Jews, Jesus, and the Early Church: Uncovering What We Thought We Knew

From the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C.E. to Constantine's conversion in 325 C.E., Judaism and Christianity weren't two separate, fully formed religions moving in parallel. For centuries they were entangled, overlapping, and often indistinguishable from one another. This course traces that shared and contested history: the rebuilding of Jewish life after the return from exile; the upheavals of Hellenism, the Hasmonean revolt, and the arrival of Rome and Herod; the bewildering diversity of Second Temple "Judaisms," the sects, movements, prophets, and revolutionaries within which Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught; and the catastrophic Jewish revolts of 66–73 and 132–135 C.E. that reshaped Jewish life and accelerated the emergence of both rabbinic Judaism and the early Jesus movement.

We'll follow both traditions as they grow apart, tracing two distinct branches of the early Jesus movement alongside the codification of the Mishnah and the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism, through persecution, martyrdom, and battles over orthodoxy and heresy, into the recognizable structures of the Church, culminating in Constantine and a new imperial era for Christianity. Drawing on recent scholarship, including Daniel Boyarin's work, we'll also see how much deeper and more lasting the ties between Jewish and Christian communities really were, right up through how each side came to define itself, and be defined, as separate from the other.

• Anyone curious about the shared origins of Judaism and Christianity
• Readers interested in Second Temple Judaism, the historical Jesus, or the rise of rabbinic Judaism
• Students of ancient history, biblical studies, or early Christianity
• Anyone who assumes Judaism and Christianity were always clearly distinct religions, and wants that assumption tested

• A clearer picture of Jewish history from the Babylonian exile through the codification of the Mishnah
• An understanding of the diverse, contested world of Second Temple "Judaisms" that produced both rabbinic Judaism and Christianity
• A framework for placing Jesus of Nazareth within his own Jewish context
• Insight into how "orthodoxy," "heresy," and religious boundaries were constructed, not given
• A more historically grounded sense of how and when Judaism and Christianity actually became distinct religions