audiobook Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs; Three Queens; and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1;500 years by John Philip Jenkins in History

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Jesus warsBy Stephen EmbryA lively presentation of the the efforts during the first six centuries of the Christian Era to make sense of the events of the Jesus experience. While there was a consensus that something remarkable had occurred; the transition to Christianity was difficult and violent. There were those who held that Jesus was merely a man. Others felt he was a man adopted by God. Another faction believed he was solely god with no human nature. Still others believed the experience was not real but phantasmal. This presented political problems for the Emperors since it provoked disunity and violence; so numerous councils were called in an effort to reconcile difference and establish a uniform orthodoxy. Not surprisingly this was not entirely successful; leading the schism and controversies which the author suggests contributed to weakening of the empire; leaving it vulnerable to the rise of Islam and the splintering if the classical world. Modern readers may view the discussion as surprising since the western church survived in those areas where the orthodox belief was strongest but the controversies remain in the belief of the various and recurrent reviews of the faith; indeed are included to some extent in the gospels which became the canon.3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Not the religion of revelation but the religion of bureaucracies; committees and politicsBy Malleus MaleficarumThis is a fantastic book for anyone looking to understand the progression of early Christian belief about the nature of Jesus. Modern readers will be surprised to know that the early Christians were excessively obsessed with minutiae regarding the description of Jesus' human and divine natures and just about every conceivable hypothesis put forward on the topic was regarded as heresy by someone else. Most interesting is the realization that while the story of Jesus probably ended on the hill of Golgotha in 30 CE; the long and tortuous journey of finalizing Christian belief about him carried on for another 6 centuries. The divisions were driven as much by sincere theological beliefs as by the political aspirations of forceful personalities behind them; as the great ancient sees of Rome; Constantinople; Antioch and Alexandria fought with ever changing alliances and stratagems to undermine each other. The issues under debate; such as descriptions of various flavours of Monophysite belief will strain readers at first as will the anathemas of Cyril or the Chalcedonian creed; but the very fact that 300 years of debate went into settling this issue will give an idea how disunited and diverse early Christian belief was. The author also shows how the final victory of the Chalcedonian creed was pyrrhic; while it made the current Roman Catholic belief the orthodox creed of Christianity; the Church as a whole lost its Eastern strongholds; with Alexandria; Antioch and Constantinople absorbed into the rising tide of Islam. This is truly a must read for anyone looking to understand the evolution of Christology in the early centuries of the first millenium0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Excellent book. Easy to read and some very interesting ...By M. FuentesExcellent book. Easy to read and some very interesting perspectives.