development of Jewish ideas of martyrdom occurred mainly in the
first few centuries ADin a context where Jewish and Christian
ideas influenced each other (Boyarin 1999).
Christianity’s debt to Judaism needs to be rethought. There
is a growing consensus that Jewish and Christian ideas about
proselytism and martyrdom did not develop sequentially, with
Christianity inheriting them from Judaism; rather, they developed
in parallel, perhaps even through some process of mutual influ-
ence. It is important to bear in mind that Judaism was not some
fixed system of practices and beliefs, but was itself subject
to evolution as much as Christianity was. The early Christian
centuries coincided with a period of profound trauma for the Jews,
which forced upon them significant developments in terms of their
religious life. This is particularly true of the place occupied by
Jerusalem in Judaism. The first Jewish revolt against Rome in
66–70 ended with the destruction of the great temple in Jerusalem
that had been the centre of Jewish cult. After the second Jewish
revolt led by Simon bar Kochba in 132–5, Jerusalem itself effec-
tively ceased to exist: in its place stood the Roman city of Aelia
Capitolina, named after the emperor Hadrian, whose family name
was Aelius, and Jupiter Capitolinus, the patron deity of Rome.
Such destruction and desecration wrought tremendous changes in
Judaism, as the primary cultic focus on Jerusalem and its temple
was eclipsed, and a new religious leadership, the rabbis, gradually
emerged. Thus, just as the first three centuries ADsaw the devel-
opment of Christianity, so too they saw the evolution of a new form
of Judaism. There were contacts between them, as we have seen,
but these were not instances of Christianity slipping back into its
Jewish background. Instead, they were features of a more dynamic
process that saw the emergence of not one, but two religions.Mission and conversion: the expansion of early Christianity
Whoever Jesus was, and whatever the nature of his followers’
relationship with contemporary Judaism (or Judaisms), it is indis-
putable that the movement that regarded him as the MessiahCONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
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