One thought that ran through my mind yesterday morning was how rarely any of these discussions (whether by atheists or believers, historicists or mythicists) discuss the centrality of the destruction of Jerusalem and for practical purposes Iron age Judaism by the Romans, and that “Christianity” as we know it would not have come about without that historical event.

In one sense, “Christianity” can be seen as a sort of collective PTSD by a defeated and displaced Jewish minority (that is, a minority of Jews) which struggled to make sense of what happened circa AD 70. By interpreting the event as a fulfilled prophecy, the early “Christians” laid the foundation for what today are considered the fundamentals of the faith.

This lack of appreciation (by so many in and outside of the Church) of the apocalyptic nature of Jesus’ alleged teachings, and of the rest of the NT books and Christianity itself, is a key element in the thesis of Schweitzer (which is reiterated by Ehrman.)