Before they were called Christians, they were called the people of the Way, because they followed the Way of Jesus, his Halakha. Following a rabbi was to serve God in accordance with his interpretation of the Thora, the Jewish Law.

Remembering Jesus in Aramaic

Belief in a crucified and risen Jesus did not begin with the New Testament. Before stories were put down on paper, his friends shared their memories of Jesus. Paul talks about this - the words of the Lord were passed on to him when he joined the followers of Jesus. Jesus' friends spoke Aramaic, a language similar to the Hebrew of the psalms and the prophets. It was the vernacular of the East, from Jerusalem to Babylon. Of course, they spoke Greek with Greek colonists and Roman administrators. But they thought, dreamed, and lived in Aramaic. Only later, when their message spread to the West, did they write letters and stories in Greek, and Yeshua or Yeshu became Iesous (Jesus), and Yochanan became Ioannes (John). But sometimes you can find words in Aramaic that had become so familiar that they were used in their Greek letters and gospels.

The next series of little stories are an experiment: can you imagine yourself talking about Jesus with his Aramaic speaking friends in the Galilee or Jerusalem, one or two years after the crucifixion?

The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. © Balage Balogh, Archaeology Illustrated.

Maranatha

1 Cor 16:22, 1 Thess 4:15, Luke 3:1

It began sometime in the 15th year of Emperor Tiberius, Mariamme recalls. Only a few years ago. Yochanan stood up in the desert.
Yochanan baptized me, Andreas adds, on my knees in the Jordan. Water poured over me. My eyes closed, I held my breath. And then you come up. Your eyes open, you can breathe again. The Baptist said, "Things must change! Do not follow emperors and princes. God is the rightful king. "Maranatha!" he cried: The Lord is coming! Come, our Lord! Yeshu also spoke of this later: "When the last trumpet sounds, and the Lord descends from heaven, the dead will be raised and the angels will gather God's children from the corners of the earth."
I didn't know what to make of that, says Mariamme. Did he mean that the Lord would once again lead the army of Israel, as he did in the desert? Or did he mean that we would live with him in heaven?
I heard Yeshu speak, says Jochanan, and I felt that God was with us. Maranatha: the Lord has come.

Abba

Gal 4:6, Rom 8:15, Mark 1:35, 14:36, Luke 11:2

He taught us the Lord's Prayer. At first, it felt strange, says Yochanan. We were more used to words like "ha-melech ha-olam": God as 'the king of the world' or 'the king of eternity.' But for Yeshu, God was above all a loving father. The father he himself had lost after Joseph died.
"Abba, father," he prayed.
Once we lost him after a hectic day, says Simon, Andreas's brother. We found him in a quiet place in the early morning.
"Where were you?" I asked.
"With him."
"You are my sisters and brothers," he said, and he taught us a new prayer. Our first word was Abba. It was as if we had been born again. As if we were learning to breathe again.
Daughters and sons of the Most High.

Raka!

Matthew 5:22

We had to memorize these words, says Andreas:
“According to the law, a murderer must be brought before the judge. But I tell you this: if you get angry with your brother, you are already guilty. If you call him Raka!, ‘fool,’ you will have to appear before the High Council and burn in hell. You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Yochanan: I thought it was a strange idea, because then you can never do right. But maybe that's what he meant, that you should never think there is a standard that can separate the pious from the sinners.
He was my brother, says Ya'kov, you don't want to know what he called me when I was teasing mother.

Talitha kum!

Mark 5:41

At first, he was allowed to speak in the synagogue, Simon says. But then he healed someone there on the sabbath. He was criticized by the religious leaders and politicians—Yochanan the Baptist was in prison for a reason, Jair said when he locked him out. After that, we gathered at my mother-in-law's house. She owns our boat.
Yair's little daughter was sick. "She is dying," he begged Yeshu, "come and lay your hands on her!"
The house was full of weeping people. "She is dead," they said.
"She is sleeping," he said.
They laughed at him, but he drove them out of the house.
I was there, says Yochanan—not the Baptist, but Yeshu's cousin and disciple. We stood by her bed with her father and mother. "Talitha, kum!" he said. Girl, get up! She opened her eyes and stood up. She staggered.
"Give her something to eat," he said.

The possible home of Simon Peter's in-laws in Capernaum, a fishing village of about 1,500 inhabitants on the Sea of Galilee. © Balage Balogh, Archaeology Illustrated.

Effatha!

Mark 7:34

We passed through the Golan.
"Lay your hands on him," the people there said.
The man was a pagan. But he was also a man who could not hear and could barely speak. They laughed at him and abused him to shame Yeshua. But what can you do when people don't trust you?
Yeshua did nothing. The people dispersed. Then he took the man by the hand and we walked out of the village.
He looked the man in the eyes. The man looked him in the eyes. Then Yeshua put his fingers into the deaf man's ears. He spat and touched his tongue.
"Effatha!" he said, "Be opened!"

Mammon

Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:8

Andreas tells you this story: There was an economist who worked for a rich man. When he was about to lose his job, he called the poor tenants of his boss. They forged the invoices and halved the amounts they still had to pay. When he was fired, they gave him a place to stay. People spoke of it with shame.
"I think it's clever," said Yeshu.
Then the pious people condemned him.
He laughed invitingly: "He used someone else's money to live well after this life. Isn't that what you do too?"
"You cannot serve two masters," he added. "Which will it be for you: mammon or God?"
What did he mean, you ask?
That money, mammon, becomes an idol when it is the measure of our success or our worth. You should use it to make friends for eternity. If you don't understand that when it comes to something as trivial as money, how will you deal with the greatest treasure God has given you?

Kepha

Gal 1:18, 1 Cor 1:12, John 1:42, Matthew 16:18

"He called you Kepha," you say to Simon.
That was in the mountains of Lebanon, after the execution of Yochanan. He seemed to be struggling with everything that had happened. He asked us what his task was: baptizing, prophesying, healing?
"You are God's anointed one, son of the Living God," I said then.
And then he called you Kepha? The same name as the high priest at the time, Kaypha?
Simon nods, “Shalom, Simon son of Yonah,” he replied, “you are my Kepha, my rock.” But then he said we had to go back to Jerusalem, even though they were seeking his death. God’s anointed one would die in Jerusalem, like so many prophets before him.
"You can't say that," I exclaimed, "God will never let that happen!"
Then he called me satan.

B'nei ragas

Mark 3:17, Luke 9:54

The time had come, says Ya'kov, Yochanan's brother and son of Zabdai. We set off for Jerusalem. On the way, he looked for a place to sleep in a Samaritan village, but we were not allowed in. "No pilgrims for Jerusalem," they said. No troublemakers, they thought. Yochanan was indignant: "Do you know who you are rejecting?" he cried. "God will fill this hole with thunder and lightning!" I laughed at my young brother, but Yeshu responded sharply. B'nei ragas, he called us, sons of thunder, driven by anger.
"We'll ask in the next village," he said.

Don't divorce

1 Cor 7:10, Matthew 19:1-11

He could also be stricter than the rabbis, Mariamme explains. Herod Antipas married the widow of his brother Philip and sent his Arab princess away after thirty or forty years of marriage. His well-paid scribes approved, but her father was furious and gathered his soldiers for battle. Jochanan protested against Antipas and it cost him his head.
"Are you also against divorce?" they asked Yeshu.
"He sent his wife away to marry another. How is that not adultery?"
"But why does the Law of Moses say that you must give her a bill of divorce so that she can remarry? Then it's settled, isn't it?"
"Because of your hard hearts," he said. "Haven't you read how God intended it: that man and woman are one?"
"If you can't get divorced, you'd better not get married," we said. We looked at him, not understanding.
"You won't understand until it happens to you."

The new covenant

1 Cor 11:12

Mariamme breaks the bread.
Would you like to say the words today?
You say you weren't there. I can only tell you what I heard myself.
Go ahead, she says. She takes the plate of bread and passes it around.
You say: It was on the night he was betrayed. He took the bread and gave thanks to God. Then he broke it into pieces and said, "Take it, eat it. This is my body, broken for you." After the meal, he took the red wine and poured it into a cup. "This is my blood, shed for you, as the blood of the Passover lamb was shed in Egypt." The lamb died, but the people were freed from slavery. "Take the cup. Drink from it and remember me whenever you share this meal together. A new covenant between God and humankind until I may embrace you again."
Amen, she says: As we are with him in his death, so he will be with us when he comes.

The Last Supper. © Balage Balogh, Archaeology Illustrated.

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?

Mark 15:34, Matthew 27:46, John 19:27

I was sixteen when he died, says Yochanan. I stood there with my mother and his mother, her sister. As he hung there crucified, he asked us to take care of her. Mariamme was there too, but our friends had fled. It was bleak and gray. I will never forget his words: "Eloi, Eloi, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I thought he was giving up. Later I understood that he was quoting the words of the psalm.
Mariamme nods: He said it in the Hebrew of the Holy Scriptures: "Eli, Eli." That's why the people further away thought he was calling for the prophet Eliyahu. Someone brought him a sponge to drink from.
Yochanan is silent. He hears it again.

Shaul

1 Cor 15:1-8, Gal 1:18, 3:13

I hated him, says Shaul. I hated that my friends in our synagogue thought he was a prophet, anointed by God. When I heard that he had been crucified, I knew for sure. Moses wrote, "Cursed is every body that is crucified."
Simon nods. He didn't know, but it's clear that this is important to his visitor.
The temple police were looking for his accomplices. In our synagogue, they said that a group around Stephen was going to set fire to the temple. Friends of mine. I turned them in. They were interrogated, flogged, stoned. Some fled to Damascus, and I volunteered to be an eyewitness for the arrest team. But on the way, in the desert near Damascus, I saw a blinding light. And I heard a voice, as clear as I hear you here: "Shaul, Shaul, why are you persecuting me?" From that moment on, I was blind and sick and useless as an eyewitness. The team went back but left me behind in the city inn, delirious on a bed. Deep down, I knew that I had heard the voice of Yeshua. But in my clouded mind, I wanted it to be the heat, my guilt, or Satan pretending to be an angel of light. Because if that really was Yeshua, I knew I was the greatest sinner there is. I who tried to keep all the commandments, I who had come to Jerusalem to study the laws of my people, I who wanted to be more Jewish than the Jews. I would be a traitor to my friends, a murderer. Unjustifiable. Lost forever.
Simon nods.
Shaul continues: That is how one of my former friends found me, one of you. He came to me, he prayed for me, he healed me. We talked late into the night. I then learned this:
"The Anointed One died to redeem us from the slavery of our sins, as it is written in the prophets. He was buried and rose again on the third day, as it is written in the prophets. He was seen by Kepha," by you, "by the Twelve, by more than five hundred brothers together, by his brother James, by all the apostles."
Simon nods and says:
Mariamme saw him first, but no one believed her. His brother Ya'kov did not believe that he was a prophet, but he also saw him.
Shaul thinks: And he appeared to me last of all, as to one born of a woman who did not see the sun.

Summary: The Way of Yeshua, 30s.

In the letters and books of the New Testament, written in the international Greek of that time, we hear older traditions and Aramaic words: the memories of Jesus' Jewish friends and relatives in Galilee and Jerusalem. They share John the Baptist's desire that the Lord would intervene in their difficult times: Maranatha, Come, Lord! They hope that Jesus is the anointed leader, the Messiah. For this young construction worker has become their rabbi because he connects and heals people and shows them how to trust God as their loving father, their abba. They remember how he also called his friend Simeon Kefas, rock – or Peter in Greek. They are there when, in his last week, he celebrates the Jewish Passover and says that he himself is the sacrificial lamb of the new covenant, the New Testament, with which God will write his commandment of love in the hearts of his children. And they tell each other how, even after his crucifixion, they saw him alive and heard him, Peter, the disciples together, and his brother James. Now they know for sure that he is the anointed one who is to come: Maranatha!

Jesus and his disciples in the Kidron Valley near Jerusalem. © Balage Balogh, Archaeology Illustrated.  

A bit of background information: The struggle for the Kingdom of Israel

After the death of King Herod, the kingdom of Israel was divided among three sons, under the supervision of the Roman governor of Syria (see map here). But the eldest of the three was sent away, and Judea was given a Roman commander. The Herodians then placed their hopes in Antipas, who ruled Galilee. Would he be able to reunite the kingdom as God's anointed one, by the grace of God?
According to Luke 3:1, it was in the year 28 or 29 that John the Baptist arose in the desert: "God himself is our king, repent and welcome his coming." Was that meant to be symbolic or a call to civil disobedience? John was arrested and later beheaded after criticizing Herod Antipas for divorcing his wife, an Arab princess, to marry his niece Herodias. Together with her, he wanted to become king and queen of all Israel. After the death of his brother Philip, he asked Emperor Tiberius to inherit his brother's territories: the cities and trade routes across the Jordan, between Arabia and Damascus.
But his former father-in-law, the Arab king Aretas, did not accept this. He mobilized his army and brought it to the border. Antipas gathered as many soldiers as he could to prevent him from passing, but he did not have enough. Did not Jesus say, "What king goes out with 10,000 men against 20,000? Would it not be better to ask for the terms of peace?" To make matters worse, his cavalry refused to fight for the man who had killed John the Baptist. In the summer of the year 36, Antipas' army was defeated. "God has punished him," the people said. When Saul went to Damascus with the temple police, Aretas' army was guarding the gates.
Jesus was arrested on the orders of Caiaphas, the high priest who ruled Jerusalem and Judea under the watchful eye of the Roman commander Pilate. "King of the Jews," was the charge. "Is that what you claim?" Pilate asked him. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus is said to have replied. Nevertheless, he was crucified as the leader of a rebellion against Rome. According to many, this happened during the Passover of the year 30. Or 33, if you want to give the stories a little more time. But 36 is also possible, and perhaps even more likely, I think (see here for the background to these dates or here for a historical overview).
Pilate found himself in a difficult position: he was trying to provide the city of Jerusalem with a better water supply, but when he used money from the temple treasury for this purpose, the people rebelled—a rebellion he crushed with force. "Sacrilege," the people cried. A tower near the water basin collapsed and eighteen people were killed. "Because of their sins," they said. Jesus said to someone who wanted to follow him: "Think carefully first whether you can bear the cost. Otherwise, you will be like the man who was so mocked by the people because he started building but did not have enough money to finish the tower." When a prophet of the Samaritans led his followers up a mountain, Pilate had them killed. The Samaritans then complained to the Roman governor of Syria. The Roman governor intervened. In the fall of the year 36, he sent Caiaphas home and Pilate back to Rome.