Jewish And Greco-Roman Culture

Jewish and Greco-Roman culture caused a great impact and conflict with Christianity. Greece at the time went through a time of “Hellenization”. A time of the Jews being influenced by Greek culture brought to the jews by Alexander the Great. Once the Romans came and conquered the Jews were influenced by the Greco-Roman culture. Majority of the Jews were forced to follow the state religion of having a polytheism belief. However, the ones who disagreed branched out to follow, “mystery religions” that believed in one God and created Judaism. When Christ came he was followed throughout the Greco-Roman world and help lead to the term we use today, Christianity.

After watching the lecture video, “Canon Acceptance and Transmission” I learned about

the Biblical Apocrypha for the first time, and its hidden teachings related to the Old and New Testaments of the bible. While the term, “Pseudepigrapha” is a term used to describe false writings, for example, “The Acts of Paul” which accounts the missionary works of Paul according to that book. I also learned about the term, “Homologoumena” which is used to describe the books that were accepted by everyone without a second thought if it's false doctrine.

According to the New Testament book, in Revelation 20:13-14 it gives a reference to the term, “Hades” which means hell. When I read through the powerpoint, “Philosophical and Religious Background of the NT” I noticed that the Greek name, “Hades” stood for the Greek God’s name of death and the underworld. I found a parallel between the two religions and that the Greek religion and in Revelation use the term Hades as references to hell.