JESUS’ ENVIRONMENT
Info Booklet
JESUS’ life, teachings, healings, miracles, and ultimate sacrifice has been discussed, scrutinized, debated, argued over, and sermonized. Yet, this is not the whole story. Jesus lived in this world, putting up with snow, summer heat while enjoying its forests, wadies, rivers, and lakes. He ate the land’s food, dressed in Hebrewite clothes, walked its paths and roadways through hamlets, villages, towns, and cities. In His travels, Jesus listened to birds, observed migrating flocks, watched wildlife, smelled flowers, and ate tree’s ripened fruits. Jesus attended synagogue services, a wedding, funeral, and watched tradesmen at their crafts. He also spoke with the rich, poor, sickly, educated, even debated rulers, sect members, and those of the priestly class. Each event had a story, the one untold behind the scenes.
These pieces of information are what this booklet is about. Become knowledgeable about the environment Jesus lived in and discover the heartaches and joys it brought into His life.
HEM = Matthew 23.5 speaks to how the Pharisees enlarged the borders of the long robes to be more conspicuous when praying on street corners. Interestingly, legal contracts written on clay tablets were ‘signed’ by pressing the corner of one’s hem into the clay.
FIRST CENTURY RECIPES = Dishes of fish, vegetables, fruits, bread, cheeses, sauces, broths, relishes, dips, salads, meats (for festivals and special occasions), soups, fruit desserts, and cake desserts were family recipes passed down from one generation to the next.
FREE WILL = known as the Doctrine of Noninterference. SAGA 1.
NEWLYWEDS GOING INTO BATTLE = The Law was absolute: No newlywed sees a battle, not until a year of marriage has passed. This one-year waiting period was intended to ensure a man had an offspring to carry on his name and receive his inheritance in the event of his death. SAGA 1.
IMPALE = In 701 BCE, during the siege of Lachish, the Assyrians impaled the defeated Judaean rebels. As a tool used to intimidate the conquered people, foreign ambassadors, terrorists, and enemies eyeing their territories, the Assyrians painted impaling death scenes on buildings. In 539 BCE, the Persians conquered the region of Palestine. They continued the use of impalement as a torturous death. The quick death is a pike going into the heart. The slow death is where the pike travels through the vital organs. SAGA 2.
CAMEL’S DUNG = Damascus steel became hardened by camel dung through heated ammonia, forming a thin layer of nitrogen-bearing surface on the steel. This process created weapons that were sharper than weapons made from iron. SAGA 2.
DEATH PENALTY = According to Deuteronomy 22.20-21, the act of fornication calls for the death penalty, but no pregnant woman ever received the death penalty. Her sentence would be carried out after she gave birth. Then, both underwent execution. SAGA 3, Ch 60.
WEDDING AT CANA = where water turns into wine becomes the first of Jesus’ signs. The conversations of Jesus transpire in John 2.1-11, NRSV. SAGA 3.
KISLEV = Kislev the 15th. Antiochus erected Zeus, a pagan idol whose face looked amazingly like Antiochus, upon the holy altar of the Jerusalem Temple. When hearing this, the ‘am ha-aretz (common people) vomited right in the streets, so acute was their distress, but worse was yet to come. SAGA 4
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