presentation

The main ideas from this information are: - The flowering of religion includes the development of Judaic culture, the rise of Christianity, the Byzantine Empire and its church, the rise and spread of Islam, and the spread of Buddhism. - The Jewish religion became increasingly Messianic, with many people claiming to be the Messiah. - Herod the Great, a client king of Rome, rebuilt Jerusalem but conflicted with Jewish laws. - The Romans changed the name of the province from Judea to Palestine after Jewish revolts. - Jesus' teachings antagonized Jewish and Roman leaders, but his followers spread the gospel. - Christianity began as a Jewish sect but later became its own religion. - The Byzantine Empire tolerated Christian rule in Italy. - Muslims believe in surrendering to Allah and follow the five pillars of Islam. - Muhammad created a community based on kinship and submission to God's will. - The hijab is a controversial aspect So for my project, I did chapter 4, and that's the flowering of religion, and there's five main sections to this chapter, and they are development to Judaic culture, the rise of Christianity, the Byzantine Empire and its church, the rise and spread of Islam, and spread of Buddhism. So jumping right into the first one, development to Judaic culture, this is about the time of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. The Jewish religion had become increasingly Messianic, and that's just the belief that the world would end, and there'd be a coming of God on the Day of Judgment, and just that the world would be led by the Messiah, or the Chosen One. And with that, there was large numbers of people claiming to be the Messiah, just all around Judea, and much of what we know about this time comes from the writings of Josephus. There are three physiological sects among the Jews, and a sect is just an organized smaller group that's a part of a larger and bigger group, and members of a sect just kind of view themselves as good and better than everyone, just all other people as evil. And of the three sects that were talked about, Josephus describes the Essenes were among the most conservative, and they even went as far as to ban women from their community so that they might live in total purity. And the Essenes were generally identified with the group of Jews who lived on the Dead Sea southwest of Jerusalem, and they actually abandoned everything that they knew to seek salvation for their own. And then the Romans instilled a client king, Herod the Great. He claimed to be Jewish, but he was actually not, according to the Jewish law. He did lots of things that contradicted the law, but he did rebuild the city of Jerusalem and also engaged in other massive building programs. However, Rome became less and less tolerant of the Jewish faith because the laws of Rome continued to conflict with the law of the book, so basically all the his new rules that he made went against the Jewish book and the Jewish laws. He's remembered in Christian and Jewish cultures as villainous and cruel, but historians have recently reevaluated some of Herod's legacy. He was an outsider, a ruler, a builder, a negotiator, but he was foremost Herod's friend of the Romans. Ultimately, in 66 CE, the Jews revolted. The Romans changed the name of the province from Judea, land of the Jews, to Palestine, land of the Philistines, and that was the ancient enemy of the Jews. And finally, in 135, after another Jewish revolt, the Emperor rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman city, which Jews were forbidden to enter, and hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed or sold into slavery, and they had their land taken, all their belongings, and the survivors fled throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East. And not until 1948, when the state of Israel was established by the United Nations, would Jews control their homeland again. So that's it for section one, and now moving on to section two, the rise of Christianity. So although Jesus' teachings were steeped in the wisdom of the Jewish tradition, they antagonized both the Jewish and Roman leaders. After his followers identified him as the Messiah, he did not make a claim for himself, and this threatened both the Jewish leaders and the Roman rulers. Upon his death, Jesus' reputation grew as his apostles spread the word of the gospel, and the apostles literally means those who have been sent, and the gospel is just the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. And the original apostles were unique because they witnessed not only the resurrection firsthand, but also because they were appointed by the Lord to spread Jesus' story to all nations. Paul is pretty common in the Bible, but he was actually not one of these original apostles. He claims that Jesus came to him in a vision, and he wasn't anointed by the Lord, but Paul actually persecuted Jews in Judea before converting to a new faith in 35 CE. His epistles were written to the churches he founded, comprise 14 books of the Bible. And after he died, the religion spread rapidly, carried by evangelists who, the word evangelist means bearer of good, and it has the root angel in it. And the most prominent evangelists were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and they're the authors of the books of the Bible referred to as the Gospels. And this new faith of Christianity did not immediately abandon its tradition as Jewish sect. Jesus never thought of himself as anything but a Jew, and all three disciples were also Jews, but the major distinction was that Christian Jews believed in the resurrection of Jesus and him being the Messiah, and not until sometime in the early second century CE did Christianity cease to be of a Jewish sect. Jesus was born of a Jewish mother in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All his friends, associates, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshiped in a Jewish communal worship, what we call now synagogues. He preached from Jewish texts from the Bible. He celebrated the Jewish festivals, and he was under the authority of priests. He lived, was born, and died, and thought of as a Jew. So that's it for section two, now moving on to section three, the Byzantine Empire and its Church. After Rome collapsed in 476, Odoacer, a Germanic leader, called himself the king of Italy, which he governed from the city of Ravenna. And the Austro-Gothic king Theodoric the Great overthrew Odoacer in 493, and he ruled Italy until 526. And the Byzantine emperors tolerated Theodoric's rule in Italy largely because he was a Christian, and he had been raised in the empirical palace in Constantinople. And Justinian ruled from 527 to 565. After he assumed the throne as a new young emperor, things quickly changed. The Hagia Sophia was burnt to the ground in 523 by a riot club, and Justinian launched a huge campaign to rebuild Constantinople on the site of an old one after these riots. But the riots caused Justinian briefly to consider abandoning Constantinople, but his queen Theodora persuaded him to stay. And that's it for section three, now moving on to section four, the rise and spread of Islam. And like Christians, Muslims believe that human beings possess immortal souls and can live eternally in heaven as long as they surrender to an Allah and accept him as their one and only God. Muslims are the main practitioners of Islam, and they dedicate themselves to the five pillars of religion, and that is witness, prayer, alms, fasting, and privilege. The five pillars are supported by the teachings of the Quran, which is slightly shorter than the New Testament of the Bible. It consists of 114 surahs or chapters, each numbered but more commonly referred to by its title. And in addition to the Quran, another important source of Islamic tradition are the collections of hadith, which consists of sayings, Muhammad, and anecdotes about his life. And hadith just means like a narrative or a report. Hadith literature was handed down orally, but was most common in Arab society until about a hundred years after Muhammad's death when followers began to write sayings down. In 622, Muhammad was forced to flee to Mecca when its polytheistic leadership became irritated at this instance on the worship of only one God. Then they went on a journey, and he and his followers fled to the oasis. It was about 200 miles north, which they renamed the Al Medina, meaning the city of the Prophet. And here Muhammad created a community based on kinship, the traditional foundation of Arab society, but on common submission to the will of God. He just wanted them to be even more united. And then although Muslim practice today varies widely in Muhammad's time, women are welcome in the mosque. In the Quran, Muhammad teaches that women and men are equal partners. The faithful men and the faithful women are protecting friends for each other. And then one of the most discussed and most controversial aspects of Muslim faith is the hijab, and that's just the requirement that women be covered or veiled. And its origins can be traced to Islam-Jewish heritage and the principle of modesty in both dress and behavior, which requires that all married women cover their hair whenever non-family members are present. And then there's two different types. You can see them on the PowerPoint. Just the chador, that's just the one worn by women that covers them from head to toe, and it leaves only their hands and face exposed. And then there's a burqa, which is similar to the chador, but it covers the entire body and does not leave the hands and face uncovered. So the women have to look through a mesh screen to see. And that's it for chapter 4. So now moving on, I mean, section 4. So now moving on to section 5. The last section is the spread of Buddhism. Buddhist missionaries from India begin spreading the religion east and southeast Asia and north into China and Korea. By 1600, Buddhism was firmly established in Japan at first arriving between 520 and 555. The first Chinese Buddhist monk set out on the Silk Road in search of Buddhist scripture to translate into Chinese. And the first person to do this was Xu Shining of a human province. His journey took place about 260, and at the same time, far away on the Silk Road, a resident of Duhong began his life's work as a translator of Buddhist text. In the early Buddhist art, the Buddha was never shown as a figure. It was believed to be impossible to represent the Buddha, so his presence was symbolized by things such as his footprints, the Bayan tree, the Wheel of Life, and even elephants. And by the 4th century, during the region of the Guafta rulers from India, the Buddha was commonly represented in human form. And then on the PowerPoint, there's a picture of it actually. There's a seated Buddha in a cave in China, and it exhibits the Dayan Mudra, and that's a gesture of meditation and balance. And it also symbolizes the path to enlightenment. And then there's a quote about it from one of my sources, and it says, probably the most impressive single sculpture is a limestone seated Buddha. An intricate mandala or halo surrounds the head of this simply carved, rhythmically draped figure. Swirls encircle flower buds, enclosing jewel-like objects. Naturalism fuses with abstract design. Human artistry evokes sun, light, nature, and enlightenment, setting off the early earthly form of divine. And that's from the Juilliard Journal. And then for my works cited, my three sources I did were from the Juilliard Journal, pbs.org, and from study.com. But yep, that's all I have for my presentation of chapter 4, The Flowering of Religion.