The Triumph of Christianity

How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

By: Bart D. Ehrman

Narrated by: George Newbern, Bart D. Ehrman

From the New York Times best-selling authority on early Christianity, the story of how Christianity grew from a religion of 20 or so peasants in rural Galilee to the dominant religion in the West in less than 400 years.

Christianity didn't have to become the dominant religion in the West. It easily could have remained a sect of Judaism fated to have the historical importance of the Sadducees or the Essenes. In The Triumph of Christianity, Bart Ehrman, a master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, shows how a religion whose first believers were 20 or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the empire became the official religion of Rome, converting some 30 million people in just four centuries. The Triumph of Christianity combines deep knowledge and meticulous research in an eye-opening narrative that upends the way we think about the single most important cultural transformation our world has ever seen - one that revolutionized art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics, and law.

©2017 Simon & Schuster Audio (P)2018 Bart D. Ehrman

Another Winner

Another great book on the history of Christianity. Ehrman's books are incredible. While this one is a little deeper and might take more than one read, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about how Christianity grew and the background of the era it grew in.

Worth the read

I was a Christian pastor and very interested in the topic of historical Christianity and textual criticism. Ever since Misquoting Jesus I have taken the time to review his material and compare with the personal research I have done.

As it pertains to The Triumph of Christianity, I had read through only once just to get a brief "lay of the land" so my observations are surface level without doing a critical review of the claims made. That being said, Dr. Ehrman did a great job of compiling the historical information together in a way that made sense to the reader. The cultural and religious divide between modern religion and ancient paganism [and even ancient Christianity for that matter] is such a large chasm that many people misunderstand or read into history their modern day paradigm and make judgments without that historical framework. I did enjoy the work put into making sure that historical and cultural framework was framed for this book.

At this point, the only criticism I have would be Dr. Ehrmans feigned neutrality which becomes apparent from the very beginning. What he considers reliable "historical" information and sources [be that biblical accounts or other historical sources] seem arbitrary. By way of example: Dr. Ehrman had recently posted a blog concerning the historical reliability of the book of Acts [dated 03-29-2016 "Is the book of acts historically reliable? Smoke and mirrors"] in this blog he makes the case that the book is not reliable. However, numerous times throughout this book, he will utilize the historical accounts found within the book of acts in order to support his arguments and make his case for the cultural influence of Christianity in the pagan world. This kind of cherry picking of what is/isn't historical data is concerning and leads me to believe the basis for those conclusions are at least in part dictated and filtered through Dr. Ehrmans presuppositions and skepticism.

This is a micro example, of what I believe is a macro issue in many of Dr. Ehrmans scholarship. That being said, everybody has bias and presuppositions and I am not going to hold that against him or any author.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and I think it would be a good introduction to anybody interested in the historical development of Christianity in the ancient world.

Excellent Book

Some books are hard to capture the depth of their nature. This book is definitely one that without reading you cannot appreciate the level of detail involved in Bart Ehrman’s discretion concerning the triumph of Christianity. This book was not written from a Christian perspective nor was it written from the perspective of an atheist. It was solely written from the perspective of a historian. Ehrman tries to look at the triumph of Christianity from the perspective of the people that lived during this period. It examine Christians from the perspective of the Romans that still worshipped the gods of Rome. He looks at the Romans’ religion through the eyes of modern day as he refers to them as pagans, but express that during the time of the Romans that they weren’t considered pagans as the gods of Rome were the ones that were considered established and the Christians were considered atheist for not believing in the gods of Rome. The Christian who would not worshipping the Roman gods brought the wrath of the Roman gods upon the republic. Earthquakes, crop failure, disease, drought, pestilence and any bad fortunes that beleaguered the Romans was blamed on the Christians. They were considered by the Romans heretics that were against religion and traitors that were against the state. The Christians tore down statues both religious and political, and erected crosses in their place. They were saw as rebelling against the republic when they refused to worship the emperor, who was considered a deity after death. They burned houses of worship of the Roman gods. The burn the republic’s buildings which had Roman deities inside them. They refused to pledge allegiance to Rome. They were accused of immoral sexual practices. They were accused of cannibalism and eating children. They were just immoral in the eyes of the Romans. They commenced their so-called atheist meetings in cemeteries in the shrouds of darkness hiding in secrecy, the conjurers of evil spirits. They stood against those who enforce the law, the Roman soldiers. The Christians were persecuted by those who upheld the law. They were executed by those who upheld the law. Out of persecution and an idea, they started a movement. As the movement grew, their power grew. Who is it that I’m talking about? The Christians of 300 A.D. and their movement to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Rome was the republic. The Romans were those who upheld their law. The movement of Christianity has spread over the world while the republic of Rome has been gone for centuries with only the ruins of their civilization found in the rubble of the buildings. The author examines what he considered key points in the triumph of Christianity and viewed the conversion of Constantine as one of the most significate reasons that triumph. Constantine’s curiosity about Christianity and his role in defining how Christians and pagans would be treated in Rome was significate in the growth of Christianity as he put both on equal playing grounds stopping the percussion of Christians. Although he didn’t help in the conversion of many pagans to Christianity, only three thousand converted during his reign, his mercy help it take a foothold in Rome. Ehrman acknowledge that Constantine’s conversion was not a full acceptance of all things Christian but mainly an acceptance to the ideology of Christianity and the one all powerful god. He may not have stopped worshipping other gods as the author points out but did create a crevice for Christianity to flourish. Another of the most important reason that Ehrman saw for the triumph of Christianity involved the conversion of Paul and his mission. He reasoning behind this was Paul or Saul’s hatred of the Christians as he saw them as atheist and believed that they blasphemed against the true god of Israel. He considers his conversion so abrupt that those who knew him as the slayer of Christians saw him as a disciple of the Christian faith that they considered it miraculous and only the true god could have been responsible for such a conversion. He also discussed why Christianity succeeded and the benefits that it provided. He argued that it being the one and only religion that believers sought to destroy any other religions where the Roman culture that allowed many deities was more diverse and accepting of other religions and didn’t see Christianity as a threat and never trying to get rid of it which was different from other opinion that he had. He also talked about dead religion versus living religion. The Christians tore down statues and disassembled certain body part to prove that the gods of Rome where just stone objects no different than a bowl used for cooking. They removed their eyes so the gods couldn’t see. They remove the reproductive parts to prove they couldn’t reproduce. They remove their mouths to prove that they couldn’t speak. And the did all of this without any retaliation from the gods. They proved to the Romans that their gods were dead. Then they proved that the god of the Christians was alive through miracles of healing the sick, raising the dead, making bedbugs leave a bed, and many other type of such things. He also talked about because the Christians were the only ones interested in healing the sick the benefit of being a Christian was you had the first healthcare service according to the author. The also talked about the growth of the church. How martyrdom helped the spread of Christianity and fueled the Holy Wars. One of the biggest reasons that he sees that Christianity triumphed was it used the form of conversion over coercion to gain followers. At the end of the book, Ehrman considered the gains or losses through the triumph of Christianity. He didn’t see it historically favorable regardless of if Christianity was triumph or failed. This books was extremely interesting and one of the most non-bias books of this nature. I can barely do this book justice in the scope of what was in the book, but I would say it is a definite read for anyone Christian or not.

Great

A very insightful book that focuses on the growth of the Christian religion dueing the Roman Empire

Excellent as always!

I find that Professor Ehrman does an excellent job with his intellectual honesty in a most difficult subject. If you are a conservative in your religious beliefs, you probably won't like him. He pushes against what some believe to be faith, the inerrancy of the Bible and its assumes historical stories that follow. It is not orthodox, yet it is important historical information. Well done!

Excellent work!

In short, I've read all of ehrmans books and this, along with lost christianities, might just be his best. If you're a religious history nerd like me you're going to find many things to love here. I think his chapter on the evangelism of Paul might be my favorite here. Though the epic chronology of the rise of Christian persecution and ultimately pagan persecution within about 80 years, is something worth remembering.

If you enjoy this subject matter this is wrll written and well researched. Excellent work as always Bart. Lets do lunch sometime!

In Depth Indroduction to the First Centuries

As a overview of the first several centuries of Christianity it is very enlightening in showing how and why the religion grew. It does not defend Christianity in any way, just tells the story of it's rise over the religions and Gods of the early Roman empire. I would liked to have heard more about the Christian adoption of 'pagan' holidays, but most of those may have happened beyond the time frame of this book.
Don't look for any apologetics or defense of Christianity, it's not here - this is just a history of its early growth.

Highly recommend!

Easy to listen to and very comprehensive. Fascinating book. Ehrman's scholarship is among the best. He is also a gifted teacher.

bias with a side of history

good info but does present a biased view that aligns with the writers view.

Amazing

It’s an amazing book. All that I wanted to know about early Christianity and how it spread across Europe.