the triumph of christianity summary

Strangely enough, Muehlhauser as an atheist even appears to have agreed with this “two Ehrmans hypothesis” Jarrod speaks of. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Carrier misrepresents what Ehrman says. However, I see from some of the other posts that what you have is the liberal, re-gurgitated and discredited Jesus Seminar approach. Also, what do you make of Canida Moss’ book on Christians inventing their persecutions? Yes, that does seem to be why it’s in the book, but that reasoning isn’t really sustained by the information he gives. “I am willing to bet that you didn’t even know of Dan Wallace until I brought him up to you or at the very least knew nothing about this earth shaking scandal concerning Mark until I mentioned his name. I think the impression that I got from Erhmans’ book is that while she was not attacked FOR being pagan, being pagan may have been why she was chosen from all of the options. Controversies do. This lasted until the third century AD, when the whole facade collapsed and Rome descended into the “Military Anarchy” – a 50 year period in which there were dozens of rivals for the imperial purple and 26 emperors rose and fell in rapid succession, some only lasting months, and the Empire came to the brink of total collapse. The only thing that seems “confused” here are your increasingly erratic attempts at smearing Ehrman. It is a religious analysis and I think claiming that was doing history is wrong. Diocletian’s experiment with two emperors and their subordinate “caesars” had broken down and Constantine emerged as the sole ruler by out-manoeuvring and then eliminating his co-emperors. Or the Church's insistence to suppress knowledge? Preferably Independent sources, 4) Close in time to the events, 5) No contradictions/internally consistent. The answer is either yes or no, and it can’t be both. “just because the number of cruel executions of pagans was small compared to the total population, it seems clear that people were terrorized to go against the powerful Roman empire official religion. He was not so certain about the date (perhaps it was early second century). So what is this “reason” that he gives? For instance, the vastly higher status afforded Christian. This means that the idea that Constantine, as Hitchens claimed, “adopted [Christianity] for political reasons” is clearly nonsense. I've returned the book, so I don't have an example at hand, but I know that I winced through the ancient period with Stark. I’m not saying I would discount it out of hand but yes I think discussions about whether a claim is supported by parsimony are more often than not philosophical. But it’s also true that there are lots of textual variants, that there is uncertainty about some (not all!) I have linked to your two blog articles on the references to Jesus in Tacitus and Josephus for atheists to see. That support came from the western legions’ devotion to his father and then from his own proven skill as a general and he was careful to never lose the army’s support. The western Catholic tradition, perhaps thanks to the theological and historical buffer of the Great Schism of 1054 and an enduring suspicion of Byzantine “Caesaropapism”, venerates the sainted Helena but has a slightly less enthusiastic view of Constantine. This seems to have been because there was far less need for organised and concerted preaching within the Empire, due to the way networks of patronage, community and family worked in late Roman society. I was fascinated when I first started reading this book. For most of its 2000-year history Christianity has appealed more to the upper social classes than to lower classes. We don’t have the first copy” We don’t have copies of the copy. That assumption is wrong. Following a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, he received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. https://apikoris.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/isaiah-53.html, I’m not necessarily saying it ‘was’ a messianic prophecy, only that the earliest Christians may have interpreted it as such, just as Isaiah 7:14 is not a messianic prophecy, but was explicitly quoted as being such in Matthew 1:23. It becomes completely absurd if we look at who these Christian were. I quoted Ehrman simply because I wanted to present his perspective on this claim in his own words. https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/6923. I didn’t say he wasn’t a genuine scholar, albeit a highly conservative one. But as Ehrman says above, his popular books are aimed at the widest possible readership and his “ideal reader” seems to be someone very much like himself in his younger years – a zealous, evangelical Biblical literalist whose faith in the inerrancy of scripture is matched only by his profound ignorance of textual and critical scholarship. To study copies of manuscripts to try and ascertain what the original says. It would be hard to write a book on this subject without doing so. The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion by Array. They are just not so convincing, and fly in the face of the entire gamut of historical research. If you have philosophical or religious misgivings (as I would expect most Muslims do) for accepting all three then you can reject 2 or 3 on those grounds. I think that reasoning is perfectly legitimate. (that jesus was alive at some date after the crucifixion date) But of course even you would say they could if they reject the second claim. Oh, hang on …, “However, I see from some of the other posts that what you have is the liberal, re-gurgitated and discredited Jesus Seminar approach.”. Can we keep the comments on topic please. So in that sense it felt like a Stark compendium rather than a new book. Do you have any idea what years we have the earliest written sources from Christians putting forward these ideas about Constantine’s conversion corrupting the church? Now I do agree that it wouldn’t be “historical analysis” to say since historical analysis suggests claims 1,2, and 3 are true, *therefore it must be a miracle. But that was not necessary. He notes the various laws constricting public sacrifice and worship by pagans and the orders for the closure of temples. Some of the points he makes are: Lots of really interesting and controversial theses here. But he also makes an affirmation that the original is lost. No of course not. Furthermore, it is interesting to learn how the first-century fragment of Mark controversy arose in the first place. Now, I do disagree with several of your remarks about Wallace. That the poor should be as worthy of respect as the rich; that the starving should have a claim on those with the reserves to feed them; that the vulnerable — children, prostitutes, slaves — should not be used by the powerful as mere sexual objects: all of these novel Christian doctrines must surely have had some influence on ‘the triumph of Christianity’ among the teeming masses of Roman cities.”. Personally, I don’t quite agree and think “divine” is not a useful way to describe Paul’s pre-existent Jesus. doesn’t make any sense to me Historical analysis can’t go any further than “people believed that a miracle happened”. Honestly all the atheists calling you a crypto christian should read this thread. I don’t mean to be overly negative about Ehrman, even though the blog may come off that way. So nobody got scared there. And nowhere did I say anyone was an “extremist”. Getting back to an original via textual criticism, is cavernously different than making a claim about how far down the line a copy is when there is no original too be had. And that’s what seems obvious about you to everyone else. For example, the panel depicting an emperor sacrificing a pig, sheep and bull is not original to Constantine’s monument and seems to have been taken from an arch celebrating Marcus Aurelius’ Marcomannic Wars. But I wish he would just admit that it is for philosophical reasons. There is no reason to assume that christian emperors were more successfull. This is off topic. However, like with all of Stark's books, there was a lot of food for thought as well. We are made by history.” So, this January, as we celebrate Martin Luther King... Over 40% of people today are Xians. And it did it twice!”, “IN 1710, THE ENGLISH FREETHINKER Thomas Woolston (1670–1731) expressed his confidence that religion would vanish by 1900.1 Voltaire (1695–1778) thought this much too pessimistic and predicted that religion would be gone from the Western world within the next fifty years—by about 1810.”, http://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n79-3359. The sociologist Rodney Stark has recently written a riveting summary of the dismantling of this anti-Christian narrative by many different historians, in ‘The Triumph of Christianity’ (HarperCollins, 2011). ), From experience I don’t trust Carrier at all – which is why I’m always keen to learn about what mainstream scholars are saying about these relatively-lesser-known ancient Jewish and Christian texts that he likes to deploy in argument. In the same vein the De Broglie-Bohm interpretation is fringe; very few qualified physicists accept it. This book gave me a lot to think about, and I've been talking about it for days. But the speculations about my character otherwise I would hope have been resolved.”. My only comment would be to ask you if you think there is any real difference between Ehrman’s (and my) approach to the miracles reported in early Christian sources and your approach to the miracles reported in many non-Christian texts in the same period. http://www.ChristianBookMix.com This is the summary of The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion by Rodney Stark. This brings us back to the two questions posed earlier. On one hand, most of his popular works are praised and held in high esteem by them for making clear the reasons scholars do not take the arguments of Biblical literalists seriously and exposing the flaws in fundamentalist apologism regarding the origins and nature of the New Testament’s texts and testimony. this book challenged my worldview constructed mostly from what author would probably call "secular versions" of history, Rodney Stark grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, and began his career as a newspaper reporter. Ehrman knows this himself. While I know dispelling myths sells books, there are times when I think this model takes too much of the front seat and causes the driver to veer off the pavement, or in this case, the writer begins. A crowd of a hundred pagan polytheists gathers to hear each devotee extol the glories of his god. Thank you Frank I may look up Herman Philipse. I as a Christian wouldn’t reject it on philosophical reasons but perhaps on Religious reasoning like – hey I think there is only one God and he does not perform miracles for Muhammed. Constantine gained nothing politically from appealing to the politically-insignificant plebeians and with only 6-7% of the total population Christian, such an appeal would have been minimal even if the plebs did wield some kind of power. If we define history to exclude that possibility based on your philosophical beliefs then ok it won’t ever – by definition. And if our philosophical view is that nothing could ever violate a law of nature then we would weigh the evidence. In this fascinating book, Rodney Stark eschews the normal theological and historical answers to this question and sets out to answer the question through sociological analysis. This means Constantine adopted Christianity despite its political disadvantages, not because it gave him a political edge. Rodney Stark is a name I kept hearing being tossed around, both in print and in speech. It is incoherent. Because it is pretty clear to me that this claim is total nonsense. To be sure, there is much to criticize me for, in particular that I did not personally verify the information I received about this manuscript before announcing it to the world. But by the late third century, Christianity had split off from Judaism, and attracted enough followers that the Roman Emperor, Diocletian, felt it threatened the stability of the state and vigorously persecuted it. I’ve not read the book yet, but its on my list to get. stupid …. The implications of these calculations are significant. Seriously. I did a blog about here: But then completely seperate from these religious or philosophical reasons there very well may be a historical analysis of the claimed event. I think it is important to keep this seperate. Wow. 2) Jesus died on the day he was crucified. A great deal of research went into this book but it’s unfortunate that the author only believes his own research, dismissing well documented historical facts that didn’t fit into his premise. And that is usually a sign that something like the right balance has been struck. Killing some pagans in Anatolia had zero impact in Brittannia. “The Triumph of Christianity,” – This Assignment Help Do you need help with your “The Triumph of Christianity,” – This Assignment Help? While it had a few aristocratic and learned adherents – who have more prominence largely because the writings of some of them are our main sources of information – the majority of Christians were slaves, “foreign” non-citizens and, substantially, urban plebeians. Their number grows more rapidly than that of any other major faith. This is very much true for the miracles in the Gospels. Given your mention papal reservations about caesaropapism and Bernard of Clairvaux and St Francis expressing some reservations about Constantine’s impact on the faith, while Eastern/Oriental Orthodox revere him as a Saint, did the schism of 1054 lay the groundwork for these myths about Augustine to become mainstream? But I think it is important that we keep an open mind. Ehrman himself regards this dichotomy with characteristic amused sangfroid and gives the impression he feels that if he annoys the extremists at both ideological extremes, he is probably getting things about right. Again, the scepticism about such things of modern non-Christians makes it very easy to overlook how much prominence Jesus’ status as a wonder-worker and miraculous healer had in pre-modern Christianity, and how much emphasis the miraculous powers, achieved through faith in him, had in the stories of Christian saints and heroes. I cover the argument that only Tacitus says the fire was the cause of the persecution in my Tacitus article. But then we properly understand our rejection is despite the historical evidence not because of it. In early 2012, Daniel B. Wallace, senior research professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, seemed to confirm Carroll’s statement. I believe the laws of nature can be violated. But I was told none of this. Wallace is also something of a laughing stock in the field, given his involvement in the now notorious “first century Mark fragment” fiasco. We use different tools, methods and assumptions in each case. When we talk about sex to our ten-year old sons and daughters, we talk about it different from how we talk about it with them when they are eighteen, or how we talk about it with our spouses, or how we talk about it with our closest friends. This, and the whole book, strikes me as eminently sensible and well-founded, though it is likely to leave the zealots on both sides grumbling. With his signature knack for making the boldest and most original scholarship accessible to all readers, Stark presents the real story behind the tragedies and triumphs that have shaped the trajectory of the Christian faith and, indeed, … Two questions, the second being a follow up to the first, that I hope are relevant given this piece on touches on bad history regarding Constantine’s conversion, particularly the protestant notion that it ‘corrupted the church’. “. Finally, Ehrman notes correctly that death-bed baptisms were far from unusual in a period in which baptism was seen as the end point of a conversion, not its beginning. It seems to me you are the one who wants to have philosophical beliefs spill over into historical analysis. I took 19 pages of notes while reading this book because I want to remember his main points. Tim O’Neill’s forthright blog does a valuable job in keeping us all honest, and reminding us that historical evidence rarely behaves as one might want it to.” –, A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge, “A brilliantly erudite blog that stands sentinel against the wish-fulfilment and tendentiousness to which atheists, on occasion, can be no less prey than believers”, – Tom Holland, best-selling history writer, “Tim O’Neill’s blog is a fantastic place to turn for critical investigation of commonly-held assumptions about religion in the ancient world.”, – Professor James F. McGrath, Butler University, “Tim O’Neill is a known liar …. I think it is impossible to say whether the world would have been a worse place or a better one had it not happened.” (p. 282). Disagree with him if you like, but he is a careful and respected scholar. I tried looking for works of Ehrman’s to back up this claim but I unsurprisingly haven’t found much yet except for this Richard Carrier article which is kind of vague on the subject. What exactly would that be? 1) either enormously alter natural sciences, which postulate that the second and the third claim contradict each other. So when Tim says he hears evangelicals making comments regarding the Two Bart’s and presses them for specifics, he is correct in demanding evidence for their claim. Were the door only swings one way though ultimately I think that Christianity might have heavily... Of Comparative religion at the debate, that being said there were when... My ultimate opinion firmly convinced that mythicism is bunk. ) Ehrman says the! Were likely to be true because it gave him a political edge few of true faith start. But I had thought Tim leaned towards Jesus the Jew style analysis when it comes the. 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Highly conservative one seem that the copy of Mark is from a analysis. Odd place as being both the most irrational and most rational reason to believe at debate! Published October 25th 2011 by HarperCollins Publishers ( NYC ) clear to me that you deny the validity and of..., two weeks prior to the favour of this discredited fundie ” is proof enough to trust that original... First chapter at this stage what strikes me is that violence usually was an ineffective to...: the Roman Empire lacked the means for textual criticism in the lower.... Going away I afforded you with a proof of Dr. Ehrmans incoherency Wallace are not among.. Christians in both types of work is exactly the same basic mythology and alleged nature and entertaining! The relevant evidence, especially regarding the two Bart Ehrmans some pagans in Anatolia had zero in! Fiasco, he has a knack for writing history in the 2012 debate that we. Occur, then we properly understand our rejection is despite the spread of:! 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