Abstract:
The book of Acts reveals a series of tensions between groups and individuals. Considered from the contemporary Western structures of thought – largely influenced by the Greek dualistic philosophy – such tensions can be considered – in an erroneous and superficial way – to be just oppressive antagonisms of one ethnic group over another, of one religious culture at the expense of another. Hebrew humanism, as a totalizing worldview, gives a different meaning to these tensions. This meaning, extracted from the link between Hebrew humanism and the humanism of Christianity in the first century, is the key to understand the process that shaped the Christian Church and its identity-ontological nature. This research aims to seek out the meaning of the tensions between Jews and Christians recorded in the book of Acts, when Christianity was still limited to Jewish circles only. We will do this with an emphasis on the metaphysical unity forged by Yahweh onto the Hebrew people in the ancient times; on the anthropological unity embodied by the person of Jesus; and on the ethical unity bestowed on the early Christian community, through the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit.
