The Birth of Christianity
Judaism as a whole underwent a major upset with the birth of Christianity, these new Judeo-Christian were seen to be heretics (anti-believers) by some and while others viewed Christianity as a sect of Judaism.

Many converted to this new religion; the Jews in Judaea, Greek Jews of the Diaspora and even pagans. As Christianity began to spread opposition to it grew. The Christians were often persecuted, but “persecution resulted in dispersion and dispersion meant that the gospel spread far and wide” (Acts 8:4). In the early days there were no actual Churches where people met for worship, this was partly due to the persecution and poverty of Christians in the first 300 years of its existence and partly due to the fact that Christians believed that Jesus would return again and the end of the world was very near. Therefore it seemed pointless building places worship. Nevertheless, as time passed, certain people were appointed to look after areas where there were large groups of Christians

 The persecution of the Christians continued until third century CE when Emperor Constantine became a Christian and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. During this time, the Jews were also being persecuted by the Romans who was largely polytheistic and when Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Constantine the Jews suffered persecution in the hands of the Roman Christians.

As a result of this, Jews withdrew into their own communities to build a way of life to preserve their identity as Jews. The religion that emerged from this period became know as Rabbinic Judaism, all modern branches of Judaism descends from this.