History of Christianity

[Shimy]

Pls can anyone recommend a credible online source from which to read up on the history of the church. Preferably one that divides the history into different era’s.

I think that depends on your perspective.

Are you looking for a christian point of view or one that is more realistic?
Church resources will skim over the unpleasant parts, witch holocaust, persecution of jews, muslims for centuries, the destruction of Palestine, Spanish inquisition?

I’m interested in both views. Ideally an academic source.Thank you.

Do you want a history of the church or a history of Christianity?

www.theopedia.com/church-history

This breaks it down into periods of history and has further reading.

Thank you Mostly. Still hoping for other good sources so of anyone has any please posthe links.

There are many different types of Christianity.
Roman
Orthodox
Coptic
Protestant, which can be divided into Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, to mention the principal Protestant churches.

You might do better to start by reading up on the history of Europe from the Roman era, to give you a framework from which you can decide what you want to focus on. Basic secondhand school textbooks would start you off.

Yes this is a huge subject.

On early Christianity one of the best books is 'The Making of the Creeds' by Frances Young which goes into how the creeds were thrashed out by the early Church. I was citing it in essays for a Masters.

SteveTompkins wrote the very readable ' History of Christianity' which isn't academic but is a good overview.

My original discipline was history and I can point you to books on the English Reformation or the late 19th/early 20th C if that is what you are interested in as those are the bits I studied. For other countries and periods my knowledge is more sketchy.

Can you give abitmore detail? What period? What level - A level, BA, MA?

I’m interested in the first churches,from the martyrs, the apologists, persecutions up to this present day. I understand there are different branches of Christianity, however they all sprouted from the same source. So I’m not interested in the bog detail of every single branch of Christianity although would like to see where they are mentioned. However, I would like to understand how Catholicism inparticular, became a totally separate branch ofChristianity with a very different doctrine to mainstream or Orthodox Christianity,having its own bible (the apocrypha) beliefs in eg purgatory, Mary, the belief in Saints etc considering their roots are found through Paul the founder of the church in Rome and i cannot find reference to a lot of these beliefs in the Bible.

I would prefer to read from an unbiased source hence why I said an ‘academic’ source. The book suggested by Mostly by Steve Tompkins sounds good.

This is purely for personal reading and not towards any qualification, just interest. Thanks.

Ok let me have a think. Roman Catholicism is mainstream Christianity. The split with the Orthodox church is around 1000AD and from memory the Tomkins book covers this.

Both the Orthodox Church and RC value tradition (this isn't just how things have always been done but would value the work of the early church fathers and mothers) so how they function isn't just what they find in the Bible. I'm not a member of these churches and I know it is more complex than that. My bit of Christianity is the C of E and for us we look to scripture, reason and tradition. The more Protestant strands of Christianity will claim to be only based on scripture.

It is complicated and historical research 101 really does stress that all sources have bias.

A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State. 2009 by Charles Freeman covers the actual birth of the Christian religion and the politics behind it as well as some of the early heresies and the dirty dealings that lay behind it.

Fascinating reading.

Elphame I bought that book. I dont think Id agree with Freeman's world view but Id like the historical info.

Elphame I bought that book. I dont think I'd agree with Freeman's world view but I'd like the historical info.

Diarmaid MacCulloch has a book called 'A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years'. There is also a DVD series by him of the same name, but I haven't seen it. MacCulloch is a decent scholar. I've only dipped into the book for the occasional reference, but it does seem good. From the bits I have read (and from my other interaction with MacCulloch in academic settings), I would agree with the criticism that it verges occasionally on anti-Catholic sentiments, but it is as unbiased as most books can be.

Thanks all for the book recs. I’m taking note of them all, the good, the bad and the ugly .

Shimy the beliefs such as purgatory that are part of Catholic beliefs are in the “extra” books that you mention. Both the Catholic and Orthodox churches have more books in their Canon of scripture than Protestant. The reason is that at the time of early Christianity (literally the time of Jesus and his disciples and apostles) the common language of commerce, education and intellectual pursuits around the Mediterranean was Greek. Many Jewish texts were available in Greek and the early Christians wrote their new writings (letters etc.) in Greek for the most part. At this time the Jewish Canon of books was not fixed either, they also had extra writings which were used by various Jewish communities.

Therefore the early scriptures the first Christians used were Jewish and Christian texts mostly in Greek. At this time many Jewish communities could no longer speak and read Hebrew and they used a translation of the original Hebrew into Greek called the Septuagint (the name derives from the “70 translators” as there was a Jewish legend that 70 scribes had miraculously all produced a perfect translation into Greek).

The Septuagint was widely used by Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean and it is this version that is quoted by Jesus and others in the New Testament.

Both Jewish and Christians in the early centuries did not have a final Canon (or a final decision of which books were declared inspired by God) of their Holy Writings. As well as the ancient Torah for example, various other writings were on scrolls and used by Jewish and Christian communities all around the Mediterranean.

The Christian Church at this time was united and gradually went through a process of discerning which writings and letters would be included in what became the Bible and the Old and New Testament. The books of what we know call The Bible were not clarified until 300+ years after the resurrection. The bishops of all the different churches throughout the Christian world met frequently in the 300s, especially in Carthage, North Africa. These meetings, called councils finally clarified the canon of what is now The New Testament. The Old Testament of the Bible was also clarified and some of the books which these Christians chose as part of their Old Testament were eventually a long time later rejected by the Jews and not included in their own Holy writings.

So basically the ancient churches such as the Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic churches still include in their holy scriptures writings which the early Christians in the first centuries decided were the inspired Word of God.

With the development of Protestantism in the 1500s onwards the leaders of these new movements chose to discard books that now were not included in the Jewish canon. So the Protestant churches removed a number of books that had been accepted by the historic church for over a thousand years. Within the books that were rejected by Protestants were scriptural basis for such doctrine as Purgatory and praying to the saints in heaven (although asking for those in heaven to pray for us Catholics believe is also in other parts of the New and Old Testament).

The word “Catholic” means universal and for 1,000 years although the Christian Church had to fight a number of heresies the church remained united as one body. There was a big split called The Great Schism in 1054 between the church of the West (Latin used in liturgy) and East (Greek used in liturgy). However the Catholics and Orthodox still share fundamentally the same beliefs. They both center their liturgy on two parts at every service

1. Liturgy of the Word (scripture)
2. Liturgy of the Eucharist.

So in summary the extra books you mention are still used in the ancient churches because Christians always accepted them as part of Holy Scripture (the Bible) until the Reformation. There will be many books discussing early Christian history. Basically there was always one church which sadly split in 1054 and then the other Christian denominations developed 500 years later.

I’m sorry I forgot to explain the relevance of the Septuagint. Because this was the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was in circulation at the time of Jesus and the one that was quoted from in the books of the New Testament, all the books of this translation were included in the Christian Old Testament.

In later times however, a Jewish Canon was established which left out some of the books from the Septuagint. So the Protestants 1500 years later used the established Jewish Canon as their Old Testament while the ancient churches continued with the Septuagint as it was accepted by the early Christians and all Christians until the time of the Reformation.