Apostolic Age

The Apostolic Age is the earliest period of Christianity, traditionally extending from the ministry of Jesus’s apostles through the end of the first century.

Jesus: A Jewish teacher and preacher in Roman-ruled Judea whose followers came to regard him as the Messiah and Son of God. The apostles’ movement began with Jesus’s ministry and claims about his resurrection.
Twelve Apostles: The group of twelve disciples whom the New Testament portrays Jesus as appointing for his mission. Their activity gives the period its traditional name and central human focus.
Great Commission: A post-resurrection command in the Gospels directing Jesus’s followers to make disciples among the nations. It became a central scriptural warrant for missionary activity.
Peter the Apostle: One of Jesus’s disciples and a leading figure in the earliest Christian community, especially in Jerusalem. New Testament accounts place him at the center of the movement’s early leadership.
Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles: The scholarly question of how accurately Acts describes early Christian events, chronology, and figures. Its narrative is indispensable, but historians compare it with letters and other evidence.
Pentecost: A Jewish festival commemorated by Christians as the occasion when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’s followers in Jerusalem. Acts presents this event as the public beginning of the apostles’ mission.
New Testament: The collection of Christian writings that became the second major division of the Christian Bible. Its earliest writings are the main surviving sources for this period.
Early Christian missions: Journeys and local efforts through which early Christians established communities across the Roman world. Missionary travel connected scattered communities and carried their teachings to new regions.
James, brother of Jesus: A leading figure in the Jerusalem church who was known as the brother of Jesus. His leadership links the Jerusalem community with debates over Gentile converts.
Dating the New Testament: The scholarly study of when the books of the New Testament were composed. Composition dates determine how closely surviving texts approach the events they describe.

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