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

•    Culturally, it was mixed, with a symbolic world shaped by a

Judaism that was already Hellenized and with steady success

among Gentiles rather than Jews.

•    Religiously, it made claims to an experience of ultimate power

through the Holy Spirit that were cosmic but disproportionate to the

actual situation of believers in the world.

•    Conceptually, the founding figure of Jesus presented a set of

major challenges to understanding: Was he cursed or the source of

blessing? If he was Lord, then what does that mean for monotheism?

•    Many of the subsequent issues faced by Christians would involve

the same tensions that marked the entry of the religion into the

world and its first expansion.

Johnson, The Real Jesus.

———, The Writings of the New Testament, especially pp. 83–136.

1. Discuss the ways in which the “founder” of Christianity differs from the
   founders of Buddhism and Islam.


2. How does the concept of cognitive dissonance help explain the necessity
   of Christians to reinterpret their symbolic world?

Suggested Reading

Questions to Consider