Fox argues that the hostile utterances of rabbis were towards those Christians who did not support Bar Kokhba and was due to anti-Jewish feelings which were caused by Gentile converts to Christianity. This however is controversial as only certain segments of the community ever accepted Bar Kokhba as the messiah, while many rabbis scorned such a proposition. Fox also argues that the persecution accusations and stories of early Christians martrydom are exaggerated by the Church. He asserts that it is unhistorical to assume that the matrydom of Stephen was representative of a widespread persecution of Christians because events of this nature weren't uncommon in that time. In support of this assertion, Fox argues that thousands of Jews were killed by Romans and it wasn't something new or novel. Thus the persecution hardly started before 70 AD and when it was started by Bar Kokhba, it wasn't not on purely theological grounds but also because of the disloyalty of Christians in the rebellion against the Romans.