The Bible: A Biography, Karen Armstrong, c. 2007 -- Chapter 3

Do we know how/why Jesus ended up in Gallilee, northern Palestine?

He and his twelve disciples were from Gallilee, in northern Palestine.

After Jesus died / crucified in Jerusalem, his disciples moved to / remained in Jerusalem.

Armstrong compares them to the Essenes, p. 57. From wiki:

The Essenes were a sect of Second Temple Judaism which flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. The Jewish historian Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Roman Judaea, but they were fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the other two major sects at the time.

The Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to voluntary poverty, daily immersion, and asceticism (their priestly class practiced celibacy). Most scholars claim they seceded from the Zadokite priests.

The Essenes have gained fame in modern times as a result of the discovery of an extensive group of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are commonly believed to be the Essenes' library. These documents preserve multiple copies of parts of the Hebrew Bible untouched from possibly as early as 300 BCE until their discovery in 1946. Most scholars dispute the notion that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Rachel Elior questions even the existence of the Essenes.

The first reference to the sect is by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (died c. 79 CE) in his Natural History. Pliny relates in a few lines that the Essenes possess no money, had existed for thousands of generations, and that their priestly class (“contemplatives”) do not marry. Unlike Philo, who did not mention any particular geographical location of the Essenes other than the whole land of Israel, Pliny places them somewhere above Ein Gedi, next to the Dead Sea.

Remember, it was 539 BCE when Cyrus defeated the Babylonians and Palestinian exiles allowed to return to Palestine, although few did. The ones that did return took their "nine scrolls," the first nine books of the bible. 

Christians talking about Christ "rising" again was considered "crazy talk." The disciples were forced to spread that gospel in outlying areas.

Debate over Gentiles converting to Judaism.

The disciples recruited Gentile converts, but did not subject them to strict Jewish laws (dietary, circumcision).

Antioch: the city where those who believed that Jesus was the christos (Greek for meshiah) were first given the name of Christians.

James, brother of Jesus, had problems with the conversion of Gentiles.

Long discussion on Paul. Re-interpreted the psalms -- p. 62.

So Paul was radical but the author of Hebrews was even more radical.

The destruction of the temple the first time in 586 BCE resulted in burst of literary activity.

Another burst of literary activity among the exiles in Babylon followed the destruction of the second temple: by the middle of the second century BCE, nearly all of the 27 books of the New Testament had been completed.

Communities were already quoting Paul's letters as though they were scripture.

The gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were ultimately selected for the canon but there were many more.

Much back story to the gospels over the next few pages.

Then, on page 68, "we do not know who wrote the gospels."

The authors were Jewish Christians; wrote in Greek; lived in the Hellenistic cities of the Roman Empire.

Skillful editors; redactors.

Mark wrote in 70 AD.

Matthew and Luke: late 80s.

John in the late 90s.

All four gospels reflect the terror and anxiety of this traumatic period.

Apokalypsis.

Ekklesia.

From wiki:

Much like the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and Jerusalem in 70 CE as retaliation for an ongoing Jewish revolt. Jewish eschatology includes a belief that the Second Temple will be replaced by a future Third Temple.

According to the Bible, the Jewish Temples stood on the Temple Mount.

According to Jewish tradition and scripture, the First Temple was built by King Solomon the son of King David in 957 BCE and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The second was constructed under the auspices of Zerubbabel in 516 BCE and destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 CE.

Jewish tradition maintains it is here that a third and final Temple will also be built.

The location is the holiest site in Judaism and is the place Jews turn towards during prayer. Due to its extreme sanctity, many Jews will not walk on the Mount itself, to avoid unintentionally entering the area where the Holy of Holies stood, since according to Rabbinical law, some aspect of the divine presence is still present at the site.

The Temple Mount (Hebrew: הַר הַבַּיִת‎, Har HaBáyit, "Mount of the House (of God, i.e. the Temple in Jerusalem)"), known to Muslims as the Haram esh-Sharif (Arabic: الحرم الشريف‎, al-Ḥaram al-Šarīf, "the Noble Sanctuary", or الحرم القدسي الشريف, al-Ḥaram al-Qudsī al-Šarīf, "the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem") and the Al Aqsa Compound[2] is a hill located in the Old City of Jerusalem that for thousands of years has been venerated as a holy site, in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike.