Christianity

The First Three Thousand Years

By: Diarmaid MacCulloch

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Once in a generation, a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read and heard - a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.

Christianity will teach modern listeners things that have been lost in time about how Jesus' message spread and how the New Testament was formed. We follow the Christian story to all corners of the globe, filling in often neglected accounts of conversions and confrontations in Africa and Asia. And we discover the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the rise of the evangelical movement from its origins in Germany and England. This audiobook encompasses all of intellectual history - we meet monks and crusaders, heretics and saints, slave traders and abolitionists, and discover Christianity's essential role in driving the enlightenment and the age of exploration, and shaping the course of World War I and World War II.

We are living in a time of tremendous religious awareness, when both believers and non-believers are deeply engaged by questions of religion and tradition, seeking to understand the violence sometimes perpetrated in the name of God. The son of an Anglican clergyman, MacCulloch writes with deep feeling about faith. His last book, The Reformation, was chosen by dozens of publications as Best Book of the Year and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. This awe-inspiring follow-up is a landmark new history of the faith that continues to shape the world.

©2010 Diamaid MacCulloch (P)2010 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"Assuming no previous knowledge on the part of readers about Christian traditions, MacCulloch traces in breathtaking detail the often contentious arguments within Christianity for the past 3,000 years. His monumental achievement will not soon be surpassed." ( Publishers Weekly)

"A work of exceptional breadth and subtlety." ( Booklist)

Epic tome of a long and confusing history

No one document can cover all aspects of a subject, but this does a pretty good job of covering information to give the reader a pretty broad history of the developpment of Christianity. The download is in six parts, over 7-8 hours each. The reader sounds an awful lot like Brent Spiner, the actor who played Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He sounds pleasant to me. I recommend this audiobook as you definitely get your money's worth with this performance.

A lot of history in one book

If you could sum up Christianity in three words, what would they be?

Tectonic, relevant & engrossing

What was one of the most memorable moments of Christianity?

The epiphanies...

What about Walter Dixon’s performance did you like?

His even cadence

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Can't do it.

Any additional comments?

I have wanted something this detailed, but had no interest in donning robes to do so. It is a large subject that this book helps to tame.

Very thorough and balanced...but oh, the narrator

I "read" this book as part of an Education for Ministry (EfM) class, for Year 3 (Church History), and I have mixed feelings. The book is staggering in its scholarship, well researched and pretty well balanced in giving both grace and well-earned criticism to the long history of Christianity. If a reader finds this "too biased," I might venture to say that they are merely uncomfortable.

Now, as an audiobook, I have to say that it was a little painful. The narrator has a halting way of speaking, and the few times I followed along in the physical text, I was amazed to find that there were not, in fact, anywhere near as many periods, dashes, or ellipses as I thought because he read with so many pauses! I also feel as though no one assisted him with pronunciation. These weren't differences in pronunciation...they were actually incorrect, and distracting. I usually give narrators a lot of leeway because it is NOT an easy task, especially for nonfiction of over 1,000 pages!! But I feel decidedly MEH bordering on YIKES about this one this time.

Really fascinating, and thorough.

Excellent read for anyone interested in learning much about such a wide-ranging and diverse institution as the Christian faith. Very well researched and constructed.

Excellent read - over and over.

Waited thirty years for this book. Learn more each time I read it. Dr. MacCulloch is a genius among geniuses! Highly recommend 6-set DVD by same name.

An Epic History of Christianity

This is an encyclopedic work that shouldn’t be read hastily. Thoroughly enjoyable and scholarly.

The biggest drawback in this book is it’s shallow coverage of Mormonism and its impact on Christianity in America. When it comes to Mormonism the author doesn’t seem to have consulted Mormon historical sources or even other landmark books that dealt with the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints such as Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling, a Biography of Joseph Smith. This, the treatment of the Church was not balanced.

I give this book the highest rating, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of Christianity.

Too hard for me..

It felt like reading an encyclopedia. That's difficult on an audio book when you don't know much on the topic at hand..

Great Listen

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Very Good Listen and explains a lot about what is happening today in Religious Turmoil.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Long, as it should be

This was a very long listen. Well worth it. There were times when the pronunciation by the narrator irked me, but it’s over 40 hours long! Give the guy a break! The contents was very thorough; as others have commented, a global history through Christianity. I recommend this as a long haul that, when you arrive at the end, leaves you humble.

Excellent Guide for Deeper Study

It is extremely hard to do a summary of 3000 years of evolution of a religion— but this book does a great job.

It can’t possibly do justice to every topic it touches—but the reader has plenty of guidance to study on his own.

As for bias, yes, you sometimes hear the limp wristed, somewhat pathetic ultra liberal bias of a lapsed believer that is so common these days. But it is easy to ignore and appreciate the depiction of the complex tapestry of historical Christianity.