Origins of the Christian Religion

Catalog description

Christianity is the largest religion in the world today, accounting for roughly a third of the earth’s population and three quarters of North America. It began, however, in the Middle East, specifically as a small Jewish resistance movement in the Roman Empire. How did a tiny Middle Eastern sect end up producing a dominant, world-wide religion? How did a Jewish messiah and his Jewish followers come to be considered the founders of religion other than Judaism? What were the original beliefs, aims and values of Jesus himself? How did the movement he started change after his death, particularly as it spread beyond its initial Jewish setting to the pagan societies and cultures of the wider Greco-Roman world? This class explores these and related questions through an examination of relevant ancient sources from a critical, history of religions perspective.