1.

1 Roman Judea

 The Christian religion developed in Judea (Southern Canaan) in the 1st century AD.
 Later, It became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
 Huge impact on the development of humankind
 The big three: Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity.
 Judea became a Roman province.
 The Jews could practice their monotheistic religion under Roman rule.
 The Pharisees (írástudók, farizeusok) had an important role to keep the Jewish religion
alive.
 They also tried to keep religious traditions.

1.2 Precursors to Jesus

 The Essenes (a jewish group) formed a closed group or a sect in Jewish religion.
 They followed a set of strict rules: poverty, celibacy (cölibátus)
 They called themselves the community of the New Testament.
 It has a chance that Jesus Christ was a member of this group, or he was highly
influenced by it.
 Jews had been waiting for the Messiah (Saviour) for a long time.
 They thought that the Messiah could free them from their foreign oppressors.
 Jesus was born among the Jews in the Messiah-awaiting atmosphere of Roman
Palestine.

1.3 The life and work of Jesus

 He was born in Bethlehem.

 His life was written down in the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)
 He condemned the accumulation of wealth, hatred, violence, greed.
  The number of Jesus’ followers soon grew among the Jews when Jesus started
teaching in Jerusalem.
 He was dangerous for local Jewish leaders ---- Pontius Pilate (AD 26-36) crucified
him on (Good) Friday before a major Jewish feast day (Pesach).
 Jewish people started to was for the second coming of Jesus, which would be the end
of the world and the time of the Last Judgement.

1.4 The spread of Christianity

 People who started to believe in Jesus became ‘Christians’.

 At first, only Jews became Christians.
 It became an international religion.
 One of the most significant figures of Christianity was Paul the Apostle.
 The persecution of Jesus changed – many Jews realized that the new religion did not
bring the freedom they wanted, so they did not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.
They are still waiting for the coming of the Messiah.
 Roman-Jewish wars ---- Jerusalem was destroyed; hence Jews were driven out of their
home land.