VV contains this very interesting summary Early Christianity in the Eastern Provinces That did early Christians believe? The governor in a region of present-day Turkey, south of the Black Sea, between 111 and 113. In one let- ter, he wrote to ask the emperor Trajan exactly how book of Acts in the New Testament of a sermon given by Paul in Pisidian Antioch (in modern-day Turkey), one of the first cities he visited in 46. Local Jews constituted the bulk of his audience, and Paul expected them to be familiar with the predictions about the coming of prophets in the Old Testament, which they read in a Greek translation of the original Hebrew Bible. His sermon concludes with a statement of the important doctrine of atonement: Jesus died so that the sins of everyone who believed in his teachings could be forgiven. He closes with a pointed contrast between the law of Moses, or traditional Jewish teachings, and the teachings of Jesus, which he says offer more benefits. The second selection is from Pliny the Younger, who was not a Christian. He served as a provincial he should determine who was a Christian and who deserved punishment. The details in his letter offer a vivid description of the impact of Christianity on local religious practice during a period when it was officially banned. Unlike Pliny, many Roman officials did not persecute the Christians in their districts. Sources Acts 13:16-39 from the Bible are from the New Revised Standard Version. Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Ecucation of the National Counal of the Churdches of Christ in the United States of America Used by permission. All rights reserved; exxcerpts from The Letters of the Younger Pliny, translated with an introduction by Betty Radice (Penguin Cassics 1963, reprinted 1969), pp. 293-295. Copyright O Betty Radice, 1963, 1969. Reprinted with permission of Pengun Books Ltd. Paul's Sermon at Antloch You Israelites, and others who fear God, lis- ten. The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with up- lifted arm he led them out of it.... Then they asked for a king ...; he [God] made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, "I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes." Of this man's posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he prom- ised; before his coming John had already pro- claimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he sald, "What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet." My brothers, you descendants of Abraham's family, and others who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize him nor understand the words of the prophets that are read every sabbath, they fulfilled those words by con- demning him. Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carrled out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors, he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, "You are my son; today I have begotten you." ... Let it be known to you therefore, my brothers, that through this man [Jesus] for- giveness of sins is proclaimed to you; by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Pliny to Emperor Trajan I have never been present at an examination of Christians. ... For the moment this is the line I have taken with all persons brought before me on the charge of being Christians. I have asked them in person if they are Christlans, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for punishment; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished. There have been others similarly and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon. to restore it. After this ceremony it had been their custom to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind; but they had in fact given up thils practice since my edict, issued on your instructions, which banned all political socletles. This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave- women, whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths. I have therefore postponed any further examination and hastened to consult you. fanatical who are Roman citizens. I have entered them on the list of persons to be sent to Rome for trial.... The question seems to me to be worthy of your consideration, especially in view of the number of persons endangered; for a great many individuals of every age and class, both men and women, are being brought to trial, and this is likely to continue. It is not only the towns, but villages and rural Others, whose names were given to me by an informer, first admitted the charge and then denied it; they sald that they had ceased to be Christians two or more years previ- ously, and some of them even twenty years ago. They all did reverence to your statue and the images of the gods in the same way as the others, and reviled the name of Christ. They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstaln from theft, robbery, districts too which are infected with con- tact with this wretched cult. I think though that it is still possible for it to be checked and directed to better ends, for there is no doubt that people have begun to throng the temples which had been almost entirely de- serted for a long time; the sacred rites which had been allowed to lapse are being per- formed again, and flesh of sacrificial victims is on sale everywhere, though up till recently scarcely anyone could be found to buy it. It is easy to infer from this that a great many people could be reformed if they were given "How and why do these descriptions of Christianity by a believer and a nonbeliever differ so greatly? What is each author's goal in writing the text he does? an opportunity to repent.

VV contains this very interesting summary Early Christianity in the Eastern Provinces That did early Christians believe? The governor in a region of present-day Turkey, south of the Black Sea, between 111 and 113. In one let- ter, he wrote to ask the emperor Trajan exactly how book of Acts in the New Testament of a sermon given by Paul in Pisidian Antioch (in modern-day Turkey), one of the first cities he visited in 46. Local Jews constituted the bulk of his audience, and Paul expected them to be familiar with the predictions about the coming of prophets in the Old Testament, which they read in a Greek translation of the original Hebrew Bible. His sermon concludes with a statement of the important doctrine of atonement: Jesus died so that the sins of everyone who believed in his teachings could be forgiven. He closes with a pointed contrast between the law of Moses, or traditional Jewish teachings, and the teachings of Jesus, which he says offer more benefits. The second selection is from Pliny the Younger, who was not a Christian. He served as a provincial he should determine who was a Christian and who deserved punishment. The details in his letter offer a vivid description of the impact of Christianity on local religious practice during a period when it was officially banned. Unlike Pliny, many Roman officials did not persecute the Christians in their districts. Sources Acts 13:16-39 from the Bible are from the New Revised Standard Version. Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Ecucation of the National Counal of the Churdches of Christ in the United States of America Used by permission. All rights reserved; exxcerpts from The Letters of the Younger Pliny, translated with an introduction by Betty Radice (Penguin Cassics 1963, reprinted 1969), pp. 293-295. Copyright O Betty Radice, 1963, 1969. Reprinted with permission of Pengun Books Ltd. Paul's Sermon at Antloch You Israelites, and others who fear God, lis- ten. The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with up- lifted arm he led them out of it.... Then they asked for a king ...; he [God] made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, "I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes." Of this man's posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he prom- ised; before his coming John had already pro- claimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he sald, "What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet." My brothers, you descendants of Abraham's family, and others who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize him nor understand the words of the prophets that are read every sabbath, they fulfilled those words by con- demning him. Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carrled out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors, he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, "You are my son; today I have begotten you." ... Let it be known to you therefore, my brothers, that through this man [Jesus] for- giveness of sins is proclaimed to you; by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Pliny to Emperor Trajan I have never been present at an examination of Christians. ... For the moment this is the line I have taken with all persons brought before me on the charge of being Christians. I have asked them in person if they are Christlans, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for punishment; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished. There have been others similarly and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon. to restore it. After this ceremony it had been their custom to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind; but they had in fact given up thils practice since my edict, issued on your instructions, which banned all political socletles. This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave- women, whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths. I have therefore postponed any further examination and hastened to consult you. fanatical who are Roman citizens. I have entered them on the list of persons to be sent to Rome for trial.... The question seems to me to be worthy of your consideration, especially in view of the number of persons endangered; for a great many individuals of every age and class, both men and women, are being brought to trial, and this is likely to continue. It is not only the towns, but villages and rural Others, whose names were given to me by an informer, first admitted the charge and then denied it; they sald that they had ceased to be Christians two or more years previ- ously, and some of them even twenty years ago. They all did reverence to your statue and the images of the gods in the same way as the others, and reviled the name of Christ. They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstaln from theft, robbery, districts too which are infected with con- tact with this wretched cult. I think though that it is still possible for it to be checked and directed to better ends, for there is no doubt that people have begun to throng the temples which had been almost entirely de- serted for a long time; the sacred rites which had been allowed to lapse are being per- formed again, and flesh of sacrificial victims is on sale everywhere, though up till recently scarcely anyone could be found to buy it. It is easy to infer from this that a great many people could be reformed if they were given "How and why do these descriptions of Christianity by a believer and a nonbeliever differ so greatly? What is each author's goal in writing the text he does? an opportunity to repent.