Most historians agree that Jesus or his followers established a new
Jewish sect, one that attracted both Jewish and gentile converts. The self-perception, beliefs, customs, and traditions of the Jewish followers of Jesus, Jesus’s disciples and first followers, were grounded in first-century Judaism. According to New Testament scholar
Bart D. Ehrman, a number of early Christianities existed in the first century CE, from which developed various Christian traditions and denominations, including
proto-orthodoxy, Marcionites, Gnostics and the Jewish followers of Jesus.
[41] According to
theologian James D. G. Dunn, four types of early Christianity can be discerned: Jewish Christianity, Hellenistic Christianity,
Apocalyptic Christianity, and
early Catholicism.
[42]
The first followers of Jesus were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish
proselytes.
Jesus was Jewish, preached to the Jewish people, and called from them his first followers. According to McGrath, Jewish Christians, as faithful religious Jews, "regarded their movement as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief-that Jesus was the Messiah."
[43]
Jewish Christians were the original members of the
Jewish movement that later became
Christianity.
[12][44][1][2] In the earliest stage the community was made up of all those Jews who believed that Jesus was the
Jewish messiah.
[1][2][45] As Christianity grew and developed, Jewish Christians became only one strand of the
early Christian community, characterised by combining the
confession of Jesus as Christ with continued
observance of the Torah[12] and adherence to Jewish traditions such as
Sabbath observance,
Jewish calendar,
Jewish laws and customs,
circumcision,
kosher diet and
synagogue attendance, and by a direct genetic relationship to the earliest followers of Jesus.
[12][44][1][13]
