Jesus Before Christ: Restoring a Jewish Context for Being Christian Today

Jesus was born a Jew, raised as a Jew and died as a Jew. He would never have understood the Christian belief system, because he was not founding a new religion. The earliest followers of Jesus were Jewish and called themselves people of the Way. They constituted a Jewish sect for more than 50 years after the death of Jesus. The earliest use of the term “Christian” referred to the apostle Paul’s ministry to “God-Fearers,” non-Jews worshiping in the synagogues and in other meeting places outs...