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Any discussion of the origins and history of Christianity must, by definition, begin with the man, Jesus of Nazareth. But, to the surprise of many, the Jesus of history is almost unrecognizable when compared with the Jesus of legend.

Although those insisting on a "fundamentalist" or 'dogmatic," reading of scripture will denounce such statements as to be bordering on blasphemy, it must be pointed out that very little can reliably stated about Jesus of Nazareth. Among the few things that most scholars will agree on is that he was born to observant Jewish parents no later than the year 4 BCE and that, during his brief adult career in which he advocated a new interpretation of traditional Judaism, a relatively small group of Galilean Jews came to believe that he was indeed the long-awaited messiah. Based on the surviving fragmentary historical data from that time, it is unclear whether Jesus himself made such a claim on his own behalf. None the less, Jesus was perceived as a threat by the Jewish religious establishment and as a potential troublemaker by the Roman civil authorities. These perceptions resulted in the arrest, and subsequent execution, of Jesus some time between 26 and 36 CE. After Jesus' execution, the veracity of the historical record is dependent on one's willingness to accept the involvement of what are best described as "supernatural forces."

Within days of Jesus' execution a rumor swept through the city of Jerusalem that Jesus of Nazareth had been seen alive in the city and even in the nearby countryside. His followers, who had been in hiding since the night he was arrested, began to publically assert these rumors to be true and, a few weeks later, announced that they had seen Jesus of Nazareth physically lifted into the sky. Not only had Jesus of Nazareth been the messiah, as they had been claiming all along, he had also promised to return "soon" in order to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.

It is at this point, the history of early Christianity returns to matters that can be objectively evaluated within the context of history.

Recall that Jesus of Nazareth had himself been a Jew, that all of his teachings had been delivered within the context of first-century Judaism, and that the earliest followers of Jesus had been (at least nominally) observant Jews. In the earliest days of the "Jesus movement" the group of believers at Jerusalem continued to worship in the Great Temple where they, like Jesus himself, held that his teachings were intended

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