Hi all! 

First of all, I made this account to ask this question because I didn’t know where else to turn to. I have listened to Bart Ehrman’s lectures for the better part of a year now and I’m very fascinated with biblical studies even though I come from a very secular upbringing and have no formal training. As a result, sometimes I have questions that might have been answered several hundred years ago that I just haven’t heard about. Now, this question will require some context for me to explain my position, but at the end of the day I’m only asking: “Was the Historical Jesus anti-Gentile?” With that all out of the way, here we go:

(I will use KJV just because I can. It is not fundamental to my argument which version of the Bible I use).

From my understanding, the author of Luke/Acts (whom I will refer to as Luke) likes to take earlier sources and, while being quite liberal in cutting and pasting them, insert them as they are in the text. I offer two simple arguments forms this: For instance, Luke 4:23 reads “…whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country”, even though Jesus first comes to Capernaum in Luke 4:31. Afaik, most scholars use this to imply that Luke has simply taken a story from Mark, cut and then copy-pasted it in different locations for his own purposes and all it really does is show how Luke’s process of compiling was: he cuts, but he does not remove. Another example of this is Stephens speech in Acts: in Acts 6:13 it is written “And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law.” The speech is then recounted in Acts 7:1-50. Acts 7:48 reads: “Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet”, sounding very much like Stephen is actually pretty anti-Temple. In other words, how false were the false witnesses spoken of in Acts 6:13? 

This usually creates only very small and fairly inconsequential contradictions (if you could even call them contradictions) but does leave some hope of finding what is “behind the text”, as it were. 

Now, in most of Acts’ recounting of Paul’s journeys throughout the Roman empire, it’s very simply: To the Jew first. Given things like the Great Commission (in particular Matthew 28:19), I always found this fairly odd that there’s this focus on Jews by Paul when Jesus clearly seems to be all-inclusive and all-including regardless if you’re a jew or not in like 99% of all passages. Even in Luke 24:47 and Acts 1:8 there is a focus on “begin in Jerusalem, but go to the ends of the world”. Sure, one could take that to mean that Jerusalem is a symbol for Jews and that Jesus is saying that they should go to the Jews first, but at the same time it could just be of geographical convenience since, well, they are in Jerusalem and beginning in Rome would be fairly impractical. 

Jesus in the Gospels certainly have a lot of passages where he is very friendly towards Gentiles (e.g. the Great Commission), but there are some notable passages where he seems to be directly opposed to Gentiles such as Matthew 7:6 “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you”; Matthew 15:26 “But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs” (same story in Mark 7:27 “But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs”). From my very simple understanding, it is more likely that Jesus said Matthew 15:26 than Matthew 28:19 because Matthew is unlikely to invent a saying of Jesus that is anti-Gentile, and at the same time he is likely to invent a saying that makes Jesus pro-Gentile. 

With all that background and context as I understand it, we can finally turn to my question:

The earliest church, say in late April 33 AD, was composed of some 11 disciples and a few women. Every single one Jewish. There are some hints that Jesus might have said that you shouldn’t cast pearls before swine. Would it be possible that the earliest missionary work, like in the first few weeks/months/years was focused only on Jews, as a Jewish sect, with no intention of including Gentiles. What would have happened is that Simon Peter, John Mark and Thomas the Doubter are running around in Jerusalem trying to convert Jews only, but find little success in relation to what they were expecting to for various reasons. However, for some reason, they find more success with Gentiles in relation to what they were expecting to. Maybe a Gentile overheard Peter arguing with a Jew at a market place and was like: “Wow, the Son of God?!! Can I join?” and first Peter is like: “No, Jews only”, but then that happens more and more.

Given that they find little success with Jews in relation to the success they find with Gentiles, the pragmatic branch of the movement slowly but surely starts adapting the movement to include Gentiles, and as the movement grows more they quickly start adding stories of how pro-Gentile Jesus was. For instance, as a nice gesture, Mark added how it was a Roman centurion who is the first human to recognize who Jesus was (Mark 15:39). One could imagine how Peter turned to Mark and said “Jesus said let the children first be filled, but despite that it was Gentiles who recognized who he was.” 

Furthermore, to get back to my whole schpiel about the Book of Acts, Paul constantly running “to the Jew first” and being rejected by Jews to only then turn to the Gentiles, could be another memory of how the earliest movement was purely Jewish, and including Gentiles was only a concession because Gentiles believed. The early church would have been split between James the brother of Jesus who was pro-Jew because Jesus was pro-Jew, and Paul who was simply a pragmatist. If Jesus was as open to Gentiles as is recorded in the Gospels, what grounds would James have to stand on for his anti-Gentile positions? How could he garner so much support within Jerusalem if Jesus had the clear pro-Gentile position he has in 99% of all passages where he addresses Gentiles? I find it more likely that Jesus was anti-Gentile and Paul was a renegade that left Jerusalem in search of pragmatism, and James was a more hardline “Jews-only” because that’s what Jesus taught. All passages supporting pro-Gentile views would have been stories created after the fact (say beginning in 35AD) by pragmatists that wanted to see the movement grow.

Thank you for reading my massive wall of text. If there is anything to discuss, I hope to see a civil discussion between grown adults, and if there’s a simple answer like “read Luke X:Y, there’s your answer”, I hope someone can point me towards that with civility as well!

Thank you.

Andreas