Radical - Faith . com

The Big Split - a Three-Way-Split

      As a result of the pressures described previously, there was not a clean break between the church and the synagogue, but rather a three-way-split. The pressure from the anti-Jewish posture of the Roman empire, including the fiscus judaicus, resulted in a split between most of the Diaspora Gentile believers and any forms of Judaism. Meanwhile, the pressure from Rabbinic Judaism forced a split between them and the Jewish and Torah-faithful believers in Jesus. This group could be called the Messianics.

      The Messianics, comprised of those Jews who stayed true to their heritage while believing in Jesus, and the few Gentile believers who maintained their biblical roots in the face of the tax and the pressures from Rome, became the odd-man-out. Despite the fact that they adhered to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, they were despised by the Jews on one side and the emerging Christian church on the other. They continued as a group for a time, but after about the fifth century, they apparently faded away.

The Big Split - Bar Kokhba's Rebellion