Justin (writing around 160 CE) states boldly and forthrightly that gentile Christ-believers are God’s holy people, God’s chosen people, the true children of God, and the true people of Israel.78 By the end of the second century, Christians were producing their own Scriptures, which were distinguished from Jewish Scriptures not only in content but also in form: they were written in codices (books) instead of scrolls, and they employed a distinctive system for abbreviating the names of God and Christ (Jewish scrolls had no such system).
