“It can be difficult for Christians to accept that Jesus was not a Christian like them but, unlike them, was Jewish and deeply absorbed in a set of beliefs and practices that are unfamiliar to contemporary Christians. 

Christianity as we know it today did not exist at the time of the New Testament. There were those who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, but Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism only emerged centuries later.”  - Matthias Henze