WEBVTT 00:00:00.580 --> 00:00:03.850 Hi there my name’s John Green; this is Crash Course: World History and today we’re going 00:00:03.850 --> 00:00:05.580 to talk about Jesus. 00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:09.570 This is a Roman coin from around the time Jesus was born in the Roman Empire, and it 00:00:09.570 --> 00:00:12.839 calls Augustus, the emperor, the son of God. 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:16.820 So let’s just state at the outset that in 4 BCE, being the son of God, or at least being 00:00:16.820 --> 00:00:23.640 the son of a god was not such an unusual thing. But a poor Jew being the son of God— 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:24.699 that was news. 00:00:24.699 --> 00:00:26.179 [music intro] 00:00:26.178 --> 00:00:27.649 [music intro] 00:00:27.649 --> 00:00:29.118 [music intro] 00:00:29.118 --> 00:00:30.599 [music intro] 00:00:30.599 --> 00:00:32.070 [music intro] 00:00:32.070 --> 00:00:33.539 [music intro] 00:00:33.539 --> 00:00:37.530 Any understanding of Christianity has to start with Judaism, because Jesus was born a Jew, 00:00:37.530 --> 00:00:39.250 and he grew up in the Jewish tradition. 00:00:39.250 --> 00:00:42.479 He was one of many teachers spreading his ideas in the Roman province of Judea at the 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:46.409 time, and he was part of a messianic tradition that helps us understand why he was thought 00:00:46.409 --> 00:00:49.829 of not only teacher but something much, much more. 00:00:49.829 --> 00:00:51.429 Let’s go straight to the Thought Bubble today. 00:00:51.429 --> 00:00:54.820 The people who would become the Jews, were just one of many tribal peoples eeking out 00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:59.730 an existence in that not-very fertile crescent world of Mesopotamia after the agricultural 00:00:59.729 --> 00:01:00.689 revolution. 00:01:00.689 --> 00:01:04.939 The Hebrews initially worshipped many gods, making sacrifices to them in order to bring 00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:06.759 good weather and good fortune. 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:10.390 But they eventually developed a religion centered around an idea that would become key to the 00:01:10.390 --> 00:01:15.790 other great western religions. This was monotheism, the idea that there is only one true god 00:01:15.790 --> 00:01:18.940 (or at least that if there are other gods around, they are total lameoids). 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:23.599 The Hebrews developed a second concept that is key to their religion as well: the idea 00:01:23.599 --> 00:01:26.229 of the covenant, a deal with God. 00:01:26.230 --> 00:01:29.469 The main man in this, the big macher was Abraham. 00:01:29.469 --> 00:01:32.408 Not to make this too much of a scripture lesson, but it’s kind of hard to understand the 00:01:32.409 --> 00:01:37.040 Jews without understanding Abraham, or Abram as he was known before he had his big conversation 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:39.600 with God, recorded in Genesis 17: 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:44.539 When Abram was ninety years and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:48.760 "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:51.390 And I’m a make a covenant with you and a bunch of cool things will happen like you’re 00:01:51.390 --> 00:01:54.079 gonna have kids and your descendants will number the stars and you can have 00:01:54.079 --> 00:01:56.689 all the land of Canaan forever, it’s gonna be awesome. 00:01:56.689 --> 00:02:00.658 I’m paraphrasing by the way, Thought Bubble. So God promised that Abram would have kids 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:04.950 with his wife even though the dude was already like 99, but there was a catch: 00:02:04.950 --> 00:02:10.890 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; 00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:13.599 Every man child among you shall be circumcised. 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:15.889 Keep it PG-13, Thought Bubble. 00:02:15.889 --> 00:02:20.549 Now that is asking a lot from a guy, especially a 99 year old geezer like Abram living in 00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:22.310 a time before general anesthesia. 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:26.170 But those were the terms of the deal, and in exchange God had chosen Abraham and his 00:02:26.169 --> 00:02:30.869 descendants to be a great nation. From this we get the expression that the Jews are the 00:02:30.870 --> 00:02:31.900 Chosen people. 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:35.039 Thanks for keeping it clean, Thought Bubble. So, some important things about this god: 00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:39.799 1. Singularity. He—and I’m using the masculine pronoun because that’s what Hebrew prayers 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:44.730 use—does not want you to put any gods before Him. He is also transcendent, having always 00:02:44.729 --> 00:02:49.229 existed and he is deeply personal – he chats with prophets, sends locusts, etc. 00:02:49.229 --> 00:02:53.539 But he doesn’t take corporeal form like the Greek and Roman Gods do. He is also involved 00:02:53.539 --> 00:02:59.179 in history, like he will destroy cities, and bring floods, and determine the outcomes of 00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:02.900 wars, and possibly football games. Stan, no! FOOTBALL games! 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:06.629 Probably most important to us today, and certainly most important to Jesus, this god demands 00:03:06.629 --> 00:03:09.090 moral righteousness and social justice. 00:03:09.090 --> 00:03:13.379 So, this is the god of the Hebrews, Yahweh, and despite many ups and downs, the Jewish 00:03:13.379 --> 00:03:17.829 people have stuck with him for- according to the Hebrew calendar, at least- over 5700 00:03:17.830 --> 00:03:18.739 years. 00:03:18.739 --> 00:03:23.030 And he has stuck by them too, despite the Jews being, on occasion, something of a disappointment 00:03:23.030 --> 00:03:27.330 to him, which leads to various miseries, and also to a tradition of prophets who speak 00:03:27.330 --> 00:03:32.270 for God and warn the people to get back on the right path lest there be more miseries. 00:03:32.270 --> 00:03:35.819 Which brings us back to our friends, the Romans. By the time that Jesus was born, the land 00:03:35.818 --> 00:03:40.000 of the Israelites had been absorbed into the Roman Empire as the province of Judea. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.989 At the time of Jesus’ birth, Judea was under the control of Herod the Great, best known 00:03:43.989 --> 00:03:48.300 for building the massive temple in Jerusalem, that the Romans would later destroy. 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:52.219 And by the time Jesus died, an expanded Judea was under the rule of Herod Antipater. 00:03:52.219 --> 00:03:54.709 Also, unhelpfully, known as Herod. 00:03:54.709 --> 00:03:58.269 Both Herods ultimately took their orders from the Romans, and they both show up on the list 00:03:58.269 --> 00:04:02.879 of rulers who are oppressive to the Jews, partly because there’s never that much religious 00:04:02.878 --> 00:04:07.149 freedom in an empire. Unless you are, wait for it... 00:04:07.150 --> 00:04:10.670 The Mongols 00:04:10.669 --> 00:04:11.348 or the Persians. 00:04:11.348 --> 00:04:15.098 Also, they were Hellenizers, bringing in Greek theater and architecture, and rationalism. 00:04:15.098 --> 00:04:19.808 And in response to those Hellenistic influences, there were a lot of preachers trying to get 00:04:19.809 --> 00:04:24.849 the Jews to return to the traditions and the godly ways of the past, including the Sadducees, 00:04:24.848 --> 00:04:27.478 and the Pharisees, and the Essenes, and the Zealots. 00:04:27.478 --> 00:04:31.149 And one of those preachers, who didn’t fit comfortably into any of these four groups, 00:04:31.149 --> 00:04:32.338 was Jesus of Nazareth. 00:04:32.338 --> 00:04:37.149 Jesus was a preacher who spread his message of peace, love and, above all, justice, across 00:04:37.149 --> 00:04:40.918 Judea over the course of his actually average-length life for his time. 00:04:40.918 --> 00:04:46.049 He was remarkably charismatic, attracting a small but incredibly loyal group of followers, 00:04:46.050 --> 00:04:49.770 and he was said to perform miracles—although it’s worth noting that miracles weren’t 00:04:49.769 --> 00:04:51.558 terribly uncommon at the time. 00:04:51.559 --> 00:04:56.219 Jesus’s message was particularly resonant to the poor and downtrodden and pretty radical 00:04:56.218 --> 00:04:58.319 in its anti-authoritarian stance. 00:04:58.319 --> 00:05:02.189 He said it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:06.289 get to heaven, he said the meek were blessed, that the last would be first and the first 00:05:06.288 --> 00:05:07.348 would be last— 00:05:07.348 --> 00:05:11.769 All of which was kind of threatening to the powers that be, who accordingly had him arrested, 00:05:11.769 --> 00:05:16.338 tried and then executed in the normal method of killing rebels at that time, crucifixion. 00:05:16.338 --> 00:05:20.749 Also, just to put this question to bed, the Romans that crucified Jesus, because he was 00:05:20.749 --> 00:05:26.629 a threat to their authority. Later traditions saying that the Jews killed Jesus? Very unfortunate. 00:05:26.629 --> 00:05:28.099 Also, very untrue. 00:05:28.098 --> 00:05:32.639 We’re not going to discuss Jesus’s divinity, because 1. This isn’t a theology class, 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:36.728 and 2. Flame wars on the Internet make me so uncomfortable I have to turn to camera 00:05:36.728 --> 00:05:37.088 2, 00:05:37.088 --> 00:05:40.468 Hi there camera 2, I’m here to remind you that 3. Fighting over such things, like fighting 00:05:40.468 --> 00:05:44.189 over whether the proverbial cake is a lie, rarely accomplishes anything, 00:05:44.189 --> 00:05:48.849 Plus 4. What matters to us is the historical fact that people at the time believed that 00:05:48.848 --> 00:05:53.348 Jesus was the Messiah, the Anointed One, the son of God. 00:05:53.348 --> 00:05:56.688 And they believed that he would return some day to redeem the world. Which leads us to 00:05:56.689 --> 00:05:58.399 two questions about Christianity: 00:05:58.399 --> 00:05:59.088 First, 00:05:59.088 --> 00:06:02.019 Why did this small group of people believe this, and 00:06:02.019 --> 00:06:05.389 Why and how did that belief become so widespread? 00:06:05.389 --> 00:06:09.028 So why would people believe that Jesus was the Messiah? First, the Jews had a long tradition 00:06:09.028 --> 00:06:12.368 of believing that a savior who would come to them in a time of trouble. 00:06:12.369 --> 00:06:16.229 And Judea under the rule of Herod and the Romans… definitely a time of trouble. 00:06:16.228 --> 00:06:19.718 And many of the prophecies about this savior point to someone whose life looks a lot like 00:06:19.718 --> 00:06:24.908 Jesus'. For instance, Isaiah 53 says the person will be misunderstood and mistreated, just 00:06:24.908 --> 00:06:25.680 like Jesus was: 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:30.749 “He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: 00:06:30.749 --> 00:06:35.939 and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we didn't respect him.” 00:06:35.939 --> 00:06:39.539 And a lot of the prophecies like Daniel 7:14, for instance, explained that when the Messiah 00:06:39.538 --> 00:06:43.269 comes there will be this awesome new, everlasting kingdom. 00:06:43.269 --> 00:06:46.459 And that had to sound pretty good to people who’d had their autonomy taken away from 00:06:46.459 --> 00:06:46.709 them. 00:06:46.619 --> 00:06:50.069 So some religious Jews saw Jesus in those prophecies and came to believe either during 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:53.669 his life or shortly thereafter, that he was the messiah. 00:06:53.668 --> 00:06:57.168 Most of them thought the new everlasting kingdom was right around the corner, which is probably 00:06:57.168 --> 00:07:01.948 why no one bothered to write down much about the life of Jesus for several decades, by 00:07:01.949 --> 00:07:06.460 which time it was clear that we might have to wait a bit for this brilliant new everlasting 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:06.758 kingdom. 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:10.210 I should note, by the way, that the idea of a messiah was not unique to the Jews at the 00:07:10.209 --> 00:07:13.948 time. Even the Romans got in on the action. For Instance, the Roman poet Vergil wrote 00:07:13.949 --> 00:07:14.728 of a boy who: 00:07:14.728 --> 00:07:19.490 “Shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and 00:07:19.490 --> 00:07:21.778 see Heroes with gods commingling.” 00:07:21.778 --> 00:07:26.329 Sound familiar? But Vergil was writing about Emperor Augustus in that poem, not Jesus, 00:07:26.329 --> 00:07:28.949 which points again to the similarities between the two. 00:07:28.949 --> 00:07:33.389 Both called sons of God. Both sent to free the earth from never-ceasing fear. 00:07:33.389 --> 00:07:37.889 But one ruled the largest empire in the world; and the other believed that empire, and the 00:07:37.889 --> 00:07:42.929 world, needed to change dramatically. So why did the less wealthy and famous son of God 00:07:42.928 --> 00:07:45.038 become by far the more influential? 00:07:45.038 --> 00:07:47.449 Well, here are three possible historical reasons: 00:07:47.449 --> 00:07:51.158 Reason #1: The Romans continued to make things bad for the Jews. 00:07:51.158 --> 00:07:55.769 In fact, things got much worse for the Jews, especially after they launched a revolt between 00:07:55.769 --> 00:07:59.498 66-73 CE, which did not go well. 00:07:59.499 --> 00:08:03.259 By the time the dust settled, the Romans had destroyed the Temple and expelled the Jews 00:08:03.259 --> 00:08:07.038 from Judaea, beginning what we now know as the Jewish Diaspora. 00:08:07.038 --> 00:08:10.709 And without a Temple or geographic unity, the Jews had to solidify what it meant to 00:08:10.709 --> 00:08:13.978 be a Jew and what the basic tenants of the religion were. 00:08:13.978 --> 00:08:17.188 This forced the followers of Jesus to make a decision; Were they going to continue to 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:21.819 be Jews following stricter laws set forth by rabbis, or were they going to be something 00:08:21.819 --> 00:08:22.479 else. 00:08:22.478 --> 00:08:25.688 The decision to open up their religion to non-Jews, people who weren’t part of the 00:08:25.689 --> 00:08:30.218 covenant, is the central reason that Christianity could become a world religion instead of just 00:08:30.218 --> 00:08:31.538 a sect of Judaism. 00:08:31.538 --> 00:08:35.449 And it probably didn’t hurt that the main proponent of sticking with Judaism was James, 00:08:35.450 --> 00:08:37.950 Jesus’s brother, who was killed by the Romans. 00:08:37.950 --> 00:08:42.080 Reason #2: Is related to reason number 1 and it’s all about a dude named Saul. 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:45.850 No, not that Saul. Yes, Saul of Tarsus, thank you. 00:08:45.850 --> 00:08:50.120 Saul, having received a vision on the road to Damascus, became Paul and began visiting 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:53.820 and sending letters to Jesus followers throughout the Mediterranean. 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:57.900 And it was Paul who emphatically declared that Jesus followers did NOT have to be Jews, 00:08:57.899 --> 00:09:01.779 that they did not have to be circumcised or keep to Jewish laws or any of that stuff. 00:09:01.779 --> 00:09:05.059 This opened the floodgates for thousands of people to convert to this new religion. And 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:08.339 the other thing to remember about Paul is that he was a Roman citizen. Which meant that 00:09:08.340 --> 00:09:11.210 he could travel freely throughout the Roman Empire. 00:09:11.210 --> 00:09:14.830 This allowed him to make his case to lots of different people and facilitated the geographic 00:09:14.830 --> 00:09:15.820 spread of Christianity. 00:09:15.820 --> 00:09:21.400 Oh, it’s time for the open letter? Alright. 00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:23.199 An open letter, to the fish. 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:27.110 But first, lets see what’s in the secret compartment today. Oh, Stan. [JCSS-esque music 00:09:27.110 --> 00:09:32.080 briefly plays] It’s my favorite album Jesus Christ Superstar, finally available in my 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.400 favorite format, the cassette. 00:09:34.399 --> 00:09:37.970 Did I color-coordinate my shirt to Jesus Christ Superstar? Yes. 00:09:37.970 --> 00:09:38.629 Dear Ichthys, 00:09:38.629 --> 00:09:42.210 So check this out: In the first century when it was still super underground and hipster 00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:46.910 to be a Christian, you were a secret symbol of Christianity, used to kind of hide from 00:09:46.909 --> 00:09:47.839 the Romans. 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:53.030 Ichthys, the Greek word for fish was an acronym and it was a super clever way to talk about 00:09:53.029 --> 00:09:56.000 religion without anyone knowing that you were talking about it. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:58.580 But you’ll never guess what happened- even in places where it’s completely fine to 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:02.160 talk about Christianity now and to use, you know, regular Christian symbols, like the 00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:02.549 cross 00:10:02.549 --> 00:10:07.109 You have had a huge resurgence thanks to the plastic automobile decal industry. 00:10:07.110 --> 00:10:10.509 I mean seriously, Ichthys, I haven’t seen a comeback like this 00:10:10.509 --> 00:10:12.100 since Jesus. 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:13.330 Best wishes, John Green 00:10:13.330 --> 00:10:17.730 And lastly, Christianity was born and flourished an empire with a common language that allowed 00:10:17.730 --> 00:10:18.860 for its spread. 00:10:18.860 --> 00:10:23.180 And crucially, it was also an Empire in decline. Like even by the end of the first century 00:10:23.179 --> 00:10:25.569 CE, Rome was on its way down. 00:10:25.570 --> 00:10:28.980 And for the average person, and even for some elites, things weren’t as good as they had 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:32.610 been, if fact they were getting worse so fast that you might have thought the end of the 00:10:32.610 --> 00:10:33.470 world was coming. 00:10:33.470 --> 00:10:36.990 And Roman religion offered no promise of an afterlife, and a bunch of squabbling whiny 00:10:36.990 --> 00:10:42.680 gods- sorry if I offended adherents to Roman religion, but seriously, they squabble. 00:10:42.679 --> 00:10:46.620 So even though early Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire and sometimes fed to the 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:50.810 lions and other animals, the religion continued to grow, albeit slowly. 00:10:50.809 --> 00:10:54.899 But then as the Roman decline continued, Emperor Constantine allowed the worship of Jesus and 00:10:54.899 --> 00:10:57.419 then eventually converted to Christianity himself. 00:10:57.419 --> 00:11:00.729 And then the religion really took off. I mean, Rome wasn’t what it used to be, but everybody 00:11:00.730 --> 00:11:02.440 still wanted to be like the Emperor. 00:11:02.440 --> 00:11:05.200 And soon enough there was a new son of God on coins. 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:07.180 Thanks for watching. See you next week. 00:11:07.179 --> 00:11:10.929 Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller, our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. 00:11:10.929 --> 00:11:14.949 The show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself and our graphics 00:11:14.950 --> 00:11:16.310 team is Thought Bubble. 00:11:16.309 --> 00:11:19.779 As only 62 million of you guessed last week, the Phrase of the Week was "Chipotle Burrito" 00:11:19.779 --> 00:11:23.279 if you want to guess at this week’s Phrase of the Week or suggest future ones, you can 00:11:23.279 --> 00:11:27.490 do so in Comments where you can also ask questions about today’s video that will be answered, 00:11:27.490 --> 00:11:29.180 hopefully, by our team of historians. 00:11:29.179 --> 00:11:33.779 Thanks for watching Crash Course, and as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome. 00:11:33.779 --> 00:11:35.100 Ow... again.