Christian Beginnings

Catalog description

This course will examine the historical, cultural, social, and theological roots of Christianity. It will cover the period from the beginnning of "Second temple Judaism" in approximately 520 B.C.E. to the adoption of the Nicene Creed in 325 C.E. Christianity is often perceived as a religion founded by Jesus of Nazareth, or perhaps by the Apostle Paul, a missionary who spread the message about Jesus as Messiah and Savior across the Mediterranean world. This understanding, however, is historically inaccurate. Christianity began as a sectarian movement within Judaism and gradually emerged as separate religion combining elements of Jewish and Greco-Roman thought, a process that extended over three centuries.