Jesus was a Christian, Not a Jew

The way religion is usually taught, Judaism is the oldest religion. Jesus and his disciples were Jews, and Christianity started as a sect of Judaism, until it eventually split into a separate religion.

I think this is backwards.

According to Wikipedia, Rabbinical Judaism did not get going until the 6th century AD. The chief text is the Talmud, and that was written around 500 AD.

The chief Christian text is the Gospels, written closer to 100 AD. Christianity had a well-defined set of beliefs by the time of the Nicene Creed in 325 AD.

You might say that both Jews and Christians revere the Old Testament, and that is considered more Jewish law than Christian law. That is true, but only shows that Judaism and Christianity have some overlap in their origin stories.

But Jesus was born in Bethelem, part of Jewish territory, you may say. Actually the area was under Roman occupation at the time. Paul, who was the chief proponent of Christianity for a while, was believed to have been a Roman citizen. Jesus and the other disciples may well have considered themselves more Roman than Jewish, for all we know.

So it seems to me to make just as much sense to say that Christianity is the oldest religion, and Judaism was a Christian sect that eventually split into a separate religion.

I would prefer to say that Christianity is a rejection of Judaism, but maybe I have it backwards, and it is more accurate to say that Judaism is a rejection of Christianity.

Islam also claims Abrahamic origins, so maybe Moslems think that they are the original true religion, and that Christianity and Judaism are rejections of Islam. Except that I do not think anyone would say that. Christianity and Judaism were well-developed when Mohammad founded Islam.

People say that Jesus was a Jew, but does that mean he had Jewish DNA or he subscribed to Judaism? I do not think that either was well-defined at the time. He had his own set of beliefs. Saying that he was Jew seems like just an anti-Christian thing to say.

Here is another view, from a Palestinian Arab:

Few figures in Middle Eastern or world history are as contested as Jesus of Nazareth. To Christians, Jesus is their Messiah, the Son of God, and God made flesh, the cornerstone of their religion, the world’s largest. During his lifetime, he was a Jewish rabbi living in first-century Roman Judea. ...

Claiming that Jesus was Palestinian is not only anachronistic, it is as inaccurate as asserting that he was Israeli, Ottoman, Byzantine, or a Christian Crusader — since none of these identities existed in his time. Each reflects a later historical period and different sociopolitical realities. Superimposing any of these identities onto Jesus simply does not align with the reality of the first century or describe either his ministry or his followers.

Jesus’s identity was fundamentally Jewish. His teachings, as recorded in the Gospels, were thoroughly rooted in Jewish scripture and traditions and his arguments with the religious leaders of the various Jewish sects of the time — the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and others — were internal debates within Judaism. Jesus lived in a Jewish society, addressed the concerns of his fellow Jews, and was ultimately executed by the Romans as “King of the Jews,” a title that reflects the way in which both his supporters and his enemies viewed him.

I say that saying Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, or a follower of Judaism, is just as anachronistic. Rabbinical Judaism did not exist yet. Jesus did not teach based on the Talmud, and his message was not Jewish.

Merry Christmas.