How Jesus Became Christian

Title: How Jesus Became Christian – The Early Christians and the Transformation of a Jewish Teacher into the Son of God

Author: Barrie Wilson

Publisher: Phoenix 2009 (First published: 2008)

ISBN: 978-0-7538-2579-2

Pages: 284

A good book written with much moderation and backup research in contrast to the provocative nature of the title. Religion is an avenue of human venture where study of early history is not entertained. The faithful follow the priesthood whose imprimatur substitutes reason. But scholars and objective students of early history of the church feels a vacuum between the time when Jesus preached in Judaea and the Christian church was established, covering the first 350 years of the Common Era. This book steps in to fill the vacuum with comprehensive coverage of events and personalities who defined the new religion and pioneered its way in the turbulent centuries of the early Christian era. Barrie Wilson is eminently suitable for the task, being the Professor of Humanities and Religious Studies at Toronto’s York University. He is an award-winning educator and teaches courses on early Christianity, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple literature. He is the author of a number of academic books, but this is his first book for the general reader. But the simplicity and clarity of detail showcased in the book belie the fact that this is his first work for the lay man. The book spans seven hundred years of history of eastern Mediterranean from 300 BCE to 400 CE.

Alexander the Great was the single most influential character in history who changed the course of it. His campaigns caused Greek civilization to spread on the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. City states on the model of Greek ones like Athens and Sparta sprang up which accommodated a cosmopolitan society practicing multiple religions, most of them polytheistic. Unlike the Jews of Israel, those religions showed a spirit of assimilation and cooperation towards Hellenization, which found the monotheistic Jewish community making sacrifices to get along with the foreigners in their midst and who ruled over them. Such non-Jews were called Gentiles, a disparaging term among pious circles. The strict dietary and social customs and unrelenting demand for allegiance to a single god created tensions in the community. Four major factions originated out of the necessity to wake up to challenges. The first one, Sadducees were wealthy priests and accommodated the wishes of their occupiers – the Greeks at first and Romans later – often by forcibly suppressing claims of would-be Messiahs who sought to obtain deliverance from foreign yoke. The second party, Pharisees concentrated on education by which religious values were imbibed. The Essenes, a community which withdrew from the society to found closed networks on the Dead Sea coast were hardliners. The Zealots were the most passionate about keeping the Jewish spirit alive and resolved to fight the occupiers whenever events presented an opportunity.

Judaism fervently hoped for a Messiah in these turbulent times who would overthrow foreign rule, establish an independent Jewish state, become the Davidic king, usher in an era of universal peace and establish the kingdom of God. The wicked would be eradicated and the righteous dead would be resurrected to a stretch of eternal life. Those who are living and faithfully follow the Torah (the first five books of Old Testament) would also have immortality. Such was the grand scheme of things envisaged by an increasingly desperate Jewish people. Wilson presents a well-researched argument that Jesus was an ultra orthodox Jew who taught rigorous practice of the Torah. Clear and varied quotations from the gospels are furnished to support the claim. While we get a general impression that the argument may hold generally, it appears that Jesus’ attitude to many points of the religious law, like observance of Sabbath was liberal, thus negating the author’s chain of reasoning. Jesus promised a new state, a kingdom of God which would materialize in his own lifetime in which he would become king. Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem mocking marks of royalty was exactly to convey the message. The Sadducees, backed by Roman troops were not amused at this political affront to Roman order, the Pax Romana and had him crucified. His disciples were disappointed at the kingdom not arriving, then hoped for Jesus to reappear and proclaim it.

James, who was one of Jesus’ own brothers, headed the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem. They were thoroughly Jewish, who saw Jesus in flesh and blood. Their conception of him was as a mere mortal, having no divinity, no virgin birth and no resurrection, but a great Rabbi chosen by God. Their descendants continued for more than a century under the title of Ebionites and Nazareans. Meanwhile Paul, who also was a Jew, but not rigorously following the Law began preaching a Christ Movement among the gentiles, mainly in areas now in Turkey. His disciples were reluctant to follow the 613 injunctions in the Torah required to be followed by the faithful, including male circumcision, dietary strictures, observance of Sabbath and others. Paul’s Christ was a saviour figure appealing more to Romans than the historical Jesus who was only a Jewish Messiah claimant. His followers needed to practice the simpler Noahide laws which were only seven in number. However, his movement needed to possess the authority of antiquity to claim and obtain legitimacy in the Roman world which venerated ancient objects and beliefs. That link was provided by the Book of Acts of the Apostles, which the author says was penned by Luke, the gospel writer. It fused the Jesus and Christ movements into two arms of a common movement when in fact both the groups exhibited characteristics of different religions. Wilson goes on to claim that around the end of the first century, the present sequence of books of the New Testament emerged, but they are not arranged chronologically. The epistles of Paul are the oldest documents in the collection, followed by gospels of Mark and Matthew, then by Luke, Acts and finally John. Eventually, Paul’s Christ Movement was transformed into modern Christianity while Jesus Movement petered out. Paul also established that belief in Jesus Christ was the only requirement expected of a follower who need to obey Torah.

Pauline Christianity, embellished with Greco-Roman mythology, gained converts and became very strong in the 2^nd century. Virgin birth and resurrection was two of its cornerstones. Wilson presents several examples from other theologies of the time where virgin birth is resorted to. These include Attis (a god and virgin mother Cybele), Pythagoras (god Apollo and human mother Parthenis), Caesar Augustus (god Apollo and mother Atia), the Persian religious figure Zoroaster and many more.

Wilson’s message is loud and clear. We read that “Jesus never converted to another religion. Nor did he start one. If he were to return, he’d probably be amazed – perhaps bewildered or possibly even angry – at what has been created in his name” (p.72). The author alleges that Paul and his followers were partisan to a Jesus Cover-Up program in which the human Jesus was erased out of the text and supplanted with a  god-human, dead-resurrected Christ. Those Jews who saw him practicing in their midst and who were aware of the great chasm developing between them and Paul’s Movement opposed it. The Proto-Orthodox (early Christians) abhorred the presence of Jews who could blow up their cover. Wilson thus identifies the origins of still pestering antisemitism in Christian texts to this feeling of confusion and guilt at having usurped the Jews of their heritage.

The book definitively possess an air of belonging to one of the genres of conspiracy theories. The author is passionate about the concepts which he deems to be true, but fails to account for even some straightforward inconsistencies. He argues that Paul divorced the ideals of his new religion from Judaism to align it with Greek/Roman mystery cults, so as to win converts and to assimilate it into Hellenization. But this argument fails to explain the antagonism it met at the hands of Roman emperors who suppressed it mercilessly until Constantine converted to it in 310s. The book fails to convincingly present the reason for this antipathy if Paul had so disguised it as a Greek cult.

The author assumes the historicity of Jesus as authentic, even though there are disagreements among scholars in this regard too. The book is equipped with a nice timeline and glossary, but the author’s insistence on the use of terms like A.D. and B.C. instead of the secular C.E and B.C.E diminishes its claims to scholarly authenticity. Even though littered with weak arguments stemming from conspiracy theory, it however collects some novel arguments which would attract readers’ attention.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star