Right, the question as to whether Jesus is the Messiah isn't really of any interest to me. And yes, I knew that Jews that take on the belief that Jesus is the Messiah become apostates: what I was really getting at was whether this was applied retroactively--In other words, are the Apostles--and Jesus--apostates or is that an anachronism?
Let me try and delineate what I'm talking about a bit more:
The history of the development of Christianity--told from the Christian perspective--is that Jesus' teachings were just one school of many different opinions in Judaism and didn't constitute a hard break from Judaism and his followers were initially Jews and not apostates. It wasn't until some time later that Paul began a ministry among the Gentiles and followers became, more and more, Gentiles. So the question is whether those initial followers of Jesus would have been considered apostates or not--bearing in mind that they were still observing the Torah and Kashrut.
Let me try and delineate what I'm talking about a bit more:
The history of the development of Christianity--told from the Christian perspective--is that Jesus' teachings were just one school of many different opinions in Judaism and didn't constitute a hard break from Judaism and his followers were initially Jews and not apostates. It wasn't until some time later that Paul began a ministry among the Gentiles and followers became, more and more, Gentiles. So the question is whether those initial followers of Jesus would have been considered apostates or not--bearing in mind that they were still observing the Torah and Kashrut.