Thanks for stopping by, and you bring up some really good questions.

When you view early Christianity's evolution through the lens of Pauline Christianity, it actually clears up a lot. First, consider the Jews of the Diaspora—why would they be interested in a crucified messiah who completely failed to meet the expectations of a Judaic Messiah? Especially after the destruction of the Second Temple, which was like a giant historical billboard screaming, “This is not the guy.” If there’s a more pronounced way to say, “You didn’t overthrow Rome, you didn’t restore the Kingdom, and you’re definitely not the new King of the Jews,” I don’t know what it would be. That’s a tough sell to a Jewish audience crushed under Roman rule.

Then there’s the Paul vs. the Jerusalem Church issue—early conflicts between Paul and Jesus’s original Jewish followers, including his own family. Paul’s letters (Galatians is basically one long subtweet at James and Peter) make it clear there was tension. The core dispute? Whether Gentile converts had to fully convert to Judaism, including following the Law of Moses and, yep, getting circumcised. Not exactly an easy pitch in the Greco-Roman world. This conflict pushed Paul to focus on Gentiles, where his message—that Jesus was a risen Savior offering salvation through faith, not the Law—found more fertile ground.

Zooming out, this mirrors other schismatic Christian movements like the Gnostics or Marcionites, who had to adapt their message to survive outside the mainstream. Paul did the same—except he was wildly successful. Instead of battling to stay within Jewish tradition, he rebranded the whole thing, turning Christianity into a universal faith that thrived in the diverse, pluralistic Roman Empire.

So yeah, it’s not that Diaspora Jews were uninvolved. Paul just realized their interest in a crucified messiah was basically DOA. His genius wasn’t just spreading the message—it was rewriting the script to make it stick.