Historical Background of The New Testament - The Divergence of Early Christians and Rabbinic Jews

The Divergence of Early Christians and Rabbinic Jews

Main article: Split of early Christianity and Judaism See also: Origins of Christianity and List of events in early Christianity

As with many religions, no precise date of founding is agreed by all parties. Christians traditionally believe that Christianity began with Jesus' ministry, and the appointment of the Twelve Apostles or the Seventy Disciples, see also Great Commission. Most historians agree that Jesus or his followers established a new Jewish sect, one that attracted both Jewish and Gentile converts. Historians continue to debate the precise moment when Christianity established itself as a new religion, apart and distinct from Judaism. Some Christians were still part of the Jewish community up until the time of the Bar Kochba revolt in the 130s, see also Jewish Christians. As late as the 4th century, John Chrysostom strongly discouraged Christians from attending Jewish festivals in Antioch, which suggests at least some ongoing contact between the two groups in that city. Similarly for the Council of Laodicea around 365. See also Shabbat, Sabbath in Christianity, Quartodeciman, Constantine I and Christianity. According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen,

The separation of Christianity from Judaism was a process, not an event. The essential part of this process was that the church was becoming more and more gentile, and less and less Jewish, but the separation manifested itself in different ways in each local community where Jews and Christians dwelt together. In some places, the Jews expelled the Christians; in other, the Christians left of their own accord.

According to Cohen, this process ended in 70 CE, after the great revolt, when various Jewish sects disappeared and Pharisaic Judaism evolved into Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity emerged as a distinct religion. Many historians argue that the Gospels took their final form after the Great Revolt and the destruction of the Temple, although some scholars put the authorship of Mark in the 60s, and need to be understood in this context. They view Christians as much as Pharisees as being competing movements within Judaism that decisively broke only after the Bar Kokhba's revolt, when the successors of the Pharisees claimed hegemony over all Judaism, and – at least from the Jewish perspective – Christianity emerged as a new religion.