Early Religions

In this course, an award-winning professor and New York Times best-selling author offers a penetrating investigation of the 24 most pivotal Christian controversies, shedding light on fallacies that obscure an accurate view of the religion and how it evolved into what it is today. In each lecture, you'll delve deeply into a key issue in Christianity's early development. Explore intriguing questions in this unique inquiry into the core of Christian tradition.

James was a vegetarian, wore only linen clothing, bathed daily at dawn in cold water, and was a life-long Nazirite. In this profound and provocative work of scholarly detection, eminent biblical scholar Robert Eisenman introduces a startling theory about the identity of James - the brother of Jesus - who was almost entirely marginalized in the New Testament.

Women were there. For centuries, discussions of early Christianity have focused on male leaders in the church. But there is ample evidence right in the New Testament that women were actively involved in ministry, at the frontier of the gospel mission, and as respected leaders. Nijay Gupta calls us to bring these women out of the shadows by shining light on their many inspiring contributions to the planting, growth, and health of the first Christian churches.

Leading into the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock examines the lives of the "saints" (members of the Separatist Puritan congregations) and "strangers" (economic migrants) on the original ship. Collectively, these people would become known to history as "the Pilgrims". The story of the Pilgrims has taken on a life of its own as one of our founding national myths - their escape from religious persecution, the dangerous transatlantic journey, that brutal first winter.

Cultural Christians in the Early Church, which aims to be both historical and practical, argues that cultural Christians were the rule, rather than the exception, in the early church. Using different categories of sins as its organizing principle, the book considers the challenge of culture to the earliest converts to Christianity, as they struggled to live on mission in the Greco-Roman cultural milieu of the Roman Empire.

"Arguably the most distinctive feature of the early Christian literature," writes Bart Ehrman, "is the degree to which it was forged." The Homilies and Recognitions of Clement; Paul's letters to and from Seneca; Gospels by Peter, Thomas, and Philip; Jesus' correspondence with Abgar, letters by Peter and Paul in the New Testament - all forgeries. To cite just a few examples.

Written by a preeminent religious historian, this book provides an introduction to early Christian thought. Focusing on major figures such as St. Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as s host of less well known thinkers, Robert Wilken chronicles the emergence of a specifically Christian intellectual tradition.

Sex and money scandals. An exploding divorce rate. Drug-addicted youths. And an ever-growing worldliness. Today's evangelical church is fighting battles on all fronts. And we seem to be losing these battles to the relentlessly encroaching world. Perhaps the answers to our problems are not in the present, but in the past. Because there was time when Christians were able to stand up to world.

Ever wondered if there were more writings from the first few centuries by Christians? Well the answer is - yes! There is much that the early Christians left us and they are available in this day and time. The New Testament is our rock to stand upon, but there are other works that we can glean from that are filled with godly wisdom and virtue. The 1st Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians is just that kind of work that can further your walk with Christ in this present day.

Dr. James Papandrea introduces you to all the major theologians, philosophers, and martyrs of the early Christian church and explains the theological principles that guided the Church from the New Testament era through the apologists, and, ultimately, to the development of the major doctrines. He uniquely situates the teachings of the early Church Fathers against the social and cultural context of the Roman Empire and its relationship to the Church.

Celebrated religious and social historian Rodney Stark traces the extraordinary rise of Christianity through its most pivotal and controversial moments to offer fresh perspective on the history of the world's largest religion.

Providing all the necessary evidence to restore the goddess to both Judaism and Christianity, Picknett and Prince expose the disastrous consequences of the suppression of the feminine from these two great religions and reveal how we have been collectively and instinctively craving the return of the Sacred Feminine for millennia.

One of the earliest of all Buddhist texts, the Atthakavagga, or Book of Eights, is a remarkable document, not only because it comes from the earliest strain of the literature - before the Buddha, as the title suggests, came to be thought of as a "Buddhist" - but also because its approach to awakening is so simple and free of adherence to any kind of ideology. Instead the Atthakavagga points to a direct and simple approach for attaining peace without requiring the adherence to doctrine.

Satan's transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no more than an "accuser" testing members of the human community, Satan, along with his demons, is presented by Jewish apocalyptic texts and the New Testament as a main source of evil in the world. In Satan and the Problem of Evil, noted scholar Archie Wright explores this dynamic in both its historical and theological trajectories.

This volume offers an accessible investigation of the Naassene discourse embedded in the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies (completed about 222 CE), in order to understand the theology and ritual life of the Naassene Christian movement in the late second and early third centuries CE. The work provides basic data on the date, genre, and provenance of the Naassene discourse as summarized by the author of the Refutation (or Refutator).

Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. The story is surprising, controversial, and exciting as only a long-lost history can be when it is at last recovered.

Glory to God for the men of old who endured the persecutions of this world with joy and faith. Much can be learned from those who have looked death in the face and yet remained true to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Long before the New Testament was a document, it was a sacrament. Jesus called the Eucharist by the name Christians subsequently gave to the latter books of the Holy Bible. It was the "New Covenant," the "New Testament," in his blood. Christians later extended the phrase to cover the books produced by the apostles and their companions; but they did so because these were the books that could be read at Mass.

For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God. But these monks discovered something surprising in their harsh desert surroundings: far from empty and silent, the desert is richly reverberant. Sonorous Desert shares the stories and sayings of these ancient spiritual seekers, tracing how the ambient sounds of wind, thunder, water, and animals shaped the emergence and development of early Christian monasticism.

Many years ago, in a lecture on the creation of the Mishnah, the Orthodox Jewish historian, Rabbi Berel Wein discussed the rise of early Christianity as a historical and theological backdrop. He mentioned that this era is of particular importance to Jews because of the complicated and tragic relationship between Jews and Christians over the centuries. He referred to Joseph Klausner, the famed Jewish professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who in the earlier part of the 20th century, had authored several works on early Christianity from a Jewish standpoint.