Discovering The Jewish Jesus
Discovering The Jewish Jesus
Jewish Christians, also
Judeo-Christians, were the original members of the
Jewish movement that later became
Christianity.
[1] In the earliest stage the community was made up of all those Jews who accepted
Jesus as a
venerable person or even the
messiah, and was thus equivalent to all Christians.
[1]
As Christianity grew and evolved, Jewish Christians became only one
strand of the Christian community, characterised by combining the
confession of Jesus as Christ with continued adherence to Jewish practices such as
Sabbath observance and observance of the
Jewish calendar, observance of
Jewish laws and customs,
circumcision, and
synagogue attendance, and a direct genetic relationship to the earliest Jewish Christianity.
[1]
The term "Jewish Christian" appears in historical texts contrasting Christians of
Jewish origin with
Gentile Christians, both in discussion of the
New Testament church[2][3] and the
second and following centuries.
[4] It is also a term used for Jews who converted to Christianity but kept their Jewish heritage and traditions.
Alister McGrath, former Professor of
Historical Theology at
Oxford University, claims that the
1st century "Jewish Christians" were totally faithful religious Jews. They differed from other
contemporary Jews only in their
acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.
[5]
However as
Christianity grew throughout the Gentile world, Christians diverged from their Jewish and Jerusalem roots.
[6][7] Jewish Christianity, initially strengthened despite
persecution by Jerusalem Temple officials, fell into decline during the
Jewish-Roman wars (66-135) and the growing
anti-Judaism perhaps best personified by
Marcion (c. 150). With persecution by the orthodox Christians from the time of the
Roman Emperor Constantine in the
4th century, Jewish Christians sought refuge
outside the boundaries of the Empire, in
Arabia and further afield.
[8] Within the Empire and later elsewhere it was dominated by the
Gentile based Christianity which became the
State church of the Roman Empire and which took control of sites in the
Holy Land such as the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the
Cenacle and appointed subsequent
Bishops of Jerusalem.
It has been argued that few Jews joined the Christian movement in the
first century and that the movement probably never exceeding 1,000
Jewish members at any one time during the first century. Furthermore the
size and importance of the Christian movement in general during the
first century tends to be exaggerated by most scholars. By the end of
the first century the total Christian population is estimated to have
been only 7,530.
[9] The term "Jewish Christians" in the 3rd and 4th centuries can refer to groups such as
Ebionites,
Nazarenes and other groups, and related to these groups are quotation fragments of non-canonical gospels referred to as the "
Jewish-Christian Gospels".
Discovering The Jewish Jesus
