JEWS AND THE EMERGENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

The present chapter contributes to the lively debate about the degree of Jewish awareness of the rise and development of Christianity by focusing on different places and different times. It is argued that already in first century c.e. Rome debates took place about the boundaries of Judaism and Jews’ relationship to the Christ-believers. Other focal points of a conscious parting of the ways are Alexandria in Egypt, for which we have the testimony of Celsus’ Jews, and late antique Caesarea, witnessed by Origen. Rabbinic responses to Jesus emerge as a continuation of earlier Jewish debates about Christianity and show the centrality of the issue for the formation of late antique and early Byzantine Judaism.