Greco-Roman Influence On The New Testament

To study the New Testament from an academic perspective, you have to study it as a historical literature; a piece of literature that not only influenced history but was also influenced by it. You can only understand things based on what you know about it so if you know nothing about the new testament then you cannot fully study and comprehend it. The history of the new testament authors gives an understanding of the environment in which it was written. since everyone is influenced by their environment, everything the writers wrote was influenced by their environment in turn. Therefore, one would have to understand the intertwined aspects of the Greco-Roman world since that is the context in which the New Testament was written in. to understand
Most importantly, the political climate of the Greco-Roman world played the largest impact on the lives of the people living during that time, the writers of the new testament. Also, the Hellenistic culture in the Greco-Roman world must be taken into account in the understanding of the religions and politics of that time, for it affected both aspects. Lastly, one must understand the contrasting religions of the Greco-Roman world because it heavily/sometimes influenced the political sentiments of the New Testament writers. Overall, all various aspects of the Greco-Roman world worked together to, most notably, affect the political climate and, in turn, the historical environment of the new testament. The predominant influence of the Greco-Roman political environment affected the experiences and sentiments of the New Testament writers. During the time of when the literature of the New Testament was composed, the Jews, the writers of the New Testament, were living for many
During that time, the majority of the empire practiced polytheism. Rulers and their subjects would worship multiple gods for various aspects of their present life. As a result of Hellenization, many of the gods worshiped were similar to those that the Greeks worshiped, but only with Roman names. Pagans would praise these gods as a way to better the daily lives and consequently the empire as a whole. When the government started to notice the benefits that the worship brought, they encouraged the worship of these gods to make the empire better such as praying to gods of war to improve their military and win more battles. Soon, emperors were seen as divine beings who were worthy of praise or worship. Although religion and government were heavily intertwined, there was still tolerance for those who were monotheistic, such as the Jewish new testament writers. However, their refusal was seen more so as a political betrayal than it was religious ( Ehrman, A Brief Introduction to the New Testament, 25). Therefore, the close connection of religion with politics affected the context in which the new testament was written in the Greco-Roman