The Bible and violence fire or a sword. The cleansing of the Temple is a direct violent action by Jesus. There are also sayings of Jesus that oppose violence, such as Turning the other cheek and the passage about Jesus and the woman taken in adultery. The earliest detailed accounts of the death of Jesus are contained in the four canonical gospels. There are other, more implicit references in the New Testament epistles. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus predicts his death in three separate episodes. All four Gospels conclude with an extended narrative of Jesus' arrest, initial trial at the Sandhedrin and final trial
Historical background of the New Testament Historical background of the New Testament Most scholars who study the historical Jesus and early Christianity believe that the canonical gospels and life of Jesus must be viewed within his historical and cultural context, rather than purely in terms of Christian orthodoxy. They look at Second Temple Judaism, the tensions, trends, and changes in the region under the influence of Hellenism and the Roman occupation, and the Jewish factions of the time, seeing Jesus as a Jew in this environment; and the written New Testament as arising from a period of oral gospel traditions after his death. In 64 BCE,