"...the very presence of the Jewish people in the world ... puts a great question against Christian belief in a new covenant made through Christ. The presence of this question, often buried deep in the Christian mind, could not fail to cause profound and gnawing anxiety. Anxiety usually leads to hostility."

William Nicholls, Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate

“[Jewish] rejection of [Jesus] threatened the Christian idea far more than any pagan rejection… Jewish rejection of that claim remains a mortal threat.”

James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword

Introduction

The Jewish Problem for Christianity is, at bottom, a problem of Christian self-identity and insecurity. It emerged with the earliest documents of the new religion, of Christianity’s effort to both retain Jewish history while distancing itself from the parent religion. Unlike Judaism, whose roots lie in the remote mists of pre-history (the time before written records), the new religion emerged and developed in the late first century, a time of recorded history, in Judea, a country occupied by meticulous record keepers, the Roman overseers.

Christian Insecurity and the Jewish Problem: The Introduction