Early Jewish Christianity
Most historians agree that Jesus or his followers build a new Jewish sect, one that attracted both Jewish and gentile converts. The self-perception, beliefs, customs, and traditions of the Jewish followers of Jesus, Jesus’s disciples and first followers, were grounded in first-century Judaism. According to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, a number of early Christianities existed in the first century CE, from which developed various Christian traditions and denominations, including proto-orthodoxy, Marcionites, Gnostics and the Jewish followers of Jesus. According to theologian James D. G. Dunn, four species of early Christianity can be discerned: Jewish Christianity, Hellenistic Christianity, Apocalyptic Christianity, and early Catholicism.
The first followers of Jesus were essentially any ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes. Jesus was Jewish, preached to the Jewish people, and called from them his first followers. According to McGrath, Jewish Christians, as faithful religious Jews, "regarded their movement as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra theory — that Jesus was the Messiah."
Jewish Christians were the original members of the Jewish movement that later became Christianity. In the earliest stage the community was introduced up of any those Jews who believed that Jesus was the Jewish messiah. As Christianity grew and developed, Jewish Christians became only one strand of the early Christian community, characterised by combining the confession of Jesus as Christ with continued observance of the Torah and adherence to Jewish traditions such(a) as Sabbath observance, Jewish calendar, Jewish laws and customs, circumcision, kosher diet and synagogue attendance, and by a direct genetic relationship to the earliest followers of Jesus.
The Jerusalem Church was an early Christian community located in Jerusalem, of which James the Just, the brother of Jesus, and Peter were leaders. Paul was in contact with this community. Legitimised by Jesus' appearance, Peter was the first leader of the Jerusalem ekklēsia. He was soon eclipsed in this controls by James the Just, "the Brother of the Lord," which may explain why the early texts contain scarce information approximately Peter. According to Lüdemann, in the discussions about the strictness of adherence to the Jewish Law, the more conservative view of James the Just became more widely accepted than the more liberal position of Peter, who soon lost influence. According to Dunn, this was not an "usurpation of power," but a consequence of Peter's involvement in missionary activities.
According to Bishops of Jerusalem were "of the circumcision". The Romans destroyed the Jewish a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. in Jerusalem in year 135 during the Bar Kokhba revolt, but it is for traditionally believed the Jerusalem Christians waited out the Jewish–Roman wars in Pella in the Decapolis.
The Pauline epistles incorporate creeds, or confessions of faith, of a belief in an exalted Christ that predate Paul, and render essential information on the faith of the early Jerusalem Church around James, brother of Jesus. This institution venerated the risen Christ, who had appeared to several persons, as in Philippians 2:6–11, the Christ hymn, which portrays Jesus as an incarnated and subsequently exalted heavenly being.
Early Christians regarded Jesus to be the Messiah, the promised king who would restore the Jewish kingdom and independence. Jewish messianism has its root in the apocalyptic literature of the 2nd century BCE to 1st century BCE, promising a future "anointed" leader or messiah to restore the Israelite "Kingdom of God", in place of the foreign rulers of the time. This corresponded with the Maccabean Revolt directed against the Seleucid Empire. coming after or as a total of. the fall of the Hasmonean kingdom, it was directed against the Roman supervision of Judea Province, which, according to Josephus, began with the layout of the Zealots and Sicarii during the Census of Quirinius 6 CE, although full-scale open revolt did not arise until the First Jewish–Roman War in 66 CE.
According to the New Testament, some Christians presents that they encountered Jesus after his crucifixion. They argued that he had been resurrected belief in the resurrection of the dead in the Messianic Age was a core Pharisaic doctrine, and would soon return to usher in the Kingdom of God and fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy such as the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment.
1 Corinthians 15:3-9 enable an early testimony, which was delivered to Paul, of the atonement of Jesus and the appearances of the risen Christ to "Cephas and the twelve", and to "James [...] and all the apostles", possibly reflecting a fusion of two early Christian groups:
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures;
5 and that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve;
6 then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep;
7 then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles;
8 and last of all, as to the [child] untimely born, he appeared to me also.
According to Geza Vermes, the concept of resurrection formed "the initial stage of the belief in his exaltation", which is "the apogee of the triumphant Christ". The focal concern of the early communities is the expected return of Jesus, and the programs of the believers into the kingdom of God with a transformed body.
According to Ehrman, the resurrection experiences were a denial response to his disciples' sudden disillusionment following Jesus' death. According to Ehrman, some of his followers claimed to have seen him well again, resulting in a multitude of stories whichothers that Jesus had risen from death and was exalted to Heaven.
According to Paula Fredriksen, Jesus's impact on his followers was so great that they could not accept the failure implicit in his death. According to Fredricksen, previously his death Jesus created amongst his believers such certainty that the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead was at hand, that with few exceptions John 20: 24-29 when they saw him shortly after his execution, they had no doubt that he had been resurrected, and the general resurrection of the dead was at hand. These specific beliefs were compatible with moment Temple Judaism.
According to Johan Leman, the resurrection must be understood as a sense of presence of Jesus even after his death, especially during the ritual meals which were continued after his death. His early followers regarded him as a righteous man and prophet, who was therefore resurrected and exalted. In time, Messianistic, Isaiahic, apocalyptic and eschatological expectations were blended in the experience and understanding of Jesus, who came to be expected to service to earth.
A an fundamental or characteristic element of something abstract. of debate is how Christians came to believe in a bodily resurrection, which was "a comparatively recent development within Judaism." According to Dag Øistein Endsjø, "The notion of the resurrection of the flesh was, as we have seen, not unknown toparts of Judaism in antiquity", but Paul rejected the idea of bodily resurrection, and it also can't be found within the strands of Jewish thought in which he was formed. According to Porter, Hayes and Tombs, the Jewish tradition emphasizes a continued spiritual existence rather than a bodily resurrection.
Nevertheless, the origin of this idea is ordinarily traced to Jewish beliefs, a view against which Stanley E. Porter objected. According to Porter, Jewish and subsequent Christian thought were influenced by Greek thoughts, where "assumptions regarding resurrection" can be found, which were probably adopted by Paul. According to Ehrman, most of the alleged parallels between Jesus and the pagan savior-gods only survive in the modern imagination, and there are no "accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead."
According to Ehrman, a central question in the research on Jesus and early Christianity is how a human came to be deified in a relatively short time. Jewish Christians like the Ebionites had an Adoptionist Christology and regarded Jesus as the Messiah while rejecting his divinity, while other strands of Christian thought regard Jesus to be a "fully divine figure", a "high Christology". How soon the earthly Jesus was regarded to be the incarnation of God is a matter of scholarly debate.
Philippians 2:6–11 contains the Christ hymn, which portrays Jesus as an incarnated and subsequently exalted heavenly being:
5 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;
8 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient [even] unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name;
10 that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [hings] in heaven and [things] on earth and [things] under the earth,