When Christians Were Jews

The First Generation

By: Paula Fredriksen

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion

How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God's promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus’s prophecy - “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” - they were, in their own eyes, history's last generation. But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians.

In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group’s hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement’s midcentury missions, to the city’s fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple-centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.

©2018 Paula Fredriksen. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Poor narration.

The narrator starts every sentence with a loud voice then trails off to a whisper for the final words of a sentence. It seemed over-dramatic to me. I found his narration distracting. That said, I loved the book content.

Please provide narrators with a pronunciation guide

Worlds worst pronunciation for terms that even a layman should know. A serious drawback of an otherwise wonderful book.

How Christianity Began

The author presents an excellent and engaging history of the beginning of Christianity and the belief of the early companions of Jesus of the imminent return of Jesus to end the world, raise the dead and render Judgment. Great rendition of a captivating story.

Loved it!

Thanks to professor Fredriksen we are one step closer to discovering and revealing the truth about the early very Jewish Jesus movement.

Excellent

A book everyone interested in early Christianity should read - learned a great deal about how important Temple was even to Jews that might not have been happy with the leadership there...highly rec!

Awful narration

I had to return the book because of the bad quality of the narration. I couldn't focus even for one minute because of how confusing the narrator was in reading the book.

Science and History books need appropriate narrators!!!

A history book should not be read as a romance, In fact, reading it like a thriller just detracts from the character of the book. It is a pity that this History book is read like a Story book, and the contents of this historical research book just sound cheap and strange. Please, Audible, find adequate readers to science or historical books,I cannot even judge the “Story” because the reading (overly nuanced, like a story told to children) greatly disturbed my understanding of this serious text.

The title is misleading

From the title I was hoping for a history of the lives, rituals, beliefs, and communities of the first Christians in Israel. While the book touches on this, it does so to ‘debunk’ the Gospels and deny the divinity of Jesus. So, if you are a Christian, as I am, there is not enough information about the lives of early Christian communities to justify listening to this book. I have read books by
non-Christian’s authors on Christian history and found them interesting informative and enlightening. This book was NOT one of those books.

Wery interesting and enterteining presentation.

Maybe time has come to reconciliate the Jews with the Christians (in fact, reform Jews).

Great book

Great book, a fantastic intro to the contradictions of the New Testament. Really helps the historian / reader get an understanding of the time period and also the fact thatChristianity was forged much later. Some of the arguments were over interpreted, nonetheless great audiobook !