The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation

o It is selective, focusing primarily on two leaders (Peter and Paul), on the westward rather than eastward expansion, and on ci ...

Lecture 5: Paul and Christianity’s First Expansion and even persecution, forcing early believers into frequent and difficult tra ...

o Convinced by his Pharisaic convictions that Jesus was cursed by God because of his death (Gal. 3:13), Paul sought to extirpate ...

Lecture 5: Paul and Christianity’s First Expansion o Paul is the source for the earliest religious claims concerning the Holy Sp ...

o Distinctions from Jews were harder, because they shared the same symbolic world of Torah. Should believers, then, be circumcis ...

Lecture 5: Paul and Christianity’s First Expansion of community that had great appeal, but it also had the capacity to disrupt t ...

The Diversity of Early Christianity..................................................... Lecture 6 I n the last lecture, we disc ...

Lecture 6: The Diversity of Early Christianity o Thus, the writings we have in the New Testament are, so far as we can tell, the ...

than Paul’s (Hebrews and James), and that oppression and persecution occurred in other communities than Paul’s (Hebrews, 1 Peter ...

Lecture 6: The Diversity of Early Christianity o The memories of Jesus’s statements and deeds were, in all likelihood, transmitt ...

story but an all-pervasive perspective on the entire story: The one remembered is believed to be powerfully alive among those wh ...

Lecture 6: The Diversity of Early Christianity o The Gospel of John (the “Fourth Gospel”) makes use of material found also in th ...

• Despite such divergence in interpretation, the four Gospels converge in their understanding of the character of Jesus and o ...

Lecture 6: The Diversity of Early Christianity How does taking into account the full range of New Testament writings expand the ...

The Unpopular Cult—Persecution Lecture 7 T o this point in the course, the lectures have described the contexts of Christianity ...

Lecture 7: The Unpopular Cult—Persecution o Even when a cult enjoyed imperial recognition or official favor, it could be the tar ...

o Its understanding of “holiness” demanded an opposition against paganism (with its idolatry) and Judaism (with its Law). o Inso ...

Lecture 7: The Unpopular Cult—Persecution • Christians put Roman rulers and administrators in a difficult situation. o So lon ...

o The numbers of Christians killed over these centuries is particularly difficult to assess, although to be sure, the effect of ...

Lecture 7: The Unpopular Cult—Persecution o The 3rd century saw more violent outbursts of persecution under Septimius Severus (2 ...