Falk (8) says that Christian thought developed out of Bet Hillel interpretations of the law, which were in dialogue and contention with Bet Shammai interpretations. Bet Hillel thought was meant to cover the moral and civil behavior of both Jews and Gentiles under the so-called Noahide Commandments, the name for seven laws aimed, in general, at achieving social justice given to Adam and Noah, long before the appearance of Moses (4). The 12th-century Jewish scholar Maimonides, as well as the 18th-century rabbi Emden, found no contradiction between Noahide Laws and Christian moral tradition, partly because they were always meant to cover Gentiles and Jews alike, a fact completely consistent with claims by Jesus and Paul that the new religion would not be confined to Jews but would be universal in scope.

Bet Shammai were indeed the Pharisees and priests that Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus had to contend with. We shall in fact seek to demonstrate that Paul the Apostle's insistence that Gentiles be admitted into the early Christian church was based on Bet Hillel's position that righteous Gentiles merit salvation (Falk 8-9).

The inclusiveness of the new religion would explain Jesus's claim that he had come not to destroy the law (for Jews) but to

As a practical matter Judaism was pretty much subsumed by Christianity in the West after the apostolic period, with the decisive act being considered the deliberate abdication of Judaism by Paul and Jesus. But Falk suggests that this formulation makes too much of the differences and not enough of the confluences between Judaism and Christianity, especially if Jesus is aligned with Bet Hillel and the Noahide tradition and in practical terms arrayed against Bet Shammai thought. Further to this point, Falk notes that "many authorities" believe that Jesus and Paul were aware of the Essenes, in whose settlement the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. What is to be noted about this is that the Essenes, generally pious, were far from being Zealots, generally militant and generally associated with Bet Shammai.