Making Jesus the Messiah

Long before the time of Jesus, Jewish communities spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Many of these congregations are augmented by growing numbers of Gentiles, known as God-fearers, who participate in the synagogue, follow many Jewish practices but reject adult circumcision.

Soon after the crucifixion of Jesus, his first followers, all Jews, start new congregations in Palestine and the Diaspora, preaching his Jewish message. Two years later, in the year 35, Paul, a Jew from Asia Minor, will join this movement and change its character and direction forever.

During Paul’s early missions to Diaspora synagogues, he finds that these gentile Jewish “sympathizers” respond to his proposals for a “New Israel.” They will provide him with the market opening he needs to start his first congregations.

Making Jesus the Messiah illuminates to pivotal relationship between Paul and this market segment of God-fearers in the earliest history of Christianity. With his first communities established, Christianity is born.