Loading...When I first started thinking about the the rise and spread of Christianity, I was particularly struck by an article written by a prominent and deservedly acclaimed British historian, Keith Hopkins, a long-time professor at Cambridge University. It was called “Christian Number and Its Implication,” and it appeared in the Journal of Early Christian Studies in 1998.
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Hopkins begins his article by reflecting on the fact that it’s very difficult to know even what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the numerical growth of Christianity. For one thing,
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“Christ.” “Christos.” “Messiah.” “Masiah.” “Anointed One.” From the word itself then, strictly speaking is not a “CHRIST-ian” anyone who recognizes Jesus of Nazareth as such no what their other beliefs about him and his teachings are?
I don’t think there’s any way to provide a trict definition of a word, since all words mean multiple things in multiple contexts, even the words I’m using in this sentence!
In your view, why are some Christian denominations so quick to dismiss others as “non-Christian”, i.e., Baptists claiming Mormons (or even Catholics) aren’t Christians?
I think it goes back to the earliest years of Chrsitianity, when the followers of Jesus realized that he was “the only way” of salvation and that therefore it was absolutely essential not to go “some other way.”
Knocked me for a loop when I first heard, about 2 years ago, that Catholics (the denomination in which I was raised) weren’t Christian! I’ve since come to see the tribalism that exists in all of organized religion….my way or the highway! What did Jesus say? Follow me. Worship God. Today it’s all about worshiping Jesus with little regard for the principles he taught.
because they [leadership] don’t know what they were spouting [insecurity].
So the best way is demonize others & hold firm to what they spew, prime example ditto heads, Trump, Jerry Falwell Jr, etc.
An expelled elder said: KJV was the most accurate translation!
Was that 1611 or the version that was used in the 1970’s-90s. BTW, how were those translators blessed to give us the correct translation over the almost 1700 years?
a favorite verse from Wieren Wiersbe [not of that cult], but reputed American senior pastor & author:
https://biblehub.com/hebrews/11-1.htm
Amplified Bible
Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. HUH?
Hello Again Dr. Ehrman,
I was so enamored of the assignment you give some of your undergraduate classes – write your own Gospel – that I have been toying with the idea of trying this myself.
In doing some very preliminary work to think about this, I noticed for the first time that the miracle of walking on the water IS found in Mark, Matthew, and John, but NOT for some reason in Luke. This struck me as REALLY bizarre. I knew for years that the only miracle found in all 4 was the multiplication of loaves (it was such a popular story I suppose that Mattew and Mark include it twice), but I thought the reason for this was John didn’t include any of the other synoptic miracle stories. I know it is very difficult to say at this point WHY the author of Luke wouldn’t have included that story in his Gospel, but… are there any thoughts about why the author of Luke chose to delete that story? He’s following along with Mark quite faithfully and then it’s just… not… there. Strange, no?
Yup, I’ve long wondered myself. And am not really sure…. Is it somehow related to other distinctively Lukan ideas, for example that Jesus did not really suffer anguish in his Passion? And that his death itself did not bring about an atonement?
The totally off hand thought I had was that perhaps the author of Luke was working from Matthew and not Mark, or alternatively had both available to him, and noticed that Matthew included the bit about Peter that Mark did not include, and that for some reason this caused him not to include the story at all. Perhaps the discrepancy led him to doubt the story’s veracity? Alternatively, perhaps the author of Luke had some kind of interest in either (depending on how you look at it) not exalting Peter too much – he walks on the water like Jesus and that puts him too much above the other disciples – or not defaming him – Peter falls in for failure of belief. Or maybe he just didn’t like the Peter anecdote for both of these reasons, couldn’t verify, and decided to ditch the story altogether? I could understand that as the author as well of Acts perhaps “Luke” had a different agenda vis-a-vis Peter than did Matthew.
But all of that is of course dependent on the idea he had Matthew available to him which as I understand it is a minority view at best.
In the strict fundamentalist sect in which I was born and raised there is a proscribed formula for salvation. One must be “convicted of their sin,” realize that they can do nothing for themselves, and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their “own personal Savior.” One must have had this one-time experience to be a “true” Christian. Without it they are not a Christian and are doomed to Hell and ultimately the Lake of Fire forever, no matter if they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, are baptized, keep the Commandments, go to church, or do good deeds. The sect recognizes the Bible as the inspired, inerrant. complete Word of God but I can find no basis in the New or Old Testament for this salvation formula without cobbling together random, often unrelated passages from here and there. The phrase “own personal Savior” is nowhere to be found. If anyone can find a Scriptural basis for this formula, please let me know.
As you’ve already previously noted, some people have an extraordinarily narrow view of who today is ‘truly’ Christian. But it is all semantics: are carmine and crimson shades of red, or is true red the only colour red, and crimson and carmine different colours that merely share characteristics with red?
Indeed, at the time of Constantine, would Arians have been considered Christians by the Trinitarians, and vice versa? While the debate at the bishop level was significant and vehement, including excommunication, it appears that the ‘laity’ were much less concerned. I think the numbers you use in “The Triumph of Christianity” would have included both groups, even though one group was labeled heretics by the other. What do you think would have been the dividing line for how heretical was heretical? How different would one group have to have been to not be counted?
Eventually Arians were sometimes labeled “Jews” (since they didn’t accept the full divinity of Jesus), but at those early stages there were mainly dealt with as errant Christians.
As bart points out, the prophecies of the old testament are takin out of context when making predictions of jesus in the new testament. In your course, ‘did jesus claim he was god’, only in the gospel of john did jesus make this claim of being god.
I do not believe that anyone can predict the future 100% of the time…In the gospels, Jesus says he will go to Jerusalem to suffer & be crucified. Could these consistent & accurate prophecies/predictions imply the divinity of jesus?
love your courses,
Jim Singer
Since the gospels were written long after the fact, it’s quite possible that the gospel writers invented the accurate “prophecies”, and also the inaccurate prophecies (a speedy return etc.). Again we only know what Jesus is said to have said, by people who weren’t contemporaries, who most likely didn’t even live in the areas where the gospel events were supposed to have taken place. You should never assume that the gospel writers, whoever they were, weren’t making stuff up.
Hello!
Rereading Genesis, I thought the following:
A) Adam and Eve were punished beginning with Genesis 3:16 *still* being in the Garden of Eden.
There is no clue that disobedience led to the idea of an original sin, but rather it led to a worsening of conditions for their living and eventually they were to return to the place they were made of – meaning dust).
B) But then, in verse 22, we have what it seems like an explaination of why they could be no longer be *together* with God in the garden of Eden.
Genesis 3:22 NRSV
[22] Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
To me it seems like there was some kind of jelousy or unwillingness to share the eternal life with humans who knew good & evil.
Do you think this is a right interpretation? Why or why not?
Yes, the story presupposes that God did not want them to understand the difference between good and evil, since they were made only to enjoy what was good and not realize there was something else.
G’day Bart
Here you say the first we hear about Christians from a non-Christian is Josephus in 93 of the common era
But didn’t Nero blame the Christians for Rome burning in 63 of the common era? Or do we only hear this story from future Christians possibly creating a story of martyrdom?
Yes, that’s right (64 CE). We don’t have any writings by Nero, so he doesn’t mention Christians. the story of Christians being blamed by him for the first comes to us from a Roman historican, Tacitues, in 115 CE, in his book the Annals of Rome, book 15. It’s one of our two earliest references to Christians in a Roman source.