Further evidence of the Jewishness of the early believers can be found in an incident recorded in Acts 21:20,
an incident which occurred some twenty-five years after the Y‘shua‘s ascension. When Paul returned to
Jerusalem with some charitable contributions for the believers, he was told that during his absence many
thousands of Jews had become believers; yet they continued to be staunch upholders of the Law.
Hebraic Names for the Early Church
Not only were the first fifteen elders of the Jerusalem Church Jewish, but so were the initial names applied to
the early congregations. The term Minim, meaning "heretics" in Hebrew, was used by some in the Jewish
community to describe the new believers. The Way, used in Acts 24:14 and 22 was a Messianic term taken
from texts such as Isaiah 40:2, which refers to preparing "the way of the Lord‖. The Nazoraioi is Greek for
Nazarenes (Acts 24:5) and is obviously derived from Y‘shua‘s Jewish hometown. The term Messianists is
derived directly from the Hebrew word Messiah. Epiphanius‘ history says that before the believers were
called Christians, they were for a short time known by the title Iessaioi, probably derived from the name
Y‘shua (Ray Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1992),
p.l3)), a name saturated with the idea of salvation. Each of these names has a Hebraic background and is
closely related to an Old Covenant text.
The word Christian does not come from the Hebrew word for Anointed One but from a Greek word, and was
not used by the Jerusalem Church at all. Christian was first used as a Gentile title for the believers at Antioch
some forty to forty-five years into the First Century (Acts 11:26). The term ―were called" suggests that the
name was coined by those outside the Church, perhaps to distinguish the disciples of Y‘shua from
unconverted Gentiles, as well as from other branches of Judaism. There is no evidence that the term was
used extensively as a self-designation by the early Church, since it is only used three times in the New
Covenant and only once by a believer (Acts 11:26; 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16).
The word Christian does not appear consistently as a self-designation until the Didache (Roswell Hitchcock,
ea., Didache, 12:4 (Willits, CA: Eastern Orthodox Publishers, 1989)) and was used later by Ignatius during
the late First or early Second Century.19 The reason this term was not used earlier may be explained by a
letter from the Roman Governor Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan around the year A.D. 112. The letter
indicates that those identifying with this name were killed (David Freedman, ea., Anchor Bible Dictionary,
Vol. l, (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp.925-26).
In examining the Jewish roots of the Church, it is important to differentiate between the Hebrew Christians,
such as the Nazarenes and Messianists at the beginning; and the various groups of Ebionites with their
Judaising traits, which were active around the turn of the First Century. The early Hebrew Church was
composed of those who believed in justification by faith as well as those who stressed traditions that involved
legalism. Although most Jewish believers continued to keep the Sabbath and the various laws that
differentiated them from non-Jews (strictly as an identification code), they did not require it for their non-
Jewish converts. This identification as a Jew had nothing to do with salvation, but was kept by Jews as a
reminder of the special eternal Covenant that God had made with them as a chosen people. The Covenant
reminded God‘s people that they were the guardians of the Holy Land and were obliged to maintain and
preserve the Law (Gen 15:18, 17:7-10, Deut 7:6, Psalm 105:45, Ezek 16:6, Isaiah 44:1 and Rom 3:1-2).
After an investigation of all Scripture relating to Israel, it appears that the chosen people status was not
awarded as a special privilege, but because the people of Israel could be trusted to preserve the Law of God
(Psalm 105:45). Although some 170 of the 613 Laws of the Torah apply to moral and ethical matters, few
Christians recognise them as a part of modern theology and it has fallen to the Jewish people to preserve
this aspect of God‘s Law until the present.
Judaism and Christianity
To those outside of Judaism, Christianity was seen merely as another group of Jews. Christianity was
identified by the world as nothing more than one additional view among many within the diverse religion of
Judaism. That view from the outside continued for centuries.
Until the year A.D. 325 the Christians were considered to be a Jewish sect, and they had a large following in
the country. Debates between the Orthodox and Christian Jews were a common occurrence (Gershom
Bader, translated by Solomon Katz, The Encyclopedia of Talmudic Sages (Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale,
N.J., 1988), p. 462).
Then, as now, a variety of opinions were common within Judaism. Disagreement was acceptable and
commonplace. Although Y‘shua did not agree with all facets of Judaism or the Jewish leaders, He was a