Most Christians I think are aware of the Messianic history of the church in the first century. Some people are even aware of the various "movements" of the last century of the Jewish people to following the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua of Natzeret.
What I think most people are unaware of is approximately 1800 years of history inbetween. Even for myself this is something I need to study a lot more of. Much of the history is largely remembered as a history of persecution.
There are the various Talmudic writings on the "Minim". Its acceptable for a Jew to be an Athiest, a Hindu, or even a Muslim; but in Israel today the only unallowed faith for a Jew who wishes to immigrate is a Faith in Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah.
Likewise there has rarely been an acceptance of Jewish believers among the Gentile community. Few people are aware for instance that the Spanish Inquisition started to get rid of Messianic "Heretics" who were believed to be polluting Christianity. Messianic Jews were mostly likely to be executed while Orthodox Jews and Muslims were typically expelled from the country.
Besides the persecutions there is a lot of other rich history. Here is a link to a brief list of some famous Messianic Jews who influenced (Western) church history.
For hundreds of years the Bishops of the churches in Judae and Samaria were Jewish. There is one account of a debate between two Messianic Jews and 22 rabbis during the Disputation of Aragon which laster a year from 1413-1414 and resulted in the conversion of over 5,000 Jews to faith in Yeshua.
Again most of this is the history of the Western Church and much more was occurring among Jews communities of North Africa, the Middle-East and East Africa. If you have any more stories and histories from this long time period, please share!
What I think most people are unaware of is approximately 1800 years of history inbetween. Even for myself this is something I need to study a lot more of. Much of the history is largely remembered as a history of persecution.
There are the various Talmudic writings on the "Minim". Its acceptable for a Jew to be an Athiest, a Hindu, or even a Muslim; but in Israel today the only unallowed faith for a Jew who wishes to immigrate is a Faith in Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah.
Likewise there has rarely been an acceptance of Jewish believers among the Gentile community. Few people are aware for instance that the Spanish Inquisition started to get rid of Messianic "Heretics" who were believed to be polluting Christianity. Messianic Jews were mostly likely to be executed while Orthodox Jews and Muslims were typically expelled from the country.
Besides the persecutions there is a lot of other rich history. Here is a link to a brief list of some famous Messianic Jews who influenced (Western) church history.
For hundreds of years the Bishops of the churches in Judae and Samaria were Jewish. There is one account of a debate between two Messianic Jews and 22 rabbis during the Disputation of Aragon which laster a year from 1413-1414 and resulted in the conversion of over 5,000 Jews to faith in Yeshua.
Again most of this is the history of the Western Church and much more was occurring among Jews communities of North Africa, the Middle-East and East Africa. If you have any more stories and histories from this long time period, please share!
