Jesus Before Constantine

Jesus Before Constantine PDF Author: Doug E. Taylor
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725255235
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
That’s now, but what about then? There is much diversity in Christianity today in terms of what constitutes necessary core beliefs, but what can we know about the earliest Christianity? Until the major councils began in the fourth century, were all who claimed to be Christian considered part of the church, or was there more to it than just claiming a name? Is there evidence for how the church understood core and necessary beliefs prior to Constantine’s arrival in history and the Council of Nicea in AD 325? This book examines such questions. Using only those materials that are accepted by most scholars on the subject, whether they are Christian or not, and focusing on the period from AD 30–250, a picture emerges showing what Christians held as a core belief as well as how flexible they were on this belief. Only after identifying where the church stood in this period can we begin to understand whether others such as Ebionites, Docetists, and Marcionites would have been accepted as Christian. A case is made based on writings from the church, the Nag Hammadi, and a completely secular tool from the twentieth century to find the conclusion to this question.

Jesus Before Constantine

Jesus Before Constantine PDF Author: Doug E. Taylor
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725255235
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
That’s now, but what about then? There is much diversity in Christianity today in terms of what constitutes necessary core beliefs, but what can we know about the earliest Christianity? Until the major councils began in the fourth century, were all who claimed to be Christian considered part of the church, or was there more to it than just claiming a name? Is there evidence for how the church understood core and necessary beliefs prior to Constantine’s arrival in history and the Council of Nicea in AD 325? This book examines such questions. Using only those materials that are accepted by most scholars on the subject, whether they are Christian or not, and focusing on the period from AD 30–250, a picture emerges showing what Christians held as a core belief as well as how flexible they were on this belief. Only after identifying where the church stood in this period can we begin to understand whether others such as Ebionites, Docetists, and Marcionites would have been accepted as Christian. A case is made based on writings from the church, the Nag Hammadi, and a completely secular tool from the twentieth century to find the conclusion to this question.

Constantine's Bible

Constantine's Bible PDF Author: David L. Dungan
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451406122
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
Most college and seminary courses on the New Testament include discussions of the process that gave shape to the New Testament. David Dungan re-examines the primary source for the history, the Ecclesiastical History of the fourth-century Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, in the light of Hellenistic political thought. He reaches new conclusions: that we usually use the term "canon" incorrectly; that the legal imposition of a "canon" or "rule" upon scripture was a fourth- and fifth-century phenomenon enforced with the power of the Roman imperial government; that the forces shaping the New Testament canon are much earlier than the second-century crisis occasioned by Marcion, and that they are political forces. Dungan discusses how the scripture selection process worked, book-by-book, as he examines the criteria used-and not used-to make these decisions. He describes the consequences of the emperor Constantine's tremendous achievement in transforming orthodox, Catholic Christianity into imperial Christianity. --From publisher's description.

Making Christian History

Making Christian History PDF Author: Michael Hollerich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520295366
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Get Book Here

Book Description
Known as the “Father of Church History,” Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity’s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new “nation,” the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius’s text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period—across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries—until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius’s vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.

Early Christian Attitudes Toward Images

Early Christian Attitudes Toward Images PDF Author: Steven Bigham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780974561868
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
For all iconophiles, that is, those who accept the dogma of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but especially the Orthodox who claim that the icon has a sacramental and mystical character, it is naturally disquieting to hear the claim that the early Christians were aniconic and iconophobic. If this claim is true, the theology and the veneration of the icon are seriously undermined. It is, therefore, natural for iconophiles to attempt to disprove the thesis according to which the early Christians had no images whatsoever (aniconic) because they believed them to be idols (iconophobic). It is equally natural for iconophiles to want to substantiate, as much as this is possible, their deep intuition that the roots of Christian iconography go back to the apostolic age. This study weakens the notion and credibility of the alleged hostility of the early Christians to non-idolatrous images, providing a more balanced evaluation of this question.

Birth of the Church

Birth of the Church PDF Author: Ivor J Davidson
Publisher: Monarch Books
ISBN: 0857213849
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Monarch History of the Church is an eight-volume series by world-renowned historians and theologians. Each volume offers an even-handed, comprehensive and readable assessment of the main strands of Christianity within its period. The first volume covers the period AD 30-312. During this time, the church experienced major challenges politically, culturally and intellectually, yet grew and defined itself in remarkable ways. Here is the story of Christianity's earliest shapers - men and women whose influence is still felt today.

After Jesus Before Christianity

After Jesus Before Christianity PDF Author: Erin Vearncombe
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063062178
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination. Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years? Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found: There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century There was nothing called Christianity until the third century There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality. Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity. After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.

From Jesus to Christ

From Jesus to Christ PDF Author: Paula Fredriksen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300164106
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Magisterial. . . . A learned, brilliant and enjoyable study."—Géza Vermès, Times Literary Supplement In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the variety of New Testament images of Jesus by exploring the ways that the new Christian communities interpreted his mission and message in light of the delay of the Kingdom he had preached. This edition includes an introduction reviews the most recent scholarship on Jesus and its implications for both history and theology. "Brilliant and lucidly written, full of original and fascinating insights."—Reginald H. Fuller, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "This is a first-rate work of a first-rate historian."—James D. Tabor, Journal of Religion "Fredriksen confronts her documents—principally the writings of the New Testament—as an archaeologist would an especially rich complex site. With great care she distinguishes the literary images from historical fact. As she does so, she explains the images of Jesus in terms of the strategies and purposes of the writers Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."—Thomas D’Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

From the birth of Christ to the reign of Constantine, A.D. 1-311

From the birth of Christ to the reign of Constantine, A.D. 1-311 PDF Author: Philip Schaff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Church history
Languages : en
Pages : 564

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Triumph of Christianity

The Triumph of Christianity PDF Author: Bart D. Ehrman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786073021
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
How did Christianity become the dominant religion in the West? In the early first century, a small group of peasants from the backwaters of the Roman Empire proclaimed that an executed enemy of the state was God’s messiah. Less than four hundred years later it had become the official religion of Rome with some thirty million followers. It could so easily have been a forgotten sect of Judaism. Through meticulous research, Bart Ehrman, an expert on Christian history, texts and traditions, explores the way we think about one of the most important cultural transformations the world has ever seen, one that has shaped the art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics and economics of modern Western civilisation.

What Did Jesus Look Like?

What Did Jesus Look Like? PDF Author: Joan E. Taylor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567671518
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His image adorns countless churches, icons, and paintings. He is the subject of millions of statues, sculptures, devotional objects and works of art. Everyone can conjure an image of Jesus: usually as a handsome, white man with flowing locks and pristine linen robes. But what did Jesus really look like? Is our popular image of Jesus overly westernized and untrue to historical reality? This question continues to fascinate. Leading Christian Origins scholar Joan E. Taylor surveys the historical evidence, and the prevalent image of Jesus in art and culture, to suggest an entirely different vision of this most famous of men. He may even have had short hair.