How Jesus Became Christian

Barrie Wilson is Professor of Humanities & Religious Studies at York University in Toronto. A specialist in early Christian origins, this is his first book intended for a general audience. Building on contemporary critical scholarship, it addresses some of the major puzzles he has identified in teaching biblical studies over a twenty-year period. An award-winning educator,

Barrie Wilson is Professor of Humanities & Religious Studies at York University in Toronto. A specialist in early Christian origins, this is his first book intended for a general audience. Building on contemporary critical scholarship, it addresses some of the major puzzles he has identified in teaching biblical studies over a twenty-year period. An award-winning educator, his previous academic books focused on textual interpretation. "How Jesus Became Christian" looks at how one of the world's great religions prospered and grew at the cost of another and confronts a fundamental question about religious history: Who was Jesus Christ--a Jew or a Christian?
How did a young, well-respected rabbi become the head of a cult that bears his name, espouses a philosophy that he wouldn't wholly understand and possesses a clear streak of anti-Semitism that has sparked hatred against the generations of Jews who followed him? Wilson seeks the answer by recreating the Hellenistic world into which Jesus was born--a theologically cacophonous world guided by Greek philosophies, oriental religions such as Mithraism, and the Egyptian cults of Isis and Osiris. He looks at the rivalry between the "Jesus movement," led by James, informed by the teachings of Matthew and adhering to Torah worship, and the "Christ movement," headed by Paul, which shunned the Torah.
Wilson suggests that Paul's movement was not rooted in the teachings and sayings of the historical Jesus, a man Paul never met, but solely in Paul's mystical, idealized vision of Christ. Wilson goes on to show how Paul established the new religion through anti-Semitic propaganda, which ultimately crushed the Jesus Movement. This is a provocative, well-written religious history about the core differences between Christianity and Judaism. "Wilson, professor of religious studies at Toronto's York University . . . helpfully surveys the political, social and religious contexts of ancient Palestine, demonstrating that the religion of James, the brother of Jesus, was much closer to the religious practice of Jesus himself, but that the followers of Paul suppressed Jesus' teachings in favor of their own leader . . . Wilson's instructive book introduces important questions about early Christianity for those unfamiliar with the debates about the historical Jesus."--"Publishers Weekly" "Wilson, professor of religious studies at Toronto's York University . . . provokes new thoughts about Jesus' identity. Taking up where Robert Eisenman left off in "James, the Brother of Jesus," Wilson calls his argument the Jesus Cover-Up Thesis and claims that the religion of Paul displaced the teachings of Jesus so that Paul's preaching about a divine gentile Christ covered up the human Jewish Jesus. Wilson helpfully surveys the political, social and religious contexts of ancient Palestine, demonstrating that the religion of James, the brother of Jesus, was much closer to the religious practice of Jesus himself, but that the followers of Paul suppressed Jesus' teachings in favor of their own leader. Wilson challenges the veracity of the book of Acts, arguing that the followers of Paul created these tales to support the heroic character of their founder in his quest to establish a new religion. Wilson's instructive book introduces important questions about early Christianity for those unfamiliar with the debates about the historical Jesus."--"Publishers Weekly"