To ask other readers questions about Caorns Through the Centuriesplease sign up. Be the first to add this to a list. He taught at Wheaton for thirty-five years and was department chairman for much of that time. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.
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Privacy Overview. Cairns Cbristianity preview — Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. A good, well printed book with a strong binding, it surely christianiry the impression it will last a few generations. Reads more like a Sunday school lesson than a work of historical scholarship. To ask other readers questions about Christianity Through the Centuriesplease sign up. Luther and the German Reformation.
My personal preference while learning history is to move year by year, aware of all the things happening concurrently with each other. Zondervan- Religion — pages. Christianity Through the Centuries. Theological Trends Since Refresh and try again. Get to Know Us. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. It truly puts the issue in perspective when you see what those who came to America were running away from where a true state church ruled.
Explore the Home Gift Guide. A great overview of the church since the time of Christ. I does makes for an excellent textbook for an entry level Church History course. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Conciliar Controversy and Creedal Development. Never again after the return from the Babylonian captivity did the Jews lapse into idolatry.
The message of God through Moses to them was allegiance to the one true universal God of all the earth. The gods of the pagans were merely idols, which the Jewish prophets condemned in no uncertain terms. This lofty monotheism was spread by numerous synagogues scattered throughout the Mediterranean area during the three centuries preceding the coming of Christ.
The Jews offered to the world the hope of a coming Messiah who would bring righteousness to the earth. This messianic hope was in sharp contrast with the nationalistic aspiration that Virgil depicted in the poem in which he described an ideal Roman ruler who was to come—the son to be born to Augustus. The hope of a Messiah had been popularized in the Roman world by its steady proclamation by the Jews.
Even the disciples after the death and resurrection of Christ were still looking for a messianic kingdom on earth Acts Certainly the wise men who appeared in Jerusalem shortly after the birth of Christ had gained some knowledge of this hope.
The expectancy of many Christians today regarding the coming of Christ helps one to realize the atmosphere of expectancy in the Jewish world concerning the coming of the Messiah. In the moral part of the Jewish law, Judaism also offered to the world the purest ethical system in existence.
The high standard of the Ten Commandments was in sharp contrast with the prevailing ethical systems of the day and the still more corrupt practice of those moral systems by those who professed them.
To the Jews sin was not the external, mechanical, contractual failure of the Greeks and Romans; it was a violation that expressed itself in an impure heart and then in overt external acts of sin. This moral and spiritual approach of the Old Testament made for a doctrine of sin and redemption that really met the problem of sin. Salvation came from God and was not to be found in rationalistic systems of ethics or subjective mystery religions.
The Jewish people still further prepared the way for the coming of Christianity by providing the infant church with its message, the Old Testament.
Many Gentiles also read it and became familiar with the tenets of the Jewish faith. This fact is indicated by accounts of the numerous proselytes to Judaism. Many of these proselytes were able to move from Judaism to Christianity because of the Old Testament, the sacred Book of the newborn church. Many religions, Islam for example, look to their founder for their sacred book; but Christ left no sacred writings for the church. The books of the Old Testament and the books of the New Testament, given under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were to be the literature of the church.
The Jews made possible a philosophy of history by insisting that history had meaning. They opposed any view that made history a meaningless series of cycles or a mere process of linear evolution. The Jews also provided an institution that was most useful in the rise and development of early Christianity. This institution was the Jewish synagogue.
Through it Jews and also many Gentiles were made familiar with a higher approach to life. It was also the place to which Paul first went to preach in all the cities he reached in the course of his missionary journeys. It became the preaching house of early Christianity. The matters that have been discussed show how favored Christianity was, both as to time and region, in the period of its emergence.
The Mediterranean world also had one culture, centering in Rome. One universal language made it possible to give the gospel to most of the people of the empire in a tongue common to them and to the preacher.
Palestine, the birthplace of the new religion, had a strategic location in this world. Paul was right in emphasizing that Christianity was not something done in a corner Acts , because Palestine was an important crossroads linking the continents of Asia and Africa with Europe by a land route.
Many of the most important battles of ancient history were fought for possession of this strategic area. Through the contribution of the Greek and Roman environment and through the heritage of Judaism, the world was prepared for the fullness of the time when God sent forth His Son to bring redemption to a war-torn and sin-weary humanity. Any standard edition of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha constitutes the main source material for Judaism.
Titles marked with an asterisk cover the entire period of ancient church history. New York: Scribner, This work, which has an explanatory preface to each document, is particularly useful for the period between and Benko, Stephen.
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Boak, Arthur E. A History of Rome to A. New York: Macmillan, Botsford, George W. Hellenic History. This has authoritative information on most phases of Greek history. Breed, David. A History of the Preparation of the World for Christianity. New York: Revell, The Age of the Fathers. New York: Longmans, This has detailed, scholarly accounts of the era from to The Spreading Flame.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, This surveys church history to The Early Church. This is another useful survey of the period. Church History From Nero to Constantine. Milwaukee: Morehouse, This is a survey of the period. Christianity and Classical Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, The author has given an excellent interpretation of the intellectual struggle of Christianity with classicism.
The Early Christian Church. New York: Doubleday, Anchor, This is a well-balanced, scholarly account based on sources, and it has helpful information on early Christian architecture. Early History of the Christian Church.
London: Murray, The liberal Roman Catholic viewpoint is presented here. Ferguson, Everett. Background of Early Christianity. A scholarly account of the relation of Greece, Rome, and Judaism to Christianity from the time of Alexander the Great.
Finegan, Jack. Light From the Ancient Past. Princeton: Princeton University Press, This work provides the archaeological background for Judaism and early Christianity. Cambridge, Eng. The student will find this a useful volume for ancient church history. A Treasury of Early Christianity. New York: Viking, This edited work has sources to Howe, George, and Gustave A. Greek Literature in Translation. New York: Harper, Roman Literature in Translation. New York: Harper Brothers, This set contains excellent selections of source material relevant to the theme of the chapter.
Kelly, Joseph F. The Concise Dictionary of Early Christianity. Collegeville, Minn. A History of the Christian Church to A. Oxford: Clarendon, The author gives full references to sources and detailed background material. A History of the Early Church. Translated by B. New York: Scribner, — This set can be consulted with profit for further details on certain points. History of the Christian Church. This fine work can always be consulted with profit for the details of ancient church history.
Schurer, Emil. This is an older standard work concerning the Jewish ancestry of Christianity. Scramuzza, Vincent M. Mackendrick The Ancient World. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, This is an excellent survey that incorporates recent historical research.
A New Eusebius. Creeds, Councils, and Controversies. New York: Seabury, This extends the previous work to Christianity and Classical Civilization.
This is an able presentation of the relationship between Christianity and its classical environment. Tenney, Merrill C. New Testament Times. This work provides a helpful account of the intertestamental era and New Testament backgrounds.
Atlas of the Early Christian World. Translated and edited by Mary F. Hedlund and H. New York: Nelson, This atlas contains excellent maps, relevant quotations from the sources, and superbly printed pictures that illustrate the history and environment of the church up to A. Luke —4 and John —31 in their Gospels revealed that Christianity is a historical religion and cannot exist apart from the Christ of history.
Our calendar, the church itself, Sunday as a day of rest, and the remarkable changes in lives of followers of Christ are historical testimony to Christ in history. Christianity has its beginnings, from the subjective human side, in temporal history. Because these values are inextricably linked with the person, life, and death of Christ, some consideration must be given to the evidence for the historical existence of Christ.
Many have denied the fact that Christ was manifested in human history John Tacitus 55— , the dean of Roman historians, linked the name and origin of Christians with Christus, who in the reign of Tiberius suffered death by the sentence of the Procurator, Pontius Pilate.
Pliny, who was propraetor of Bithynia and Pontus in Asia Minor, wrote to Emperor Trajan about for advice as to how he should deal with the Christians. The central gallery of the catacombs at Lucina. Bodies were placed in holes cut into the walls, one above the other, along narrow passageways. His epistle gives valuable extrabiblical information concerning Christ.
Pliny paid high tribute to the moral integrity of the Christians by writing of their unwillingness to commit theft or adultery, to falsify their word, or to repudiate a trust given to them. He went on to say that they sing a song to Christ as to a God. Another rather satirical and, for that reason, valuable witness is Lucian ca. Lucian described Christ as the one who was crucified in Palestine because He began this new cult.
He wrote that Christ had taught the Christians to believe that they were brothers and should observe His laws. He also ridiculed them for worshipping that crucified sophist. These testimonies are highly valuable historical evidence, coming as they did from cultured Romans who despised the Christians and were hostile toward them.
On the basis of these testimonies, apart from the Bible, which is also a historical work, one can conclude that there is valid evidence for the historical existence of Christ. Josephus ca. Josephus wrote of James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ. Certainly Josephus was not a friend of Christianity, and thus his mention of Christ has more historic value.
Many apocryphal gospels, acts, letters, and apocalypses are predicated on the historicity of Jesus Christ. These are collected in Montague R. Inscriptions and pictures of the dove, the fish, the anchor, and other Christian symbols in the catacombs give witness to belief in a historic Christ as well as the existence of the Christian calendar, Sunday, and the church.
Unfortunately, in choosing a date to begin the Christian calendar, the Scythian abbot Dionysius Exiguus d. Matthew in his gospel stated that Jesus was born in the days of Herod the King. Josephus in his Antiquities Because the slaughter of the Jewish babies and the flight to Egypt preceded the death of Herod, this brings us to a possible A. The Jews in John said that the temple was forty-six years in building to that time.
Josephus and the Roman historian Dio Cassisus made A. Jesus was about thirty years of age according to Luke , which subtracted from gives , or 5 B. Even a casual reading of the Gospels leaves a powerful impression of His originality.
Where Jewish and modern authorities quote others as authorities for various statements, Christ simply uttered the words, I say. He was the only human being who had nothing to hide, and so He could be completely Himself John The Gospels also give an impression of balance in His character. Boldness of character usually is associated with Peter, love with John, and meekness with Andrew.
No one facet of character is in excess in Christ; rather, the records reveal a balance and unity of character. This balance, originality, and transparency can be adequately explained only by the historical account of the virgin birth of Christ. The transcendent importance of the personality of Christ must never be dissociated from His work.
This work was both active and passive. During His three-year ministry Christ gave evidence of a righteousness demanded by the law—a righteousness that was in addition to His intrinsic righteousness as the Son of God. This extrinsic, earned righteousness qualified Him to die for men who could never earn such a righteousness and who needed a righteous substitute if their sins were to be forgiven by God. This active work had its counterpart in His so-called passive work, His voluntary death on the cross Phil.
These two historic phases of the work of Christ are summed up in His statement concerning His mission of service and suffering Mark Most likely He was given a biblical education at home and in the synagogue school for children. He also learned the trade of His father, because every Jewish child was given instruction in some manual trade. Since Nazareth was on a main trade route, Christ would have opportunity to observe the life of the outside world as it passed through Nazareth.
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