Studies in Early Christianity
Jesus and After:
The First Eighty Years
E Bruce Brooks
This book is an overview of the growth of early Christianity. It consists of moments from the first eighty years of the Jesus movement, from Jesus' precursor John the Baptist to a police report on the churches of Sinope, on the Black Sea. There are four sections: one on Alpha Christianity (the earliest form, based on Jesus' teachings), one on the later Beta Christianity (based on the claim of Jesus' resurrection, with Paul as its representative), a third on the increasing conflict between Alpha and Beta and between both of them and mainline Judaism, and a fourth on the final breakdown between the Rabbis and the Jesus sect, leaving the Jesus movement to continue as a religion of its own. Chapters are short, and are meant to be highlights in a history, not a consecutive account of that history. If we read the texts with awareness that they have been added to over time, and if we separate early from late strata, this is the picture that emerges. The book is the simplest possible overview of a complicated subject. Each of its chapters focuses on a single passage, sometimes a single word. The whole is arranged as though for the convenience of a weekly discussion group.
As it has turned out, this earliest Christianity, which we call Alpha, happens to speak to the concerns of not a few thoughtful Christians in our own time, who, for reasons of doctrinal discomfort, are leaving the church and the clergy in substantial numbers. The research behind this book finds significant support for their discomfort: some doctrines (one focus of modern discontent is the Vicarious Atonement) were not in fact part of that earliest Christianity. They need not be regarded as essential to contemporary belief. Jesus was human, not divine. He made mistakes. But what he got right continues to endure, down the centuries.
We here offer selected chapters of the book as previews.
Contents
Front Matter
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