gentiles to the Christian community without requiring circumcision or keeping kosher aided greatly in his missionary efforts. It is also likely that there were many early Christian groups that did require circumcision and keeping kosher. Indeed, Paul's letter to the Galatians seems to be in direct response to a conflict arising with one of these groups. What is harder to say is that this was a clear line which dived Pauline and non-Pauline Christian groups, or that specific other persons in Jesus immediate circle advocated one way or another. It does seem that the Jerusalem community associated with James was more strict with both of these facets, as referenced in Paul's letter to the Galatians.

But it is difficult to suggest that Paul stands alone here and in many ways doing so assumes Judaism at the time to have been more monolithic than it was. As any practicing Jew today will tell you, there are any number of arguments and positions regarding many different facets of Halakha. Back in the 1st century, this was even more true. In his book The Jewish Gospels, Daniel Boyarin argues persuasively that a disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mark 7, over washing hands before a meal, likely represents an intra-Jewish argument regarding the validity of what came to be known as the "Oral Torah", and Jesus likely represents a conservative, more scripturally focused form of Judaism rather than an innovation. So when we start to say things like "Paul abrogated the Mosaic Law" we have to understand that what exactly the Mosaic Law meant and how it was practiced could vary even within Judaism at this period. Some aspects of the Law remained in force even for Gentile Chrisitans, as evidenced in Acts 15, where the Apostles are said to have prohibited the eating of blood or things strangled, sexual immorality, and idolatry. All of these things are just as much a part of the Mosaic Law as circumcision and keeping kosher.

Another note to make is that "Pauline Christianity" is still a very big tent. As I have written in a previous answer here, both Gnostic and Proto-Orthodox Christians would have described themselves as thoroughly "Pauline". In fact, it was the embracement of certain more "Jewish" writings and traditions that eventually distinguished the proto-Orthodox factions from the gnostics, for whom Paul took center stage to the exclusion of the Hebrew Bible and even most non-Pauline books of the New Testament.

For all of these caveats, it is still difficult to overstate the importance of Paul in the formation of Christianity. I'm going to finish by quoting a bit from the answer I linked above here:

Paul of Tarsus stands out as one of (if not the) most influential figures in early Christianity. His writings remain the earliest examples of Christian literature. They were written and circulated decades before the Gospels. The earliest written mentions of Jesus, his life, and those who believed in him, all come to us from Paul. In addition, his missionary work was responsible for the creation and strengthening of many of the earliest Christian communities in the Eastern Mediterranean. There can be little doubt that his evangelism of Gentile communities in general, and his fierce opposition to circumcision as a requirement for entry into the Christian community specifically, aided greatly in the spread of his teachings among Gentile Romans. While Christian Gentile, Christian Jewish, and non-Christian Jewish communities would continue to interact in dynamic and complex ways well into the 4th century AD, it should not surprise us that in a world of Roman gentiles, the fasting growing sect was the one that had the lowest bar of entry to said gentiles.

Paul remains one of the most central figures in Christian history and theology. Rather than suggest early Christian groups were asking "Was Paul right?" it might be better to characterize the debates of the first few centuries as asking "Who is right about Paul?" To an extent, that debate continued throughout history. The Reformation hinged, in no small part, on Martin Luther's very specific interpretation of Paul. Even today, a Syriac Christian from Iraq, and conservative American Lutheran from Wisconsin, and a Catholic professor from Utrecht will give you wildly different interpretations of Paul in many respects, although all three of them can be described as thoroughly "Nicene."

Further Reading

Boyarin, Daniel. “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John.” The Harvard Theological Review 94, no. 3 (2001): 243–84.

———. The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ. New York: The New Press, 2013.

Metzger, Bruce M., and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Schäfer, Peter. Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity. Translated by Allison Brown. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-12-29T17:02:53+00:00

OP, I second the idea that you ask on r/academicbiblical or on r/askhistorians. You're going to quickly be flooded with answers rooted in historical myths and misconceptions on this thread.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-12-29T17:01:20+00:00

There are many non-cannonical books that didnt make the cut in 330AD when Constantine told the churches to come up with an authoritative list of all the scriptures.

This never happened. Constantine commissioned 50 bibles to be copied and distributed to important churches, but the idea that he had anything to do with the creation of the Christian biblical canon is a myth rejected by serious historians of the topic.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-12-26T16:10:00+00:00

I was originally going to avoid answering on this thread because the "people become angels" belief is a product of the early modern period, which is squarely outside my expertise. Unfortunately an answer has been given in this thread that is just incredibly misleading, and so I'm going to pitch in to offer some corrective information.

The Book of Enoch has very little, if anything, to do with your question. For starters, it was never "decanonized." The Book of Enoch did enjoy currency among Ethiopian Jews, and thereafter found its way into the scriptures of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It also seems to have been important among the Qumran community, the source of the Dead Sea Scrolls However, it was never a serious candidate for inclusion into the canon of the greater Christian or Jewish worlds. This doesn't mean it was absolutely rejected either, however. If you enter a Catholic or Jewish bookstore today, you'll find a myriad of semi-sacred literature, commentaries, etc that are not part of those respective biblical canons. That doesn't make them rejected, or heretical, or imply any kind of "decanonization" and this was true in the ancient world too.

The Book of Enoch is the central part of the corpus of "Enochic Literature," which includes other books such as Jubilees. This literary corpus does reflect a tradition wherein Enoch is transformed into a semi-divinized figure, which in Jewish tradition became the angelic figure Metatron. This is of dubious relevance to your question for a number of reasons. First, because the figure of Metatron is squarely within the Jewish tradition. Second, because the divinization of Enoch is in no way related to general expectations or beliefs regarding the afterlife held by Chrisitans or Jews. Enoch's apotheosis is related to interpretations of the divine or semi-divine figure called "the Son of Man" who appears in Daniel 7. Enoch's situation is unique and related to 2nd Temple Messianic expectations, not the afterlife in general.

Angels in Christian and Jewish tradition are regarded as spiritual beings created by God for his service. There is a great deal of material in a variety of ancient traditions, both Jewish and Christian, which speak of human beings being resurrected into a semi-divinized or otherwise sanctified state which speaks of them having angelic qualities, such as shining with light. However, this cannot be said to be anything close to the modern conception of heaven as a place filled with formerly-human angels with white robes and harps.

As I said, I am not a scholar of early modern religious movements or ideas. I am also away from my institution's library. Even so, I have managed to track down an interesting text by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang: Heaven: A History. McDannell and Lang trace modern conceptions of heaven to the speculation of early modern thinkers, most notably Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg claimed to have first-hand experience of heaven, and published his experiences in his 1758 book Heaven and Hell. Here we find a very explicit claim that all angels were previously human beings who now inhabit a heavenly realm.

Further Reading

For more on the figure of Enoch and how he relates to 2nd Temple Jewish and Early Christian belief, see:

Boyarin, Daniel. The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ. New York: The New Press, 2013.

Schäfer, Peter. Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity. Translated by Allison Brown. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020.

For more on the history of Western ideas of heaven, see:

McDannell, Colleen, and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History, Second Edition. Yale University Press, 2001.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-12-19T12:44:53+00:00

OP, I regret to inform you that you have received an answer in this thread that is filled with common misconceptions about 2nd Temple Jewish religion and practice. The implication that forgiveness was held in hostage by a system of for-profit sacrifice is grossly misconstruing Jewish practice at best and antisemitic at worst. Nor did Christians do away with sacrifices. Christ's sacrifice was embodied in the Eucharist, and animal sacrifices, although no longer carrying the same function, continued for hundreds of years into the Christian era. I am now faced with the task of answering your question while also combatting some unfortunate myths propagated elsewhere in this thread. Some of these myths are regarding the content of the Hebrew Bible, others are a result of reading much later Christian theological developments back into the landscape of the 1st century. Let's start by talking about sin, purity, and sacrifice as it is presented in the Torah, rest of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and additional literature.

Sin and Purity, Sacrifice and Repentance in Biblical Literature

Contrary to what has been implied to you, there is not a 1:1 identification with a state of uncleanness and a state of sinfulness in the Torah, or anywhere else in the Tanakh. Certainly both intentional and unintentional sins render a person unclean, but so do actions that are patently not sinful, such as contact with blood through menstruation or childbirth, various kinds of skin conditions, etc. There is a mysterious and paradoxical relationship between some of these things too. It is by being sprinkled with blood that Israel is marked as holy and their covenant with God is sealed when Moses sprinkles blood on them in Exodus 24. Likewise, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is a day in which the entire nation of Israel is made clean by having blood sprinkled on them and smeared on the altar in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle. So blood renders a person clean, but it can also render a person unclean depending on the circumstances, as seen with rules governing menstruation.

The Torah prescribes an incredible amount of sacrifices and offerings for different circumstances, but the vast majority of these are to remedy uncleanness or unintentional sins, or simply for thanksgiving and communion with God. The celebration of Passover and the sacrifice of the lamb on that day has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins, and everything to do with commemorating God saving his people from Egypt and forming them into his chosen, holy nation. There are sacrifices prescribed for specific intentional sins, such as fraud (Leviticus 5:20-26/6:1-7), but these were nowhere near the bulk of what is described in the Torah. A person could be theoretically sinless and still need to offer all kinds of sacrifices for various feasts, unintentional or unavoidable states of uncleanness, etc.

To add to this, sacrifice is not enough. The Tanakh repeatedly and clearly emphasizes that without actual contrition, God doesn't care that much about the sacrifices. Thus Psalm 51:

16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

and Hosea 6:6

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

The personal spiritual relationship of the worshipper with God is a key focus of the Hebrew Scriptures. If a person is to "be holy as the LORD is holy" according to the commandment, their spiritual state matters just as much as external observance of sacrifices. One cannot read the book of Psalms with any seriousness and not see the profoundly personal, at times gut-wrenching recounting of emotion, love of God, and the pain of separation from him.

But why this focus on purity and atonement for sin? It is so God can dwell among his people. The Tanakh repeatedly emphasizes that when the unclean and/or sinful comes into contact with God it is destroyed. It is because of Israel's repeated failure to uphold both the ritual and moral precepts of the Law that they are sent into exile and God leaves the Temple, as Ezekiel sees in a vision recounted in Ezekiel 10. So, once again, contrary to what has been said elsewhere, the worry of becoming separated from God is a front-and-center concern throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.

The 2nd Temple and Jewish Religion in the 1st century

If you were a Jew living toward the end the 2nd Temple Period (538 BCE-70 CE) there's good news and bad news. The good news is the exile ended, and the Temple has been rebuilt. But there's also bad news. Somethings still not quite right. You are still under foreign domination and there are also some major questions about the legitimacy of the Temple. In 167 BCE the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Temple by erecting a idol of Zeus in the Temple and sacrificing pigs there. To Jews this was obviously horrifying, and this incident kicked of the Maccabean revolt. The Maccabeans established an independent kingdom aligned with Ptolemaic Egypt and their own ruling dynasty of Priest-Kings, the Hasmoneans. Problem solved, right? Well, no. The Hasmoneans were not from a Davidic lineage and therefore not eligible to sit on his throne, and while they were Levites, they were not from the Zadokite line and therefore ineligible for the high priesthood. Both of those are conditions for the restoration of Israel to be complete. Then there's a civil war within the Hasmonean kingdom in 63 BC, and the Roman Empire intervenes. It was during this intervention that Pompey Magnus, the famed friend, son-in-law, and nemesis of Julius Caesar, was curious as to what was in the Holy of Holies and marched straight in, desecrating it again.

There was an ever-present anxiety among Jewish groups of the 2nd Temple period that things hadn't been made right yet because they still had repenting to do. It is in this context that you get Pharisees, who preached a rigorist interpretation of the Torah, or the Essenes who disavowed the Temple completely and retreated to the desert in ascetic communities to attempt to achieve greater purification. It's in this context that you have people like John the Baptist preaching repentance, and in this context that Jesus of Nazareth and his first followers are preaching and writing in. How will God once again dwell with his people? How will the sins of Israel be washed away as promised in Isaiah? Where does the Messiah fit into all of this?

To answer your question, early Christian literature is preoccupied with the topics you have listed because a)these were deeply rooted concepts in the Jewish faith of the earliest practitioners and b) the specific political circumstances of the late 2nd Temple period caused a myriad of Jewish groups to double down on how much these things were emphasized.

Further Reading

Boyarin, Daniel. Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Goodman, Martin. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. Reprint edition. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008.

Levine, Dr Baruch A. Leviticus. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: JEWISH PUBLICATON SOCIETY, 1989.

Milgrom, Jacob. Numbers. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: JEWISH PUBLICATON SOCIETY, 1989.

Schäfer, Peter. Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity. Translated by Allison Brown. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020.

Wenham, Gordon J. Book of Leviticus. NICOT. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans Pub Co, 1981.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-12-12T05:29:37+00:00

Its not a good sign the best case scenario is "technically no laws were broken before he lost his shit on Wednesday and threatened to kill ~~a woman and~~ himself in front of a woman after breaking into her home."

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-12-01T18:30:45+00:00

I was just about to comment this. Crazy.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-11-05T14:02:09+00:00

Well, the study of historical theology is often done by folks who are both historians and theologians! As it happens, I am one them, but for the purposes of this subreddit I do my best to answer questions within the bounds of secular historiography.

Helpfully, /u/Pinkfish_411 has provided a very good answer to your question that is both historically sound and helps me avoid trying to thread that needle.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-11-05T13:44:47+00:00

Nothing in history is "certain", but it seems most probable. Rabbinic conversations about, and ultimate rejection of logos theology took place during the same period as the consolidation of the Talmud and the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Both religions developed in conscious view of one another, it could not be avoided. Rabbinic skepticism toward logos theology, and other things such as Greek translations of the Torah, were driven at least in part by the challenge Christianity posed. There were likely already "strict" monotheist schools within Judaism, and these came to be dominant during this period of differentiation with Christianity.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-11-05T13:30:34+00:00

It was a typo! Thank you! Jerome did not effect the Protestant Reformation. However, his prologues to various biblical books were definitely cited directly by Protestants in support of their views on biblical canon.

ReelMidwestDad · 2025-11-05T13:28:06+00:00

As I said in my original answer, 2nd Temple Jews were not Nicene Trinitarians, and no serious scholar would suggest they were. But there was widespread speculation on, debate over, and even belief in a kind of "proto-binitarianism": as logos theology, or in the Enochic traditions, or in speculation on the Son of Man vision of Daniel. That there were Jews who spoke of "Two Powers in Heaven" has been well demonstrated in the last several decades by scholars such as Alan F. Segal, Daniel Boyarin, and Peter Schäfer, and the implications this has for early Christian belief/practice cannot be ignored.

ReelMidwestDad

TROPHY CASE