Background of Christianity

Answer 1

Christianity arose in what is now Israel, but was then (and by then I mean about 35 CE) a province in the Roman Empire. The area had only recently been deprived of its own monarchy, and some of the inhabitants of the area considered direct government from Rome an oppression. The local people, and the first generation of those involved with Christianity, were Jews, but the religion at this stage was quite flexible and included a number of different sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes) who nevertheless were able to worship together. The earliest followers of Jesus seem to have been more mystical and less concerned with the rigid rules and regulations which Judaism tended to impose, but thought of themselves as Jews and were welcomed in the temples and synagogues.

At the same time, on a larger front, Greeks and Romans were becoming disenchanted with the established forms of worship, partially due to the effects of Greek philosophy and the perspectives on individual lifestyle afforded by Stoics and Epicureans. Whether due to the effect of philosophy or not, a great many Greek and Roman people were searching for religious answers which would apply to their personal life, and were joining "culti", or groups of private, non-official worshippers. Cults of Mithras, of Dionysus, of Isis and so on, were all popular and offered what these people were looking for: a religion with a single charismatic god in human form, who offered personal life after death, ecstasy, and moral cleansing.

Thus the Greek and Roman world was ripe for the religion which Christianity became.