Jesus

==Early Christianity==
{{Main|Early Christianity}}
[[File:Good shepherd 02b close.jpg|thumb|A 3rd-century depiction of Jesus as the [[Good Shepherd]]|upright=.8]]
After Jesus' life, his followers, as described in the first chapters of the [[Acts of the Apostles]], were all Jews either by birth or [[conversion to Judaism|conversion]], for which the biblical term "[[proselyte]]" is used,<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12481c.htm Catholic Encyclopedia: Proselyte] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170610204154/http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12481c.htm |date=10 June 2017 }}: "The English term 'proselyte' occurs only in the New Testament where it signifies a convert to the Jewish religion ({{bibleverse||Matthew|23:15|NAB}}; {{bibleverse||Acts|2:11|NAB}}; {{bibleverse-nb||Acts|6:5|NAB}}; etc.), though the same Greek word is commonly used in the [[Septuagint]] to designate a foreigner living in Palestine. Thus the term seems to have passed from an original local and chiefly political sense, in which it was used as early as 300 BC, to a technical and religious meaning in the Judaism of the [[Apostolic Age|New Testament epoch]]."</ref> and referred to by historians as [[Jewish Christian]]s. The early Gospel message was spread [[oral gospel traditions|orally]], probably in [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]],{{sfn|Ehrman|2012|pp=87–90}} but almost immediately also in [[Koine Greek|Greek]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jaeger |first1=Werner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kYfAUnFMhPMC&pg=PA108 |title=Early Christianity and Greek Paideia |date=1961 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-22052-2 |pages=6, 108–109 |language=en |access-date=26 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217042345/https://books.google.com/books?id=kYfAUnFMhPMC&pg=PA108 |archive-date=17 December 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> The [[New Testament]]'s Acts of the Apostles and [[Epistle to the Galatians]] record that the first Christian community was [[First Christian church|centered in Jerusalem]] and its leaders included [[Saint Peter|Peter]], [[James (brother of Jesus)|James, the brother of Jesus]], and [[John the Apostle]].<ref>{{bibleverse||Galatians|2:9|NIV}}, {{bibleverse||Acts|1:13|NIV}}; See [[Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles]] for details.</ref>

After [[conversion of Paul the Apostle|his conversion]], [[Paul the Apostle]] spread the teachings of Jesus to various [[Gentiles|non-Jewish]] communities throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. Paul's influence on Christian thinking is said to be more significant than that of any other [[authorship of the New Testament|New Testament author]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-280290-3 |editor1-last=Cross |editor1-first=F. L. |edition=3rd rev. |location=Oxford, England |language=en |chapter=Paul}}</ref> By the end of the [[Christianity in the 1st century|1st century]], Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a [[split of early Christianity and Judaism|separate religion from Judaism]] which itself was refined and developed further in the centuries after the [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|destruction]] of the [[Second Temple]].<ref>Cohen, Shaye J.D. (1988). ''From the Maccabees to the Mishnah,'' {{ISBN|978-0-664-25017-1}}, pp. 224–225.</ref>

Numerous quotations in the New Testament and other Christian writings of the first centuries, indicate that early Christians generally used and revered the [[Hebrew Bible]] (the [[Tanakh]]) as [[religious text]], mostly in the Greek ([[Septuagint]]) or Aramaic ([[Targum]]) translations.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fee|first1=Gordon|author-link1=Gordon Fee|last2=Stuart|first2=Douglas|author-link2=Douglas Stuart (biblical scholar)|title=How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth: Fourth Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sGBtAgAAQBAJ|year=2014|publisher=Zondervan|isbn=978-0-310-51783-2|access-date=1 May 2018|archive-date=26 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190626225710/https://books.google.com/books?id=sGBtAgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

Early Christians wrote many religious works, including the ones included in the [[canon of the New Testament]]. The canonical texts, which have become the main sources used by historians to try to understand the historical Jesus and sacred texts within Christianity, were probably written between 50 and 120 AD.<ref name="Ehrman120ce">{{cite book |author=Ehrman |first=Bart D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpoNAQAAMAAJ |title=The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-19-508481-8 |page=8 |quote=The New Testament contains twenty-seven books, written in Greek, by fifteen or sixteen different authors, who were addressing other Christian individuals or communities between the years 50 and 120 C.E. (see box 1.4). As we will see, it is difficult to know whether any of these books was written by Jesus' own disciples. |access-date=1 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190416082406/https://books.google.com/books?id=xpoNAQAAMAAJ |archive-date=16 April 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>