Pagans and Christians
10 best books like Pagans and Christians (Robin Lane Fox): The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Vols. 1-4, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, Augustine: A New Biography, The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (Oxford Illustrated Histories), The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholar's Version, The Roman Revolution, The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World, The World of Odysseus, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity
Rome falling is more interesting to Gibbon than Rome rising. Not in some shandenfreude sense, just objectively. Plus, whether intentional or not, he is building upon the classical historians before him. Specifically, I'm thinking of Tacitus who, between his Histories and Annals, covered from the...
| Author | Martin Goodman |
| ISBN | 0375411852 |
A magisterial history of the titanic struggle between the Roman and Jewish worlds that led to the destruction of Jerusalem.
In 70 C.E., after a four-year war, three Roman legions besieged and eventually devastated Jerusalem, destroying Herod’s magnificent Temple. Sixty years later,...
| Author | James J. O'Donnell |
| ISBN | 0060535377 |
O'Donnell, provost at Georgetown University and editor of the definitive edition of Augustine's Confessions, is admirably qualified to chronicle the life of the man who wrote history's most famous autobiography. But in this book, suffused with the methods (though thankfully not the tortured vocabulary)...
| Author | John McManners |
| ISBN | 0192854399 |
0192854399|9780192854391. The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity published in the year 2001 was published by Oxford University Press. The author of this book is John McManners. We have a dedicated page displaying collection of John McManners books here. This is the Paperback version of...
| Author | Robert J. Miller |
| ISBN | 0944344496 |
The Complete Gospels includes all twenty of the known gospels from the early Christian era, clearly presented for the scholar, student and general reader alike. The new Scholars Version translation captures the full spirit and vitality of the original texts. This gospel picture of early traditions...
| Author | Ronald Syme |
| ISBN | 0192803204 |
The Roman Revolution is a profound and unconventional treatment of a great theme - the fall of the Republic and the decline of freedom in Rome between 60 BC and AD 14, and the rise to power of the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus. The transformation of state and society, the violent transference...
| Author | Adrian Murdoch |
| ISBN | 0750932953 |
Since his death on a Persian battlefield in A.D. 363, the violent end of the Emperor Julian has become synonymous with the death of paganism. But how did a young philosopher-warrior, who ruled for only eighteen months, come to be seen as one of the most potent threats to Christianity?
Driven...
| Author | Moses I. Finley |
| ISBN | 1590170172 |
The World of Odysseus is a concise and penetrating account of the society that gave birth to the Iliad and the Odyssey--a book that provides a vivid picture of the Greek Dark Ages, its men and women, works and days, morals and values. Long celebrated as a pathbreaking achievement in the social history...
| Author | Mary Beard |
| ISBN | 0521316820 |
This book offers a radical survey of over a 1000 years of religious life, from the foundation of Rome to its rise to world empire & Xian conversion. It sets religion in its full cultural context, between the primitive hamlet of the 8th century BCE & the cosmopolitan, multicultural society of...
| Author | Peter R.L. Brown |
| ISBN | 0226076229 |
Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the cult of the saints was the dominant form of religion in Christian Europe. In this elegantly written work, Peter Brown explores the role of tombs, shrines, relics, and pilgrimages connected with the sacred bodies of the saints. He shows how men and...
| Author | John P. Meier |
| ISBN | 0385264259 |
This is John Meier's first (of five?) volume, examining the historic Jesus. The real Jesus may be someone different, but Meier does not approach this volume with faith and church tradition as reliable sources. In fact, the inside of the jacket cover describes the historic Jesus as one that could be agreed...
| Author | Richard Fletcher |
| ISBN | 0520218590 |
In a work of splendid scholarship that reflects both a firm mastery of difficult sources and a keen intuition, one of Britain's foremost medievalists tells the story of the Christianization of Europe. It is a very large story, for conversion encompassed much more than religious belief. With it came...
| Author | Averil Cameron |
| ISBN | 0674511948 |
Marked by the shift of power from Rome to Constantinople and the Christianization of the Empire, this pivotal era requires a narrative and interpretative history of its own. Averil Cameron, an authority on later Roman and early Byzantine history and culture, captures the vigor and variety of the fourth...
| Author | Peter Heather |
| ISBN | 0631209328 |
The volume is divided into three parts, corresponding to the three main phases in Gothic history: their early history down to the fourth century, the revolution in Gothic society set in motion by the arrival of the Huns, and the history of the Gothic successor states to the western Roman Empire. At its...
| Author | Robert L. Wilken |
| ISBN | 0300098391 |
This book offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Abbreviations
Pliny: a Roman gentleman. The making of a Roman official; Travels of a provincial governor; A Christian association;...
The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul
| Author | Wayne A. Meeks |
| ISBN | 0300098618 |
I'm not a theologian and so not really qualified to judge the literary value of the content - some reviewers dispute Meeks' assertions of authorship for some of the epistles, or lack of treatment of some relevant material and I can see why they might be concerned that he extrapolates too far from scanty...
| Author | Charles Freeman |
| ISBN | 1400033802 |
A radical and powerful reappraisal of the impact of Constantine’s adoption of Christianity on the later Roman world, and on the subsequent development both of Christianity and of Western civilization.
When the Emperor Contstantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the...
| Author | Bart D. Ehrman |
| ISBN | 0195300130 |
Bart Ehrman, author of the highly popular Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code and Lost Christianities, here takes readers on another engaging tour of the early Christian church, illuminating the lives of three of Jesus' most intriguing followers: Simon Peter, Paul of Tarsus, and Mary Magdalene....
| Author | John Boardman |
| ISBN | 0198721129 |
The history, achievements & legacies of Greek & Roman antiquity come to life in the pages of this comprehensive & beautifully illustrated volume. Following a format similar to that of The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, this brings together the work of 30 authorities & organizes...
| Author | E.P. Sanders |
| ISBN | 0140144994 |
random thoughts:
-for Sanders, Jesus was (and this is not surprising to anyone who has read his other works on Jesus and Paul) very much a faithful, observant Jew; I largely agree; the conflicts with the Pharisees seem, when actually read in context, fairly minor in and of themselves, though...
