From the bestselling authority on early Christianity, the story of how Christianity grew from a religion of twenty or so peasants in rural Galilee to the dominant religion in the West in less than four hundred years.
Christianity didn’t have to become the dominant religion in the West. It easily could have remained a sect of Judaism fated to have the historical importance of the Sadducees or the Essenes. In The Triumph of Christianity, Bart Ehrman, a master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, shows how a religion whose first believers were twenty or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the empire became the official religion of Rome, converting some thirty million people in just four centuries. The Triumph of Christianity combines deep knowledge and meticulous research in an eye-opening, immensely readable narrative that upends the way we think about the single most important cultural transformation our world has ever seen—one that revolutionized art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics, and law.
Christianity didn’t have to become the dominant religion in the West. It easily could have remained a sect of Judaism fated to have the historical importance of the Sadducees or the Essenes. In The Triumph of Christianity, Bart Ehrman, a master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, shows how a religion whose first believers were twenty or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the empire became the official religion of Rome, converting some thirty million people in just four centuries. The Triumph of Christianity combines deep knowledge and meticulous research in an eye-opening, immensely readable narrative that upends the way we think about the single most important cultural transformation our world has ever seen—one that revolutionized art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics, and law.
In the year 200 CE Christianity was a minority religion in the multi-cultural Roman Empire, growing steadily but generally unnoticed by the imperial government and upper levels of society. By the year 400 Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire, with a majority of the population following it (at least in name) and the imperial government supporting its further expansion. How did this happen? Bart Ehrman, whose twenty books examining early Christianity are all well worth reading, here provides his best work yet: an historical explanation for a religious success which altered the world.
Unlike other histories which focus on Constantine's seemingly miraculous conversion, Ehrman's starts at the real beginning in the first century, when what had first been dismissed as a minor variation on Judaism began to gain acceptance among gentiles, thanks primarily to the missionary work of the man later known as St. Paul. Over the next several centuries Christianity grew steadily but quietly, generally tolerated though occasionally subject to persecution, until by the early 300s it had a large enough presence in the Empire that the Emperor Constantine thought it politically worthwhile to convert. Constantine and his immediate successors (except his nephew Julian the Apostate, who ruled for less than two years) encouraged Christianity's spread and in return received the loyalty and support of its growing numbers of adherents. Eventually Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, leading Christians to dominant status.
Unlike other histories which focus on Constantine's seemingly miraculous conversion, Ehrman's starts at the real beginning in the first century, when what had first been dismissed as a minor variation on Judaism began to gain acceptance among gentiles, thanks primarily to the missionary work of the man later known as St. Paul. Over the next several centuries Christianity grew steadily but quietly, generally tolerated though occasionally subject to persecution, until by the early 300s it had a large enough presence in the Empire that the Emperor Constantine thought it politically worthwhile to convert. Constantine and his immediate successors (except his nephew Julian the Apostate, who ruled for less than two years) encouraged Christianity's spread and in return received the loyalty and support of its growing numbers of adherents. Eventually Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, leading Christians to dominant status.
This is a typically well-researched and well-documented work by Ehrman. He writes for a general audience but never abandons scholarship to do so. The Triumph of Christianity should become a standard reference on the subject.
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