He didn't. Up until the time of Paul (decades after the Jdog's death), Christianity was a Jewish sect seeking to become mainstream Judaism. It was only then that early Christians shed their Jewish identity.
That's in the story, but in the History, Christianity arose from Greece and Rome, not Judea. It was never a Semitic religion. Instead borrowing elements of that combined with Paganism.
Either way, a Historic Jesus would have died a Jew. The mythological Jesus may do whatever and I'm aware of Christians who'll deny he was ever a Jew.
I grew up a fundamentalist Southern Baptist. In my late teens I started to question. One of the things that helped me drop Christianity was the thought process trying to answer: Who was the first Jew who died and went to hell because they didn't accept Jesus as their saviour?
Because biblically, the Jews were the Chosen People, right? So if you were Jewish, you went to heaven. But according to Christians, you have to accept Jesus now.
So when did that happen, exactly? When was it that the last Jew died and went to heaven, and the next Jew died and went to hell?
yeah, the trappings of a death cult didn't sit well with him, plus the whole cross thing was a real turn off. Imagine if a guillotine had killed you and you come back to see a religion spring up using guillotines as their symbol
I'd say jesus never was christian. His followers were a jewish sect. In 70 CE with the temple of jerusalem destroyed it evolved into gnostic christians, paulician christians and jewish christians.
Depends on how you define "Christian". If you mean called himself Christian and recognized it as a distinct, and separate religion from Judaism, then never.
If you define it simply as "someone who believes Jesus was the Messiah and died for our sins" well then he was always Christian.
It depends on how you define "Christian". Theologically speaking, under Christian Covenant Theology, Old Testament Judaism and Christianity are the same religion. So Abraham was a Christian, so was Moses, Elijah, etc. So Jesus would have always been a Christian - which is my answer as a Christian.
Academically - Considering the term Christian wasn't used until St Barnabas and St Paul were in Antioch, after Jesus ascended (as documented in the 11th Chapter of Acts) Jesus was never a Christian.
The term "Christian" itself is also debated - academically, people would attach it to groups that claim it. So they'd give it to the likes of Mormons despite Mormonism being as different to Nicene Christianity as Islam is.
Even in Christianity - generally under tradition, someone isn't a Christian until they are Baptised. But if an unbaptised person who believes in and follows Christianity (A Catechumen) was filling out a census, they would be a Christian in that regard. You could argue that Jesus wasn't a Christian until Baptism using this logic, but that can stray into the heresy of adoptionism.
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