How Jesus Became Christian

How the early Christians rewrote history, turning a Jewish teacher and messiah into a ''Christian'' man-deity, bringing eternal life to all who believe

We often forget the undeniable fact that Jesus was Jewish. He lived and died a Jew, teaching the religion of his forbears and living by the Torah. After his death there was a ''Jesus movement'' led by Jesus'' brother James in Jerusalem and a ''Christ movement'' led by Paul (who never met Jesus) in the Diaspora. The Christ movement deliberately sought to replace and destroy the Jesus movement.

The battles of the Jewish community against the Romans, and the chaos after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, helped Paul and his party to seduce Jesus'' followers away from the strictures of Judaism. Having killed off the historical Jesus, the new Christians turned the religion away from a traditional emphasis on behaviour into the most successful personality cult in recorded history.