Description
Book SynopsisA ground-breaking introductory textbook for the study of the New Testament and the first Christians, written for the next generation of students
Comparing Christianities: An Introduction to the New Testament and the First Christians maps the historical rise of Christianity out of a network of early Christian movements. This major new textbook systematically explores the struggles to define the faith by presenting Christianity as the result of a lengthy process of religious consolidation which emerged from a landscape of persistent Christian diversity.
The book delves into the history of the first five generations of Christians, from Paul to Origen. The first chapter considers the challenges of constructing Christian histories and offers a new model of Christian families to organize and explain the emergence and competition of different varieties of Christianity. Each successive chapter focuses on key issues that Christian leaders engaged over the centuries
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
1 Sectarian Jews 1
2 A New Religion 27
3 Early Gnostic Churches 49
4 The Church of the Martyrs 81
5 Early Christian Philosophical Movements 103
6 The Universal Church 131
7 Holiness Movements in Asia and Syria 157
8 The Expansion of Gnostic Churches 183
9 The Construction of Orthodoxy 207
10 Church Reform 231
11 The Mystical Church 257
12 A Family History 283
Glossary of Terms 327
Index 339
