A new history of early Christianity
By: Charles Freeman.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 377
ISBN-13: 9780300125818
Subjects: Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
Description: The relevance of Christianity is as hotly contested today as it has ever been. A New History of Early Christianity shows how our current debates are rooted in the many controversies surrounding the birth of the religion and the earliest attempts to resolve them. Charles Freeman's meticulous historical account of Christianity from its birth in Judaea in the first century A.D. to the emergence of Western and Eastern churches by A.D. 600 reveals that it was a distinctive, vibrant, and incredibly diverse movement brought into order at the cost of intellectual and spiritual vitality. Against the conventional narrative of the inevitable "triumph" of a single distinct Christianity, Freeman shows that there was a host of competing Christianities, many of which had as much claim to authenticity as those that eventually dominated. Looking with fresh eyes at the historical record, Freeman explores the ambiguities and contradictions that underlay Christian theology and the unavoidable compromises enforced in the name of doctrine. Tracing the astonishing transformation that the early Christian church underwent -- from sporadic niches of Christian communities surviving in the wake of a horrific crucifixion to sanctioned alliance with the state -- Charles Freeman shows how freedom of thought was curtailed by the development of the concept of faith. The imposition of "correct belief," religious uniformity, and an institutional framework that enforced orthodoxy were both consolidating and stifling. Uncovering the difficulties in establishing the Christian church, he examines its relationship with Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy and Greco-Roman society, and he offers dramatic new accounts of Paul, the resurrection, and the church fathers and emperors. -- From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Part one: Beginnings; title: A trial; title: The seedbed : Judaism in the first century AD; title: Jesus before the Gospels; title: Breaking away : the first Christianities; title: From history to myth, from Jesus to Christ : what did Paul achieve?; title: The letter to the Hebrews; title: Fifty years on the Jesus of the Gospels; title: John and the Jerusalem Christians; title: Creating a New Testament; title: No second coming : the search for stability; title: Part two: Becoming Christian; title: Toeholds in a wider empire : infiltrating Greek culture; title: Open borders : the overlapping worlds of Christians and Jews; title: Was there a gnostic challenge?; title: The idea of a church; title: To compromise or reject; title: Celsus confronts the Christians; title: The challenge of Greek philosophy; title: Origen and early Christian scholarship; title: New beginnings : the emergence of a Latin Christianity; title: Victims or volunteers : the problem of Christian martyrdom; title: The spread of Christian communities; title: Part three: The imperial church; title: The motives of Constantine; title: Debating the nature of God; title: Theodosius and the stifling of Christian diversity; title: The assault on paganism; title: 'No one is honoured before him' : the rise of the bishop; title: An obsession with desire : Jerome and the temptations of the flesh; title: The end of optimism : Augustine and the consequences of sin; title: Divine but human; title: The closing of the schools, Justinian and the silencing of debate; title: A fragile church : Christianity and the collapse of the western empire; title: Faith, certainty, and the unknown God.