Emphasis Preaching Journal

Sandmel, in his book We Jews and Jesus, says, "Early Christianity was a Judaism; within a century ... it was a separate religion. It was critical of its parent, and hostile to it and elicited from its parent reciprocal criticism and hostility." Judaism's chief prosecutor, Saul of Tarsus, was himself converted to that which he so strenuously opposed, but this did not stop the organized religion of Palestine from making accusations that the Jesus Movement was founded by the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and Mary of Nazareth, or that the Resurrection was a hoax.