Jewish Christian

This article deals with the historical concept. For the modern-day religious movement see Messianic Judaism.Jewish Christians, also Hebrew Christians or Judeo-Christians, were the original members of the Jewish movement that later became Christianity. In the earliest stage the community was made up of all those Jews who accepted Jesus as a venerable person or even the Messiah. As Christianity grew and evolved, Jewish Christians became only one strand of the early Christian community, characterised by combining the confession of Jesus as Christ with continued adherence to Jewish traditions such as Sabbath observance, observance of the Jewish calendar, observance of Jewish laws and customs, circumcision, and synagogue attendance, and by a direct genetic relationship to the earliest Jewish Christians.The term ""Jewish Christian"" appears in historical texts contrasting Christians of Jewish origin with Gentile Christians, both in discussion of the New Testament church and the second and following centuries. It is also a term used for Jews who converted to Christianity but kept their Jewish heritage and traditions.Alister McGrath, former Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, claims that many 1st century ""Jewish Christians"" were totally faithful religious Jews. They differed from other contemporary Jews only in their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. Those that taught that Gentile converts to Christianity ought to adopt more Jewish practices than the Church had already included, however, were called ""Judaizers"". Though the Apostle Peter was initially sympathetic, the Apostle Paul opposed the teaching at the Incident at Antioch (Gal. 2:11-21) and at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:6-35), where Paul's teaching was accepted by the whole Church. Nevertheless, Judaizing continued for several centuries, particularly among Jewish Christians.As Christianity grew throughout the Gentile world, Christians diverged from their Jewish and Jerusalem roots. Jewish Christianity, initially strengthened despite persecution by Jerusalem Temple officials, fell into decline during the Jewish-Roman wars (66-135) and the growing anti-Judaism perhaps best personified by Marcion (c. 150). With persecution by the orthodox Christians from the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century, Jewish Christians sought refuge outside the boundaries of the Empire, in Arabia and further afield. Within the Empire and later elsewhere it was dominated by the Gentile based Christianity which became the State church of the Roman Empire and which took control of sites in the Holy Land such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Cenacle and appointed subsequent Bishops of Jerusalem.