Anyone trying to come to grips with the origin and development of what we mean when we speak of 'Christianity' may find Geza Vermes' book,'Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325,' helpful.
Vermes was of Jewish stock, who became a RC priest when young, but left the church to marry. He became Reader in Jewish studies at Oxford in 1965 and then full Professor in 1989. When he died, the UK Guardian described him as, "one of the world's leading authorities on the origins of Christianity*." He was also one of the leading scholars in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies.** His 1998 publication, 'The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English,' ( which does not include fragments or Biblical texts) is often used as a text book in university courses dealing with the DDS. In Christian Beginnings, Vermes' attempts to sketch the historical continuity between the charismatic Jesus preaching in Galilee and the first ecumenical council (Nicaea, 325CE). His view of Jesus, described in his 1973 book, 'Jesus the Jew,' that Jesus never deviated from his Jewish beliefs is now commonly accepted in scholarship. However, we should note that Judaism over the centuries was not the homogeneous, monolithic religion described in watchtower (and others) literature. There was never 'one truth faith' starting with Noah, and developing through Abraham and Moses etc.
If you can grasp his picture of developing Judaism, I suggest you will have a much better understanding of the origins of Christianity, which continues to have both formal and charismatic forms, as did the Judaism of the first century CE.
The formal form of Judaism centred on the Temple and the Torah. The first temple worship seems to have been in the mobile tent/sanctuary described in the Pentateuch, but after settlement in Canaan there were a number of small temple/sanctuaries across Palestine that were eventually closed and formal worship confined to the Jerusalem temple/sanctuary that was destroyed finally by the Romans who made Jerusalem a gentile/pagan city.
The Torah likewise evolved over the centuries as a set of teachings describing the Jewish way of life. The conduct of that worship and its instruction (and enforcement-sanctions) was in the hands of a hereditary priesthood, first from the family of Levi, and once worship was focussed on the Jerusalem temple, the privileged family of Aaron. But there could be challenges to the establishment, High priest Onias IV, after the murder of his father, high priest Onias III, in 171 BCE set up a competing temple/sanctuary in Leontopolis (in the Nile Delta) that lasted until it too was destroyed by the Romans in 73/74 CE. There was also another Jewish temple in Egypt on a Nile river island at Elephantine.
Another schism occurred when the Maccabees took over formal Judaism in 152 BCE. Vermes suggests that the Essenes (likely the same sect as those at Qumran) were opposed to the Maccabees (in some way) and forsook worship at Jerusalem, and saw themselves as worshipping in a 'spiritual temple' by means of prayer and holy living. (You can read all their prescriptions for 'true worship' in the Dead Sea Scrolls documents usually known as: The Community Rules, The Damascus Document, the War Scroll, and the Temple Scroll, in particular.)
In those forms of worship, authority was derived from legal codes and standardised worship and offices. (And as we see in JW worship and most other churches by appointment to office from the central authority).
But there's another way to gain authority, one that was highlighted by Max Weber, the famous German sociologist. He focussed attention on what he called, the 'charismatic hero/leader.' This authority figure doesn't inherit power, neither is he appointed to power. The charismatic hero/leader gains and maintains his (and sometimes a 'her.') by proving his strength in life. If he wants to be a political leader, he must defeat his enemies, but if he wants to be a 'prophet,' then he must prove himself through his prophetic insights and miracles. So we see in parallel to formal Judaism another form, with Moses as a prototype and continuing through time with the prophets and Vermes argues, with Jesus, and the others in his time that preached throughout Palestine.
There is no text in which Jesus commanded his followers to leave Judaism and start a new church. After his death, his followers continued to meet and worship as Jews, believing that the fulfillment of prophecies (such as Daniel) was imminent, and that the Jewish god would restore Israel to its divinely appointed power.
The separation of the "Christian" organisation from Judaism commenced slowly from the mid first century CE, when those hopes failed to materialise.
The destruction of formal Judaism in 70 CE was a catostrophic event in connection with the messianic expectations.
It is also useful to appreciate that although modern readers attempt to project their contemporary experience back to the first century, most scholarship is agreed that there was not one, but many forms of early Christianity. It took near to 300 years for one form to claim formal control, but it always faced competition, for example, the eastern church lying within the Iranian/Sasanian empire was not controlled by the Roman church based then in Constantinople. Most Christians in those days were located in Asia, not Europe. An example is the Ebionites and the Elchasaites, from them sprang the Prophet Mani, whose form of Christianity swept across Asia to China. (the last known Manichean temple in the world is located in the Chinese coastal city of Quanzhou).
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* http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/14/geza-vermes
** http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e497 for an overview
