The Triumph of Christianity

By: Bart D. Ehrman, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Professor Bart D. Ehrman

The growth of Christianity in the early centuries of the Common Era is one of the most extraordinary stories in world history. What began with a preaching day laborer and his dozen or so disciples soon grew to be the largest religion in the world, eventually taking over the entire Roman Empire. How did that happen? How was such a movement possible?

Over the years, scholars have offered a variety of theories, including:

• The nature of Christianity as both exclusive and evangelical
• The single-handed efforts of the Apostle Paul
• The appeal of the Christian message for pagan audiences
• The conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine

While all of these theories may have been involved, the rise of Christianity nonetheless feels like an impossibility. Delve into this fascinating occurrence in The Triumph of Christianity. Taught by Dr. Bart. D. Ehrman, these 24 investigative lectures trace the exponential growth of Christianity, from its origins in a Jewish outpost of the Roman Empire to its spread throughout the entire Western world.

In this extraordinary course, you will investigate the historical events that led to such an astonishing feat. With the objective eye of a historian, Bart takes you through the ancient Roman world, offering analysis on what we can know for sure and what lies in the realm of myth. While Bart is careful to delineate history from religion, he walks you through a number of theological discussions and debates around the nature of Christ, salvation, “end times”, and more.

Along the way, you will meet the historical Jesus and other figures from the beginnings of Christianity; learn about the Acts of the Apostles as they spread the message far and wide; see how the apocalyptic message of Jesus transformed into a theology of salvation; and witness the development of a unified church. From the message of Jesus of Nazareth to the beginnings of a Christian Roman Empire, The Triumph of Christianity provides new insights into one of the most compelling stories ever recorded.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 The Great Courses (P)2021 The Teaching Company, LLC

How Christianity Came to Dominate Rome

This book offers a great set of lectures describing how Christianity grew from a small group of illiterate day laborers to the dominant religion in the Roman Empire in just 400 years. Despite the title, this is not a parade of examples of how wonderful Christianity is—“triumph” is literal, not a qualitative judgment. Christianity did defeat its competitor religions even if most of them didn’t realize they were in competition with it.

There are a lot of highlights that really made this course stand out among the various Great Courses texts. For one thing, the author teaches students the majority of whom are evangelicals and he sprinkles his lectures with insights into how they view early Christianity. For example, they have a modern understanding of the term messiah, not the original Jewish understanding. (More on that later.) And like many religious adherents, they assume that their faith started in the same form it is in today. These points of understanding were useful starting places in shaking off the modern world to gain insight into how the ancients thought and reacted.

One of the strengths of the book is Erhman’s understanding of what it meant to be a pagan polytheist. They recognized many gods and did not seek to exclude the worship of other gods. This was a stark difference from the early Christians who actively sought to convert and get the converts to abandon all the other gods out there. This is, ultimately, why Christianity triumphed. Erhman quite clearly demonstrates how a very few number of converts each generation became millions over the early centuries. Because the pagans weren’t converting back, every conversion strengthened early Christianity and weakened the pagans.

He also explains why the Jewish people were not convinced by Christian arguments. It all comes down to the term “messiah”. The messiah was expected to be a worldly leader who would triumph over the enemies of the Jewish people and give them their independence again. Jesus was the opposite of a successful worldly leader. He had been executed by the Romans. Calling him the messiah made no sense.

But these are just a couple of examples as Erhman marches through the early centuries of the growing faith and explains convincingly how it rose to a position of dominance. The one topic I would have liked to see that he did not address was Christianity’s similarities to the mystery religions of the period, but while I expected him to discuss the issue, the lectures are so well structured that I didn’t notice he had skipped it until after I had finished the book.

Non biased

Bart Ehrman has impressed me for many years with his non biased appraisal of Christian topics.

Good overview

I enjoyed hearing the actual author read this lecture in his unique Bart Erhman way.

Wonderful history wonderfully narrated

Ehrman is most famous to the broad public as an apostate – but crucially, an apostate willing and able to defend his current non-belief in Christianity. And this course does make clear how little religious faith is needed to explain Christianity's early rise.
For all that, I find it difficult to believe many Christians would not enjoy this course. That's in part because of the sheer quality of the lectures. Ehrman is first and foremost an impressive scholar, and he puts his atheism to one side to explain simply and clearly what we know of Christianity's 300-year rise after the death of Jesus. Ehrman talks not just about great historical trends but about how individual people and communities might have acted, and about how and to what extent we know that they did. It's a terrific distillation of decades of scholarship by him and others.
The result sounds not so much like lectures as like a great audiobook; indeed, it would make a great book. The narrative style is a big part of that: authoritative, unaffected, no-nonsense.
And Ehrman's voice work here precisely matches the material. His podcast style, with its often enjoyable side notes and trademark laugh, gives way here to a more sombre and relentless narration. I'd urge him to narrate all his own future audiobooks.

Went by too fast! Wish there were more

Only complaint is that I wish there were more lectures! Dr Ehrman presents a complicated and often sensitive subject in an even handed and easily understandable way.

Extremely valuable

This should almost be required listening to understand the world we face today. This.course isn’t afraid to tackle tough issues and my hope is that no one’s mind is too closed to appreciate it

Enjoyable

Bart Ehrman is brilliant and this is a fascinating course about a significant point in world history and religion.

Another solid title by Ehrman

Bart Ehrman spends this course reviewing the growth of the early Christian church, its trials and triumphs, and its own internal struggles as it tried to figure out some of the finer theological points of who God was.

He makes clear early on that Christianity had an advantage shared by none of its contemporaries: the desire to spread and grow. Polytheists (referred to largely as pagans in this work) were happy to worship their gods as they always had, and saw no real need to recruit new followers. Judaism similarly lacked a missionary bent. Given this environment, as long as Christianity continued to grow it would eventually become dominant.

This course takes the reader to the end of the fourth century of the Common Era, at which time Christianity becomes to official religion of the Roman Empire. It still had plenty of growth ahead, but this was the beginning of the end for the 'pagan' religions.

Well worth a listen.

Great courses!

Great balanced course. Just the facts with no personal opinion. Love the instructors final comments.

A good overview of why Christianity won in Rome.

I think this title is a very good overview, that cuts through a lot of stuff, particularly on stuff like Constantine. I even learned new things, like how the clergy of Rome were tax-empted (which, in historical context, clarifies a lot of the developments of the church).

I do think at a couple moments he got a couple details wrong or at least didn't paint a fully accurate picture. For example, he states that the attribution to the Jews of having too many rules is a bit of a Christian notion, but the Greeks also took issue with their lifestyle, so while Jews might not have viewed their laws as burdensome...it sure seems like everyone else, Christian or not Christian, had some issues with it, which can also explain why Christianity spread, as it could have held certain appeals of Judaism, without as much of the burdens, at least in the perceptions of outsiders to both religions.

He also compares the laws of the Jews to modern American Law, even though this is a comparison that should not be made for ancient peoples living in ancient times; a simple but strict and punishing law can, in some circumstances, be far more burdensome than many small ones.

Other than these minor problems, it's a fair assessment of the rise of Christianity, and why it won out, along with the views that Pagans and Christians had of each other, without trying to shame them or promote them.

A good work, that deserves to be heard.