The World Jesus Entered: A Social And Cultural Introduction To Christianity In Its First Two Centuries, by Jon Davies

[Note: I received a personal copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.]

This is the second book that was sent to me by the author to read and review, and while I considered reading it first, I chose to read it second because it was a bit longer and I generally read books I have in order from shorter to longer so as to get through more of them in a timely fashion. This book, though, is definitely the kind of book that repays the attention a reader gives to it and demonstrates the author’s capability at writing intelligently and deeply about the cultural trends that changed Christianity from its origins to the Hellenistic form in which it is most familiar today. Among the points that the author brings out is that early Christianity faced a terrible dilemma in the period after the Apostles: Only Jews and other “ancient religions” had any permission to exist and only those accepted within Judaism could avoid problems with the government for avoiding emperor worship, but Christian relations with Jews were terrible and Jews were subject to widespread social hostility that many Christians wanted to avoid. Given these constraints, it is nearly inevitable that Gentile Christians would resent having to do so many things that would appear Jewish–including Sabbath and Holy Day observance, paying attention to clean and unclean meats, avoiding the influence of heathen religions and philosophies even while maintaining a high degree of interest in cultural engagement–for so little gain. The author is not only well-read about the contemporary debates about early Christianity but with many great and obscure writings from the period of early Christianity and its surrounding context, and this deep reading makes for a fascinating book that lives up to its name.

This book is a bit more than 400 pages and it is divided into several large parts based on the type of world that is being talked about that Jesus Christ entered. The six chapters of the book examine a different perspective that existed within the world that Christianity had to address or deal with over the first two centuries of its existence. First, after a short preface, the author examines the Jewish world that Jesus entered, a world that included numerous religious approaches, the most notable of which were the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots (1), a world that was increasingly anti-Christian especially after the destruction of the temple brought a more closed-minded approach to Jewish identity. The second chapter of the world examines the Gentile world that Jesus answered, a world that itself involved a large amount of philosophical and heathen religious practice and behavior as well as a world influenced by Greek culture and language and Roman authority (2). After this the author examines the alt-Jewish world that Jesus entered, a world that offered its own temptations to Christians but also offered a sympathetic environment for many of the same concerns of Christianity (3). This leads naturally into the author’s discussion of the Gnostic world that Jesus entered, and the difficult relationship between Christianity and Gnosticism that resulted (4). After that the author examines the missionary world that Jesus entered and the approach of other groups, including non-religious ones, to the idea of public preaching and meeting in homes and discussing matters of intellectual and moral interest (5). The book then concludes with a discussion about the heavenly world that Jesus entered with changing concerns about eternal life, death, and judgment as one moves from the Bible to the view of ancient pagan religions and philosophies to the influence of Platonic thoughts about the immortal soul (6), after which there is an index to full citations, an index to scriptures, and then a general index.

Admittedly, the information on early Christianity from within can be pretty sparse, as someone who has read and written about the writings of the post-apostolic fathers a fair bit myself. One of the difficulties that is faced in reading about the religious and philosophical climate of the first two centuries of Christianity is that it can be difficult to know exactly what the original writings were that Christians were writing and responding to, given the way that many texts from the period have been frequently altered and expanded by later redactors to retain relevance later on, and did not retain their original form. This is particularly a problem in a work like the Sybelline Oracles, a work that was written over the course of several centuries from authors with a variety of different perspectives, including Jewish and Gnostic. Similarly, there is a lot of discussion and debate about the process of canonization, and even with those books whose form is generally trustworthy there is a huge gulf of times that are thought about as being possible for when a book was written–and this includes books in the bible like Daniel and Job. The author manages to work within some very difficult constraints about a period that is not well often known and the result is a handy resource for those who are looking to understand the complexities of the culture that Jesus Christ entered and the way that Christianity has always had to deal with the philosophies going on around it, which it can be easily confused as by those who are looking to see the faith as being just like something else that people want to support. This has been a problem since the beginning, as the book makes clear.