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It began as a Jewish movement, with a Jewish message, led entirely by Jews. Two centuries later, its theologians were writing against the Jews.
Christianity began as a Jewish movement, led by Jews, preaching about a Jewish Messiah, the restoration of Israel, and the resurrection of the dead.
All of this was grounded in the scriptures of Israel.
Two centuries later, Christian theologians had built a whole genre out of writing against the Jews.
It even had a name... adversus Iudaeos.
All the pieces needed to build it were already there. Jewish scriptures already argued fiercely with Israel. Greek and Roman schools taught you to describe foreigners as everything you were not, and to win an argument by making your opponent look ridiculous. Christian writers would eventually cast Jews in that “opponent” role.
Paula Fredriksen shows you who assembled those pieces, when, and with which arguments. Then she shows you the part almost nobody expects... Some of the ugliest anti-Jewish writing of the second century was actually aimed at other Christians.
What came out of it was the charge of “deicide,” the idea that Jews of every generation were permanently guilty of killing Christ. The Catholic Church did not formally renounce it until 1965. Uncover the full story in this course.
Format
Recorded, on demand
About 45 minutes
1 full lecture
15 minutes of questions
Q&A included
Access
Lifetime, watch anytime
Prerequisites
None. No Greek needed
Paula Fredriksen · 2026 Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita · Boston University
Paula Fredriksen, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University. In 2009, she became a member of the Department of Comparative Religions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2018. An historian of ancient Christianity, she also writes on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire. Among her recent publications are Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (Yale 2017) and When Christians Were Jews (Yale 2018). Her most recent study, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years, has just appeared from Princeton University Press (2024).
Common Assumption
Christian anti-Judaism was a later, medieval development.
In fact
It was already a developed theological tradition in the second century, with its own arguments, its own reading of scripture, and its own name. Adversus Iudaeos was a genre of writing long before it was mob violence.
Common Assumption
Anti-Jewish rhetoric was aimed at Jews.
In fact
Often it was not. The harshest examples appear in Christian attacks on other Christians, where calling a gentile opponent a Jew was the most definitive way to call him un-Christian.
Common Assumption
Once the emperors turned Christian, Jewish life was crushed.
In fact
The same emperors who called Judaism a nefarious sect kept ruling that no law prohibits it. Synagogues were protected in principle, Jews held high civic office, and Christians kept turning up at Jewish festivals.
The complete moderated Q&A that followed the lecture, recorded and included: Paul, the Crusades, ethnicity and belief, Hebrew against Greek, and Rome’s view of the temple it destroyed.
The lecture and the Q&A are yours to keep. Watch tonight, watch again next year, on any device, as often as you like.
An MP3 of the session for listening on a commute or a walk, whenever you are away from a screen.
$1 from every registration is donated to charity: water, bringing clean water to people in need.
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A full hour with a leading historian of ancient Christianity, recorded and available the moment you enroll.
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One recorded lecture of about forty-five minutes, plus the complete moderated Q&A that followed it, about fifteen minutes more. Roughly an hour in total, with an audio download included.
A single, self-contained lecture. It was recorded as part of Paula Fredriksen’s work on early Christianity and is complete on its own: you do not need to have taken anything else first.
Immediately. Everything is already recorded, so the lecture and the Q&A are available as soon as you enroll. There are no live sessions and no schedule to keep.
After you enroll you will receive login instructions for our online course platform, ThriveCart Learn, where the video and the audio download are both posted. If you are a member of Biblical Studies Academy (BSA), your access will also be available inside the community.
Yes. The lecture, the Q&A, and the materials are yours with lifetime access. Watch them on any device, on your own schedule, as often as you like.
No. Every text is discussed in English, and every figure is introduced as it comes up. No prior study is needed.
It is about where the ancient rhetoric came from, and Fredriksen is explicit that she prepared it in the shadow of the present. She opens by naming the global rise in anti-Jewish behavior since October 7, 2023, and notes that one of the oldest features of this rhetoric is exactly the move that treats all Jews everywhere as a single group answerable for one another. The hour itself stays in the ancient world; the reason for spending it there is not left unsaid.
No. It is a historical account of how a body of argument was constructed, by whom, and for what purposes, and it is careful about what the evidence does and does not show. It also makes a point most polemics leave out: the same Christian Bible that supplied the hostile rhetoric also kept a great deal of positive material about Jews and Judaism in front of every congregation that heard it read.
This comes up in the Q&A, and Fredriksen’s answer is no. His most hostile language is aimed at rival apostles of Christ who disagreed with him about how to bring gentiles into the movement. In Romans he says that all Israel will be saved and that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Condemning non-Christian Jews to permanent damnation is a later Christian move.
Yes. The recording includes closed captioning, so you can read along as you watch.
Yes. Members of Biblical Studies Academy (BSA) receive 30% off, and it applies on top of the launch price while that is running.
We accept PayPal and all major credit cards.
Absolutely. If you don’t love it, send us an email at support@bartehrman.com within 30 days of purchase and we will refund every penny.
