Out of that destruction emerged a group which at first seemed just another minority answer to the problem of Jewish identity. Now it did much towards the permanent shaping of that identity, as well as becoming a world religion in its own right. The Jewish sect which became Christianity borrowed the sacred literature created by the Jews and shaped Christian belief in its founder-Messiah along lines already present in the sacred books of the Tanakh. Christian history thereafter is shot through with and shaped by the stories of the Tanakh – they became particularly useful when Christians allied
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