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The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation?
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9 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez is really great if you're wanting the basic broader history of the church. It's a textbook, just it's so well written it doesn't feel like you're reading a textbook.
The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation by Justo L. Gonzalez. I haven't read the second volume, but this is easy read and and decent overview. I was slightly less enthusiastic about his coverage of the medieval era, but overall it's very informative. Gonzalez himself is a Methodist, and as a Catholic there were only a few vague lines I found disagreeable, and even then said lines were perfectly reasonable.
I read The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (https://www.amazon.com/dp/006185588X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_pGvSFb68YM3DF). It’s two volumes, but the first volume is enough to establish that TSCC narrative of the history of Christianity differs substantially from the facts. And further, that the facts of Christianity’s history challenge the claim of Christ’s divinity.
Another, shorter, read is Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812981480/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_8KvSFbDCHG8TN), though it is less of a history and more of a persuasive theory drawn from history.
In any case, it becomes clear that - rather than TSCC’s narrative of a divine Christ who established his church on earth during his lifetime, which church subsequently fell into disarray, and was later restored in its fullness by JS, the Christian church began with a small sect of Jews who held some common beliefs based on the teachings of Jesus, that it evolved over time, and that the idea of Jesus as the divine Christ came later, probably starting with the teachings of Paul and codified in later creeds.
At the very least, claims of a restoration are false since there was no “primitive church” to restore.
edit: fixed a typo
I highly recommend Justo González's The Story of Christianity. It is a two volume anthology of Christian history that is both thorough and entertainingly readable. The first volume is probably what you're looking for as it covers from just after the New Testament up to Reformation, while the second goes through the Reformation up to present day.
Amazon link to the first volume: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Christianity-Vol-Church-Reformation/dp/006185588X
There is also the Didache. A sort of manual for how churches should operate that was probably written within one or two generations of the NT.
I’m currently reading The Story of Christianity, which is a great overview. Supplementing it with Encyclopedia Brittannica
The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1 by Justo Gonzalez. I'm using it now and it's fantastic. Easy for a layman to get into, with well-rounded approaches to the topics.
The Armchair Theologians series. Can be bought individually on Amazon as well as on Logos.
These are the books my History of Christianity class is using. They are very detailed and straightforward.
>JWs have little in common with the teachings of Arius.
The heresy that Arius was guilty of was teaching that Jesus was a created being, that was subordinate in time to the Father. JWs teach that Jesus was the Archangel Michael, a created being, and are therefore guilty of the same heresy.
>The council of Nicaea brought the false teaching of the trinity doctrine.
The doctrine of the Trinity is easily recognizable in scripture if one reads what is actually written rather than deciding that they know better and just changing it. If you do some reading on the first ecumenical councils, the context in which they occurred, and what they were a response to, I think you'll find that their doctrinal determinations were appropriate and necessary to prevent further heretical teachings. I'd suggest The Story of Christianity Vol 1. The view that JWs and Mormons hold of the creeds and the ecumenical councils don't make any sense historically and only exist to reinforce non-biblical theology.
>Eventually other false teachings such as "Mary the Mother of God" crept into Christianity, none of which our first century brothers and sisters ever did.
Agree that the Marian doctrines are false, which is why I'm not a Catholic. The Reformation was an adequate response to that problem. The fact that later heresies crept into the church does not mean that the early creeds are incorrect. You'd have to actually prove that.
>Willing to change a teaching if found to be improper or unsupported by the scriptures.
Except you've re-written the scriptures to support your position and don't accept other translations as valid. That's not a good faith position, that's stacking the deck.
>Psalm 36 says Jehovah is the source of life. Jesus certainly is the way and the truth and the life. Jesus having been taught by his Father. Jehovah is the God who sent the light (truth) into the world that we might be saved.
Read what you wrote and then read Jesus' statement again. You're having to equivocate to minimize what Jesus actually calls himself in order to fit it into your theology. This is no different than when Mormons qualify God's role to being "just the God of this earth." They have to read their belief back into the text, which is exactly what you're doing here.
>Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 which in its entirety says... “I have said, ‘You are gods, All of you are sons of the Most High. Yes, Psalm 82 is about the unjust judges of Israel. Is Jesus unjust? No. He is the Son of the "Most High God". Psalm 83:18 tells us that Jehovah (YHWH יהוה) is "The Most High God". Moses said at Deuteronomy 18:15... Jehovah your God will raise up for you from among your brothers a prophet like me. You must listen to him. The Apostle Peter confirms that this prophet was Jesus at Acts 3:22.
This doesn't remotely address my issue with how you mishandled Jesus' application of this scripture. Jesus is calling the Jews who are persecuting him unjust judges. When God is describing the judges as gods in Psalm 82, he's mocking them. Please address the issue rather than drowning it in unrelated tangents.
>The scripture never says that Jehovah "The Most High God" would become flesh.
Sure hints at it though. Emmanuel means "God with us." That a person named Emmanuel would be also be called "Wonderful, Mighty, Counsellor, and everlasting Father is what we colloquially refer to as a clue :)
>God can not die.
The eternal, unchanging, singular substance that is Yahweh? Agreed. The incarnation of that being into human flesh? That's what all of Paul's theology and Jesus' application of the tetragrammaton to himself "Before Abraham was, I AM." is pointing to. I trust them before I trust the Watchtower society.
>He sent his only-begotten son in our behalf. Jesus as an obedient son (Hebrews 5:5)
Hebrews 5 is about the role of the High Priest and the function of that role in atoning for the sins of the people. The argument in this passage is that Jesus, as the Son, is both High Priest forever, negating the need for any other intercessor, and the God to whom reconciliation must be made. He is both the priest entering the tabernacle when God traveled with Israel, and God dwelling in that tabernacle. Or, going back to the name Emmanuel and the notion of atonement being a healing of the rift between Creator and creature, God with us, at last.
>is accomplishing all the work his Father gave him to do (John 4:34).
John 4 is about Jesus establishing the importance of His mission. Building the kingdom, which he explicitly instructs the disciples to do when he tells them immediately after this that He sent them to reap, now, that for which they did not labor, is more important than anything of this world. The context in which he is explaining this is an opportunity to explain the condescension He's subjected himself to in order to bring about the Kingdom.
>John clears this debate with his words at Revelation 19:13 where Jesus is given the title "The Word of God".
How do read that as the assignment of a title? In context we're told that "he has a name that no one knows but himself" and is called instead "The Word of God." That treatment of the Name is identical to how the Israelites treated יְהוָֹה. They wouldn't say YHWH, they would say Adonai as a placeholder. Ask any Hebrew speaker today to read you the Shema, which is the most important prayer in Judaism, and they'll render it as; Shema Israel. Adonai eloheynu , Adonai ehud! "Hear, o Israel. The Lord our God (interestingly, the plural form) the Lord is one!" Even in their most important prayer, the Name is too sacred too utter.
>The personal name of the Almighty God Jehovah (YHWH יהוה) occurs in the scriptures around 7,000 times. As far as I'm concerned, every bible that has removed his name from their pages has 7,000 + mistakes.
See my comment above about the name of God. יהוה is unpronounceable in Biblical Hebrew (no vowels) and is verbalized as Adonai or Ha Shem (the Name) The closest word to these in Koine Greek is κύριος which we render as LORD in deference to the reverent handling of God's name. All those places the NWT is replacing יהוה with Jehovah are a) mocking the relationship between God and Israel, and b) doing nothing more than any other translation is doing with the word LORD, you just have less linguistic justification for it.
>Your version of John 1:1 contradicts itself and verse 2. The Word can not be with God and be God.
That's the point John is making. This is an explicit reference to the Trinity. More importantly, in every document scrap we find of John 1, from either the Alexandrian or Byzantine text types, the rendering is the same. So either you have to argue that John wrote it down wrong, or that it means something that couldn't be understood in the context of 2nd temple Jewish ideas of the nature of God. Given the reaction that the Pharisees have to Jesus when he applies the Tetragrammaton to himself later in John and, given that this is a Gospel, the purpose of which is to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom and the atonement to all mankind, it seems fairly self evident that John chose his words carefully. Especially in light of [John 1:3] where John ascribes the entirety of creation to the Word. Or [John 1:4] where he uses the language you'd referenced in Psalm 36 to attribute to Jesus what David had attributed to God alone. John pretty clearly means to indicate that the Word is YHWH.
>The created Jesus was made both Lord and Christ by God (Acts 2:36)
Lord here is κύριος, the same as every rendering of יהוה in the Septuagint. And Peter is clearly playing with the wording as he cites Psalm 110:1, with the church reacting in horror as they realized that God Himself was crucified. Remember, these were people who had all witnessed the resurrected Christ, so their reaction to this declaration is not to the idea that the Messiah had been crucified, but that the Lord had been. So horrified that all 3000 of them were baptized and repented immediately after the sermon.
You'll notice that for every scripture reference you've used there's a perfectly (I know you'll disagree) valid way to exegete the text without adding anything to it. Every verse, understood in context, does something other than what you think it's doing when you use it as a prooftext. If JW scholarship were done on the basis of what the text actually says, we'd have more common ground, but you simply can't get to the conclusions you reach without wholesale changes to the meaning of words and attributing meaning that can't be read from the text itself.
u/versebot
I'd recommend The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez (vol 1 and 2) for general church history. It's quite detailed, but written at a level that your average person could follow. Both books cover from the beginning of the church to relatively close to present day, in the late 00's if memory serves. He splits the volumes at the Reformation, so the second book doesn't move quite so quickly as the first, but it's still quite good. One note is that Gonzalez is Protestant, and that does flavor his perspective a bit, but there's no anti-Catholic sentiment that I've found.
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