Abstract
On the basis of the early schism theory the religionsgeschichtliche Schule has suggested that Gentile Christianity started from Antioch apart from Jewish Christianity. They considered that Antioch was a very significant region related to the beginning of the earliest Christianity because Jesus tradition was translated at Antioch where was bilingual. However, Martin Hengel has held that the translation of Jesus tradition did not start from Antioch but from the Earliest Christian church in Jerusalem. In relation to this, he thinks that ?βρα?οι refer to Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jewish Christians whereas ?λληνιστα? and ?πτ?, were Hellenistic Jewish Christians who spoke only Greek. He makes a monolingual, geographical, and ethnic distinction between ?βρα?οι and ?λληνιστα?.<BR> However, the Graeco-Roman Near East including Judaeo-Palestine was bilingual. This is approved by inscriptions, papyrus, and population geographical evidence. This means that translation of the Jesus tradition started from Galilee during Jesus’ ministry, not from Antioch or Jerusalem church. Furthermore, the two terms, ?βρα?οι and ?λληνιστα?, are not monolingual but bilingual designations. That is, ?βρα?οι spoke Aramaic as their matrix language and other language as their embedded language and ?λληνιστα?, spoke Greek as their matrix language and other language as their embedded language. Also, it seems that ?πτ?, were bilinguals. If Jerusalem Christian community was bilingual, the church members tried to choose bilinguals as their community leaders. As a result, Luke describes ?πτ?, as leaders of the whole Jerusalem community. He parallels ?πτ?, with δ?δ?κα. Luke also insinuates that Jesus" promise given to δ?δ?κα is fulfilled by the ?πτ?, and commandment given to δ?δ?κα was performed by the ?πτ?. This indicates that Luke stresses the line-up of Jesus - δ?δ?κα - ?πτ?. Hence, there was not early schism between ?βρα?οι and ?λληνιστα?, and between δ?δ?κα and ?πτ?.<BR> Accordingly, the bilingualism of Graeco-Roman Near East supports that Jesus tradition was translated during Jesus’ ministry but undermines the early schism theory. Furthermore, it is hard to find a sharp distinction between Jesus and Paul, Petrine Christianity and Pauline Christianity, Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Christianity and Greek-speaking Hellenistic Christianity, and Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity from the perspective of monolingualism because bilingual Jesus tradition was delivered to Paul through the Twelve and the Seven.
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