Inspiring Full-Transit Panama Canal<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martin is engaging and very knowledgeable. \u00a0I wish I could go.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here, though, changing the subject altogether, are some notes extracted from a very recent article by a Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of California at Berkeley: \u00a0Robert Knapp, \u201cHow Magic and Miracles Spread Christianity,\u201d Biblical Archaeology Review<\/em> 46\/1 (January-February 2020): 50-53:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The story of the rise of Christianity after the time of the apostles is often told on the level of bishops and archbishops, Christian scholars and writers, and Roman emperors, with their laws, decrees, and policies. \u00a0This, says Robert Knapp, is \u201cvery misleading.\u201d \u00a0(50)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t emperors who made Christianity. \u00a0It was ordinary men and women. . . . \u00a0In the ancient world, the cares and concerns of such people are mundane: \u00a0How will I survive? \u00a0Can I do more \u2014 can I flourish? \u00a0The hazards of life, illness, accident, personal confrontations \u2014 is it possible to control these? \u00a0My family, my ancestors, my offspring \u2014 how can I honor, protect, and strengthen them? \u00a0(50)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
By about A.D. 150, four generations after the crucifixion, all eyewitnesses (ordinary folk) were dead. \u00a0The new Jesus-sect (also called the Way) had begun to be interpreted, spread, and controlled by an elite within the movement. \u00a0These men, closely tied intellectually and culturally to the polytheist culture around them, were mostly concerned with touting Christianity using categories of thought and action familiar to educated Romans and Greeks. \u00a0This \u201corthodox\u201d (literally, \u201cstraight-thinking\u201d), elite-conceived picture elided ordinary men and women in important ways.<\/span><\/p>\nRetrieving the early Christians and Christianity largely unseen by the orthodox version of the beginnings \u2014 essentially writing about \u201cinvisible Christians\u201d \u2014 is hard because ordinary people are usually voiceless in the material that survives from antiquity. \u00a0It is doubly hard because discussion of early Christianity is usually written in the almost indelible ink of elite discourse \u2014 both ancient and modern. \u00a0(51)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In demonstrating the ability to direct supernatural power, Jesus and the early Christian apostles met polytheism on its own ground by focusing on the ability to help people deal with life\u2019s contingencies and boasted that their Way showed itself superior. \u00a0Jews, too, believed in miracles. \u00a0They also could be convinced of the new sect\u2019s legitimacy because miracles were a long-accepted proof of Yahweh\u2019s power.<\/span><\/p>\nTo the elite, who gradually gained control of orthodoxy, miracles were an embarrassment, evidence of everyday religiosity that circumvented their favorite method of discourse \u2014 increasingly erudite, abstract, and pagan-influenced explanations of the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection. \u00a0(53)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the end of the third century, Knapp writes,<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps as many as 10 percent of urban dwellers and 3 percent of rural inhabitants believed in some form of Christianity. \u00a0In all likelihood, the movement would have continued as one option among many in the polytheist world \u2014 no better, no worse than others \u2014 appealing to a few, but hardly to all. \u00a0(53)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The conversion of Constantine, however,<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
canceled that trajectory. \u00a0Instead, Christianity became an imperial religion. \u00a0Its appeal and spread no longer depended on meeting people\u2019s needs through demonstrations of power. \u00a0Top-down replaced bottom-up. \u00a0(53)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This all seems to me quite compatible with Latter-day Saint teachings on a \u201cGreat Apostasy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Because Cruise Lady: Latter-day Adventures kindly supports the Intepreter Radio Show \u2014 and because I know and like the folks at the company and have accompanied at least one tour for them each year for more than a decade \u2014 I give them some publicity here on my blog from time to time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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