Loading...I just now got off the phone with a reporter for the London newspaper the Independent who is writing an article on new developments in our understanding of why Christianity spread so widely in the Roman world. (The Independent is one of the few newspapers anymore that has some articles of substance in addition to the exciting and/or depressing news of the day, given with a decided slant.) He wanted to know what new information, archaeological finds, and or analyses have appeared over the past seven or eight years and I had to tell him that, well, I didn’t know of any. (!) He was surprised, but suggested a few things he had come across (“Christians had better health care/community support” etc), and I had to inform him those were old ideas.
Not wanting to go away empty-handed, he asked me my views about the question, Why did Christianity take over the Roman world? He knew I had written a book on it, but he hadn’t read it, so I went into my standard spiel about it. Doing so I realized that this information really ought to be common knowledge, but alas, even this fellow intently looking into the question didn’t know it.
My main argument in the book is that Christianity
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Being apocalyptic, there was some urgency to convert and be saved. John the Baptizer was apocalyptic, and Jesus took up where John left off. Absent apocalypticism, would evangelism have become central to the faith? Paul taught, and Bishop Wright still teaches, that resurrection of the body would not happen until the end of time, being apocalyptic meant any day. Apocalypticism fits with justification, as compared to a long term observance of Jewish law. The focus on love came after the end time kept not happening. Today, the fastest growing Christian movement in America is a form of prosperity gospel, which is the opposite of apocalypticism, but like apocalypticism carries a message of conversion to the faith for a very good but very different reason. Adaptation has kept Christianity a growth religion, urgency to convert and be saved. .
It was summertime (all year) and the living was easy. I witnessed the Jesus Movement in California in the early 70s. (almost got born again) Do you think that the mild Mediterranean climate was a factor in the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire?
Interesting idea, but I can’t think of any arguments for it.
(And Somehow I don’t think Gershwin was thinking of southern california. 🙂 South Carolina, yes!)
After Ancestry.com initially reported my DNA had strong Jewish connections on my Italian father’s side, I was very interested in reconnecting with Jewish people. I knew that some Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition had moved to Northern Italy. A few years later Ancestry.com completely changed its DNA analysis and they determined there was no Jewish connection at all. In my contacts with a number of Jewish people I learned they had no interest whatsoever in making converts. During this time my son and his family were very active in a Messianic Synagogue. Eventually they had a falling out and were dismissed as not being Jewish anyway. The moral of the story is Jewishness is as much cultural and ancestral as anything else. Looking back at a class I had in Bible college about evangelism, the professor claimed the book of Jonah was an example of evangelism. I almost laugh when I think about how wrong he was.
Reported by a content creator on YouTube, someone sent the saliva of a lizard to a DNA laboratory. Moving on, my father told his three children of a family legend that he learned as a child of his ancestor, the Curly Hair Indian. My father was told he had substantial Indian heritage. He was told that it was Shawnee (or so he remembered from his childhood.) A few years later, he reconnected with his paternal relatives and it was Cherokee heritage. My father was a white male raised in the Jim Crow South. I began thinking about the Indian tribes. Which tribe had curly hair? Moving on, in his retirement, he traced his genealogy. It is a hobby and a fanatical addiction. He learned of a new family with the same surname. He visited them. The husband was a genealogy fanatic also! They compared research, but found no shared ancestors. As my father thanked them and got up to leave, the man said, “If you don’t mind, let me share with you a family legend.” My father returned to his seat. The man told him about the Curly Hair Indian.
I’m confused by the definition of the English term “pagan” when used by scholars like you. The term clearly includes polytheistic religions with which early Christians, Jews, and Muslims were familiar. But does the term include, say, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions?
The word was invented by ancient Christians to refer to polytheists, basically to mean anyone who is not either Jewish or Christian. It literally means “rural person” and was used as a snide reference to the “country bumpkins” who were not sophisticated like the “city-dwellers” who realized that monotheism is the only thing that makes sense. When scholars use it, however, it does not have derogatory connotations; it just means ancient polytheist.
When did christianity start competing with itself? We have so many sects to choose from. Even when I was a Xian, there were those who told me I chose wrong and could do better; christianity’s malleability seems to make it so.
“…Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself…” “Neither color or race puts any man out of the category of my neighbor.” How did the proselytizer’s deal with this contradiction, other than just ignore it? Why didn’t the ‘love commandment’ prevent slavery from flourishing in christianity for most of its existence?
As far back as the New Testament. Our oldest author, Paul, seems to have as many enemies in his own churches as he has friends.
There wasn’t any moral outrage over the institution of slavery in antiquity. It had always existed and was simply seen as a reality and was never questinons as an instituion.
Off-topic… Dr. Ehrman, just wanted to let you know that a fake YouTube channel is posting A.I.-generated videos of you. The content is so bad it would almost be funny except that it’s misrepresenting what you teach.
I don’t know if it’s ok to post a link here, please delete if not:
https://www.youtube.com/@NewTestamentInsights
Thanks. Yeah, someone alerted me to it and we are getting Youtube to take it down. (They are truly awful attempts; others no doubt will appear)
Bart, your last paragraph calls attention to a contradiction that makes me wonder if Paul, whom Borg called a Christ mystic, and took a more positive view of, actually believed what you have suggested. An all inclusive love for others based on the love of God (God loves all people unconditionally) contradicts the possibility of belief in an apocalyptic and “eternal judgment” as you put it.
And yet, I have to admit, when I was an evangelical minister, I professed love for the world based on God’s love for the world, and still believed in judgment upon unbelievers. It was an obvious contradiction that I could not see because of my religious ego.
But can we assume that Paul, who, if he did not write 1 Cor. 13 most certainly endorsed it, and he most likely did indeed write Romans 8, I mean, is it possible that one with that sort of insight into Divine love and experienced such love himself, could he actually hold to such a contradiction. Could we be misreading Paul? Could he have been as blind as I was?
I’m not sure if you or he were blind, but as you know (and probably said at the time), Christians have always had to balance the love of God with his justice; and the view that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James) seems to have been rarely held.
I think this social-network model makes a lot of sense and helps correct modern assumptions about organized missionary campaigns in the early church.
One complement to the picture comes from the sociologist Rodney Stark, who argued that Christian communities may also have grown because their moral practices became visible within those same networks, especially during times of disease, poverty, and social instability. People did not only hear Christian claims; they experienced Christian care.
I find Stark’s point about epidemics especially moving: when those with enough wealth could leave a disease-stricken city, Christians often stayed to care for the sick who were left behind. That involved real cost, and possibly real danger. In a world that so often protects itself first, that contrast still feels sharp.
The social explanation does not reduce Christianity to “nothing but” sociology. The historical mechanism and the truth-question are related, but not identical.
I think that the “missionary” impetus originated with the competition between paradigms. Paul said that he preferred to lay the foundation and to avoid building upon the foundation of others. In ACTS, that other foundation was the “Judaizers” from Jerusalem. Believe it or not, but the first heretics emerged before Peter and the 70 arrived from Galilee for the High Sabbath of Pentecost. Some of the “prophets” of the ancient Essenes interpreted the EMPTY TOMB with a supernatural interpretation. The Essene community was split. Six weeks before the Day of Pentecost, “former” Essenes had accepted Jesus as the Jewish Messiah AND the Prophet of Zoroaster AND the Return of the Buddha. Josephus told us about the “prophets” of the Essenes. Josephus told us about their secretive nature. The “former” Essenes thrived under the RADAR and emerged with the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark. Essenes interacted with non-Jews, so Luke interviewed Essenes and “former” Essenes. Shysters and frauds might have provided the missionary “impetus”, also. Scammers looked for fresh audiences. Paul’s New Covenant is IDIOT-PROOF, TAMPER RESISTANT, AND FOOLPROOF. Believers and unbelievers are judged by the same criteria (ACTS 2:26-29).
We should all look into the 65 years of research by a couple of MDs that provides STRONG evidence that Reincarnation is quite frequent, that GOD does not punish but sends either some or all humans back to earth to learn more — especially to learn that we all should be doing more to help others — including unknown others — in need. Bart’s most recent book, “Love The Stranger,” does an excellent job of reminding readers that Jesus clearly and frequently advocated this action throughout his active ministry. In his book, Bart says he continues to be uncertain about the existence of a “Higher Power” (I forgot his specific terminology), but he does frequently take actions to help others because he believes it is a practice that is essential to maintaining human life on earth. I am currently a member of an UCC (United Church of Christ) congregation because 1) it puts a lot of effort into this practice, and 2) it believes “God is Still Speaking.” Reading and studying the Bible is worthwhile, but following the command to help others is the most important thing we should be doing.
Bill Steigelmann (Age 91 Retired Engineer)