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It is a pastoral manual dealing with Christian lessons, rituals, and Church organization, parts of which may have constituted the first written catechism, "that reveals more about how Jewish-Christians saw themselves and how they adapted their Judaism for Gentiles than any other book in the Christian Scriptures." [213]
The 2nd-century The Shepherd of Hermas was popular in the early church and was even considered scriptural by some of the Church Fathers such as Irenaeus [37] and Tertullian. It was written in Rome in Koine Greek. The Shepherd had great authority in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The work comprises five visions, 12 mandates, and 10 parables.
It has been claimed that the author of Acts used the writings of Josephus (specifically Antiquities of the Jews) as a historical source. [13] [14] The majority of scholars reject both this claim and the claim that Josephus borrowed from Acts, [15] [16] [17] arguing instead that Luke and Josephus drew on common traditions and historical sources.
Thus the Edessan church traced its origin to the Apostolic Age (which may account for its rapid growth), and Christianity even became the state religion for a time. The Church of the East had its inception at a very early date in the buffer zone between the Parthian and Roman Empires in Upper Mesopotamia, known as the Assyrian Church of the ...
During this period serious theological differences emerged between the Sadducees and Pharisees. Whereas Sadducees favored a limited interpretation of the Torah, Pharisees debated new applications of the law and devised ways for all Jews to incorporate purity practices (hitherto limited to the Jerusalem Temple, see also Ministry of Jesus#Ritual cleanliness) in their everyday lives.
The book included the deuterocanonical books and was marked by his criticisms of church abuses, anti-catholic views of the sacraments (Penance and Eucharist), the use of relics, and clerical celibacy. These views ultimately led to his excommunication by the church, and in 1428, long after his death, his remains were exhumed and burned as a heretic.
The inclusion of Gentiles is reflected in Luke-Acts, which is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah of the Jews came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because many Jews rejected it.
In Paul's thinking, instead of humanity divided as "Israel and the nations" which is the classic understanding of Judaism, we have "Israel after the flesh" (i.e., the Jewish people), non-Jews whom he calls "the nations," (i.e., Gentiles) and a new people called "the church of God" made of all those whom he designates as "in Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:32).