Download or read book The Patient Ferment of the Early Church written by Alan Kreider and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.

Download or read book Christianity in Ancient Rome written by Bernard Green and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: of the Pope." --Book Jacket.

Download or read book Pagan Rome and the Early Christians written by Stephen Benko and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1986-07-22 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the early Roman empire, Christians were seen by pagans as overthrowers of ancient gods and destroyers of the prevailing social order. Allegations that Christians recognized each other by secret marks, met at night and made love to one another indiscriminately, worshipped the head of an ass and the genitals of their high priests, and ate children were widely believed. In examining these charges and the Christian response to them, Benko has provided a persuasively argued and refreshing, if controversial, perspective on the confrontation of the pagan and early Christian worlds."[book cover].

Download or read book Rome in the Bible and the Early Church written by Peter S. Oakes and published by Paternoster. This book was released on 2002 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six notable scholars illuminate key aspects of Rome and its impact on early Christianity, emphasizing Roman culture, Roman authority, and the Christian community in Rome.

Download or read book The Churches and Catacombs of Early Christian Rome written by Matilda Webb and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reading Romans through the Centuries written by Jeffrey P. Greenman and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be saved? Did God choose who would be his followers, or was it a personal choice? These are just some of the questions Paul addresses in the sixteen challenging chapters of his letter to the Romans. Reading Romans shows how some of the greatest minds in the history of the church have wrestled with, and even been changed by, Paul's words. For example, God used a passage from Romans to speak to the untamed heart of Augustine, and John Wesley said that after hearing Martin Luther's comments on Romans, he felt his heart "strangely warmed." This book will show why, in many ways, Christian theology begins and ends with Romans.

Download or read book Clement and the Early Church of Rome written by Rev Thomas J Herron and published by Emmaus Road Publishing. This book was released on 2010-12 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clement of Rome's First Epistle to the Corinthians, one of the very few Christian texts having survived from the first century, is a supremely valuable historical document. Modern scholars affirm as much, although many have called into question whether Clement was a direct disciple of Sts. Peter and Paul, arguing instead that he lived and wrote many decades after the martyrdom of the apostles. In the groundbreaking Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians, Msgr. Thomas J. Herron presents his rigorously researched conclusions and sketches out the significance of his findings. Clement's Epistle stands as an early example of the exercise of hierarchical--and Roman--authority in the Church. It is a disciplinary letter addressed with confident authority to a distant Church. About the Author Msgr. Thomas J. Herron served for many years as an official of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was the English-language secretary for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI. Msgr. Herron held a doctorate in biblical theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Later in life, he taught at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and served as a pastor in Philadelphia. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2004. Endorsements "His methods are rigorous. His writing is clear and unflinchingly honest. His tone is modest. Nevertheless, his conclusions are stunning. He argues very persuasively for the earlier dates; and then he proceeds to sketch out the significance of the early dating for history, theology, and apologetics. Did he succeed? Well, his work has been cited as authoritative by scholars as illustrious as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. And His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is certainly not alone." --Scott Hahn, Bestselling Author and Popular Speaker "I am dependent . . . upon the brilliant analysis by Thomas J. Herron." --Dr. Clayton Jefford, St. Meinrad School of Theology, author of The Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament

Download or read book The Myth of Persecution written by Candida Moss and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.

Download or read book Understanding Paul written by Stephen Westerholm and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2004-08-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two thousand years later, Paul attracts more attention than any other figure from antiquity besides one," writes Stephen Westerholm. Why the fascination with the apostle Paul? Westerholm explains that Paul remains such a compelling figure because he was "a man completely captivated by a particular way of looking at life." Using the themes of the Epistle to the Romans, Westerholm helps readers understand the major components of Paul's vision of life. He delves into the writings of the Old Testament, explores their influence on Paul, and engages contemporary readers in a thought-provoking reconsideration of their own assumptions about faith, theology, and ethics. This insightful introduction gives postmodern readers, especially those with little or no biblical background, a necessary big-picture look at Paul's view of reality.

Download or read book Christianity and the Roman Empire written by Ralph Martin Novak and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of Christianity during the first four centuries of the common era was the pivotal development in Western history and profoundly influenced the later direction of all world history. Yet, for all that has been written on early Christian history, the primary sources for this history are widely scattered, difficult to find, and generally unknown to lay persons and to historians not specially trained in the field. In Christianity and the Roman Empire Ralph Novak interweaves these primary sources with a narrative text and constructs a single continuous account of these crucial centuries. The primary sources are selected to emphasize the manner in which the government and the people of the Roman Empire perceived Christians socially and politically; the ways in which these perceptions influenced the treatment of Christians within the Roman Empire; and the manner in which Christians established their political and religious dominance of the Roman Empire after Constantine the Great came to power in the early fourth century CE. Ralph Martin Novak holds a Masters Degree in Roman History from the University of Chicago. For: Undergraduates; seminarians; general audiences

Download or read book The Acts of the Apostles written by P.D. James and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acts is the sequel to Luke's gospel and tells the story of Jesus's followers during the 30 years after his death. It describes how the 12 apostles, formerly Jesus's disciples, spread the message of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean against a background of persecution. With an introduction by P.D. James

Download or read book Roman Faith and Christian Faith written by Teresa Morgan and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-05-29 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study investigates why 'faith' (pistis/fides) was so important to early Christians that the concept and praxis dominated the writings of the New Testament. It argues that such a study must be interdisciplinary, locating emerging Christianities in the social practices and mentalités of contemporary Judaism and the early Roman empire. This can, therefore, equally be read as a study of the operation of pistis/fides in the world of the early Roman principate, taking one but relatively well-attested cult as a case study in how micro-societies within that world could treat it distinctively. Drawing on recent work in sociology and economics, the book traces the varying shapes taken by pistis/fides in Greek and Roman human and divine-human relationships: whom or what is represented as easy or difficult to trust or believe in; where pistis/fides is 'deferred' and 'reified' in practices such as oaths and proofs; how pistis/fides is related to fear, doubt and scepticism; and which foundations of pistis/fides are treated as more or less secure. The book then traces the evolution of representations of human and divine-human pistis in the Septuagint, before turning to pistis/pisteuein in New Testament writings and their role in the development of early Christologies (incorporating a new interpretation of pistis Christou) and ecclesiologies. It argues for the integration of the study of pistis/pisteuein with that of New Testament ethics. It explores the interiority of Graeco-Roman and early Christian pistis/fides. Finally, it discusses eschatological pistis and the shape of the divine-human community in the eschatological kingdom.

Download or read book Evangelism in the Early Church written by Michael Green and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a modern classic, Michael Green’s Evangelism in the Early Church shows how the first Christians worked to spread the good news to the rest of the world. Studying the New Testament and church fathers, Green explores the earliest methods, motives, and strategies of spreading the good news. He also considers the obstacles to evangelism, using outreach to Gentiles and to Jews as examples of differing contexts for proclamation. Thoroughly informed by primary sources, this book will help contemporary readers learn from the past and renew their own evangelistic vision.

Download or read book Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire written by Niko Huttunen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition Niko Huttunen challenges the interpretation of early Christian texts as anti-imperial documents. He presents examples of the positive relationship between early Christians and the Roman society. With the concept of “recognition” Huttunen describes a situation in which the parties can come to terms with each other without full agreement. Huttunen provides examples of non-Christian philosophers recognizing early Christians. He claims that recognition was a response to Christians who presented themselves as philosophers. Huttunen reads Romans 13 as a part of the ancient tradition of the law of the stronger. His pioneering study on early Christian soldiers uncovers the practical dimension of recognizing the empire.

Download or read book The Christians as the Romans Saw Them written by Robert Louis Wilken and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans.

Download or read book Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History written by Timothy David Barnes and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2010 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In their present form, the first five chapters are revised versions of lectures delivered in German at the University of Jena on 10-14 November 2008"--P. xi.

Download or read book Early Christian Martyr Stories written by Bryan M. Litfin and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal narratives are powerful instruments for teaching, both for conveying information and for forming character. The martyrdom accounts preserved in the literature of early Christianity are especially intense and dramatic. However, these narratives are not readily available and are often written in intimidating prose, making them largely inaccessible for the average reader. This introductory text brings together key early Christian martyrdom stories in a single volume, offering new, easy-to-read translations and expert commentary. An introduction and explanatory notes accompany each translation. The book not only provides a vivid window into the world of early Christianity but also offers spiritual encouragement and inspiration for Christian life today.