Orthodox Jews or New Movement? The First Christians in Palestine

Taken from the book Unity and Diversity in the New Testament by the scholar James D.G. Dunn

How 'Orthodox' Was Earliest Palestinian Christianity?

The first Christians were Jews. Even accepting Luke's account of the range of nationalities present at Pentecost, they were all 'Jews and proselytes'. And even though they believed that Jesus was the Messiah and risen from the dead, that did not alter their standing or outlook as Jews, although, to be sure, their belief in a crucified Messiah and a resurrection already begun or past would be regarded as eccentric by most other Jews. They constituted a small messianic conventicle or eschatological sect within Judaism, but they continued to think and act as Jews in all matters most characteristic of Judaism. This can be demonstrated with sufficient probability.

(a) They evidently regarded themselves as the climax of Judaism, Jewish Christianity what Paul later called 'the Israel of God': thus 'the twelve' presumably constituted the earliest community's focal point in their role as representatives of eschatological Israel;

So too, the earliest function of the Lord's Supper was probably as the meal of the new covenant.

(b) They apparently continued to observe the law without question, not interpreting their traditions of Jesus' words and actions in a manner hostile to the law. Hence, the Pharisees seem to have seen in them little or nothing of the threat which Jesus had posed and not a few became members of the Jesus-sect while still remaining Pharisees; hence too the shock of the Cornelius episode to the Jerusalem believers - it had not occurred to them that faith in Jesus the Christ might make the purity law irrelevant.

(c) They evidently continued to be firmly attached to the temple, attending daily at the hours of prayer, regularly coming together there for mutual support and in order to teach and evangelize. Luke's account of the earliest period in the life of the new community ends with them never having stirred from Jerusalem and still largely centered on the temple. Moreover, the fact that the teaching about the offering was preserved in the Jesus-tradition suggests that it had continuing relevance for the first Christians—that is, they continued to use and be part of the sacrificial cultus; note the similar implication elsewhere.

(d) Their belief in the imminent parousia of Jesus, the Son of Man, Messiah, and Lord seems to have stayed within the framework of Jewish eschatological hope. This is probably the chief reason why they remained so firmly rooted in Jerusalem and centered on the temple, for the temple was the obvious focal point of the imminent consummation, as Malachi clearly indicated; and the tradition of the mysterious word of Jesus about destroying and rebuilding the temple certainly testifies that the hope of a renewed cultus in the eschatological temple was cherished among the first Christians.

(e) This would also explain why there was such a lack of concern for the Gentiles or for mission outside Jerusalem among the earliest Jerusalem community. They were still thinking only in terms of Israel. In so far as the Gentiles entered into their thinking, it would probably be in terms of the long-cherished hope that in the new age, the Gentiles would flock to Mount Zion (with the diaspora Jews) to worship God there as eschatological proselytes—a perspective and a hope which Jesus himself may well have shared.

In short, it is evident that the earliest community in no sense felt themselves to be a new religion, distinct from Judaism. There was no sense of a boundary line drawn between themselves and their fellow Jews. They saw themselves simply as a fulfilled Judaism, the beginning of eschatological Israel. And the Jewish authorities evidently did not see them as anything very different from themselves: they held one or two eccentric beliefs (so did other Jewish sects), but otherwise they were wholly Jewish. Indeed, we may put the point even more strongly: since Judaism has always been concerned more with orthopraxy than with orthodoxy (right practice rather than right belief), the earliest Christians were not simply Jews but in fact continued to be quite 'orthodox' Jews.

Notice then, that this is the group with whom Christianity proper all began. Only their belief in Jesus as Messiah and risen, and their belief that the last days were upon them mark them out as different from the majority of their fellow Jews. None of the other great Christian distinctives that come to expression in and through Paul are present. The Lukan psalms were probably used from earliest days in this community, and we have already seen how undistinctively Christian they are. Altogether, it is a form of Christianity which we today would scarcely recognize—Jewish Christianity indeed, or perhaps more precisely, a form of Jewish messianism, a messianic renewal movement within pre-70 Judaism.

If we now shift our glance from the beginning of Christianity forward 150 years or so into the second century and beyond, it at once becomes evident that the situation has significantly altered: Jewish Christianity, far from being the only form of Christianity, is now beginning to be classified as unorthodox and heretical.