Question about the 1st Christians

[Jatheist]

Hi, I would like to know if Nazoreans and Ebionites were actually the first Xians, or it's mostly speculation.

[brimstoneSalad]

These were definitely early groups, but of what?

The more important question:
"What is a Christian?"

The modern concept of Christianity didn't come together until Saul, and even after that it was still evolving. Was he the first Christian? He was one of those who was most active in distancing Christianity (as a new religion) from Judaism.

It's a bit of a "chicken and egg" kind of problem.

If you try to draw a lineage of ideas more directly from a historical Yeshua, you may have failed before you even get started because such a person may never have existed (at least as a single personality).

In terms of what the oldest accounts share, though, modern "Christianity" looks so little like those original beliefs, and anything those rabbis would have been teaching (if Yeshua was a person, he definitely wasn't planning to be a blood sacrifice that is central to modern Christian teaching, I can tell you that much), it's pretty much impossible to call them part of the same religion.

[Jatheist]

But did the Nazoreans/Ebionites actually predate Saul, or they were Judaizers?

[brimstoneSalad]

Saul spent a lot of time arguing with people about beliefs that predated him; he changed a lot of what was believed in the Christian community.

So, it's very likely, yes.
Judaizers: They may have been that too. Would that exclude them, in your view?