• Christianity

  • The First Three Thousand Years
  • By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
  • Narrated by: Walter Dixon
  • Length: 46 hrs and 29 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (1,030 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Christianity  By  cover art

Christianity

By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
Narrated by: Walter Dixon
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $42.98

Buy for $42.98

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

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
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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)

What listeners say about Christianity

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    516
  • 4 Stars
    277
  • 3 Stars
    120
  • 2 Stars
    61
  • 1 Stars
    56
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    421
  • 4 Stars
    196
  • 3 Stars
    91
  • 2 Stars
    29
  • 1 Stars
    27
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    415
  • 4 Stars
    200
  • 3 Stars
    72
  • 2 Stars
    36
  • 1 Stars
    42

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Bias

I was hoping for a scholarly work, to shed some light on an area that I am lacking, but the work is so biased that it is beyond insulting. I am very upset that I wasted a credit on something so one sided. In this book, only a fraction of the history of early Christianity is being portrayed, and that is the side that discredits the entire belief system, aggravated by negative editorial comments.

The most recent part I listened to, being just one of hundreds of derogatory biased statements, was to the effect that Constantine ordered 50 copies of the bible to be made, which required 5,000 cow hides, this fact followed by a quip "so much for Christian dissaproval of animal sacrifice." I would think this was funny if it were in a backroom conversation, but find it inappropriate in a 'history' text.

If you are hoping, as I was, for a neutral rendition of history, you will have to look to another source. Too bad Audible doesn't give a refund for books like this.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

68 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Detailed, expansive, and memorable

MacCulloch uses a huge canvas for this book: all continents, all times, and (if there weren't so many of them) you could say all sects and denominations as well. The book is a remarkably good listen, considering the amount of detail it includes, a tribute to Walter Dixon's steady pace and his clear and pleasing voice. Because Christianity has been so tightly bound with the West for the last 2000 years, it becomes in places a "Western world history" as well.

One of the hardest areas of Christian history to grasp is the centuries-long debate about the nature of the Trinity, and its equally long-lasting partner, the debate about the exact nature of Christ. (Human? Divine? Both? If both, what percentage of each, and how mixed or not mixed?) It's a story of determined attempts to fashion a creed and equally determined attempts to resist credal formulations. MacCulloch navigates this territory well, giving plenty of time to each viewpoint and noting that many of the viewpoints, assumed by many Christians to be long dead, are in fact alive and thriving in one or another sect to the present day.

MacCulloch is writing as a friendly outsider, which pretty well sums up my position as a listener. His attempts to describe Christianity's romance with temporal power, and its frequent turning of a blind eye to social injustice, may offend some people. My own impression is that his account is balanced and largely non-judgemental. Highly recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

56 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Not my cup of tea

This author starts from the assumption that Judism and Christianity are not true; that the Bible is not reliable. I could only listen to the first 2 chapters before that bias stopped me

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

45 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Evolution of a Religion

Anyone who thoroughly enjoys Medieval and Renaissance history as I do can tell you that the history of Christianity is so bound up with it as to be inseparable. The thing is, a great many history books will give you only what's necessary specific to the topic at hand and very little else. Even books on the Crusades, which presumably center around religion, will leave the underlying faith as an accepted and understood issue, touching upon the heretical issues as they come up.

This book is specifically geared towards pretty much anyone who wants the details as well as the broad strokes. It covers the history of Christianity from the onset of Judaism as an offshoot of earlier traditions, Christianity's beginnings as an offshoot of that, and covers its evolution not just in Western Europe, but also in Greece, Russia, Africa, Korea, and all parts of the globe where the cross is held high. It goes even further as Islam splinters from that, and the history of the Middle Eastern faiths are examined as an intertwined whole. As it goes, the reader is given another portrait to absorb as the beliefs evolve in the various corners of the globe, across time and through politics or scholarly pursuits.

In short, this is the most complete picture of Christianity that I've certainly ever encountered, and it's helped my understanding of history considerably. Special kudos not only to what it covers and why, but also how, as the outline for this book is nothing short of daunting. To cover this topic so completely is nothing short of a feat.

As one might expect, a history of this depth and magnitude will likely call into question the faith of a devout individual reading this book as not everything is as tradition holds to be true in our day and age, and as that tradition may vary depending on which sect you follow. I would challenge that the scholarly will find a great deal of wealth here, and the religiously-minded will be confronted with questions fundamental to their faith. How those questions are answered will ultimately be determined by individual willingness to see past the rigid and into the changing waters of history. Some are more readily accepting of this than others, obviously, everyone has to approach the question their own way. Being a hefty monster of a tome, however, this one is most definitely aimed at the serious scholar, regardless of the historical or spiritual approach.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

43 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Surpised

The information is clearly huge in scope and the author appears to be well acquainted with the various influences on the development of Christianity in the west as well as the east. Early one a bias against the validity of the Christian faith begins to come out with unnecessary criticism and surprising praise for the faith of Islam. So, it becomes hard to accept this as an unbiased history.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Don't Expect an Unbiased or Accurate History

I have been extremely disappointed with this book. MacCulloch has an axe to grind against Christianity. It was a waste of a credit. I am still waiting for a quality history of Christianity, this book is not it. The book is filled with speculation, conjecture and the author's opinions.

While he covered some of the history and in many respects was enlightening, whenever possible he will take a negative slant against Christianity. There are too many areas where he speculates about the absence of documents and then proceeds to impute his theory on what a particular thinker, saint or actor in Christian history "might really have said". I am looking for unbiased history. If it comes out good or bad so be it. There are enough facts, writings and archeological evidence regarding Judaism and Christianity that there is really no need to speculate on what may or may not be missing. Or what late Christians/the Church may or may not have excised from the records. So many of his statements are conjecture ending with "we may never know".

I do not write this to defend Christianity, the book is just bad history writing filled with the author's supposition and outright hostility.

MacCulloch throughout this book makes snide comments on people and practices he writes about, speculates about things that don't exist and will continually give his opinion on the intent of whom he writes.

A much better writer is Rodney Stark and the book: The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion. It does not cover the Hebrews or Church history in as much detail but gives excellent treatment to the preceding roots of monotheism.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

World History through the lens of Christianity

This is a monumental book which surprises with its depth and breadth of coverage. Nothing is left untouched. The story is told well. One chapter pulls you to the next. The narrator is good, but he mispronounces some esoteric words. Perhaps I'm being picky, but I find it a little disturbing to hear "Thessoloniki" mispronounced especially when I lived there, and its not just Greek city names that get flawed narrations. However, this is a small price to pay for the best history of Christianity ever written. A must read for every Christian and non-Christian. You will fully understand this religion's impact on world history and often wish that this mighty faith had taken some less violent turns. However, every turn and development is in this book and explained in detail. You will understand Christianity and the world as never before when you are done.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A book that you'll have to listen in episodes

If you think this is a sit-back-and-relax kind of book, you will be disappointed in it. It is not a book that you can listen in one go... but all that said, Diarmaid MacCulloch history of Christianity is probably one of the best works on its history.

Previous histories would focus on Western Christianity, MacCulloch includes the various forms of Eastern Christianity, orthodox and not so orthodox. This makes it probably one of the most complete histories in the last few decades.

One thing that does hinder when listening to the book is the conceptualising of the dates and eras. I think Audible can give some or other download that might help with it. MacCulloch also seem to make a few irritating sidelong remarks, about historical figures en situations, that made me wonder what the basis for these remarks are.

The person reading the book does a decent job of the whole. It is however important to remember that he is reading an academical work.

This book is meant for academics and people with a big interest in the history of Christianity and the Christiandom throughout the ages.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

a massive but interesting history of Christianity

This is one of the few attempts I have seen so far to take on the whole of Christian history, or at least a bigger chunk of it that is normally offered in a review of the history of Christianity. In doing this the book includes the winners and loosers in the heresey battles, offering us an expansive perspective on Christianity that is illuminating and insightful. For presenting this broad perspective I give the author much credit.

The problem in doing this is that the interesting details of history seem to get short changed on occasions. For example, when he touches on the late middle ages, a period of time about which I have a fairly detailed knowledge, I found his presentation superficial and often frustrating. I assume that it the cost of trying to cover as broad a swath of history as 3000 years. Getting through the material is also a mammoth undertaking. At forty plus hours I was able to work through to the Reformation but simply bogged down at that point from sheer exhaustion and needed to take a break from the book, eventually returning.

The narrator is adequate. He has his quirks of pronounciation but is tolerable.

The author presents the book as a work of history and not as a work of apologetics for any particular tradition within Christianity. In that he seems to succeed fairly well. He offers his opinion on occasion as an aside, which is the right of any author, as long as he makes it clear that that is what he is doing.

In summary, I find the book a good overview of the history of Christianity; though perhaps more a reference work than beach or vacation reading. I recommend it with the cautions mentioned in this review.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

18 people found this helpful