On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:58:37 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> As I recall, who know how accurately, her
> thesis was that very early Christianity was a Jewish sect or heresy,
> so conceived, and that the first "mission" of the early Christians,
> say roughly the people who knew Jesus (Yeshua, that's Josh to you),
> was to win over the Jews to the right kind of Judaism, sort of like
> the Lubavichers. Over the hundred or so years, if memory serves me
> here, between Mark and John, the early Christians became
> increasingly disillusioned with this goal, proselytized among the
> Gentiles with greater success, and
> became anti-Semitic in part because Jews were unmoved by their
> appeals.
>
It should be kept in mind too that Jews were at that time very much in the proselytization business. I have seen estimates that the Roman Empire's population was as much as ten percent Jewish. Presumably those Jews were not all descendents of folk from Palestine. So the new Christian sect was following in the footsteps of their fellow Jews. However, one advantage that they had all the other Jews was the dropping of the requirement that male converts had to undergo circumcision. That requirement was, not too surprisingly, a show stopper for many Greek and Roman men who were otherwise intrigued by Jewish teachings. In fact many of the synagogues in the Roman Empire had special sections reserved for the Gentiles who would frequent the services without undergoing formal conversion. ____________________________________________________________ You Have 3 New Flings! 3 people want to have a FLING with you! View Your Flings! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/JKFkuJi7W5H6XLZAFjpNiOEOPpcCYdO0H2CSSVnMYnbS0KhVYMP50h/