Christianity

The First Three Thousand Years

By: Diarmaid MacCulloch

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 46 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Once in a generation, a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read and heard - a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.

Christianity will teach modern listeners things that have been lost in time about how Jesus' message spread and how the New Testament was formed. We follow the Christian story to all corners of the globe, filling in often neglected accounts of conversions and confrontations in Africa and Asia. And we discover the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the rise of the evangelical movement from its origins in Germany and England. This audiobook encompasses all of intellectual history - we meet monks and crusaders, heretics and saints, slave traders and abolitionists, and discover Christianity's essential role in driving the enlightenment and the age of exploration, and shaping the course of World War I and World War II.

We are living in a time of tremendous religious awareness, when both believers and non-believers are deeply engaged by questions of religion and tradition, seeking to understand the violence sometimes perpetrated in the name of God. The son of an Anglican clergyman, MacCulloch writes with deep feeling about faith. His last book, The Reformation, was chosen by dozens of publications as Best Book of the Year and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. This awe-inspiring follow-up is a landmark new history of the faith that continues to shape the world.

©2010 Diamaid MacCulloch (P)2010 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"Assuming no previous knowledge on the part of readers about Christian traditions, MacCulloch traces in breathtaking detail the often contentious arguments within Christianity for the past 3,000 years. His monumental achievement will not soon be surpassed." ( Publishers Weekly)

"A work of exceptional breadth and subtlety." ( Booklist)

An Epic History of Christianity

This is an encyclopedic work that shouldn’t be read hastily. Thoroughly enjoyable and scholarly.

The biggest drawback in this book is it’s shallow coverage of Mormonism and its impact on Christianity in America. When it comes to Mormonism the author doesn’t seem to have consulted Mormon historical sources or even other landmark books that dealt with the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints such as Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling, a Biography of Joseph Smith. This, the treatment of the Church was not balanced.

I give this book the highest rating, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of Christianity.

Too hard for me..

It felt like reading an encyclopedia. That's difficult on an audio book when you don't know much on the topic at hand..

Great Listen

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Very Good Listen and explains a lot about what is happening today in Religious Turmoil.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Long, as it should be

This was a very long listen. Well worth it. There were times when the pronunciation by the narrator irked me, but it’s over 40 hours long! Give the guy a break! The contents was very thorough; as others have commented, a global history through Christianity. I recommend this as a long haul that, when you arrive at the end, leaves you humble.

Excellent Guide for Deeper Study

It is extremely hard to do a summary of 3000 years of evolution of a religion— but this book does a great job.

It can’t possibly do justice to every topic it touches—but the reader has plenty of guidance to study on his own.

As for bias, yes, you sometimes hear the limp wristed, somewhat pathetic ultra liberal bias of a lapsed believer that is so common these days. But it is easy to ignore and appreciate the depiction of the complex tapestry of historical Christianity.

Very thorough and balanced...but oh, the narrator

I "read" this book as part of an Education for Ministry (EfM) class, for Year 3 (Church History), and I have mixed feelings. The book is staggering in its scholarship, well researched and pretty well balanced in giving both grace and well-earned criticism to the long history of Christianity. If a reader finds this "too biased," I might venture to say that they are merely uncomfortable.

Now, as an audiobook, I have to say that it was a little painful. The narrator has a halting way of speaking, and the few times I followed along in the physical text, I was amazed to find that there were not, in fact, anywhere near as many periods, dashes, or ellipses as I thought because he read with so many pauses! I also feel as though no one assisted him with pronunciation. These weren't differences in pronunciation...they were actually incorrect, and distracting. I usually give narrators a lot of leeway because it is NOT an easy task, especially for nonfiction of over 1,000 pages!! But I feel decidedly MEH bordering on YIKES about this one this time.

Generally quite good

I think it's interesting how folk from the more "conservative" side of the spectrum tend to call something "biased" if they don't agree. Rather, MacCulloch comes from a specific scholarly school in the study of religion. This is not a question of bias, but one of approach. I tended to disagree with him on some fine points, such as the bit in Corinthians where Paul allegedly instructs women not to speak, but also, in the same book, tells women that they need to cover their heads when they prophesy. MacCulloch just calls that an "unstable" contradiction where my understanding is that this might have been an interlineation by some copyist. So is MacCulloch biased? Of course he is, to the extent that we all approach the world from different world views. But generally, we just happen to disagree on that point.

Despite my occasional disagreements, I found the book ably written, giving me a lot to mull over. New material that I hadn't read before. That's always the glory of good writing. It's never a good thing to take in anything as "gospel truth." One should always read from a variety of sources, because there may be a new take on the subject that will also be compelling.

The reader, Walter Dixon, is really quite good. He reminded me of a good university professor, rather than a random audiobook reader. He was easy to listen to and never irritated me. I found that his reading kept me listening, while I walked, drove, and made dinner. I even tried to listen while doing some work work, but I kept getting distracted so had to turn it off.

Highly recommended.

Astonishing book, but oddnesses in the reading.

I have nothing but high praise for the book. It is an enormous undertaking, and it succeeds remarkably well. I have one personal problem with the audio presentation: the narrator possesses a very good, very smooth voice. I wish he had taken the time to look up some of the words instead of just deciding on a pronunciation. It was very disturbing to the flow of the book to hear a word pronounced in an unfamiliar way.

Great Overview/Whisper Sync is helpful

This is a comprehensive overview of Christian history. I purchased the whisper-sync to be able to more easily access this book as a reference. Do you remember when, where and why the Chalcedon council took place? Or the 95 theses, or the orthodox views on transubstantiation? It's well researched and pretty thorough. Not a gripping read, but worth the investment if you are interested the history of the most influential religion of the West.

Please God Make It Stop

If you could sum up Christianity in three words, what would they be?

"Way Too Long". The final 9 hours of the book covered just 200 years of recent Christian history, little of which was particularly noteworthy. I felt this came at the expense of some of the detail of Reformation and Counter Reformation periods in the early Renaissance. While the lack of detail about very early Christianity necessarily leads to some non-linearity overall, this book could have been shortened by several chapters and still have provided the depth required by the reader.

What other book might you compare Christianity to and why?

"Martin Luther, Renegade and Profit" by Lyndal Roper. Both were neutral yet critical examinations of historical events in Christianity with insightful commentary on their far reaching implications.

Any additional comments?

One criticism - the author makes the contemporary habit of referring to the lands and people's south of Judea as Palestine and Palestinian. This is a distinctly 20th century ethnonym for people living in a region assigned a toponym that really only came into common usage in the 18th century, and then largely among Europeans (particularly the French). It arises from the Roman name of "Syria Palestina" given to the region after they put down the Jewish Revolts, using the name of Israel's ancient enemy (Philistines) to erase Israel from contemporary memory. In other words, it's a European name, and quite historically inaccurate. The Turks meanwhile referred to places today identified with Palestine as Gaza, Acre, and Syria. Locals invariably referred to these places a Philistia, Judea, Canaa, and Syria as well as Jordan and Gallatia. In a historical context, saying "Palestine" for events prior to about 1800 reflect Western biases.