
Ancient Christianities
The First Five Hundred Years
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Narrated by:
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Rachel Perry
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By:
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Paula Fredriksen
About this listen
How, over the course of five centuries, one particular god and one particular Christianity came to dominate late Roman imperial politics and piety
The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.
The New Testament, as we know it, represents only a small selection of the many gospels, letters, acts of apostles, and revelations that circulated before the establishment of the imperial church. It tells how the gospel passed from Jesus, to the apostles, thence to Paul. But by using our peripheral vision, by looking to noncanonical and paracanonical texts, by availing ourselves of information derived from papyri, inscriptions, and archaeology, we can see a different, richer, much less linear story emerging. Fredriksen brings together these many sources to reconstruct the lively interactions of pagans, Jews, and Christians, tracing the conversions of Christianity from an energetic form of Jewish messianism to an arm of the late Roman state.
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Story
Daughter. Duhitár-. Dustr. Dukte. Listen to these English, Sanskrit, Armenian and Lithuanian words, all meaning the same thing, and you hear echoes of one of history’s most unlikely journeys. All four languages—along with hundreds of others, from French and Gaelic, to Persian and Polish—trace their origins to an ancient tongue spoken as the last ice age receded. This language, which we call Proto-Indo-European, was born between Europe and Asia and exploded out of its cradle, fragmenting as it spread east and west.
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Brilliant research and narration
- By Dr. Krishnendu Ray on 05-16-25
By: Laura Spinney
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A Jewish Paul
- The Messiah's Herald to the Gentiles
- By: Matthew Thiessen
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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What was the apostle Paul's relationship to Judaism? How did he view the Jewish law? How did he understand the gospel of Jesus's messiahship relative to both ethnic Jews and gentiles? These remain perennial questions both to New Testament scholars and to all serious Bible readers. Respected New Testament scholar Matthew Thiessen offers an important contribution to this discussion. A Jewish Paul is an accessible introduction that situates Paul clearly within first-century Judaism, not opposed to it.
By: Matthew Thiessen
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Blood Royal
- Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe
- By: Robert Bartlett
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout medieval Europe, for hundreds of years, monarchy was the way that politics worked in most countries. This meant power was in the hands of a family - a dynasty; that politics was family politics; and political life was shaped by the births, marriages, and deaths of the ruling family. Drawing on a rich and memorable body of sources, this engaging and original history of dynastic power in Latin Christendom and Byzantium explores the role played by family dynamics and family consciousness in the politics of the royal and imperial dynasties of Europe.
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Solid Research; Tarnished Reading
- By Amazon Customer on 07-30-23
By: Robert Bartlett
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Light of the World
- By: Amy-Jill Levine
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In Light of the World: A Beginner's Guide to Advent, author, professor, and biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine explores the biblical texts surrounding the story of the birth of Jesus.
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Short book but excellent insights
- By Amazon Customer on 12-27-20
By: Amy-Jill Levine
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Miracles and Wonder
- The Historical Mystery of Jesus
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
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I had high hopes for this title
- By Christine on 04-02-25
By: Elaine Pagels
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Journeys of the Mind
- A Life in History
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 30 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the "neglected half-millennium" now known as late antiquity was crucial to the development of modern Europe and the Middle East. In Journeys of the Mind, Brown recounts his life and work, describing his efforts to recapture the spirit of an age.
By: Peter Brown
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Byzantium
- The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
- By: Judith Herrin
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism—gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium-long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium—what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.
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Not a comprehensible history
- By kevin arsenault on 10-07-23
By: Judith Herrin
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Evolution of the Word
- The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written
- By: Marcus J. Borg
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Marcus J. Borg, esteemed Bible scholar and best-selling author, shakes up the order of the New Testament as we know it by putting the books in a completely new order - the order in which they were written. By doing so, Evolution of the Word allows us to experience these documents in their historical context. For the first time, see how the core ideas of Christianity took shape and developed over time.
By: Marcus J. Borg
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Reading the Church Fathers
- A History of the Early Church and the Development of Doctrine
- By: James L. Papandrea
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. James Papandrea introduces you to all the major theologians, philosophers, and martyrs of the early Christian church and explains the theological principles that guided the Church from the New Testament era through the apologists, and, ultimately, to the development of the major doctrines. He uniquely situates the teachings of the early Church Fathers against the social and cultural context of the Roman Empire and its relationship to the Church.
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Never actually reads any of the church fathers
- By C. Mohrbacher on 07-21-23
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The Difficult Words of Jesus
- A Beginner's Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings
- By: Amy-Jill Levine
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Jesus provided his disciples teachings for how to follow Torah, God's word; he told them parables to help them discern questions of ethics and of human nature; he offered them beatitudes for comfort and encouragement. But sometimes Jesus spoke words that followers then and now have found difficult. In The Difficult Words of Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine shows how these difficult teachings would have sounded to the people who first heard them, how have they been understood over time, and how we might interpret them in the context of the Gospel of love and reconciliation.
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Thank GOD for his love
- By Ruth Reynoso on 03-17-24
By: Amy-Jill Levine
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Lower than the Angels
- A History of Sex and Christianity
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Length: 25 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion.
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Brilliant book, charmingly narrated
- By Sean Robinson on 06-13-25
Among the best
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