From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity
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From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity
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Narrated by:
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Bart D. Ehrman
About this listen
Step back to Christianity's first three centuries to see how it transitioned from the religion of Jesus to a religion about Jesus. How did a single group from among many win the struggle for dominance to establish the beliefs central to the faith, rewrite the history of Christianity's internal conflicts, and produce a canon of sacred texts – the New Testament – that supported its own views?
These 24 lectures provide a fresh and provocative perspective on how a movement of perhaps only 20 lower-class followers of a Jewish apocalyptic preacher crucified as an enemy of the state grew to include nearly four million adherents in only 300 years. Professor Ehrman looks at the faith's beginnings, starting with the historical Jesus, Jewish-Christian relations, the way Paul and other Christians spread the new faith, hostility to the Christian mission, internal struggles within the faith, and the formation of traditional Christianity as we know it today.
Christianity argued its ancient roots by retaining the Jewish scriptures and arguing that it was, in fact, the fulfillment of what those scriptures had promised. Throughout these lectures, Professor Ehrman challenges old misconceptions and offers fresh perspectives on aspects of Christianity and its roots that many of us might have thought we already understood. By offering you a scholar's perspective on the origins of what Professor Ehrman describes as the most important institution in Western civilization, this engaging course will increase your understanding of Christianity today.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2004 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2004 The Great CoursesListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity
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- Chippy
- 24-06-22
Classic Bart
Finished his book how Jesus became God and started this, prefer his lectures to his books as his delivery / humour helps keep it interesting.
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- Anonymous User
- 14-10-23
Absolutely brilliant!
After finishing it, it feels like nothing can beat it. Existential crisis incoming. The structure, the narration, the information, everything, is absolutely brilliant.
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- José Miguel Teles Fandango
- 13-04-24
Greta summary of early Christianity.
well structured, clear and concise retrospective of history of Christianity. A very sober analysis of ancient sources and an easy to understand contextualisation of the early Christian church in the world it was born and evolved.
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- M. Bird
- 10-01-24
A brilliant, if one sided, account
Bart Ehrman is one of the world’s greatest New Testament scholars and it’s a joy to have him give this brilliant course, which he presents so naturally and clearly.
My only slight gripe is that he presents his own (extremely contentious) theory of the historical Jesus as fact, rather than at least mentioning that there are alternative views or admitting that he’s giving his own particular and contentious account. This will mislead listeners.
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- M Green
- 02-10-22
Don't end the year without listening to this.
Very interesting. Gripping. The man's a genius. Well thought out, excellently prepared, superbly delivered.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 15-07-23
Can’t fault it!
Clear well structured and very very interesting. An excellent primer to get into historical Christianity
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- Charlotte Faint
- 21-03-15
Easy to listen and learn
Really good set of lectures to listen and learn from will listen again soon. Will happily buy next in series.
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3 people found this helpful
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- W Charris
- 23-03-21
Fascinating listen
I was looking for something that would help me understand the beginnings of Christianity and I thought this was brilliant. Ehrman is an engaging speaker wth plenty of analogies and examples to illustrate his points. he also, unlike many others in The Great Courses series, will remind you again of who people are etc even if they've been mentioned in previous lectures, which as a casual learner I find very helpful. Very good at explaining the social and cultural reasons behind the arguments of various proponents of Christianity (and sects within) during the period. I finished it in less than two weeks - eminently listenable!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ed
- 04-05-14
Very informative but loses momentum
Would you consider the audio edition of From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity to be better than the print version?
I have not read the print version but I suspect that some of the courses benefit from being in print
Would you be willing to try another book from The Great Courses? Why or why not?
Yes very much so and I already have many of them on my list
Any additional comments?
This course contains many fascinating insights into the early Christian community and is an ideal starting point for the amateur student of the early church. However, about three quarters of the way into the course the emphasis changed from the development of the Christian community in its social and economic context to a very detailed examination of the canon. While a detailed examination of proto-orthodoxy is doubtless essential it seemed to come at the expense of a detailed exposition of the philosophical and social needs that this new religion served in the context of the world that existed at the height of the Roman Empire. The final chapter provides a clumsy end point and I felt that there should have been 4 or 5 more lectures looking in greater detail and demographics and the dialogue between sophisticated pagan philosophies and Christianity,At the very end the speaker seemed to out himself as a person of faith and this seems to have created some blind spots and a certain sense of bias. As it happens I then started another course in this series entitled The fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity By Professor Kenneth Hart and this latter series works as a perfect follow-on to this course. I highly recommend buying them together and listening to this one before Professor Hart's course.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Sue
- 20-08-17
fantastic course and insight to Christianity
Excellent course, well delivered and really interesting stories with references throughout. This lecture has provided answers to many questions I had about Christianity in general.
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4 people found this helpful