The Search for a Distant Dominion

Abstract

Abstract saul and yeshua, then, lived in one world, the verdant realm of the multiple-Judahisms of the late Second Temple era. The writers of the Christian Gospels, however, lived in a totally different world, one in which Eretz Israel was increasingly arid spiritually: physically degraded, its religious centre, the Temple, destroyed. As S.G.F. Brandon put it, in a classic formulation, the catastrophe of 70 ce was “probably the next most crucial event for Christianity, after the Resurrection experiences.”1 The followers of the Yeshua-faith wandered spiritually, like the Chosen People had wandered in the desert. Eventually, they came to rest in Gentile lands, both emotionally speaking, and, for the most part, in literal geographic terms as well. In the course of this intense period of confusion, re-orientation, and consolidation (roughly four decades were involved in this wandering, not unlike the forty years experienced by the children of Israel), a wonderful array of documents appeared, all of them dealing with Jesus-the-Christ. For most persons of faith this is enough.