On the Role of Antisemitism in Early Christianity

This book presents a comprehensive review of Gentile Christian antisemitism during its first few centuries. The issues explored include:

1.What led to “Parting of the Ways” between Christians and Jews?

2.What claims did Christians make against Jews?

3.How was Gentile Christian antisemitism expressed? In what directions did it develop? What functions did it serve?

4.Why did Jews not become Christians?


In brief, common expressions of Christian antisemitism root in the Gospel claim that the Jews caused Jesus’ crucifixion. Although long propagated, it is important to show that such antisemitic claims were not based on historical reality. By Jewish standards of the time (such as circumcision, temple worship, holiday observances, and food purity laws), Jesus was and remained an observant “Jew,” as did his disciples. Jesus’ main adversary (as for more than two dozen other historic messianic figures) was an exploitative society governed by Roman rule. Jesus’ compassionate concerns were for the impoverished majority of Palestine’s Jews who were oppressed subjects of Rome and its supporters. His crucifixion by the Romans was not for religious heresy, but for leading or joining an attempt at political insurrection in proclaiming an imminent “Kingdom of God.”


To dispute its origin as merely a new superstition worshipping a crucified supposed “Son of God,” Gentile Christianity used Jewish Scriptures to gain prestige and credibility by presenting itself to the Roman public as a long-standing anciently-sanctified religion. In this process, founders of Gentile Christianity subverted Jewish history, claiming, for example, that Jewish patriarchal figures such as Abraham were actually Christian; that the appearance of their savior Jesus Christ had been prophesied in these ancient documents; that the laws and rituals prescribed in the Jewish Scriptures were abrogated by the new appearance of Jesus Christ; and that the Jews are obstinate sinners blind to the claims of “Godly” Gentile Christians, the “True Israelites.”


This book cites more than five hundred bibliographic reference works that examine and discuss these views.