This is the third and, alas, final post by Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita, at Boston University, on her new book Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years. As you'll see, it is smart, interesting, and accessible.  You can find it most anywhere you buy books. ****************************** Why should it matter, to have a historical grasp of the origins and development of early  Christianities?   For those of us who value history, the answer is obvious: better to have a clear vision of  the past rather than a blurry one. But because we still live with the consequences of events that  happened in the first through fifth centuries, I think that a more adequate understanding of that  past matters. Having a clearer sense of what those events were and were about gives us some  critical purchase on where we find ourselves, now.  Eusebius gave us our first history of the church. The traditional story, hung from his  scaffolding, is still familiar. Jesus, said Eusebius, inaugurated a new religion separate from [...]