The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years / Edition 1

by Paul Barnett

Overview

Contrary to several popular works of Christian scholarship, historian Paul Barnett maintains that the first two decades of Christian history are hardly "lost years." As he shows in this penetrating book, the period between Jesus and the earliest Christian texts is open to historical investigation, and he richly details the time and setting in which the church was born.

Writing in a very accessible style, Barnett provides an informative, reliable chronology of the years immediately following Jesus' crucifixion. Just as important, he presents the historical sources, biblical clues, and other telling evidence that we have for accurately documenting this crucial period of time. Looking more widely, Barnett also surveys world events during Christianity's first twenty years and notes their impact on life in the early church.

The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years is Volume 1 of a trilogy titled After Jesus. Volume 2 will be Paul, Missionary of Jesus, and Volume 3 will be Finding the Historical Christ.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802827814
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	03/29/2005
Series:	After Jesus Series , #1
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Paul Barnett is a New Testament scholar and Australian Anglican bishop. He has been named a member of the Order of Australia by the Governor of New South Wales on behalf of the late Queen for services to the Anglican Church of Australia. An expert in historical Jesus studies, Barnett is also the author of Is the New Testament History? and the New International Commentary on the New Testament volume on 2 Corinthians.

Editorial Reviews

Expository Times
"Deserves a wide readership. Barnett's broadly conservative study is a remarkable historical overview of early Christianity."

Themelios
"Bound to become an excellent resource for Christians looking for a judicious, scholarly, and fair treatment of the history of early
Christianity."

D. A. Carson
"For a couple of decades the most radical critics have been trying to foster systematic skepticism regarding Christianity based on the twenty-year gap between the death and resurrection of Jesus and the writing of the first New Testament documents. Paul Barnett shows that fair reading of the evidence provides us with far more information about those years than is sometimes thought. This is a must-read book for theology students and others who are troubled by the popularized skepticism of a small but vociferous group of radicals. The book is also useful for pastors who need to remember and teach that Christianity is a historically grounded religion."

Craig Blomberg
"Paul Barnett has distinguished himself over a long career as an outstanding classicist and historian, a biblical scholar particularly interested in the historicity of the New Testament documents, and a committed churchman and bishop. Here he brings all of this background to bear on the first twenty years of Christian history, showing how utterly wrong are the claims of those who have recently argued that we know next to nothing about this earliest period of the development of the church. . .The Birth of Christianity is a must-read for all interested in the topic."

E. A. Judge
"Did the early churches lose their grip on the figure of Jesus as he had seen himself? . . . Such a slippage often feeds the critical imagination and may indeed now be thought integral to it. But is there an actual gap in the tradition? What is the primary (as distinct from secondary) evidence for the way it developed? Paul Barnett tackles these questions as a trained and experienced historian who is engaged with the contemporary debate. He lays out the relevant data in a clear form that stimulates fresh thought."

Charles J. Scalise
"Pastors and teachers who seek a biblically based, historical guide to the earliest years of the Christian movement will welcome Paul Barnett's synthetic work. Accepting the Acts of the Apostles as an 'equal primary source' to Paul's letters, Barnett provides a chronological and christological reconstruction of this much-contested period. This vintage work represents the fruition of a lifetime of study of the New Testament period by a veteran Christian scholar and church leader."

E. Earle Ellis
"Critically acute, historically perceptive, and highly readable, this work provides one of the best concise treatments of the earliest years of the Christian mission. . . A good read and an instructive guide for specialists, students, and laity alike."

From the Publisher

According to Barnett, a former Anglican bishop and author of Is the New Testament Reliable?, only a year separated Jesus' crucifixion and Paul's entrance into the Jesus movement, at which point Paul received a rabbinic-style grounding in the received traditions about Jesus. Therefore, read in conjunction with the biblical book of Acts, Paul's letters give accurate information on the development and spread of the Jesus movement in the two decades after Jesus' death. The resulting picture is of a centralized, apostolically directed mission emanating from Jerusalem, proclaiming Jesus the divine Messiah and son of God. Barnett has written this book-the first in a projected trilogy-as a conservative counter to John Dominic Crossan's 1998 book of the same title. However, his dated notion of history as a record of the deeds of "great men" begs the methodological issues that Crossan raised in his more ambitious and challenging work. Still, Barnett provides a useful and readable statement of the traditional alternative perspective. Those needing a more direct critique of Crossan's book should see Michael Wilkins and J.P. Moreland's Jesus Under Fire. This belongs in larger libraries.-Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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