Markus Öhler, History of Early Christianity: Religion, Culture, Identity, trans. Jason Valdez (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2025)

In this work, Öhler’s goal is to provide an introductory textbook to the history of early Christianity from its beginnings with the ministry of Jesus to AD 135, the Bar Kokhba Revolt. To achieve this end, he dispenses with footnotes and “the usual formulations of historical research (‘probably,’ ‘possibly,’ etc.)” (xii). To allow the reader to delve deeper into various events and aspects of early Christianity and its world, Öhler provides a list of suggested readings at the end of each section. Along these same lines, he places helpful small summaries on the side of each page describing the topic he addresses. Öhler organizes his work into sixteen chapters and places a list of abbreviations and four indices at the end.

The first chapter (“Basic Questions of a History of Early Christianity,” 1–8) describes the academic study of Christianity, discusses the terms and sources that Öhler uses, and sets the chronological framework for the work. 

In the second chapter (“The Greco-Roman World: Power Structures, Society, and Religion,” 9–36), Öhler explores various components of the pagan world in which the Christian movement began. 

The third chapter (“The Religion and Culture of the Judeans: Judaism in the Early Imperial Era,” 37–60) focuses on the Judean and Diaspora Jewish environment of nascent Christianity.

In the fourth chapter (“Chronology of Early Christianity,” 61–74), Öhler provides an absolute and relative chronology of the events of embryonic Christianity.

The fifth chapter (“Jesus of Nazareth,” 75–102) covers the life, ministry, death, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, while the sixth (“The New Beginning: Easter and Pentecost,” 103–110) examines the Easter Event and Apostle’s experience of the Holy Spirit on the Pentecost after Jesus’s resurrection. 

In the seventh chapter (“The First Communities in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria,” 111–34), Öhler provides a discussion of the earliest Christian communities in the Holy Land. 

The eight chapter (“The Spread of Belief in Christ to Syria,” 135–48) traces the movement of Christianity from its Jewish homeland into the Gentile world in Syria. 

In the ninth chapter (“Paul’s Early Years,” 149–60), Öhler reconstructs St. Paul’s life from his Diaspora origins to his early years as a missionary.  

The tenth chapter (“The Ongoing Controversy of the Law and Judean Identity,” 161–78) investigates the dispute of the role of the Jewish Torah in the early Christian movement focusing on Acts 15 and Galatians 2.

In the eleventh chapter (“The Spread of the Gospel in Asia Minor and Achaea through Paul,” 179–204), Öhler traces St. Paul’s missionary travels from Acts 13 to 21, placing the first missionary journey in Acts 13 directly after the Apostolic Council in Acts 15.

The twelfth chapter (“The Pauline Ecclesiae,” 205–24) pauses from the discussion of Christianity’s spread to address various aspects of the early Christian congregations associated with St. Paul. 

In the thirteenth chapter (“The Continuation and Inclusion of Judean Identity in Early Christianity from the Apostolic Council to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (47–135 CE),” 225–40), Öhler focuses on the spread of Christianity and its associated events in the Holy Land from AD 47 to 135. 

The fourteenth chapter (“Early Christianity in Greco-Roman Society Between 60 and 90 CE,” 241–56) probes external events that occurred to Christians outside the Holy Land from AD 60 to 90 with a focus on persecution. 

In the fifteenth chapter (“Internal Crises in Early Christianity from 60 to 135 CE,” 257–70), Öhler explores various internal matters that affected Christians from AD 60 to 135 with attention to Christian doctrine. 

The final chapter, the sixteenth (“Inner Transformation in Early Christianity from 60 to 135 CE,” 271–86) examines changes from the first generation of Christians to the second and third with a focus on Church structure. 

Finally, Öhler provides a helpful list of abbreviations of sources he uses throughout as well as four indices: one for names (“Index of Names,” 293–95), one for subjects (“Index of Subjects,” 296–99), one for place (“Index of Places,” 300–2), and one for ancient sources, including the Bible (“Index of Scripture and Ancient Sources,” 303–21). In addition, Öhler has three figures, eight maps, and four tables interspersed throughout the book.

Öhler’s work is clear, well-informed, and brims with the precision one expects from him. At the same time, it is concise, coming in at a total of 321 pages, well organized, especially as a reference tool, and easy to navigate. What is more, while stemming from a historical-critical framework of interpretation, Öhler’s overall conclusions are well-balanced and generally he fairly treats the interpretative, historical, and theological issues of early Christianity. In short, unlike some secular works on ancient Christianity, Öhler reads the ancient Christian (and pagan) sources for the purpose of constructing a history of early Christianity, not deconstructing the nascent religious movement.   

Therefore, if you are looking for a history of early Christianity written from a secular perspective that relies on the historical-critical method of the inquiry of history, then purchase your copy from Baylor University Press by clicking here or Amazon by clicking here. 

I am grateful to Baylor University Press for a gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced by review of it.

Paula Fredriksen, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024)

This work’s purpose is to relate the story of ancient Christianity from the first to the fifth century AD, focusing on its development from a form of Second Temple Judaism in ancient Palestine to the creation of an imperial Church in the Western Roman Empire. Fredriksen’s goal is to introduce “the complexities and ambiguities, the ironies and surprises, the twists and turns” of this movement by examining materials outside the New Testament such as Second Temple Jewish, pagan, and non-canonical Christian works (xiii). In the process, she seeks to describe how Israel’s God went from being one god among many whom the inhabitants of the Roman Empire worshiped to the empire’s sole deity (xiv). Fredriksen’s work is divided into seven chapters, a conclusion, and back matter.  

In chapter 1 (“The Idea of Israel,” 1–29), Fredriksen reconstructs the early Christian message in ancient Palestine and its development and alteration as Christianity spread in the larger Greco-Roman world. In the process, she focuses on the idea of “Israel” in it. Fredriksen tracks how the movement began as the eschatological renewal of Israel, including Jews and Gentiles, and morphed into an imperial Church dominated by Gentiles who “claimed the title ‘Israel’ for itself.”

Chapter 2 (“The Dilemmas of Diversity,” 30–59) explores the various groups and theologies that were a part of the first five hundred years of the Christian movement. Hence, Fredriksen’s preferred term of Christianities versus Christianity. She proposes that the earliest days of the movement witnessed theological diversity but that as it expanded and grew such diversity was condemned as heresy. 

In chapter 3 (“Martyrdom and Persecution,” 60–89), Fredriksen reconstructs the reasons for the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, their failure to maintain pagan ancestral cultic customs and thus threaten the relationship between heaven and earth in Greek and Roman cities.

Chapter 4 (“The Future of the End,” 90–112) investigates the eschatological diversity of early Christianity with an eye to millenarian movements and the trend as the movement went on from emphasizing the imminence of Jesus’s Second Coming to focusing on one’s place in the afterlife, heaven or hell.

In chapter 5 (“Christ and Empire,” 113–43), Fredriksen surveys the political, social, and intellectual belief systems of the Roman Empire and how they contributed to controversies among early Christians about the nature of Jesus Christ and his relationship to God. 

Chapter 6 (“The Redemption of the Flesh,” 144–71) focuses on how the delay of Jesus’s Second Coming, along with philosophical beliefs of the soul, contributed to the development of novel Christian teachings on sex, asceticism, and poverty among believers. 

In chapter 7 (“Pagan and Christian,” 172–97), which is somewhat of a catchall chapter, Fredriksen explores the use of the term “pagan” among early Christians, the practice of magic and the veneration of relics among them, and the formation of the primacy of the Roman Church in the Christian West. 

Her conclusion (“Conclusion,” 198–205) offers a summary of the work emphasizing, once again, the diversity of the Christian movement. 

Fredriksen ends her book with various back matter: an acknowledgement (“Acknowledgements,” 207–9), a timeline of the first five hundred years of the Christian movement (“Timeline,” 211–17), a glossary (“Glossary,” 219–22), a list of supplemental readings (“Supplemental Readings,” 223–43), and indices (“Source Index,” 245–54; “Names and Place Index,” 255–59; “Subject Index,” 260–63).

This strengths of Ancient Christianities are its breadth, the various themes of the history of the early Church in the Greco-Roman world that Fredriksen covers, and her encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish, (Greek and Latin) Christian, and pagan sources. Moreover, this book is pure Fredriksen with its prose being clear, concise, on-point, and witty. For example, she refers to St. Paul’s understanding of the Messiah living in believers as the latter living “in a spiritually radioactive zone” (7).

There are, however, two limitations of this work. The first is in her choice of how to construct Ancient Christianities. Because of her desire to stress the diversity of beliefs among early Christians and not to give an impression of an arc of linear development, Fredriksen opts to focus on themes in the first five hundred years of the Church (xiv). While I understand this desire, especially given the philosophical and ideological framework through which she approaches early Christian history, it has taken away from the book’s coherence. For example, the last chapter seems to be a catchall for themes in the first five hundred years of Christianity in the West that she desires to address: the use of the term pagan, magical arts, the veneration of relics, and the primacy of Rome in the Christian West. 

The second limitation of Fredriksen’s work is its narrow attention to Christianity in the Greek and Latin speaking portions of the Roman Empire. Rome was not the center of the Christian movement, even in the fifth century AD. For example, Robert Louis Wilken (The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013]) has recently composed a magisterial work surveying the first one thousand years of Christian history, which highlights the lack of centralized governance in the Church in the form of the Roman Papacy and demonstrates how within the first five hundred years of its existence Christianity spread to non-Greek and Latin speaking peoples in Armenia, Persia, Ethiopia, Central Asia, and even India. What is more, Christians living in these areas quickly composed Christian works in their native tongues and in the case of Armenia (as well as with the Slavs later in the first millennium AD), Christians wrote down for the first time a language that had heretofore only been spoken. 

For these reasons, I cannot recommend Ancient Christianities to you for purchase. Instead, if you are looking for a history of early Christianity, then I encourage you to read Wilken’s well-balanced work, which you can buy on Amazon or directly from Yale University Press.  

I appreciate Princeton University Press for this gratis copy, which (as you can see) in no way influenced my review.

The purpose of this book is to explore the question: when were the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as well as 1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas composed? Jonathan Bernier’s answer to this query is that, aside from the Pauline epistles, many of these works were written some twenty to thirty years before most scholars conclude they were composed:

Bernier arrived at these dates from what he calls a synthetic treatment of early Christian history that “considers judgments on a disparate range of distinct yet densely interconnected matters and seeks to integrate them into a complex but unified synthesis.” The reason for this type of treatment is that the issue of dating these Christian works tends “to spiderweb into a need to treat one or more of” the above-mentioned works (1).   

Bernier divides his monograph into an Introduction, ten chapters, which form the bulk of the book, and a Conclusion. In the Introduction, he places his work into the history of scholarship on the question of dating the New Testament books, especially the work of James A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (3–17), and defines its parameters, method, and goals (17–32). Bernier’s aim is to provide relative dates for the New Testament books and four other early noncanonical Christian works from the synchronization of events of early Christian history, the contextualization of these Christian literary sources, and from what we know of the authors of these works, what Bernier calls authorial biography (22–27). 

The first and second chapters of Rethinking focus on the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. Bernier accepts that Mark was composed first, Matthew second, and Luke and Acts (by the same author) third. His main foci of the first chapter is: (1) whether or not Jesus’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction requires a post AD 70 date (see Matthew 22:7; 24:1–2; 26:59–61; 27:51; Mark 13:1–2; 14:57–58; 15:38; Luke 19:41–44; 21:5–6, 20–28; 23:45) and (2) the dating of Luke-Acts. Bernier concludes that nothing in Matthew, Mark, or Luke demands a post AD 70 date. To the contrary, Jesus’s warning about the abomination of desolation and the events connected to it (Matthew 24:15–31; Mark 13:14–27) “are more fully intelligible before 70 than they are after” and the references to Jesus’s Second Coming (Matthew 16:28; 24:34; Mark 9:1; 13:30; Luke 9:27; 21:32) favor an earlier, rather than a later, date (66–67). Moreover, because Acts ends with Paul awaiting trial, it most likely dates before AD 62 (67). 

In the second chapter, Bernier contextualizes the Synoptic Gospels and examines biographical data from them, proposing that the lack of emphasis on the Gentile mission in Mark places it before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 (AD 48) and Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels sometime after that but before AD 62 (because he dates Acts to AD 62 and places Matthew before Luke) (70–71). In addition, Marcan authorship of Mark and its connection to Peter in Rome is plausible and the “we-passages” of Acts suggest that the author was a companion of Paul (82–84). 

The third and fourth chapters of Rethinking examine the Johannine documents, John’s Gospel, 1–3 John, and Revelation. External evidence, namely P52, places John before AD 120, the prediction of Peter’s death (John 21:18–19) tends to support a time when the apostle was alive, Jesus’s comment about the author of John remaining alive until the Second Coming (John 21:22–23) does not require the Beloved Disciple to be dead at the time of composition, and Jesus’s references to the temple (John 2:19–22; 4:21) are intelligible before or after its destruction. However, Bernier finds that the mentioning of the pool of Bethesda as existing at the time of the Gospel’s composition suggests a date before AD 70 (102). Moreover, he argues that past reasons for a late date of John, namely Christology and the author’s supposed knowledge of Gnosticism, are flawed. He proposes that John’s Christology is as “high” as Paul’s and that John does not evince knowledge of second century AD Gnosticism (108). For these reasons, he dates John before AD 70. 

From external evidence, 1–3 John date before AD 150, AD 175, and AD 250 respectively. Internally, the Christology of 1–2 John suggests that these letters are not earlier than Paul’s epistles (115–17) and the most probable candidates for authorship of these missives are John the son of Zebedee or John the Elder, both of which lived in the first century AD (118). Concerning Revelation, Bernier hypothesizes that the beasts of Revelation 13:1–18 make more sense before Nero’s death in AD 68 than after, and the references to the Jerusalem temple and Jerusalem in Revelation 11:1–2, 13 are more intelligible before AD 70 than after (123). Internally, the author’s concern for food offered to idols makes more sense between AD 40 and 60 (when early Christians were debating under what circumstances Gentiles could enter their movement), the references to Rome as Babylon cannot exclude a pre-AD 70 date, and that the work probably dates between AD 68 and 70 (126).

In chapters five and six, Bernier tackles the Pauline corpus. The former chapter discusses Pauline authorship—Bernier accepts the undisputed letters, that Paul contributed to Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, and he offers possible date ranges that include and exclude Pauline authorship for the Pastorals (1–2 Timothy and Titus)—and the importance of Acts for dating Paul’s letters (133–43). In chapter six, he attempts to date and provide provenances for each epistle in the corpus. In the process, he places Galatians as the first extant Pauline letter, the Prison Epistles in Caesarea Maritima in the late AD 50s, and the Pastorals to the AD 60s if genuine, but between AD 60 and the mid-second century AD if they are not (179–82).

Chapters seven and eight discuss the Catholic Epistles, less 1–3 John. In chapter seven, Bernier examines Hebrews and James. Concerning the former, the reference to the temple (Hebrews 10:1–3) is more intelligible if the temple were still standing and the mentioning of Timothy places the work after this individual entered Christian ministry around AD 50 (193). Hebrews 2:3 and the reference to the author and his audience hearing the Gospel from those who heard it from Jesus presupposes an author who has not heard the earthly Jesus. All these data place the missive between AD 50 and 70 (194–95). Decisive external and internal evidence to date the letter of James is lacking. However, it’s probable author, James the brother of Jesus, places it before AD 62 (209). 

Chapter eight of Rethinking considers 1–2 Peter and Jude. Concerning 1 Peter, Bernier notes that decisive external and internal data to help date this missive are lacking. However, because Peter composed it, it dates between AD 60 and 69 (223). Second Peter must postdate the Pauline letters (2 Peter 3:15b–16) and this epistle is the strongest candidate for a pseudonymous letter in the New Testament (229). Like 1 Peter, there is not much data to date Jude. However, it was probably written by the historical Jude who probably died at the end of Domitian’s reign. Therefore, the letter probably predates AD 96. 

In chapters nine and ten, Bernier examines the noncanonical writings,1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. Chapter nine considers the first two. Concerning 1 Clement, Bernier contends that the work’s reference to the deaths of Peter and Paul (1 Clement 5:4–7) call for a date after AD 64 and that 1 Clement is more intelligible before AD 70 than after (250–51). With regard to the Didache, Bernier surmises that the author(s) knew Matthew’s Gospel (which he dates between AD 45 and 49), that the focus on the inclusion of Gentiles (Didache 6:2–3) “parallels” the concern of the Christian movement between AD 40 and 60, and that the references to traveling teachers, prophets, apostles, bishops, and deacons (Didache 11–13) are closer to AD 40 through 60 than the second century AD (258). In chapter ten, Bernier concludes that the Epistle of Barnabas (especially 16:3–4) postdates the temple’s destruction in AD 70 but no later than AD 132, the beginning of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (270–71), and that the Shepherd of Hermas is more intelligible near the end or after the apostolic generation than before (274). 

Finally, in his Conclusion, Bernier summarizes his work and calls for more attention to synthetic methods of dating early Christian and Jewish texts.

This monograph is a tour de force of synthetic logic and reasoning, which has caused me to reconsider my own dating of some New Testament documents and the “orthodoxy” of dating of these early Christian texts found in most New Testament introductions. In particular, Bernier has piqued my interest in exploring further the relationship between the temple’s destruction and the dating of the New Testament documents. In short, do the references to this event in the Gospels necessitate a post AD 70 dating? I look forward to thinking with Bernier’s work to answer this question and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the dating of the New Testament documents! Click here to purchase the book directly from Baker and here from Amazon.

I appreciate Baker Academic for providing me with a review copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it!   

Archaeologists from Goethe University (Frankfurt, Germany) announced this week the discovery of a small silver amulet, 3.5 cm, outside Frankfurt. The artifact contains an 18-line Latin inscription indicating that its wearer was a third century AD Christian. The amulet, along with an incense burner and a clay jug, was found in the grave of a man dating between AD 230 and 270 and specifically under his chin. Therefore, the object must have worn around the man’s neck, at least for his burial but probably during his life, too. The inscription contains references to St. Titus, the Trisagion, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and a reference to St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 2:10-11a.

The significance of the find is that it provides the earliest concrete evidence to date for Christianity in Northern Europe (for more, see Goethe University’s press release by clicking here). What interests me is the inscription’s references to Philippians 2:10-11a–“so that a Jesus’s name every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every knee might confess” (my translation)–and to St Titus.

According to the announcement, the epigraph reads:

(In the name?) of St. Titus.
Holy, holy, holy!
In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
The lord of the world
resists to the best of his [ability?]
all seizures(?)/setbacks(?).
The god(?) grants well-being
Admission.
This rescue device(?) protects
the person who
surrenders to the will
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
since before Jesus Christ
bend all knees: the heavenly ones,
the earthly and
the subterranean, and every tongue
confess (to Jesus Christ)” (translation from Dr. Markus Scholz, see here).

The announcement did not contain the epigraph’s Latin text so it is unclear if this is a direct quotation or an allusion to the verses from Philippians. Nevertheless, this exciting discovery is evidence for the use of this letter of St. Paul’s as well as at least knowledge of one or more of the following letters, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 2 Timothy, and Titus, which mention St. Titus (2 Cor 2:13; 7:6, 13, 14; 8:6, 16; 12:18; Gal 2:1, 3; 2 Tim 4:10; Tit 1:4, in an early Christian community outside modern-day in Frankfurt!