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.

O relatare convingatoare a inceputurilor evreiesti ale crestinismului, de la unul dintre cei mai de seama eruditi ai religiei antice din lume. Cum a reusit un grup de misionari evrei carismatici, apocaliptici, care lucreaza sa-si pregateasca lumea pentru realizarea iminenta a promisiunilor lui Dumnezeu catre Israel, care au inaugurat o miscare care ar creste in biserica gentilica?