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Archive 1

Created from list

Created from a list contained in early Christianity. The list needs cleanup and possibly a different name or clearer focus. Vassyana 17:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

List of events is a misnomer. That would be Timeline of Christianity. 68.123.65.179 20:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
This is specifically a list of events marking changes in the relations between Christians and Jews in early Christianity. Jonathan Tweet 14:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it accurate?

I question some of the dates (or rather there order). The last thing on the list of first century events is John 6:60-6:66. Surely this event happend in the life of Jesus, and thus before events recorded in Acts. Now there is a disclaimer saying "earlier if actually spoken by Jesus", but what reason is there for putting it later? Is this meant to be a date of Johns gospel being circulated, or what? This needs to be made clearer.

Also in my opinion justification for the dates (even if that justification is no more than 'According to Christian Tradition..', although that too should be cited) is needed for all of them anyway. --TM-77 (talk) 10:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Refs can be added, I just added a ref for the date of the Gospel of John. 75.15.197.47 (talk) 17:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Council of Jamnia

Why is the self-confessed "hypothetical" Council of Jamnia listed within a section entitled "Historically attested events"? Tiggs (talk) 20:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

What is the subject of this article?

What was previously, since its formation, and as described in the about template:

"This article is about events that marked the split between Early Christianity and Judaism. For a general timeline, see Timeline of Christianity."

Has been deleted by Carlaude and replaced with a cut and paste from the article Timeline of Christianity.

Obviously, this is not constructive. 75.0.1.172 (talk) 18:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I reverted your anonymous attempt to change page subject: "List of events in early Christianity" -- if you wish to make it about the Christianity/Judaism split then use {{subst:move}} on Talk:List of events in early Christianity. şṗøʀĸɕäɾłäů∂ɛ:τᴀʟĸ 18:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
This was not such a "cut and paste from the article Timeline of Christianity." Items are from the (limited scope of the) page as it was before and Timeline of Christianity and Timeline of Christian missions and Timeline of the Roman Catholic Church. şṗøʀĸɕäɾłäů∂ɛ:τᴀʟĸ 18:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Get consensus before doing major changes to articles. Also, don't make changes to someone else's talk page entries. 75.0.1.172 (talk) 18:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I see now you've changed the article's title to Split of early Christianity and Judaism. That's a much better description of the article. Thank You. 75.0.1.172 (talk) 19:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Good start

There is a lot of good material here. I am afraid i have no time to edit it (not for a few months) but I know of two sources I think other editors can request from their libraries that could be of great use: Michael Cook's Modern Jews Engage the New Testament in which he tries to summarize - for Jews, but based on a wide range of scholarship - major accounts of the rise of Christianity. Also Daniel Boyarin's Dying From God which providea an account of the split from Rabbinic sources. Good luck, Slrubenstein | Talk 00:19, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Council of Jerusalem - Noahide Law

A recent edit by 75.15.201.33 changed the text to read as follows:

"Among the Jewish practices abandoned by Proto-orthodox Christianity, Circumcision was rejected as a requirement at the Council of Jerusalem, c. 50, though the decree of the council parallels Jewish Noahide Law, which would make it an adoption rather than a rejection of Jewish practice. "

I'm unclear as to what point is being made by the new text. Further elaboration by 75.15.201.33 would be appreciated.

In any event, the current text sounds like it is arguing with itself which is very poor writing style so I'm going to revert the new text out for now. Perhaps we can discuss it and find a way to fix the text to address 75.15.201.33's concerns.

--Richard S (talk) 20:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It should read: "the decree of the council may parallel Jewish Noahide Law ..." See Council of Jerusalem for the details. Many scholars, starting with Augustine, saw the decree as paralleling Jewish Noahide Law which would put the Apostolic Decree in the Jewish sphere, rather than being a novel, non-Jewish or even anti-Jewish development. Modern Judaism also does not think Gentiles should be circumcised and advocates a set of laws for Gentiles (the Noahide Laws) which are similar to the Apostolic Decree. 75.14.223.103 (talk) 05:40, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

---It seems to me the noahide laws were likely drawn from the council of jerusalem than visa versa. Acts is a lot older than the Talmud let alone the late tractate gerim. --Teacherbrock (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Merge in Origins of Christianity or merge Apostolic Age into Origins of Christianity

Content forking can be unintentional or intentional. While Wikipedia contributors are reminded to check to make sure there is not an existing article on the subject before they start a new article, there is always the chance they will forget, or that they will search in good faith but fail to find an existing article, or simply flesh out a derivative article rather than the main article on a topic. Wikipedia's principle of assume good faith should be kept in mind here. If you suspect a content fork, give the creator of a duplicate article the benefit of the doubt. Check with people who watch the respective articles and participate in talk page discussions to see if the fork was deliberate. If the content fork was unjustified, the more recent article should be merged back into the main article.
OK, let's look at the overlapping articles one by one:
--Richard S (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree the merge would be for the sake of not lengthen History of early Christianity. While some may consider a split to have been more after 100 AD (or many other dates) there has to be some semi-arbitrary cut-off. For example, someone might claim that Christianity is part of Judaism even today. Even if we agreed with that for some reason, we can have an article on the "Origins of Christianity" that cover less than its first 2000 years. This is just as we could have an article on the "Origins of New York City," even if it is part of New York State today, and it might be an article already on the "Origins of New York".
  • If there is no limit to the scope of "Origins of Christianity" then it is a WP:Content fork with other articles and has to go. şṗøʀĸɕäɾłäů∂ɛ:τᴀʟĸ 23:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced the New York City/New York State analogy is appropriate here. Also, Origins of Christianity is less about a time period and more about the sources of Christianity (Hellenistic Judaism, Jewish messianism, etc.) It is also about whether the split was sharp (i.e. in the first few decades after the death of Jesus) or gradual (i.e. over a couple of centuries). The clear endpoint is the Edict of Milan which legalizes Christianity. Boyarin says "by late antiquity". He also argues that the leaders of the "winners" (the surviving sects) looked back and retrojected a split much earlier than truly happened. If there is to be a merge at all, I would merge Split of early Christianity and Judaism into Origins of Christianity and/or Apostolic Age into History of early Christianity although I suspect either of those merges would result in articles that are overly long. I would support 75.15.198.92's framework of article scopes as outlined below.--Richard S (talk) 14:38, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
I do not really want end Split of early Christianity and Judaism, and I don't think there would be support from others to do so either.
You are telling us what Origins of Christianity is about. The issue here is what it should be about. If there is any article "about whether the split was sharp (i.e. in the first few decades after the death of Jesus) or gradual (i.e. over a couple of centuries)" it should be Split of early Christianity and Judaism.
If we merge Origins of Christianity andApostolic Age then that is all that is needed (IMHO) to end the content fork (except that Early Christianity and Ante-Nicene Period ought to merge also, but that is another nomination...) şṗøʀĸɕäɾłäů∂ɛ:τᴀʟĸ 00:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
  • No Merge Split of early Christianity and Judaism should be a subarticle of Origins of Christianity. There are lots of Wikipedia:Reliable sources on the origins of Christianity, so the problem will be keeping that article from being too large. Spining out the subtopic of the split between Christianity and Judaism will help reduce the size of the mother article, and likewise there are plenty of sources on the subtopic so there will also be a problem with its size. Origins of Christianity should cover the topic of origins, leaving the details of the split with Judaism to the Split of early Christianity and Judaism article, and the Split of early Christianity and Judaism article should stick to that topic and not stray into general Origins of Christianity. For example: Gamaliel is significant to the split between early Christianity and Judaism but not particularly significant to the origins of Christianity. 75.15.201.33 (talk) 17:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Another way to look at things: Origins of Rabbinic Judaism should be mostly about Pharisees, Hillel and Shammai, Yochanan ben Zakai, and the development of the Talmud; Origins of Christianity should be mostly about John the Baptist, Jesus, St. Peter, St. James, Paul of Tarsus, and the Apostolic Fathers; Split of early Christianity and Judaism should be about the alledged commonality and then split between these two religions. 75.15.198.92 (talk) 19:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The only point of agreement in the discussion so far seems to be that Apostolic Age should be merged into Origins of Christianity. Let's focus on that proposal for now and see if other editors will ratify it. --Richard S (talk) 06:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Carlaude seems to think having an article on Apostolic Age and an article on Origins of Christianity is a Content fork. I disagree. They are two separate topics both well documented in Wikipedia:Reliable sources and both worthy of entries in anything calling itself an encylopedia. From Wikipedia:Content_forking#Article_spinouts.C2.A0.E2.80.93_.22Summary_style.22_articles: "Sometimes, when an article gets long (see Wikipedia:Article size), a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure. The new article is sometimes called a "spinout" or "spinoff" of the main article; Wikipedia:Summary style explains the technique." Apostolic Age is a standard Christian term and is a spinout from History_of_Early_Christianity#Apostolic_Age. Origins of Christianity is a standard topic of Christian scholars and is a spinout from Christianity#History_and_origins. Split of early Christianity and Judaism is a spinout from Christianity_and_Judaism#Inter-relationship. 75.15.199.51 (talk) 18:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
We seem to be going nowhere. Let me try to describe the landscape as I see it.
I tend to agree with 75.15.199.51. Although I could live with a merger of Apostolic Age into Origins of Christianity or History of early Christianity, I am not in favor of either merger. I would like to suggest that the discussion so far has been impoverished by discussing things at too abstract a level. IMO, we need to discuss the specifics of the scopes of each article rather than making vague arguments about policy.
First let me present my interpretation of the content fork policy.
Aside from POV forks which are generally bad because they can lead to biased articles, content forks are bad if they duplicate substantially the same content in two different articles. Such duplication creates more work for the editors and can be confusing to a reader because they might get two different impressions when reading two articles on the same subject.
However, duplication of some content between articles is not only unavoidable, it is even desirable in many situations because two articles may need to present information about the same subtopic.
My rule of thumb is that if the commonality between two articles consists of more than two-thirds of each article, you almost certainly have a content fork. If it's less than a third, then you probably don't. Between one-third and two-thirds is a judgment call.
However, the key question is not how much commonality there is between two articles now as it is how much commonality would there be if each article were developed to its logical conclusion. If you cannot imagine the two articles developing to the point where they are more different than they are alike, then you should probably merge them.
Now, another way to look at this particular discussion is to ask what the nature of the commonality is. Carlaude's arguments have mentioned temporal scope and it is true that Origins of Christianity, Split of early Christianity and Judaism, Apostolic Age and History of early Christianity all discuss roughly similar periods of time. However, Apostolic Age and History of early Christianity are more or less bound to a temporal scope (i.e. the scope is limited to a specific time period with a clear beginning and end) whereas Origins of Christianity and Split of early Christianity and Judaism are less about a time period as they are about phenomena for which scholars debate even the very nature of the phenomena and therefore there is no clear time period in which these phenomena occurred (i.e. the time period in question changes depending on what your POV is).
Using the temporal scope argument, Apostolic Age could be merged into History of early Christianity. However, arguments about article length suggest that there might be value in having a subsidiary article which focuses on a shorter time period.
Origins of Christianity reaches back into Second Temple Judaism and Jewish messianism to describe the roots of Christianity and thus covers a broader time period than Apostolic Age. We could therefore merge Apostolic Age into Origins of Christianity but the focus of Origins of Christianity is on the precursors of Christianity where as the focus of Apostolic Age.is the events and actions of the early Christians during the Apostolic Age. If you believe that Christianity began during the Apostolic Age and was fully formed by the end of it, you might take the position that these two are basically about the same topic and should be merged. I can see that and I accept that this is the traditional and mainstream view. However, recent scholarship has challenged this traditional view and the scope of the current set of articles is designed to facilitate presentation of this recent scholarship. (NB: I am not arguing here that the recent scholarship is absolutely right and the traditional view is absolutely wrong. I'm just saying that NPOV requires that we present this recent scholarship without giving it undue weight.)
Split of early Christianity and Judaism describes a phenomenon which brings Origins of Christianity to its conclusion (i.e. once the two have split, Christianity is its own stand-alone religion and that represnts the "end of the beginning of Christianity"). This argument would support a merger of Split of early Christianity and Judaism into Origins of Christianity and I would accede to such a proposal although I don't think it is absolutely necessary. I personally like content forks if they allow the reader to focus on a specific subtopic (this is what has been referred to above as a "spinoff').
The Split of early Christianity and Judaism has traditionally been characterized as happening during the Apostolic Age. Recent scholarship, however, has suggested the possibility that the two religions co-existed as competing sects for much longer than the traditional interpretation (cf. Daniel Boyarin who proposes that the two religions shared ideas well into late antiquity and that the split was actually retrojected onto the first century by the leaders of the "winning" sects.). Thus, while one could argue for merging Split of early Christianity and Judaism into Apostolic Age, I would prefer not to do so as it would get lost in there and would favor the traditional mainstream view as "true" rather than as just the prevailing POV.
--Richard S (talk) 15:40, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
We can call this closed, but I don't know where the suitable templates are offhand. See this merger proposal, first talked about here. şṗøʀĸşṗøʀĸ: τᴀʟĸ 21:35, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
If it is not too late to add an opinion: I would suggest that the period during which Christianity split from Judaism (which is also the birth of Rabbinic Judaism) (i.e the period in which Christianity is principally a Jewish sect) merits one article, and then the period in which Christians - now a clearly new religion - struggled to define orthodoxy (i.e. argued over which early views e.g. arianism were heretical or not) merits another article - these seem like logical divisions, and a lot of material curently in other articles can be redistributed accordingly. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I think that already exists. The early period is Early Christianity. The next period is the First seven Ecumenical Councils or State church of the Roman Empire. This article originally got spun out of Early Christianity because supposedly that article is too big. 75.14.212.226 (talk) 07:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Gabriel's Vision

This seems to really change the view of the pre-Christian/talmud Judaism and refutes the idea that the schism between rabbinical talmudist Judaism and early Jewish Christianity is that belief in a resurrected Messiah and atonement by his death. Shouldn't this be included?

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/dead-sea-tablet-suggests-jewish-resurrection-imagery-pre-dates-jesus-1.249239 --Teacherbrock (talk) 19:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Gabriel's Revelation. Maybe. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 15:19, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

rename proposal

Maybe to rename it to Early Christianity and Judaism, because it is quite broader term. It also covers split of early Christianity and Judaism, but also the other forms of relation and coexistence.--Mladifilozof (talk) 23:28, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Mess

This article just seems to be pinning together bits and pieces of various opinions in "higher criticism" (ie - freemasonry, deism, liberalism) and Talmudic rabbinnic circles. The concepts propagated in this article are entirely alien to, certainly, Catholicism (and also Eastern Orthodox). - 90.219.249.9 (talk) 03:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

This article needs external links to assist the reader and notable books on the topic as a resource. --41.177.4.184 (talk) 15:17, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

CE or AD

The article switches between CE and AD. It should be edited for consistency. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.220.162 (talk) 00:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Framing the Debate Section

This section should just be called "Introduction," as that is the standard. This section belongs in all articles, but this one in particular is so bad it should be tossed out and started again. The differentiation between Christianity and Judaism was more important to the Christian than to the Jew in the 1st century. To non-Jews, such as the pagans of Rome and Greece, the Christian was just a Jewish variant. Judaism had many schools of thought, as Christianity today has many denominations. Judaism made room for differences of opinion. But as the new thought, the burden of distinction lay with the new sect, the Christians. A good deal of Paul's letters in the New Testament are written with this in mind. Paul argued forcefully that Jesus' purpose was to include Gentiles. As such, he had to provide a concrete way of judaizing those converts. Unlike other apostles and church leaders, Paul took a liberal approach that demanded only an internal conversion of the heart and soul; he did not require a physical expression of conversion, chiefly circumcision and eating kosher, as others did. His Letter to the Romans is devoted to this subject. It is a crime to ignore this letter in this article. The goal of Paul's letter is make peace between the Gentile converts and the Jewish members of the synagogue of Rome. He calls the Gentiles the graft that shall bear God's fruit. The Jews ought to celebrate and embrace them for that instead of being critical of their homosexual lifestyles, while turning a blind eye to their own adultery. On the other hand, the Gentiles need to show respect for the Jews, for the Jews are the rootstock and it is not the graft that supports the roots but the roots that support the graft. Without the rootstock, the graft cannot live. And so the two, Gentile convert and Jew, together make up God's tree, the Church, and are both essential.

From the Jewish perspective, the difference between Christian (the Greek translation of "Messianic") Jews and non-Christian Jews was not so much a spiritual difference but a practical one. Christians renounced war. When the Romans retaliated against the Jews for their various rebellions, the Christians chose to flee instead of fight back. Non-Christian Jews chose the sword -- so much so that the rebels of Masada fell upon their own swords rather than surrender to the hated Romans. In this light, it was the Roman pagan that in fact drove the wedge that separated Christian from Jew, cowardice from honor. Fast forward to 1941. Christian America refuses to enter WWII and maintains the Neutrality Act, in spite of the fact that over 2 million Jews are being murdered by starvation, physical abuse, firing squad and poisonous gas. Today, this is still the split between Christian and Jew. The theological bickering is just an academic distraction from the real problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.106.232.209 (talk) 20:32, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Using a talk page is not very useful if you have no sign in name for us to talk to with. tahc chat 23:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Boyarin

Boyarin makes a number of arguments. That are controversial which this article does not address. A watered down Boyarin is used throughout this article.

1: The idea of two messiahs one suffering the second fulfilling the messianic role was / is normative to Judaism Messiah ben Joseph

2: Christianity and Judaism did not separate until the third or fourth century.

3: Jesus railed against what he viewed as laws of purity imposed by the Pharisees and not biblical Kashrut

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/103373/books-and-arts/magazine/jewish-gospels-christ-boyarin Jonney2000 (talk) 06:27, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Biased Assumption

The misunderstanding that Christianity is a development from within Judaism is common. Christianity is in origin a Hellenistic religion that was influenced by Israelite religion, not neccessarily just Jewish but also Galilean, Samaritan and Mandean religions. Much in the same way that Mithraism another Hellenistic Religion was influenced by Zoroastrianism and Hermetism by Kemetism. Hellenistic religions share a common theological and philosophical tradition that led directly to the development of the doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation. The Jewish element in the development of Christianity was istelf also Hellenistic with possible influence from Philo.

Christianity is the offspring of two parents one Greek the other half-Greek. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.60.23.206 (talk) 12:35, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Problems with Jews

The article is too centered on Jews, as in adherents of Judaism, who had already been criticized by Jesus himself during his lifetime. The problem with Judaism does not actually start after Jesus's death, but instead begins at the very beginning of the Gospels with the story of the Virgin Birth of the Man-God, something that Jews have never really accepted at all. Even long before Jesus' birth, there were tensions among certain Messianic communities. There are related problems with John the Baptist, Peter the Pope and Paul the Apostle. Even Enoch, whom Jews have long regarded as one of their own, was thought to have played an important role in the growth of Christianity. ADM (talk) 08:49, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it is obvious to an outsider, but the issue of the "Virgin Birth of the Man-God" may not be really accepted by Rabbinic Jews or modern day Jews, but saying it was never really accepted by Jews is clearly false, since the bulk of the people who characterized themselves as Christians initially were Jews. 152.131.9.69 (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment-

They were Hellenistic Israelites, Judaeans, Galileans & Samaritans etc not simply Jews. Check out the Greek names of the Disciples, Andrew (Gk - Ἀνδρέας) the first disciple and therefore the first Christian, was clearly Hellenistic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.60.23.206 (talk) 12:45, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Cleaning-up

I'm cleaning-up this article now; wil take another couple of days. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Done. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
@Joshua Jonathan: Just wanted to say that when I have time I am planning on reviewing all the changes, though the ones that I have looked at so far looked good. Cheers! {{u|zchrykng}} {T|C} 02:36, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

First Jesus followers, not first Christians

"The first Christians (the disciples or students of Jesus) were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes." This sentence might lead to confusion. While we can safely assume that an ethnically Jewish group of people had indeed been formed around a certain figure named Jesus in the 1st century Galilee, this does not necessarily mean that they were Christians, i.e. that they believed they were following an incarnated Messiah. Therefore, instead of "first Christians", it would be more appropriate to write "first followers of Jesus" or "first believers in Jesus". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.38.112.151 (talk) 16:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Oy! This article is hard to read!

There's a lot of disparate information here and the transitions between ideas need some smoothing. Some repetitions like "During the 1st century AD there were several Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians" need to be deleted. I mean, I get it, I get it! All those folks were there back then!

I find the subject fascinating, but the entry needs work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teófilo de Jesús (talk • contribs) 14:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Any idea of the numbers of early Christians compared to Jews.

It’s hard to talk about a twin birth if the vast majority of Abrahamic believers where Jews in the first century. I have no idea if this is true or not. What was the comparative population of each sect, do we know if a significant percentage say 25% plus of Jews even believed in Jesus? Jonney2000 (talk) 04:18, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Number of Jews: a lot
Number of Christians: none (in the 1st century Christians were still Jews - wasn't until the very end of the century that they became a new religion) PiCo (talk) 07:21, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
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