The Birth of Christianity

Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998. [Hardcover, ISBN 0-06-061660-1]

This work continues from Crossan's work on the historical Jesus, The Historical Jesus : The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, using the same principles in looking for the essentials behind the birth of the Christian church. Crossan's strength, in my view, is that he clearly states his criteria, and then shows you how he applies those criteria throughout the work.

The difficulty is that if you don't accept the basic criteria, the entire work will make rather poor reading for you. Nonetheless, I found this book engaging reading, even though I do not accept a good deal of the basic methodology. Crossan's early Christian church follows quite logically from his historical Jesus.

If you want to read a book on early Christianity that follows either the scholarly consensus or that adheres to more conservative principles of historiography, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you want to look at some very creative ideas, and be able to understand how they work in practice, this book will ehlp you to do that more effectively.

I recommend this book for the serious reader who has already done some general reading on the New Testament and on the history of the early church.

Other books by John Dominic Crossan, list only