Best history of the early Church?

What is the best current history of the early Church?

I am thinking more about the early church that was discussed in JD Crossan's Birth of Christianity and somewhat later, to the first councils perhaps.

More than a retelling of Acts.

I found Henry Chadwick's The Early Church to be enjoyable, and a nice length.

For door-stoppers I'd recommend Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians. It's not a "history of the church" per se, but it's an incredibly rich and perceptive history of the period.

Thanks Tim.

I suppose I phrased my question poorly. I should have stated early Christianity, rather than the early Church.

Chadwick and Fox are good recommendations.

I should have stated early Christianity, rather than the early Church.

Well, there's no difference, right?

Pagans and Christians is more because, well, it's about the pagans as much as the Christians.

I have gotten a lot out of Frend's books.

The Rise of Christianity is the more recent (1984) and better book, but is very long. Which is probably why The Early Church stays available.

2 books which are very readable are How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman and Christian Beginnings from Nazareth to Nicaea by Geza Vermes. As the titles suggest both deal with our understanding of Jesus. A book covering a much longer period right up to the present is a bit dry and long-winded is Diarmaid MacCulloch's "A History of Christianity" which in its early chapters gives a good account of Eastern and especially Syriac churches and how important the Syriacs were at the time. Too many accounts seem determined to place Rome at the centre, understandably as that led to the Western tradition.

Thanks MarthaJeanne,

I had not heard of Frend. I need to look him up.

Thanks PossMan,

Those might be what I am looking for. I really like Geza Vermes.

>7 richardbsmith:

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch is indeed great. But it's a door-stopper, and only a small part (1/4?) is devoted to what one could call the "early church."

Personally, I wouldn't recommend Ehrman, as I think he's so devoted to toppling statues that he consistently overstates his cases. It surfaces the questions—surfaced by any book on the early church—about just how early various things were believed, and the degree to which one can speak of proto-orthodoxy at all. He just ignores good evidence.

I am not a fan of Ehrman either. I have yet to read anything new in his books.

I often have questioned whether he is a scholar or a book writer with an amazing skill to sensationalize old news.

>9 richardbsmith:: ".........whether he is a scholar or a book writer......... ".
I must admit I often get the same feeling about some authors who write a book I enjoy and then go on to write many more in the same niche market. And I sometimes go to the opposite and automatically reject further writings. Perhaps David Crystal on language and Alain de Botton on pop-philosophy come to mind from the top of my head. And Geza Vermes, who in 9 you say you like, wrote quite a number of books for the non-scholar market. As for Ehrman some years ago my interest in the NT arose from watching a MOOC (not by him) from Yale University on the NT and one of the resources as a recommended text was his The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.
And a little OT I came across a blog by a seminarian (or ex-seminarian) who had been taught by Ehrman and claimed that he and his like were out to destroy faith by their exposition of the NT.

I don't think Ehrman is out to destroy faith. And his exposition is the NT is late and I think generally common knowledge.

His conversion from evangelistic Christianity to agnosticism is an interesting story.

He states that his faith crisis did not begin with the shocking discovery that Genesis might not have been written by Moses, and that there appear to be multiple sources for the Gospels, or that there are real questions about the authorship of some of the Pauline letters.

His faith crisis is grounded in questions of theodicy. From that perspective he and I share questions. Tim has also raised that issue in this forum.

What I have read of Ehrman is pretty basic stuff as far as NT studies. I had hoped for more from his books. And as I have been told, there is a need for popular presentation of these approaches to the NT.

I have seen that Yale course, but have not taken it. I really would like to.

Are you active with MOOC's?

I am taking a Harvard MOOC now on Homer and the Greek hero, with Greg Nagy.

>11 richardbsmith:: "Are you active with MOOC's?"
Not as much as I would like partly because I can't make much of a commitment. The MOOC I was refering to was by Dale Martin at Yale:
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152#sessions
and I had previously watched the equivalent OT course by Christine Hayes
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145

Both were excellent introductions and both took place in lecture rooms full of students who sometimes made their presence felt from time to time. For me the main advantage was no need to register or commit although I can honestly say I did watch almost (perhaps not quite) all the lectures in both courses. Both speakers were excellent. Both made it clear at the outset that answers to exam questions were to be be based on the texts rather than Sunday School/Church learning. The course was not intended to promote belief or destroy belief; simply examine the texts and what their writers intended and what they could tell us about the periods in which they were written.
In the NT course I was struck by an episode in which Dale had set students an exercise in which they were to read through Acts and also one of the letters of Paul (Galatians?) and note all the occurrences of Paul and where Acts said he was and where Paul said he was. At the inquest it was clear that:-
a) Many students had not done their homework.

Dale went through the texts pointing out discrepancies and I had the impression that many students were not too happy with his conclusions. It seemed to me many had joined with pre-conceived ideas which may explain my final sentence in post 10. And I think Bart Ehrman and Dale Martin are friends on a personal level.

The Homer MOOC sounds interesting — I'll check it out.

I am familiar with the Yale courses, though I have not taken either.

Here is the link to the Homer course.

https://www.edx.org/course/ancient-greek-hero-24-hours-harvardx-hum2x-B

Some years ago, I have spent some time matching Galatians and Acts. And both Corinthians letters.. They do not correlate as to his travels. And in my mind the letters have priority.

I am surprised that many students taking a Yale course would be surprised and take offense at those discrepancies.

We are looking at Genesis 1-11 (very close reading) in my Sunday School class, with the assignment to look at the Yale videos on Enuma Elish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANUD8IK12ms

MOOC?

I keep seeing Moo-cow.

Massive open online course

Massive Open Online Courses

www.coursera.org
www.edx.org
www.worldscienceu.com

Are the biggest, and perhaps the best.

There are others.
www.open2study.com
www.futurelearn.com/courses

I don't think Ehrman is out to destroy faith. And his exposition is the NT is late and I think generally common knowledge.

I don't think it's appropriate to speculate about the motives behind his scholarly work, or at least to link his motives to his scholarship. I respect him as a scholar, as do most scholars. But his views on Christian belief—downplaying commonalities, pushing many core doctrines as late as possible—aren't merely common knowledge, but very much at the far end of scholarly debate. I have no idea how much of this makes it into his MOOCs. And I think a somewhat different standard should apply in his work that is less scholarly, or extraneous to his field of competence (e.g., God's Problem).

Ehrman wrote some commentary for Rodolphe Kasser's The Gospel of Judas where he is much more transparent about the wishful thinking that is influencing his own work.

His position as a college professor has him influencing many young minds.

My recollection is that back when I was a student we recognized it when a professor was full of it, and didn't actually respect all of them as much as they thought we did.

>18 timspalding:: I think I should retract my last sentence in >10 PossMan:: where I said a seminarian had claimed that Ehrman and his like "were out to destroy faith". I can't get back to the blog in question but I think it was probably along the lines that the course did nothing to foster faith rather than trying to impute sinister motives to the lecturers concerned as I now see my phrasing suggested.

Peter Brown's The Rise of Western Christendom now deserves similar classic status to Chadwick and Frend. Notwithstanding the title it gives strong coverage to Syrian Christianity etc (even Chinese Nestorians). Note that for good and ill the 2nd (2003) edition is almost twice the length of the first.

I don't think one must become a learned theologian to understand that naturalistic explanations of the existence of the christian myth in its present form are the default position up to and until someone were to demonstrate that the miraculous events actually took place as miraculous or supernatural events. And how would one even begin to do that?

All religions seem made from whole cloth, relying on the necessary and sufficient imagination and persuasive talents of a goodly number of people over some time period, who in effect conspire to establish the religion as factually miraculous. Some are very successful and others not so much but success does not constitute proof of truth, or even likelihood of truth.

Islam, though 600 years younger than its great monotheistic rival, has done quite well. In the coming century Islam may very well become the most subscribed religion on earth. And the Hindu faith, not to mention the Buddhist faith, are as established as western monotheistic faiths and are most influential on the world scene. Mormons, scientologists and many other less subscribed faiths are chugging right along also.

What distinguishes one of these religions from the others as objectively to be recommended over all the others? Not a damn thing, really. It is a matter of faith or belief that YOUR religion is true and ALL the other religions are FALSE and MADE UP - possibly satanic. And what in hell does the history of your faith have to do with anything whatsoever? One just has faith that it is what a literal translation of the holy scripture says and problem solved. Disputation between "learned" theologians with fancy-smancy degrees matters not a whit to the great unwashed masses - you know, the 99 percent? lol. And certainly religious-based disputations between competing eggheads on the internet google machine is the ultimate in futility and wasted energy. Again, lol.

This is only one of many reasons why the numbers of agnostics and atheists and convinced secularists and so forth are growing rapidly in numbers in most of the advanced or first world countries. Once a person is free to think about this stuff and is exposed to all sides of the arguments - and is fairly free of social and physical threats - then the dirty secret becomes clear to many of the more intelligent - the emperor has no clothes.

lol.