Robert Crotty

Values Education as an Ethical Dilemma About Sociability

This chapter reports on the values education programmes of three school clusters operating within the Australian Government’s Values Education programme. It argues that a central outcome of the schools’ values education programmes is a new mode of knowledge. Depending on the particular approach to values education taken in the cluster and its component schools, this new mode of knowledge could relate to self-knowledge, to a different perception of companions, to a renewed vision of the adjacent human and natural environment or a combination of these. In keeping with the theme of this final section of the handbook, Values Education: Wellbeing and Social Engagement, the chapter argues that this new knowledge is not solely intellectual and academic, but related to wellbeing, sociability and sustainability.

The Jesus Movement Communities in Palestine

While we may know a considerable amount about the Roman world at the beginning of the second millennium, we know little about the early history of Christianity that began in that period. Jesus provided the stimulus for a number of Jesus-communities. There were groups that looked back to Christian leaders such as James the Just, Peter and the Twelve and Stephen. We will also see that Paul was revered by Christian communities in Asia Minor and Greece. Likewise a John was revered in Western Asia Minor.

The Nine Markan Roman Traditions

We will now review, one by one, the blocks of Tradition, existing at first within the Jesus-Tradition and later re-thought in a Roman Christian setting, and then reworked and incorporated into a fluent Jesus-story by Mark (whoever might be designated by the title: one individual or many) as the original official statement of Roman Christianity. There are nine Traditions, headed by a formal Title: 1. The Context of the Gospel of Mark 2. Jesus, the New Isaac, is revealed as the Messiah of Israel and the Gentiles 3. Jesus in Jerusalem 4. The Eschatological Sermon 5. The Messiah is Anointed and the New Isaac celebrates his Last Meal 6. The Prayer in Gethsemane 7. The Trials of Jesus 8. The Crucifixion, Death and Burial of Jesus 9. The Finding of the Empty Tomb.

The Roman Context of Early Christianity

We have been speaking of contexts. We need to see the historical context of the new political contender in the Ancient Near East during the centuries before and the centuries after the Christian era—Rome. By the beginning of the first millennium CE, Rome and Jerusalem had both reached the peak of their prosperity. During the previous three centuries BCE, the Near East had become ever more Roman: there was a growing Roman military presence in the Palestinian area; Judea was acquiring the status of a Roman colony; Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa were coming under Roman domination. An understanding of the Roman phenomenon and its presence in the East is essential to understanding the development of early Christianity and particularly Roman Christianity.

What Really Is Religion

We have already introduced the notion of religion . We have claimed, without offering proof as yet, that Christianity should not be viewed as the exclusive religion among humans. In order to put some order into this discussion of religion in general and Roman Christianity in particular, we must be sure that we are speaking about the same thing when we mention ‘religion’.

The Study of the Jewish Past

Until the nineteenth century, biblical ‘events’, as related by stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, had been generally considered as deriving from a Golden Age. They were regarded as historically reliable reports from an era when life was radically different from what modern people know today, a time when wondrous natural and human events, miracles and bodily cures wrought by divine intervention were commonplace; it was a time when giants, angels and demons openly roamed the world. However, the search for an Historical Jesus gave rise to other perceptions of ‘Jesus’: the Literary Jesus and the Biblical Jesus. These must be carefully perused.

Johannine Christianity: John of Patmos

There was yet another Jesus-movement group on the horizon that must be integrated with any study of Roman Christianity. This is the John group. The problem is that there is, in Christian Tradition. First, John of Patmos is reconstructed in the context of Western Asia Minor and the supposed Gnostic groups already there. The Book of Revelation, analysed according its collection of various materials, was attributed to John. Perhaps, he was named as the author because of his religious fame. Some attempt is made to put order into the Johns: John of Patmos, John of Zebedee, John the author of the Gospel of John, John the author of three Letters and the Beloved Disciple, widely accepted as John of Zebedee. It is concluded that John of Patmos was the only real John.

The Three Pauls

The study of Paul above has examined the sources at the basis of the Pauline image. What we have found, as with Israel and Jesus, is that there are a number of ‘Pauls’. The very sources themselves bear the imprint of their different impressions. As was the case with the study of ancient Israel and Jesus, there are three levels of understanding to be acknowledged in the study of Paul. The first is Literary Paul, the second is Historical Paul and the third is Biblical Paul. The believer is occupied with Literary Paul; the historian with Historical Paul.

Christianity in Rome

The Jesus-movement group in Rome was a very different story. Roman Christianity began in the Jewish synagogues of first-century Rome. Its founder is unknown. Gradually separate Jesus-movement groups cut themselves off from the synagogues and formed house-churches. It was here that the earliest self-sufficient forms of Christianity-Roman Christianity-took root.

The Gospel of Mark

So far, we have described the many Jesus-movements that arose after the death of Jesus. In particular, we have looked at the rather different Jesus-movement in Rome, which moved away more quickly from its Jewish roots. In Rome, the Jesus-Tradition took a new form. It was governed by the Isaac-Tradition. The Roman Tradition rewrote earlier materials guided by the canons of Roman Historiography. From this came the Gospel of Mark, the Roman gospel, and in turn the Gospel of Mark became the backbone of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.