How Jesus Became Christian

by Wilson, Barrie, Ph.D.

• ISBN13: 9780679314943
• ISBN10: 0679314946
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-10
• Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd

Summary

InHow Jesus Became Christian, Barrie Wilson asks "How did a young rabbi become the god of a religion he wouldn't recognize, one which was established through the use of calculated anti-Semitism?" Colourfully recreating the world of Jesus Christ, Wilson brings the answer to life by looking at the rivalry between the "Jesus movement," informed by the teachings of Matthew and adhering to Torah worship, and the "Christ movement," headed by Paul, which shunned Torah. Wilson suggests that Paul's movement was not rooted in the teachings and sayings of the historical Jesus, but solely in Paul's mystical vision of Christ, a man Paul actually never met. He then shows how Paul established the new religion through anti-Semitic propaganda, which ultimately crushed the Jesus Movement. Sure to be controversial, this is an exciting, well-written popular religious history that cuts to the heart of the differences between Christianity and Judaism, to the origins of one of the world's great religions and, ultimately, to the question of who Jesus Christ really wasa Jew or a Christian. From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

Barrie Wilson is the Humanities and Religious Studies professor at Toronto’s York University. He lives in Toronto.


From the Hardcover edition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue: A Personal Note

1. The Cover-Up
2. Cultures In Conflict
3. Being Jewish In A Cosmopolitan World
4. The Secrets Of History
5. The Challenge Of Jesus
6. The Promises Of Jesus
7. Jesus’s Earliest Followers: The Jesus Movement
8. What Happened To Jesus?
9. The Trouble With Paul
10. The Big Switch: Christ For Jesus
11. The Jesus Movement Fades Away
12. Paul The Radical
13. Demonizing Jewish Leadership And The Jewish People
14. Confiscating Judaism’s Heritage
15. Attacking The Jewish Concept Of God
16. Anti-Semitism
17. The Cover-Up Revealed

Epilogue: The Way Forward

Timelines

Terminology

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Excerpts

Chapter One

The Cover-Up

Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. Mary, his mother, was Jewish, and Judaism was the religion he practiced throughout his life. Jesus’ teachings focused on the important Jewish issues of the day – how to interpret the law correctly, when the Kingdom of God would appear, and how to behave righteously. He was executed as “the King of the Jews,” a political claim that the Roman authorities could not have tolerated. His earliest followers in Jerusalem were Jewish, and they, too, observed Jewish law. They thought of him as a teacher and as a Messiah figure.

But all this exploded. Within a few years of his death, around A.D. 30, Jesus began to be thought of as much more than a teacher and possible Messiah. He came to be spoken of as a Christ, a divine being – a God-human, in fact, who had preexisted his earthly life and who had become human in order to save humanity. What happened? How did Jesus the Jew become a Gentile Christ? That’s one of the questions this book explores.


Two Distinct Movements

In the course of some twenty years studying and teaching early Christian writings, I have come to some startling conclusions. For one thing, I contend that the religion of Jesus no longer exists. The movement that emerged out of Jesus’ teachings and practices, the Jesus Movement, was led by Jesus’ brother, James, in Jerusalem. It honored and treasured what the Jesus of history stood for and proclaimed. That original religion, however, was replaced, in time, by a much more successful movement. Paul, in the Jewish Diaspora around the Mediterranean, forged a new religion, the Christ Movement. We tend not to notice how truly distinctive this movement was. Part of the excitement of this book consists of exploding the commonplace notion that Paul was somehow a faithful disciple of Jesus. He wasn’t. While Paul’s innovative Christ Movement offered its members many advantages over Judaism and the Jesus Movement, it was something quite different. It was much simpler and easier to follow, and it focused on a familiar figure known throughout the Mediterranean world, that of the savior. This Christ Movement came to cover up the original teachings of Jesus. “Christifiers,” as I call them – leaders who packaged Jesus into a Christ – took charge of the early Christian movement. The original followers of Jesus – members of the Jesus Movement – faded away, being overshadowed by the more popular Christ Movement. But that process took time, some five or six centuries, before the Jesus Movement disappeared entirely.

While developing a robust theology of the divine-human Christ and creating an impressive infrastructure, the Christ Movement angrily steered its members away from Jewish practices. Why did early Christianity think it had to attack Judaism? Why was it the focus of attention, so much so that anti-Semitic sentiments are ingrained in the pages of the New Testament? There’s much more to this aspect of the story, however. As we investigate some of the writings of Paul’s religion, reflected in the New Testament and second-century Christianity, we will make a remarkable discovery.We will come to see the real roots of Christian anti-Semitism.


The Jesus Cover-Up

Looking ahead, you will discover that I contend the tradition “miscarried,” that Christianity became over time something radically different from what its originator intended. The faith that emerged was not the religion practiced by its founder. There was a switch. I call this the Jesus Cover-Up Thesis. This stance has three components.

First of all, the Jesus Cover-Up Thesis contends that the original message of Jesus and the Jesus Movement, Jesus’ earliest followers in Jerusalem, became switched for a different religion.This other religion, one that inorig

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Excerpted from How Jesus Became Christian by Barrie Wilson
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