Summary of the Ten Episodes

1. JESUS AFTER JESUS

Around the year 30, Jesus was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem. Three and a half centuries later, Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. How long did it take for Jesus to become Jesus Christ, the Son of God, a God-made man? Did Jesus create the Church? After his death, was it Peter, the chief disciple, who replaced him as the head of the community?

Discussion points:

• Is Jesus the founder of Christianity?
• What happened after his death?
• What signifies the term "church"?
• Is Peter the successor of Jesus?
• Is Peter the first to see the reincarnated image?
• What determines what the disciples saw when the reincarnated image appeared to them?
• What does the idea of resurrection mean to you?
• How does the New Testament depict Peter?
• Does Peter exert power over a primitive community, or does he play a symbolic role in the system?

2. JAMES, JESUS' BROTHER

In the first years, why did James, referred to as the "brother of the Lord," appear to be the veritable successor to Jesus? Did Jesus have brothers? Why do some of the Gospels proclaim the virginity of Mary, Jesus' mother? Why did his family believe that Jesus was "crazy?" Were his mother and his brother opposed to the group of twelve disciples?

Discussion points:

• How do you explain the arrival of Jesus' family in the first chapters?
• Why do the Gospels give this family such a negative image?
• Does Jesus have brothers?
• Which obstacle perpetuates the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity?
• How did the Catholic Church try to challenge the Gospels' testimony about Jesus' brothers?
• Why did James, Jesus' brother, become the dominant figure of the first community so quickly?
• Is James the true heir to Jesus?

3. THE KINGDOM THAT DOESN'T COME

Instead of hiding or escaping to Galilee, Jesus' disciples gathered in Jerusalem. Why did they take such a risk? What did the disciples expect from Jesus while he was living? What was it that they hoped for after their Master's Death? Was the kingdom he had announced to them a present kingdom or a future one? Was it the kingdom of Israel or a celestial kingdom? Will a resurrected Jesus return? And when?

Discussion points:

• What were Jesus' disciples waiting for while he was alive?
• What were they waiting for after his death?
• Does Jesus prophesize a kingdom in which the Israelis are liberated from the impious occupation of the Romans?
• Who are the twelve? Why this number?
• Is the Israeli kingdom that Jesus proposes different from what the zealots hoped for?
• Does Jesus offer another horizon besides Israel?
• Is the awaited kingdom an earthly or heavenly kingdom?
• How does the death of Jesus force his disciples to reformulate their concept of what they are waiting for?
• Does the second resurrection meet the expectations that had been preconceived by the kingdom?
• Was the spiritualization of the kingdom inevitable?

4. FAMILY QUARREL

In Jerusalem, the community got organized while awaiting the End of Time. What conflict tore apart the group and pitted Hebrews against Hellenists? Who was Stephen, the first martyr to die after Jesus? Why did his execution provoke such a decisive rupture inside the movement and instigate its expansion outside the frontiers of Judea?

Discussion points:

• How is the first community organized and why?
• Why does it remain in Jerusalem, and is the community open or closed?
• What are the first disciples waiting for?
• Since the return of the risen Christ has not yet occurred, and there is no actual end to time, how do they organize time?
• Who are the Hellenists? Who are the Hebrews?
• Are there one or two communities in Jerusalem?
• Can one find the true history of the conflict that Luke solved?
• Who is Stephen, and is it possible to draw a parallel between Stephen and Jesus?
• Why are only the Hellenists persecuted?
• How does the Hellenists' mission to escape Palestine develop?
• Are the Hellenists the first to spread the Gospel?

5. PAUL, THE APOSTATE

According to Acts, Paul participated in the death of Stephen, then in the persecution of the first Christian Jews. Did Paul convert on the road to Damascus? Who was the apostle Paul, the only character in the New Testament to both author a Gospel that carries his name and to figure as the hero of the Book of Acts? Why does he refer to himself as "the lowest of the low?"

Discussion points:

• Is Paul the first and only Christian missionary?
• Is the Paul that is described in Acts the same Paul that arises from the biblical letters?
• Does Luke know the biblical letters of Paul?
• How does Luke portray Paul in the Acts?
• How historically reliable are the Acts?
• Is the biography of Paul credible?
• How does Paul portray himself in the biblical letters?
• What event, according to him, melts his authority?
• What does Paul know about Jesus?
• Is it a handicap or advantage for Paul that he did not know Jesus when Jesus was alive?

6. COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM

The movement of Jesus' partisans spread across the Jewish diaspora after the year 40. At Antioch, as elsewhere, a community assembled of Jews, but also of pagans. Were they able to live together? In 49 or 50, an assembly was held in Jerusalem to resolve the crucial question: Must one be Jewish to become a Christian? That is, must men be circumcised? Why did Paul oppose Peter, who was the spokesperson of the disciples, and James, Jesus' brother?

Discussion points:

• Did Jesus intend his message for the pagans, or only for Israel?
• Why did Jesus' disciples decide on their own to open up to the pagans?
• To become Christian, must one first become Jewish, that is to say, circumcised?
• Do the Acts of the Apostles and the biblical letters of Paul inform us in the same manner of the debate raised by this question?
• What is the group that is named the "Jerusalem Council?"
• What is it about Paul's position that so radically distinguishes it from the positions of James, Peter and the church members of Jerusalem?
• What covers the division of territories between Paul (towards the pagans) and Peter (towards the Jews)?

7. DAYS OF WRATH

In 50 or 51, Paul sent his instructions from Corinth to the Christian community in Thessalonki. This is the most ancient text in the New Testament. Why did Paul denounce Jews as "the enemy of all men?" Is he the instigator of Christian anti-Semitism? Could the apostle have been the author of these sentences?

Discussion points:

• Is Paul's writing in the New Testament the only writing that Paul has done?
• Considering how the text is older than the New Testament, what do verses 14 and 16 mean in the first writing of Thessaloniciens?
• Who are the Thessaloniciens?
• How do you interpret the accusation against the Jews that they intended to have the Lord Jesus and his prophets killed?
• Why would the Jews be "enemies of all men?"
• Does the "anger" that fell upon the Jews "at the end" refer to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in the year 70?
• Can one call a passage "anti-Semitic" if it was supposed to have been written by the hand of a Jew (Paul) in the era of the 50's?
• In this case, would this passage be an interpolation, or an ulterior explanation introduced by a Christian writer?

8. THE BOOK OF ORIGINS

At the end of the first century, the author of the Gospel according to Luke wrote a second book, the Acts of the Apostles, which recounted the birth of the Christian movement. Is the narrative of Acts an archival document, or is it a heroic epic, revised and edited by a clever theologian? Whom did he wish to convince? The Jews? Those who feared God? The Roman elite?

Discussion points:

• Does the Acts of the Apostles deliver a historical testimony or a literary opening?
• What image of the primitive Christian movement does it give?
• What is known about the recipients at he time of its writing and composition?
• According to Luke and Acts, would the Gospel form the same original work?
• Was the author of Acts a traveling companion of Paul?
• Why does the character of Paul appear in Acts and only in this book, as though he is a Roman citizen?
• What has the book of Acts taught us about the state of the separation between the Jews and Christians at the end of the first century?

9. BREAKING WITH JUDAISM

As the propagandist of faith in Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul passes for the founder of Christianity. Did he betray Jesus? Did he provoke the rupture with Judaism? In the years 50 to 60, did his Epistles resonate as they would later? Why is it that the part played by Paul in the history of Christianity owes so much to Marcion, a heretic of the eleventh century?

Discussion points:

• Is Paul the founder of the Christian religion?
• Or, was his intention to be a schematic reformer of Judaism?
• What was it about Paul in the 50's that provided the foundation for the rupture of Judaism?
• How did the figure of Paul take his rise?
• What is the history of the reunion of the circulation of the biblical letters of Paul?
• Why did Paul fail to be annexed by the first Christian heretics?
• Was the heretic Marcion the first editor of Paul?

10. VERUS ISRAEL

In 70, Jerusalem was captured by the Roman legions. The Temple was destroyed. In 135, the Jewish nation was crushed. What were the consequences of the failure of two Jewish revolts? Why did Judaism proclaim the exclusion of Christians? And why was it that Christians refused to create a separate religion? Why, in the year 150, did Christianity declare itself to be "verus Israel?," or "the real Israel?" What were the consequences for the Jews?

Discussion points:

• Can one reconstitute a chronology of the decisive stages of the century that ended after the death of Jesus?
• Can we precisely date the rupture between the Christian and Jewish movements?
• Why do we find traces of the Judeo-Christian movement only at the beginning of Islam?
• Why did the Christian intellectuals cut their bonds with Judaism and forge the concept of "Verus Israel", the "True Israel?"
• Is Christianity suitable to Jewish heritage?