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100 books
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2 voters
History Of Christianity Books
Showing 1-50 of 859
The Secret Gospel of Jesus, AD 0-78 (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 9 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.66 — 68 ratings — published 2020
A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Hardcover)
by (shelved 9 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.12 — 6,583 ratings — published 2009
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (Hardcover)
by (shelved 8 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.10 — 7,496 ratings — published 2014
The History of the Church: From Christ to Constantine (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.00 — 4,759 ratings — published 324
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.93 — 20,087 ratings — published 2005
The Story of Christianity: Volume 1: The Early Church to the Reformation (Story of Christianity)
by (shelved 7 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.24 — 4,932 ratings — published 1978
The Other Side of the Judeo-Christian History (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 6 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.85 — 60 ratings — published 2011
The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph & Diversity 200–1000 (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.18 — 693 ratings — published 1995
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.86 — 72,375 ratings — published 2013
Church History in Plain Language (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.11 — 5,413 ratings — published 1982
The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.03 — 2,032 ratings — published 2008
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Hardcover)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.26 — 10,820 ratings — published 2019
Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.11 — 575 ratings — published 1987
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.07 — 6,137 ratings — published 2002
Who Wrote the Bible? (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.12 — 6,332 ratings — published 1987
The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Hardcover)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.02 — 375 ratings — published 2012
The Story of Christianity: Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.15 — 3,084 ratings — published 1985
East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church from Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence (History of the Christian Church)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.00 — 34 ratings — published 2003
The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.96 — 867 ratings — published 1981
The Philosophy of Cosmic Spirituality (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.88 — 41 ratings — published 2014
A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.11 — 1,916 ratings — published 2019
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.13 — 3,372 ratings — published 2001
The Gnostic Gospels (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.94 — 19,566 ratings — published 1979
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World (Audio CD)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.94 — 3,059 ratings — published 2018
The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.05 — 1,963 ratings — published 1991
The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.16 — 720 ratings — published 2009
A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.89 — 52,036 ratings — published 1993
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.19 — 944 ratings — published 1980
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.98 — 10,914 ratings — published 2009
Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (The Penguin History of the Church, #2)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.85 — 419 ratings — published 1970
Medieval Christianity: A New History (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.95 — 413 ratings — published 2015
The Orthodox Church (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.28 — 3,724 ratings — published 1963
Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.28 — 1,306 ratings — published 1968
The Early Church (The Pelican History of the Church, #1)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.93 — 1,859 ratings — published 1967
Pagans and Christians (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.85 — 503 ratings — published 1986
Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.27 — 2,255 ratings — published 1967
Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.09 — 400 ratings — published 2020
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.06 — 3,807 ratings — published 2020
God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.85 — 280 ratings — published 2024
God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.09 — 1,835 ratings — published 2009
The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.07 — 6,396 ratings — published 2017
Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.36 — 1,535 ratings — published
Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.84 — 514 ratings — published 1987
The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.05 — 566 ratings — published 2020
Paul: A Biography (ebook)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.34 — 6,186 ratings — published 2018
When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.08 — 1,562 ratings — published 1999
Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.84 — 3,198 ratings — published 2012
God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 3.94 — 720 ratings — published 2004
Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.16 — 25 ratings — published 1986
Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as history-of-christianity)
avg rating 4.16 — 1,470 ratings — published 2009
“Constantius II ordered pagan temples closed and sacrificial practices stopped.
We have already seen a law issued in 341 CE: “Superstition shall cease; the madness of sacrifices shall be abolished... [anyone]... who performs sacrifices . . . shall suffer the infliction of a suitable punishment and the effect of an immediate sentence” (Theodosian Code 16.10.2).
In a law of 346 CE, the penalties are specified: Temples “in all places and in all cities” are to be “immediately closed” and “access to them forbidden.” No one may perform a sacrifice. Anyone who does “shall be struck down with the avenging sword” and his “property shall be confiscated.” Any governor who fails to avenge such crimes “shall be similarly punished” (Theodosian Code 16.10.4);
And perhaps more drastically, later in Constantius’s reign, in 356: “Anyone who sacrifices or worships images shall be executed” (Theodosian Code 16.10.6).”
― The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
We have already seen a law issued in 341 CE: “Superstition shall cease; the madness of sacrifices shall be abolished... [anyone]... who performs sacrifices . . . shall suffer the infliction of a suitable punishment and the effect of an immediate sentence” (Theodosian Code 16.10.2).
In a law of 346 CE, the penalties are specified: Temples “in all places and in all cities” are to be “immediately closed” and “access to them forbidden.” No one may perform a sacrifice. Anyone who does “shall be struck down with the avenging sword” and his “property shall be confiscated.” Any governor who fails to avenge such crimes “shall be similarly punished” (Theodosian Code 16.10.4);
And perhaps more drastically, later in Constantius’s reign, in 356: “Anyone who sacrifices or worships images shall be executed” (Theodosian Code 16.10.6).”
― The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
“But the punishments!
Imperial bureaucrats who accepted bribes were to have their hands cut off (Theodosian Code 1.16.7);
ineffective guardians of girls who had been seduced were to have molten lead poured down their throats (Theodosian Code 9.24.1);
tax collectors who treated women tax delinquents rudely were to “be done to death with exquisite tortures”;
anyone who served as an informer was to be strangled and “the tongue of envy cut off from its roots and plucked out” (Theodosian Code 10.10.2);
slaves who informed on their masters were to be crucified (Theodosian Code 9.5.1.1);
How is one to account for such judicial cruelty from a Christian emperor?
MacMullen suggests that by the fourth century Christianity was revealing an increasingly cruel streak. He notes in particular the heightened popularity of the Christian literature... in recounting in graphic detail the torments of hell for those who refuse to do God’s will.
Possibly what applied to heaven applied to earth: If this is how God handles sin, then who are we to act differently?
Religious beliefs may have made judicial punishment specially aggressive, harsh, and ruthless.”
― The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
Imperial bureaucrats who accepted bribes were to have their hands cut off (Theodosian Code 1.16.7);
ineffective guardians of girls who had been seduced were to have molten lead poured down their throats (Theodosian Code 9.24.1);
tax collectors who treated women tax delinquents rudely were to “be done to death with exquisite tortures”;
anyone who served as an informer was to be strangled and “the tongue of envy cut off from its roots and plucked out” (Theodosian Code 10.10.2);
slaves who informed on their masters were to be crucified (Theodosian Code 9.5.1.1);
How is one to account for such judicial cruelty from a Christian emperor?
MacMullen suggests that by the fourth century Christianity was revealing an increasingly cruel streak. He notes in particular the heightened popularity of the Christian literature... in recounting in graphic detail the torments of hell for those who refuse to do God’s will.
Possibly what applied to heaven applied to earth: If this is how God handles sin, then who are we to act differently?
Religious beliefs may have made judicial punishment specially aggressive, harsh, and ruthless.”
― The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
