Jesus was Jewish. He was born into a Jewish family, lived among the Jewish people, observed Jewish customs, and taught from the Jewish Scriptures.
Much of the New Testament records the gospel first spreading among Jewish people before reaching the Gentiles.
So if Jesus was a Jew, why are His followers called Christians rather than Jews? When did that distinction begin, and what does it mean for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism today?
Jesus was a Jew and came in fulfillment of prophecy of a Messiah (one who is anointed as king). The Greek word for anointed in Christos so Greek speakers would refer to the Messiah Jesus as Christ. Those following Christ were called Christians first in Antioch.
There is another division that is often not fully appreciated. One can see the gospel of the kingdom given to Israel for the nation and the gospel of grace given to Paul to distribute for Gentiles and even Jews.
Gal 2:7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
The difference was the those under the kingdom gospel did not receive salvation at the time the believed, but id they endured tot he end could look forward to the resurrection unto eternal life. They also had to keep the law. Those trusting in the gospel of grace did not have to keep the law and received salvation t the moment they trusted in it.
Christians will be raptured out of the world before the tribulation when the world turns again to Israel. At the end of the tribulation Jesus will return and the faithful remnant of Israel will receive him as their king and they will finally be the nation of priests that they were intended to be.
Jesus had a Jewish blood line, but he wasn’t Jewish. He might have observed some Jewish customs, but he didn’t bind himself to them.
So glad you’ve asked @BobEstey
According to Scripture, Jesus was Jewish. This is not merely a theological inference. The New Testament explicitly identifies Jesus with Israel, the Jewish people, the tribe of Judah, and the Davidic line.
Paul writes in Romans 15:8, “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.”
Jesus therefore came as a Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of the promises God had made to Israel’s fathers.
Matthew begins his Gospel by identifying Jesus as “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). His genealogy deliberately places Him within the history of Israel, beginning with Abraham and tracing the line through David.
Paul likewise says that Jesus was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). In Romans 9:5, Paul speaks of Israel and says that “as concerning the flesh Christ came.” The point is unmistakable. According to His human ancestry, Christ came from Israel.
Jesus was also circumcised on the eighth day, as recorded in Luke 2:21. This was the covenantal practice given to Abraham and his descendants in Genesis 17. His parents also followed the requirements of the Law concerning His presentation at the Temple and their purification (Luke 2:22–24, 39).
Jesus was raised within Jewish covenantal life and regularly attended the synagogue. Luke 4:16 says, “as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day.” Jesus also participated in the Jewish feasts and went to Jerusalem according to the requirements and customs of His people.
Perhaps most explicitly, Jesus Himself says to the Samaritan woman in John 4:22, “Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.”
Notice that Jesus says “we,” identifying Himself with the Jewish people rather than placing Himself outside of them.
Hebrews 7:14 makes the matter even more specific, saying, “For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda.” Judah was one of the tribes of Israel, and the term Jew itself is historically connected with Judah and the Jewish people.
Jesus was therefore not merely someone who happened to have Jewish ancestry. According to Scripture, He was an Israelite and a Jew, descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, belonging to the tribe of Judah, descended from David, circumcised according to the Law, raised within Jewish covenantal life, and identified as Israel’s Messiah.
There is an important distinction to make when using the word “Jewish.” Jesus lived during the Second Temple period and belonged to the Jewish world of His time. This should not simply be equated with every feature of later rabbinic Judaism. Jesus Himself frequently confronted the religious leaders of His day over their interpretation and practice of the Law.
Nevertheless, Scripture leaves no ambiguity about Jesus’ ethnic and covenantal identity. He was Jewish. He came from Israel according to the flesh, and He came as the promised Jewish Messiah who would fulfill the promises made to Israel’s fathers.
This is important when reading the New Testament because Jesus did not enter the biblical story as a Gentile who later became associated with Israel. He was born into Israel’s story. The promises, covenants, patriarchs, Davidic kingdom and prophetic expectations all form the historical and scriptural background to His ministry.
Bibliography
Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. San Francisco, 1991. The most discussed of recent books on Jesus.
Dawes, Gregory W. The Historical Jesus Question: The Challenge of History to Religious Authority. Louisville, Ky., 2001. An instructive review of the theological and philosophical issues raised by the modern quest for Jesus.
Funk, Robert W., Roy Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar. The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New York, 1993. The results of the Jesus Seminar’s voting on the words of Jesus.
Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology. Translated by John Bowden. Vol. 1: The Proclamation of Jesus. London, 1971. A systematic presentation of Jesus’ teaching by a famous German scholar.
Machoveč, Milan. A Marxist Looks at Jesus. Philadelphia, 1976. A sympathetic examination of Jesus from a Marxist perspective.
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. 3 vols. New York, 1991–2001. A detailed and comprehensive discussion of all the major issues and topics by a Roman Catholic.
Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan. Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture. New Haven, Conn., 1985. A learned overview of how Jesus has been interpreted from the first century to the twentieth century.
Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. London, 1985. An attempt to understand Jesus within his Jewish context that focuses first on what he did rather than what he said.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. The first complete edition. Translated by W. Montgomery, J. R. Coates, Susan Cupitt, and John Bowden. Minneapolis, 2001. The classic review of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that ends with Schweitzer’s own interpretation.
Vermes, Geza. Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels. Philadelphia, 1973. A Jewish scholar’s attempt to depict Jesus as a Galilean holy man.
Jesus (persons In The Bible) | Encyclopedia.com)-,Jesus,-Views%202%2C204%2C605
Surprisingly. I find Got Questions spot on here…
J.
The term [Christian] appears three times, in Acts 11.26, which notes, “it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called 'Christians”'; in Acts 26.8, which quotes King Agrippa’s sarcastic reply to Paul, “A little more and your arguments would make a Christian of me”; and in 1 Pt 4.16, where believers are exhorted, “if anyone of you should suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it.” Xριστιανοί is a rare and later synonym for “brothers,” “disciples,” and “saints,” and is derived from χριστός, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Māšîaḥ (anointed).
The Hellenized Latin -ίανος was suffixed to indicate that those assuming the title thus formed were of the household named, the partisans, clients, or slaves of the master or κυριός thus designated. The term Christian (χριστιανός) was formed on an analogy with Hρωδιανός (Herodian), καισαριανός (partisan of Caesar), and the family of titles bestowed by Christians themselves on heretics, such as Bασιλεδιανοί (followers of Basilides) and Nεστοριανός (Nestorian).
The name was formed from the title Christ because confession that Jesus was χριστός (cf. Peter’s confession, Mt 16.17) or Lord (the common Pauline formula) epitomized the believer’s faith.
The only scriptural evidence regarding the origin of the name is the notice of Acts that it was first used in Antioch, and the text can be taken to mean either that the disciples invented the term or that they accepted a name already current among their pagan neighbors. Though 1
Pt 4.16 may suggest that opprobrium attached to the name Christian, the context is the writer’s advice to those convicted or liable to be convicted before a Roman magistrate, and the shame which the reader is urged to bear gladly is probably that evoked by legal condemnation, especially when such condemnation implied guilt of crimes (atheism, anthropophagy) usually associated with profession of the name by opponents of the Church.
There is no clear evidence that the name Christian was bestowed by antagonists of the Church, though by the end of the century it was a title of honor among Christians, a term of opprobrium among pagans.
The meaning of the name, established in part by its derivation, is clarified by consideration of the significance of the title Messiah in Jewish tradition, according to which χριστιανοί are members of the royal household of Gods anointed; and by the Jewish doctrine of names, according to which names effectively represent persons and those taking the name become members of the household. Such meanings were deepened by the theology and practice of the Church, life in Christ being inaugurated by Baptism and perfected by participation in Christ’s Body and Blood. That the title Christian effectively expressed the relation between Christ and his disciples is indicated by its occurrence in Pliny’s account of the trial of Christians (Ep. 96), and in the Annals of Tacitus (15.44).
See Also: incorporation into the church.
Just an interesting little tidbit, @JennyLynne.
J.
No. Jesus was 100% Jewish. Of the Tribe of Judah, observant of the Torah, theologically a Pharisee (Jesus doesn’t condemn the doctrines of the Pharisees, Jesus condemns the hypocrisy and religious-bullying of the religious establishment). Jesus observed all the Jewish feast and holidays, including Hannukah.
Jesus was (and is) a Jew.
Saying He wasn’t Jewish is a silly statement.
Here is something that might help, but it is often left out of this kind of topic because so many brethren lack in their study of The Old Testament.
Per the Jewish historian Josephus, who lived around 100 A.D., he said the title of JEW is what those returning from the Babylon captivity called themselves, along with the strangers that returned to Jerusalem with them. (See Antiquities Of The Jews, by Flavius Josephus, Book XI, Chapter 5; Paragraph 7).
Per 1 Kings 11 forward, God split old Israel into two separate kingdoms. The Jews made up the southern “kingdom of Judah”, or “house of Judah” with its capital at Jerusalem and province of Judea. The title of Jew was used by the strangers to refer to being a Judean, and under the Jew’s religion in Judea. The “king of Judah” was still of the tribe of Judah of the house of David. The tribes of Benjamin, and Levi only were included. This is why Apostle Paul said he was a Jew born of the tribe of Benjamin. The word Jew itself was derived from the sole name of the tribe of Judah (per Josephus). A small remnant out of the northern ten tribes rejected the calf idols in the north, so they also went south and joined with the Jews (per 2 Chronicles 11).
But the ten northern tribes then became known as “Israel” after that split (1 Kings 11 forward). They were also called the “kingdom of Israel”, or the “house of Israel”, or “Ephraim” because that was the head tribe over the ten tribes, or “Samaria” because that was their capital city in the north, or “Joseph” because of Reuben, the firstborn, lost God’s Birthright to Joseph and Josephs’s two sons Ephraim and Manasseh (per 1 Chronicles 5).
Those ten northern tribes that made up the northern “house of Israel” did not use the title of JEW for themselves. They were Israelites though, but not joined with the Jews that used that title under the southern “kingdom of Judah” or “house of Judah”.
Thus a lot of preachers today reveal they have not studied this Old Testament history about the two ‘houses’ of Israelites per God’s Word, nor about what the Jewish historian Josephus said on the origin of the word Jew.
The two Israelite houses even had war against each other. Rehoboam, “king of Judah” tried to bring the northern ten tribes back under his fold, but God’s prophet told him not to, that this split was of Him (1 Kings 12).
God made Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim “king of Israel” over the ten northern tribes. Jeroboam then setup two calf idols for worship in the north to try and keep the ten tribes from going south to Jerusalem to worship. God eventually got tired of those calf idols and removed the ten northern tribes totally by the kings of Assyria to the Assyria and the lands of the Medes. To this day the ten tribes are LOST to the world, and to the Jews. The only Israelites God left in the land were the Jews of the southern kingdom, the “house of Judah”. So they only became known as Israel.
Yet God has promised through His Old Testament prophets that He will in final gather the ten lost tribes of Israel like grain through a sieve and not the least grain will fall to the ground. That means they exist as an Israelite people somewhere in the world, and are NOT known as Jews, nor even as Israelites. They have taken on the customs of Gentiles, living as Gentiles, among Gentiles. And the ten tribes actually made up the majority of the number of total Israelites before the split and scattering.
The Book of God’s prophet Hosea is one of the best Bible Books where God described what He did with the ten tribes being scattered, hinting where and among whom (Gentiles). And especially, that He would given them a New Covenant, and He would be their God, and they would be called the sons of God.
And…
First. You attribute something to Josephus that Josephus doesn’t say, namely that the “strangers” returning with Judah adopted the designation Jew.
Second.You turn the legitimate biblical distinction between the house of Judah and house of Israel into an overly rigid ethnic definition in which “Jew” essentially means Judah/Benjamin/Levi and the northern tribes could never be included under that designation.
Third.You move from the biblical fact that the northern kingdom was exiled and scattered to the unproven conclusion that the ten tribes currently exist as unidentified biological Israelites living among Gentiles. Neither Josephus nor Hosea actually establishes that proposition.
I would add Romans 9:24–26 because that is where his Hosea argument needs to face the New Testament’s own interpretation.
The article is useful because it confirms Josephus’s actual distinction, but it does not establish your ‘lost ten tribes among the Gentiles’ theory.
Also…
The distinction existed, but you have transformed a historical distinction into a rigid, permanent ethnic taxonomy and then built a modern “lost tribes” theory on top of it. Josephus does not make that final move. Read it for yourself.
You have established the historical distinction between Judah and the northern kingdom, but you have not established the additional conclusions you are drawing from that distinction Davy.
For the readers, I would recommend bookmarking these links. They are very interesting and certainly worth reading. That said, Scripture remains our primary source. Secondary sources, dictionaries, commentaries, and historical works can be very helpful, but they should always be tested against the Scriptures.
J.
Does the Insider/Outsider Theory Make Sense?
Kuhn’s insider/outsider explanation, however, is inconsistent with the evidence from early Jewish sources. For one thing, it is implausible that Jewish texts that use both terms shift between them to convey insider or outsider perspectives. For example, Jeremiah uses בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, “the children of Israel,” to refer to the Exodus generation:
ירמיה כג:ז לָכֵן הִנֵּה יָמִים בָּאִים נְאֻם יְ־הוָה וְלֹא יֹאמְרוּ עוֹד חַי יְ־הוָה אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָה אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם. Jer 23:7 Assuredly, a time is coming—declares YHWH—when it shall no more be said, “As YHWH lives, who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.”
But the prophet’s purchase of a field is witnessed by כָּל הַיְּהוּדִים , “all the Judahites,” in Jerusalem:
ירמיה לב:יא וָאֶתֵּן אֶת הַסֵּפֶר הַמִּקְנָה אֶל בָּרוּךְ בֶּן נֵרִיָּה בֶּן מַחְסֵיָה לְעֵינֵי חֲנַמְאֵל דֹּדִי וּלְעֵינֵי הָעֵדִים הַכֹּתְבִים בְּסֵפֶר הַמִּקְנָה לְעֵינֵי כָּל הַיְּהוּדִים הַיֹּשְׁבִים בַּחֲצַר הַמַּטָּרָה. Jer 32:12 And he gave the deed to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah in the presence of my kinsman Hanamel, of the witnesses who were named in the deed, and all the Judahites who were sitting in the prison compound.
Does the former reflect an insider context and the latter an outsider context? Also implausible is the idea that Josephus wrote the first eleven books of Antiquities for insiders but the final nine books (and the rest of his corpus) for outsiders. In fact, Josephus explains his use of the two terms in Antiquities.
The first eleven books cover the history of Israel through the Babylonian exile. The change in terminology marks a specific point in which only the two[8] southern tribes associated with Judah returned to the Land. These people Josephus labels “Jews” (Ioudaioi):
Ant. 11.132–33 When these Jews (Ioudaioi) learned of the king’s piety towards God, and his kindness towards Ezra, they loved [him] most dearly, and many took up their possessions and went to Babylon, desiring to go down to Jerusalem. But all the people of Israel remained in that land. So it came about that only two tribes came to Asia and Europe and are subject to the Romans, but the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates until now and are a countless multitude whose number is impossible to know.[9]
A few paragraphs later, Josephus again calls attention to his own terminological shift at this point in the story:
Ant. 11.173 From the time they went up from Babylon they were called by this name [Ioudaios] after the tribe of Judah. Since the tribe was the prominent one to come from those parts, both the people themselves and the country have taken their name from it.
Henceforth, Josephus’ historical narrative focuses on this subset of Israel, so he uses the appropriate term for that subset: Jews. Elsewhere in the Josephan corpus, he only uses “Jew”—never “Israel/Israelites”—because he is talking about the descendants of people from the ancient kingdom of Judah.
https://www.oneforisrael.org/who-are-the-true-jews/
From the links provided, interesting read and recommend it.
J.
Jesus did not come for you. If you are not of the lost Tribe of Israel, He did not come for you. But does that make Paul’s Teachings false? That it is by Grace alone you are saved and not by works? Did this mean that everything that I and others have told you is a lie? That a large portion of the New Testament is completely false and a lie from Satan himself?
Or could it be as simple as this: it’s jealousy and the refusal to accept that Jesus was indeed God Himself? Let’s look at this more closely…
Matthew 15:22-28 describes a Canaanite woman who cried unto him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." But he ignored her. The disciples told him to send her away, but she persisted, and he said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” She persisted, and He called her a pig and a dog. But then she said, “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” This caused Jesus to say, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”
First, He completely ignored her. Second, Jesus plainly says, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In Mark, it is recorded as He saying this: Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs." When Jesus sent out the Twelve, He told them this. “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.”
He was a Jew, and He came FOR the Jews. He even called non-Jews nothing more than dogs. Is this the picture of Jesus you have been taught? It is true.
The Jewish People ARE indeed God’s chosen people. They are the most oppressed, enslaved, murdered, and abused people that have ever walked the Earth. They became God’s chosen people when He, through Moses, brought them out of the land of Egypt. He set them aside from the rest of the World. He gave THEM the Law. The Commandments. They became His children through the Law, and He loved them.
Because of THEIR disobedience, the Jews’, and because of His, God’s, promises to THEM, the Jews, He had no choice. He had to come Himself. The flesh of God, the Word in the Flesh, Jesus, had to come to die for THEM. To Save THEM.
It had nothing to do with us. If the Jews accepted God and remained faithful, Jesus would never have come, and we would not be talking about Him today. But what did the JEWS do? They rejected Him and called for Him to be killed. God knew this was going to happen. So Jesus taught about this in various places. Let’s look at a couple. Matthew 21:33-46, and Matthew 22:1-10
He even told them that He, Jesus, would become a stumbling block. That even those that He came for would reject Him, yet it is by Him that Salvation will come. They got so angry and offended at this because they knew He was telling them that since they were rejecting Him, He would open up Salvation to others. Again, Jesus tells us that although there were indeed chosen people that He was calling, since they were not worthy, since they refused to accept the “Invention” or the gift of Salvation which is through Him, He would call others. Jesus again makes this plain in John 10:15-17
It was Jesus Himself that anointed Paul. It was Jesus who appointed him the first “Pope,” if you will, to the Gentiles. Paul’s message is the same as Jesus Himself. That it is not merely by the Law, or by Works, that you are saved. That it is both. Faith in Christ Jesus, that he came for, died for, and was resurrected for you, but also through following God. It is both faith and works that justify a Saint.
So in conclusion, we can see that, although true, Jesus did not come for anyone other than the Jews; by their rejecting Him, God opened Salvation unto all. If you do not accept “the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” {John 14:6} The Law will do you no good. Yet “faith without works is dead” {James 2:20}. You must have a balance in your life. Faith together with Works. And yes, Jesus DID die for you and is Lord of all.
Peter