Lecture 1: The Historical Study of Christianity
• Lack of good historical knowledge is just as widespread among
Christians as it is among Christianity’s critics.
o Many Christians assume anachronistically that current forms
of piety and worship and even the current shape of their Bible
have been in place from the beginning, when in fact, they have
gone through complex development over time.o The same ignorance explains the fascination with bizarre
theories, such as those in The Da Vinci Code, which sold
millions of copies to readers incapable of detecting the novel’s
historical errors.o In a milder fashion, certain fictions concerning the Christian
past have remarkable staying power: that certain gospels
preceded those in the New Testament but were suppressed
because they advocated a more radical form of religion or that
the Christian creed was a late invention of bishops under the
direction of the emperor Constantine.• The study of Christianity’s history has, therefore, both a corrective
and a creative function. It can correct errors and misconceptions,
such as those about the origins and subsequent development of
Christianity, through a fuller and more responsible assessment of
the evidence.
o With regard to Christian origins, was Jesus, as some have
argued, connected in some way to the Qumran community
located at the Dead Sea? The answer is no. Was Paul, as some
have argued, an agent of the Sanhedrin who sought to extirpate
the Christian movement as an official hit man of the Jewish
court? The answer again is no.o We could answer the same way with regard to subsequent
developments within Christianity. Was medieval Catholicism
totally corrupt, with no element of authentic Christianity within
it? There is no reason to think so. Was Byzantium all show and
no substance? In both cases, the answer is no.