When Christians were Jews | Paula Fredriksen | Biblical Time Machine

Paula Fredriksen - When Christians were Jews
A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion.
How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God’s promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus’s prophecy—“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”—they were, in their own eyes, history’s last generation. But in history’s eyes, they became the first Christians.
In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group’s hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement’s midcentury missions, to the city’s fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple‑centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.

Helen is professor of Christian origins at Edinburgh University. The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed. Her research focuses on the social and political history of first century Judaea, the historical Jesus and the canonical gospels.
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"I have always thought of the historical Jesus as a homeland Jew within Judaism within the Roman Empire. For me, then, within Judaism within the Roman Empire has always been the absolutely necessary matrix rather than the annoyingly unnecessary background for any discussion of earliest Christianity."
John Dominic Crossan

Yeshua and Yaakov | Jewish Martyrs

Did the original intentions of the Historical Jesus die with him? Does it matter and should it matter to modern believers? Is the theological narrative the gospel writers formed so important in its impact to the point that the historical Jesus intentions/actions are insignificant and secondary to the current believers theological goals/needs? The Biblical texts are a rolling process where the writers and readers of the text have a part in the formation and meaning. Those who claim orthodoxy cannot escape that they too are part of this rolling process and may also have difficulty wrestling with the original context concerning Yeshua of Nazareth/Galilee.

Textual meaning that adapts to the environment survives. The original meaning to the people of the past may not survive but the text survives for the people who shape it to their environment.

"And they all forsook him, and fled."
Gospel of Mark

The Misunderstood Jew | Misunderstood History and Prophecy The American Jesus vs The Gospel Jesus vs The Historical Jesus A complex puzzle
The revelation of Flesh and Blood

"Trying to find the actual Jesus... the lines connecting the original figure to the developed legends cannot be traced with mathematical accuracy; the intervention of unknown factors has to be allowed for. Consequently, results may never claim more than probability."
Historian Morton Smith

"Hope is not always history, and neither is hyperbole. In this case, as so often before and after, horror is history."
John Dominic Crossan

"I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Messiah and him crucified."
The Apostle Paul


The original diversity of late second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity meets the bottleneck of the great clashes between the Jewish rebellions and the Roman Empire. Out of the Anvil and the Hammer will emerge a new religion and a new Judaism forged from this dynamic explosive mix of civilizations. Jesus and Judah The gospel writers typological narratives after the Jewish revolt | Judah of Sicarri and Barabbas the rebel (assassins, rebels, bandits, thieves) Jesus in his last days is surrounded by this contrast including those crucified with him. "Ideal types simplify a complex reality"The gospel writers have the crowd choose the ideal rebel type (Barabbas) contrasting their internationalist gentile interpretation of Yeshua. The crowd chooses the rebellion and the betrayer is sicarri. The influential target audience of the gospel writers are primarily government administrators (tax collectors) and soldiers (including roman centurions).

"for my family, my kin of the flesh: Israelites they are, and to them are due the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Torah, the worship, the promises; of them were the patriarchs, and from them is the Messiah in the flesh - who is over all, and whom God blessed, forever...for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable."
Paul, Letter to the community in Rome

The pen of pseudo Paul and the sword of Rome were too much for the original Messianic movement of John, Jesus, and James to be left unscathed in its original form.