Christians : Opinion on this book?

So, I have The History of Christianity (Diarmaid MacCulloh) and it is one of my go to references, when considering historical aspects of Christianity in it's many forms.
It's not the only book I go to, particularly in terms of Christianity's first 400 years, but it's almost always PART of the reference check...

Just wondering if any Christians (or non-Christians with a good grounding in Christian history) had an opinion on it's scholarship and veracity?

lewisnotmiller said:

Just wondering if any Christians (or non-Christians with a good grounding in Christian history) had an opinion on it's scholarship and veracity?

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It is very difficult to simplify scholarship in just about any field I can think of, and virtually impossible to present a readable introduction to the intersection of several fields (in this case, several areas of historical inquiry and relevant related fields such as biblical studies, near eastern studies, NT studies, early Christian studies, medieval studies, etc.). I read the Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years to respond to this post. It's certainly not nonsense. By my standards (which are ludicrous), it's garbage. However, it's better than I could do if tasked with an attempt to distill even a single millennium of the history of anything. That said, I would seriously recommend going to sources that DON'T attempt to take on so huge a task and instead look to sources that collectively cover the history in question yet singularly cover much smaller periods such as e.g., J. D. G. Dunn's Beginning Christianity, Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millenium,
Whalen's Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, Jenkins' Mystics and Messiahs, Fox's Pagans and Christians, Brakke's The Gnostics and Williams' Rethinking "Gnosticism", Logan's A History of the Church in the Middle Ages, Hutson's Church and State in America: The First Two Centuries, and Spaeth's Church In An Age Of Danger: Parsons And Parishioners, 1660-1740 to name a few.

LegionOnomaMoi said:

It is very difficult to simplify scholarship in just about any field I can think of, and virtually impossible to present a readable introduction to the intersection of several fields (in this case, several areas of historical inquiry and relevant related fields such as biblical studies, near eastern studies, NT studies, early Christian studies, medieval studies, etc.). I read the Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years to respond to this post. It's certainly not nonsense. By my standards (which are ludicrous), it's garbage. However, it's better than I could do if tasked with an attempt to distill even a single millennium of the history of anything. That said, I would seriously recommend going to sources that DON'T attempt to take on so huge a task and instead look to sources that collectively cover the history in question yet singularly cover much smaller periods such as e.g., J. D. G. Dunn's Beginning Christianity, Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millenium,
Whalen's Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, Jenkins' Mystics and Messiahs, Fox's Pagans and Christians, Brakke's The Gnostics and Williams' Rethinking "Gnosticism", Logan's A History of the Church in the Middle Ages, Hutson's Church and State in America: The First Two Centuries, and Spaeth's Church In An Age Of Danger: Parsons And Parishioners, 1660-1740 to name a few.

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Hey big guy, thanks for the response.

First off, yep, totally hear you about the quality of scholarship possible when dealing with broad areas. On some topics I have a pile of very detailed books which limit themselves quite specifically to particular sub-topics (so to speak) within an overarching theme. Certain periods of history, and certain events get this treatment, in terms of my personal library. But Christianity has to count itself lucky to get a guernsey at all, given that poor old Judaism gets a mere smattering at best.

So yeah, totally get that at BEST this can only be a broad brush summary which leads me to some other more specific reading depending on topic.

Thanks for the list of books, also. I keep a little Excel file with different topics, and recommended non-fiction items...yeah, I'm that geeky...so I've added them, and appreciate it.

In terms of Christian history, the only period I have much detail on is around the Council of Nicaea, and that's more because I'm a Byzantine history geek, and the rest becomes unavoidable. Otherwise I'd guess I have more on Native American and some forms of classical paganism than I do on Christianity. Well, except for that bible that lurks in the bookshelf somewhere (I've never gotten around to moving it to the fiction shelves..ahem...), and a couple of debate-style essay books.

One clarification...

LegionOnomaMoi said:

I read the Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years to respond to this post.

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You're a pretty speedy reader...

lewisnotmiller said:

You're a pretty speedy reader...

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Isn't that book at least hundreds of pages?

gsa said:

Isn't that book at least hundreds of pages?

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It almost gave me a hernia carrying it in my workbag for a few weeks. About a 1000 pages. One page for every 3 years (which does kinda go to @LegionOnomaMoi 's point re: broad brush approach).

lewisnotmiller said:

So, I have The History of Christianity (Diarmaid MacCulloh) and it is one of my go to references, when considering historical aspects of Christianity in it's many forms.
It's not the only book I go to, particularly in terms of Christianity's first 400 years, but it's almost always PART of the reference check...

Just wondering if any Christians (or non-Christians with a good grounding in Christian history) had an opinion on it's scholarship and veracity?

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An excellent resource. This is written by a very introspective and honest Christian scholar - there are more of them than one might think, considering that for the past 200 years Christian scholars have been using critical historical methods. Anyway, this guy is what we would think of as a 'liberal' Christian, tolerant of homosexuality and able to detect and respect the overlapping of proto-orthodoxy and 'heretical' Christian sects in the story of early Christianity.

angellous_evangellous said:

An excellent resource. This is written by a very introspective and honest Christian scholar - there are more of them than one might think, considering that for the past 200 years Christian scholars have been using critical historical methods. Anyway, this guy is what we would think of as a 'liberal' Christian, tolerant of homosexuality and able to detect and respect the overlapping of proto-orthodoxy and 'heretical' Christian sects in the story of early Christianity.

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To me that was both a good thing and a bad thing, in a way.
I wanted an author that wasn't overly beholden to one 'sect' since I wanted an overall examination. But you're never really sure if people have axes to grind, so to speak. It appears even-handed to me, though.

lewisnotmiller said:

To me that was both a good thing and a bad thing, in a way.
I wanted an author that wasn't overly beholden to one 'sect' since I wanted an overall examination. But you're never really sure if people have axes to grind, so to speak. It appears even-handed to me, though.

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Well I would certainly read it with several other books.

The thing is, he's not like Bart Ehrman, who his a highly respected scholar, who is a drama queen sometimes with his atheism. Ehrman comes from an evangelical conservative background and when he sees something that can make evangelicals uncomfortable, he mercilessly pokes the bear. MacCulloh simply examines the issue and gives his analysis and opinion without pouring salt into the wound.

angellous_evangellous said:

Well I would certainly read it with several other books.

The thing is, he's not like Bart Ehrman, who his a highly respected scholar, who is a drama queen sometimes with his atheism. Ehrman comes from an evangelical conservative background and when he sees something that can make evangelicals uncomfortable, he mercilessly pokes the bear. MacCulloh simply examines the issue and gives his analysis and opinion without pouring salt into the wound.

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Cool, thanks.
I'm not big on the anti-theist thing. Bias is bias. Having said that, I like Hitchens, since I find him entertaining (not just on religion).

I was trying to get a book that gave at least equal weight to the historic development of the church(es) as to any theological aspects of the religion(s) and I reckon it's a reasonable attempt at that.


I'll love to find a similar book on Islam, but it's proven difficult.

lewisnotmiller said:

Cool, thanks.
I'm not big on the anti-theist thing. Bias is bias. Having said that, I like Hitchens, since I find him entertaining (not just on religion).

I was trying to get a book that gave at least equal weight to the historic development of the church(es) as to any theological aspects of the religion(s) and I reckon it's a reasonable attempt at that.


I'll love to find a similar book on Islam, but it's proven difficult.

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Yeah - but I do think that you've found a good book. It's by a senior scholar, which is great. Unfortunately, unless you read a lot more, you're not going to know what to take with a grain of salt. Senior scholars (without exception in my reading) tend to slip deeply into inductive arguments and musings with very little (if any) warning to the reader. If they didn't do this, it would be irresponsible because their analysis covers not just the historical "facts" but all of the questions that they have struggled with over the years that are not provable. It's extremely difficult to discipline these musings when you've read hundreds of thousands of pages of material + all of the original works.

angellous_evangellous said:

Yeah - but I do think that you've found a good book. It's by a senior scholar, which is great. Unfortunately, unless you read a lot more, you're not going to know what to take with a grain of salt. Senior scholars (without exception in my reading) tend to slip deeply into inductive arguments and musings with very little (if any) warning to the reader. If they didn't do this, it would be irresponsible because their analysis covers not just the historical "facts" but all of the questions that they have struggled with over the years that are not provable. It's extremely difficult to discipline these musings when you've read hundreds of thousands of pages of material + all of the original works.

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Yep, fair call. That makes perfect sense.
There are some aspects of Christian History that I'm reasonably well read on, but if you're looking at it in it's entirety, I'm a dabbler.
The one thing I'd offer in my own defence is that I'm pretty well-aware of which areas I'm ignorant in, and usually don't take any single source as gospel (pun kinda intended).

But I'm old school enough that I like having a few information sources on my shelf, and supplementing those with the 'net, library, e-books, borrowed books from friends or whatever.

Appreciate the continued comment, btw. Both you and @LegionOnomaMoi make sense. I'll pay it forward at some point. I just need people to start a thread on the changing offensive strategies of the NBA.

lewisnotmiller said:

Yep, fair call. That makes perfect sense.
There are some aspects of Christian History that I'm reasonably well read on, but if you're looking at it in it's entirety, I'm a dabbler.
The one thing I'd offer in my own defence is that I'm pretty well-aware of which areas I'm ignorant in, and usually don't take any single source as gospel (pun kinda intended).

But I'm old school enough that I like having a few information sources on my shelf, and supplementing those with the 'net, library, e-books, borrowed books from friends or whatever.

Appreciate the continued comment, btw. Both you and @LegionOnomaMoi make sense. I'll pay it forward at some point. I just need people to start a thread on the changing offensive strategies of the NBA.

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If you're reading this book, you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of (sic). There's too much written on the first four centuries of Christianity in my opinion, and it's not going to stop - ever.

There are many very good introductions to the NT these days.

angellous_evangellous said:

There's too much written on the first four centuries of Christianity in my opinion, and it's not going to stop - ever.

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"of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh."