Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 12/27/2011

Question
QUESTION: Is there any extra-Biblical evidence of Paul's (or any Jewish) persecution of the early Christians? The reason I ask is that I watched a program recently on Christianity "after Jesus" and clearly the Romans did such in the second and third centuries, but I've never seen any evidence of this during the time of Paul, or by Jews. I wonder if it is not an anachronism. And what reason would the Jews have had for such persecution? Many "messiahs" came and went during those troubled centuries and there is no mention of such persecutions of their followers. Clearly Jesus was not thought of as divine or in the ways he is thought of today ( ie "is this not the carpenter's son?"; "are you the one it do we search for another?") do this is an unlikely reason.  Thank you in advance.

ANSWER: Hi Joel,

Thanks for this great question.  I am not really a history expert, I am a Bible expert, however, I did spend some time looking in the works of Josephus and other external works...  I did not find specific references to Paul or Saul, but I did find plenty of evidence that there was persecution from the beginning.  The following article seemed to be complete and well thought out... I hope that you find it helpful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire#Perse


I believe that the Bible is correct as written and that this is not an anachronism.

In Christ
Pastor Don

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Pastor Don,
Thank you for your time and answer/link. The lik verified what we already knew: that most First-century Roman persecution was of the Jews. Christianity had their time of it later in the First and then in the Second and Third-centuries. But my question was more concerning Paul (as a Jew) and his persecution of the Christians (unless you are saying that Paul persecuted Christians as an agent for Rome, which I don't believe is what you are saying).

Paul is said to have done so under the authority of the Priests (Sadducees) but then the New Testament states that he was a Pharisee. These two groups hated one another and would no sooner be found working together than Rush Limbaugh and Jimmy Carter.

Obviously there was no persecution of Christians in Jesus' day as the Church had yet to be identified/formed. The Romans were indeed cruel to the Jews, crucifying over 50,000 in a single period; enough that historians from the time tell us that you could walk between Jerusalem and the local cities without seeing crosses and their victims lining the streets all the way.

However, in this same historic record, I have never found a single mention outside the New Testament that would verify that Jews ever persecuted Christians or that Paul ever did. Looks like you may have come upon the same results. Thanks!

Answer
Hi Joel,

Acts chapter 8 shows how the huge church at Jerusalem (some say 10,000 - 50,000 strong - was scattered by persecution.  You are right, I did not find a lot of external evidence.  I still believe it was the case because almost every Epistle after the Gospels talks of the fact of Christians suffering for their faith.  Thanks for your input.  I hope I helped anyway.  Have a happy New Year.


In Christ
Pastor Don