This is very interesting, and I believe that even in the modern world, it still works. I am convinced that among the church, the general adherents do not really care about the theological intricacies, but mostly care about what work for them in the denomination. Maybe because one of their children was healed, or one church gave them emotional support during their loss, or maybe they get some charity, and so on.
Agreed. This is one thing that drove me away from the Faith, nobody really cared about theology or actually believing Christianity. Just vaguely following their own version of God that lets them hate others but excuse themselves.
So interesting and informative. I look forward to each weeks vlog. Megan and Bart are so good with their interactions. Thank you so much for taking the time to help in our quest to understand.
I just now finished Bart's course on Mark - am still reeling from all the complexities to think about, and will now use Mark as the Gold Standard to study Paul and the other Gospels. Highly Recommended.
@@JoseZamorano-c8h 99% of Bible scholars believe that Mark is the oldest gospel and John is the newest gospel. Mark was written in the year 70 or 71, right after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Matthew and Luke were both written between 80 and 90. John was written around the year 95 to 100, the same time when the book of Revelation was written. (The book of Revelation was written by John of Patmos, but that is definitely not the same person who wrote the Gospel of John. The author of the Gospel of John is anonymous.)
@@marknagel8852 All of that is unsubstantiated. Biblical scholarship is a shoddy field. Our first testimony to the order they were written says Matthew was first - that’s our assumption then. And it turns out the Mark first theory is hatched to fit with nineteenth century evolutionary simple to complex models. Which is true in evolution and not necessarily true of texts
I love Dr. Erhmam's book The Triumph of Christianity and recommend it unequivocally. ADDENDUM: I have a friend who thinks of himself as a Christian who has "compassion and empathy" (which I don't have, according to him). Anyway he INSISTS to me that I became an atheist because "I want to be my own god." He has no idea how arrogant, condescending, and contradictory he's being.
The triumph of Christianity and his research is amazing. I was stunned when he revealed the reason why Romans were converting to Christianity and decimating paganism
Can I suggest the obvious? The reason that Christianity (and then Islam, later) was able to spread like no other religion before it was because of the simple reason that this was the first religion that WASN'T limited to your region/ tribal affiliation. What I mean by that is, before this, you worshipped the God/ Gods that your tribe had always worshipped. You would NEVER worship the Gods of some other region, or of some other tribe, because they would never accept you! Those Gods didn't care about you and wouldn't protect you/ care for you in any way! When the Christians (and muslims) came along, they were the first people to say "It doesn't matter what tribe you're from or what land you were born in, our God will love you and protect you!"
There were plenty of religions who did the same that came much before christianity. Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka, Confuciunism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Vedanta, Ajivika, among a few of a lot of them
And the Romans spread their religions with their conquest. As a Roman subject, you added the worship of the Roman gods to your own - including the cult of the emperor.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 The Romans didn't INSIST that you take up their religions, though. Most regions were allowed to keep their old religions, but were required to allow Roman religious practices, also. The Jews objected to this and specifically to the statue of the Emperor being placed in the Great Temple, given equal status as a God (as per the cult of the emperor). This was the cause of much of the strife that only ended with the diaspora.
@@Vivek10010 Buddha wasn't a God. Buddha was a person who lived and then gained enlightenment. Buddha then provided a guide for other people who wished to follow this example and to also gain enlightenment. That's VERY different from worshipping a God and a God who gives you commandments, telling you what to do and what not to do, too! It's more of a philosophy, than a religion, in that respect. So too is Confucianism, so too is Taoism... I don't know much about the others, except for Zoroastrianism and I can confidently say about that "You're wrong." A Greek who wanted to worship the Zoroastrian Gods would need to join the tribes of Zoroastrians, if he wanted protection from their Gods. If he were to return to Greece, Ahuramazda would have no power to protect him from the ire of Zeus. These Gods were all the Gods of this tribe or that tribe... Even though the Titans created the world and Zeus (with Athena, using the handiwork of Prometheus) created humans, the Titans and the Olympian Gods weren't Gods of the whole world and everyone in it; They were the Gods of the Greeks. Their influence and power didn't extend very much farther than Mount Olympus. An Egyptian who worshipped Athena and paid homage to Zeus, but who lived (and then died) in Egypt, would still find that Horus and Anubis guided their souls through the Afterlife, rather than finding Hades claiming them from foreign lands.
@@Raz.C You dont even know what the ideologies I posted even talk about. There were at least two athiest in there too lol. The rest of your post is just redundancy and gibberish
Bart doesn't mention the mass conversion of whole tribes by converting the chief, which certainly was the case in Britain. Also on Charlemagne's campaign in northern Europe, if anyone did not convert, they were killed, this tended to be quite successful.
All that, while true, comes later. Bart's talking here about how it through and took over the Roman Empire - reaching some 30 million by the end of the 4th century. Only by the very end of that was Christianity the official state religion.
It's why you find Jews in most countries in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa. The Legend of the Wandering Jew may well be based on a real person. We wandered all over, settling where we weren't hated, until we were and it was time to leave. As Tevya says in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Maybe that is why we always keep our hats on."
Likewise! One thing I've noticed about Christians....you could have sinned in the most heinous way( just take a pick of sins) but if you ever tried to ask for help in the area of doubting the veracity of the bible, I have seen the sweetest of Christians turn into "atilla the hun"! It's like a personal attack on their character which I find rather weird. I realised before my deconversion when I was struggling with the bible, one should never express your doubts to fundamentalists! They always say it's good to ask questions but today I know so long as you're willing to agree with their set answers at the end of the questioning. Always to remember if you have an opinion that's different from Christian fundamentalists, you are "wrong" and they are "right "
The spark that ignited Christianity (yes, it started out small), from an anthropological perspective, is that it is a revitalization movement. Revitalization movements, described in Anthony Wallace's seminal 1956 article in American Anthropologist, notes that these movements are a "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture." Rodney Stark outlines in a couple of places (pp. 77-79, 213-215) in The Rise of Christianity, how Christianity arose from a revitalization movement. There are a number of factors that spark revitalization movements. Dissatisfaction with economic conditions, perceived relative depravation, ecological conditions, living conditions such as horrendous population densities where Christianity spread, etc. It is a dissatisfaction of these conditions and a deliberate attempt to create a new world and new social relationships, often characterized by a new or revitalization ethic, renewed social relationships and mutual assistance, and egalitarian themes or teachings. While it created a spark, it also allowed Christianity to subsequently grow and develop in the Empire during the later tremendous growth of Christianity and much later in the US during the Great Awakenings. While certain revitalization leaders are credited with miracles and weather control, such as Jesus, and Wodziwab and Wavoka during the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements in western North America, other leaders, such as Alexander Campbell (Disciples of Christ) have no such associations with such supernatural feats as they are within societies marked by more modern understandings of the world. Christianity as a revitalization was not a one-off type of phenomenon. My point is that first, while anthropologists have written extensively on it, no biblical scholar I know of ever mentions revitalization movements. However, they are so important in understanding religions that they certainly ought to be. Secondly, it would be very profitable to study movements like the Ghost Dance, Mormonism, restoration movement, early Methodism (as Wallace points out), and other movements for their contribution to biblical scholarship.
One explanation that the good professor does not mention, but I have seen thrown around quite a lot, is that Christians were significantly less likely to kill their female offspring and were in general more supportive of women in roles of authority, which led to increased conversions amongst women in the ancient world. Stark, who Ehrman mentioned in this episode, talks about this in a few of his works. I'm not saying this is an argument I personally believe in, just that I hope Ehrman talks about it in a future episode.
Dr. Gregory J Riley, in the book “One Jesus Many Christs” says that Christianity spread because of Christian bravery in the face of torture and execution. Riley points out that in ancient times people admired heroes who faced death bravely and died with dignity. But heroes like Heracles and Achilles were heroes because they were warriors. Jesus, because he was a peasant, made being a hero accessible to everyone - especially the poor and marginalized. And the Christian willingness to be martyred, according to Riley was a major point of conversion for on lookers. Riley quotes one early Christian writer as saying, “When we’re killed we conquer.”
This reminds me of emperor Jillian the prophet (apostate) he made a point not to kill any Christian’s because he agreed that martyrs spread the faith. He said instead that Christianity should be mocked out of existence because that way it was the idea that was killed.
Except as Bart and others have pointed out the extent to which Christians were persecuted has been greatly exaggerated by Christian writers. Christians were persecuted when Nero needed a scape goat but otherwise not that much. And that in itself doesn't seem very compelling. There were plenty of Jews and also "barbarians" (e.g. Gauls, Germanic Tribes) who showed great bravery resisting the Romans and dying for it.
Get Bart's book The triumph of Christianity he does some fascinating research and makes an amazing discovery why Romans converted to Christianity... It's shocking especially from an atheist
I do not think claiming at 32:25 that pagans (assuming ancient greek and romans) had no concept of afterlife is corect. Was the underworld governed by Hades and Pluto not effectively the afterlife? I think that argument is wrong.
I'm not taking a side, I haven't read enough, but, "pagans, by and large, didn't believe in an afterlife," really shocked me. Is this true? The norse had valhalla. The ancient Egyptians sure as hell believed in an afterlife. I know the Zoroastrians believed in one. The greeks and romans didn't believe in one? Or did they officially believe in it but regular roman Joe 6 pack didn't really believe in it? I really wanted to interrupt there and ask for elaboration.
I always wondered about a “potluck” theory of conversion. Not so much a direct charity theory, but private dinners as a way for building a community that no other religion at the time offered. Someone talks to a christian and there is some interest, the christian invites the family over for dinner. Maybe it was an holderover from the Jewish sadder dinner. If most of the social safety net was based on a large extended family, this would be a way to build a sort of artificial extended family. It would also be a way to improve your business. Weekly meetings with people you would not meet otherwise is something that the infrequent public celebrations of the pagan gods didn’t offer.
@@kacabingkaikaca_bingkai5332 Yes - modern American evangelicalism is multi-level marketing at its most successful, especially if you have a religious licence to start the process.
This episode seems to focus on before the "conversion" of Constantine (ironic that the famous convert or "changer" was named after being a constant). In Bart's previous video "Did Constantine Really Convert", at the 30:40 mark, he talks about many good reasons for converting after he did: it was the emperor's religion, Constantine favored it and showered it with money, suddenly huge construction was devoted to it which led to mass employment, and bishops (rich community leaders) got huge tax breaks.
Because it was advantageous for him to bring his dividing kingdom together. He wasn't a true believer in the one true God. He was a Roman trinitarian. A false pagan doctrine he carried into this new faith.
I find it interesting that I don't see comments from believers. Those of us who have accepted Christ can affirm that there is a very real, tangible, inner strength, and peace we receive as well as clear answering of prayers. People may have wanted to convert because they saw the change that occured in those who accepted Christ. Bart hardly made a throwaway comment about that. For those who don't believe in God, my feelings and experiences are very real to me and others around me. If there is no God I think we have to absolutely admit that Jesus was an even better miracle worker than the Bible claims. He changed the world, culture, our approach to how we view our fellow humans and did this talking about stuff that no one actually wants to do. His affect is really amazing when you think about it!
I was circumcised in my early teens for sanitary reasons and 55 years later I still have the scars on it because I had an involuntary nocturnal erection the night after the surgery. I was scared to death when the following morning the nurse that was in charge waked me up to change the sheets because there was an hemorrhage due to the tearing of the foreskin around the stitches. But I think the main reason for not circumcising in those times was that in the greco-roman culture circumcising was seen as mutilation.
Your comments are dependent on the assumption that the local people of the Middle East where the Christianity took root initially were free individuals with free will to choose. In the ME the choice of tribal chief and later the choice of feudal lord would matter. Once the chief or lord becomes Christian, there was no other option left for the serf/peasants. So, any comment/conclusion that ignores the contemporary socio-economic structure of the ME could not be accurate.
I'm more interested in thinking about the future where Christianity declines to just a relative handful of believers again. There was an article in _Harper's_ magazine a few years ago about the collapse of the Zoroastrian religion and its likely extinction in this century. At one time there were millions of Zoroastrians in Southwest Asia, and the religion influenced the beliefs of the later Abrahamic religions. Today there are only a few thousand Zoroastrians left, and they aren't reproducing enough or accepting converts. The last Zoroastrian could very well die by 2100, and the people living afterwards won't notice the religion's absence. The same thing is likely to happen to Christianity eventually. Religions come and go like everything else, after all.
I think that if the human race doesn’t destroy the planet then eventually we won’t have religion anymore. There was a time when we had no real science but eventually the rationality and usefulness of science compared to other ways of understanding the world won out. Our scientific understanding of concepts like morality, society, culture, and psychology are still where physics and astronomy were over a thousand years ago, but eventually they will mature and we’ll stop looking to Bronze Age myths for answers about modern values.
I find the "argument from health care" to be fascinating and I wonder if Ehrman's total dismissal is epidemiologically informed. It stands to reason Christians would more likely become infected, but then they, too would benefit from nursing. There is also the factor of herd immunity which is more likely to develop with exposure instead of shunning.
"You just want to sin" is such a weird argument. If I were a believing Christian up to that point, the desire to sin wouldn't nullify my belief in a living God who would punish me for my sins any more than my desire to commit certain crimes causes me to forget the police exist.
I think all the dropping of the OT laws re: circumcision, shellfish, pork, clothing, etc. probably made it easier. When in Rome... Another great episode - thanks Bart and Megan!
Dietary restrictions, Holy day observances, clothing, circumcision, removal of the importance of a geographically localized area and genetic racial priority.
14:45 "mechanics of evangelism" personal connection in conversation.. but why? 27:30 "first you have to ask...why do you need a god?"...so today why do you need a god? or how is it that today we don't need a god and then they did?
Living without the concept of a deity around the Bronze Age was unimaginable…the difference with Christianity is that, unlike the majority of other religions, it did not require you to make sacrifices to cleanse you from your sins (which could be quite expensive) but rather believe in the only sacrifice already happened in the face of Jesus…quite an economic, empathetic and emotional solution fit for most people without means (making up the vast majority then and now) found quite inviting. To own a goat back then was an expensive capital good that you would never waste to sacrifice for the high priests to eat on their own, while all you get is (maybe) partial absolution and the intestines for some soup…
I have some questions and complaints. 1) The Greco-Roman world worshiped winners. Gods who made great deeds and defeated their enemies. What the Christians worshipped was an utter loser in their eyes. Being crucified was the most humiliating way to die and would bring dishonor to the killed's family. That Jesus was innocent wouldn't have mattered one iota to the Romans. The argument "our god is more powerful than your gods" makes littel sense since Jesus was crucified. 2) We know that Christianity spread more rapidly among the poor and among women. However, surviving accounts on why people converted to Christianity would mostly be why rich people converted. So relying on such data causes sampling bias. 3) Couldn't it just be that the Christian message appealed to the masses? Slaves were treated as disposable property. Along comes Christians and tells them that they too should be loved and respected, that they too have an immortal soul that can be saved. 4) A pagan whose brother was killed would need to take revenge and kill the killer or at least his brother (most people couldn't rely on the "justice" system) or they would lose their honor. Perhaps people realized how destructive retributive justice was and that the Christian option of forgiving - without loss of honor - was superior?
Many other commentators have mentioned Bart’s omissions, but the one I find most telling is the tidy little story he paints about “Christianity” as if it were a fairly unified belief in a flesh and blood man that started in Galilee and Jerusalem and spears outward. There was not one early Christianity, there were dozens, possibly even hundreds. The evidence Bart omitted undermines his argument for a historical Jesus, which is why he likely glossed over the Platonic and Stoic influences, the mystery cult patterns and the burgeoning monotheistic tendencies in contemporary first and second century philosophy. The orthodox Christian church molded through Constantine and imperial power was the real catalyst for a “Christian” consolidation that in turn forged a mythology of its own beginnings, as told through the texts it conveniently sanctioned. The competing Christianities were destroyed.
Basic maths will give you the numbers you want. If you talk to 10 people in one month and convert one then, in the second month, there's 2 of you each talking to 10 people and converting 1. So, in the third month, there's 4 of you... If each person manages to talk to 10 people and convert one every month then by the end of the year your community has grown from just you to over 2,000 people.
I hope you would include the Jewish law and Christianity controversies in one of your discussions. I wonder why everyone less concerned about an issue that was very controversial in early centuries of Christianity
26:25 Marcus Aurelius's dates are: born 121; succeeded 161; died 180, so not really "at the end of the third century", although many of his successors had names which included Marcus Aurelius, seven of them from 268 to 305. I don't buy the "Our god is more powerful." theory because (a) he isn't, and (b) it's only an argument for Henotheism. I think the "turn the other cheek" component of its theology is key: for the lower classes and women, they get pie in the sky (meek...shall inherit the earth, etc.) and for the ruling classes, they get a pliant workforce.
Interesting comment about philosophies at the time being exclusive in a way that religions weren't. Exclusive and evangelist, in the sense of wanting to convert others for their own good. It's almost like Christianity merged philosophy and religion into a single thing
Thinking a little further about this - Buddhism kind of did the same thing, as did later (and even some contemporary) middle-eastern religions. Islam, Zoroastrianism, etc. In China maybe that doesn't happen? And we see philosophies like Taoism and Confucianism continue to play the same kind of role we're talking about for Hellenistic era philosophies.
That's interesting, perhaps Acts itself reflects a tradition of using conversion stories as a tactic for converting people. Reading about 500 people converting at once might create a kind of peer-pressure where people want to be part of the consensus of these crowds which may or may not have existed.
How exactly did anyone "count" the number of Christians in the Roman Empire. This is just a supposition based on estimated population size. How about: we don't really know. We don't even know much of what early Christians believed or how they practiced their faith, the variations and difference and how much traditional faiths and Christianity were amalgamated or diverged? We mostly have texts citing earlier texts of the elite of society who may not have known or cared what the rural underclass great majority felt or believed
I was wondering which disciple was present at the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate? If none of them were there who recorded the conversation or wast the whole this a fabrication?
Fascinating as always, thank you so much. Still, there remains one major question for me, which is how big was the believe in Christ at the very beginning, and is there anything which made it special in a first place? I mean, I am under the (maybe false or exagerated?) impression that 1st cent judaïsm was extremely diverse with quite a few prophet around preaching the soon coming apocalypse or things like that, and Jesus was just one among many (or just some?) others, which we do have trace of because it starts becoming big pretty fast and we got the accounts we now call the new testament writen couple of decades afterward. So my main interrogation here would be : is there anything with jesus which made it/him special in a first place, did those would brought it to the cross had any idea it was more than just one more dissident to kill, did his ministry, which according to the gospel didn't last more than 2 or 3 years made his teaching real nascent cult with more believers than other prophet from his time we may have any idea about? It seems to me that this podcast provides very good ideas about how it did spread througt the roman empire, but my question here would be how it did even became a particular thing in the very first place? Last but not least, I've red somewhere that in some hellenistic hight middle class of the time (like the appostles), there were some kind of a fascination for judaïsm for it had some kind of aura of ancient exotic mysticism, which we could compare the modern fascination in occident or Bouddhism, and that explains why chritianity did work in these middles, because it gave the opportunity to embrace judaïsme without all the Judaïc code around (circumsision, not eating pork...). How much of that is true. I know that's a lot of questions, maybe for a next episode ??
Timing is perfect. Thank you so much. Once have funds will like to join discussion as really set-apart of which God wants for all of us but once you ask for Truth and open the door to Bart and Megan, one must be courageous as mkultraed-christianese does not resemble the Scriptural teachings but scapegoat "getoutofjail" card from personal responsibility.
Probably the same as it does today, they follow the 80-20 rule. Most modern Christians don't actually believe the stuff they say they believe if belief is defined by actions and not words (not saying they're not Christians, just saying they behave like sports fans on a Sunday cheering for their team at church. "Go Jesus!" There are always a percent of people who really believe (in terms of actions not just words) and they follow the path set out as they see it, doing good works, etc., etc. This is most evident in big mega-churches today, where obviously the vast majority of people are there for the music and fun. It's less evident (or there's more serious followers) in tight-knit smaller churches, well, at least this was my experience when I was a believer. It takes a real commitment to "pick up your cross" and actually do the things commanded in the New Testament.
I’m struck by how in the spread of Islam, the “umma” was a political and military power as well as a religious community. Could something similar have happened in the Christian case? Were Christians likely to band into political groups like Muslims did?
I wonder if Paganism lacked the sensations of Spiritual Uplifting common to Christianity and was more a ' Quid Pro Quo ' exchange of sacrifices and performance of outward but unfulfilling rituals in exchange for perceived better harvests, protection from disease etc and what people felt during some practices of Christianity that was lacking in Paganism convinced the curious Jesus was a superior entity to Pagan deities.
The selling point, as it is today, is that the resentful running from themselves have a home. This perfectly innocent man, and his Godrman alterego, has powers to have them covered. They believed in the hope of Superman to save them. Whereas, the disciples of John the Baptist taught 'repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near' to seek the narrow way to reveal your thorns to be set free. A Christianity loved by the world with priests, or a revelation of pride hated by the world.
It did, Rome wasn't as strong though the further east you go and arabs were nomadic then the collapse of Rome happened and muslims stormed in filling the void under threats of death. Christianity still exist in these parts all be it largely under ground or a tiny persecuted group.
@@jameswright... Yeah, that's basically it. Christianity spread throughout the Roman world and then when it became the state religion of Rome that consolidated it there - both in the western and eastern parts of the Empire. Including North Africa. It also spread along the Silk Road towards China, but without Imperial support wasn't nearly as dominant. Then the Western Empire fell and then Islam exploded out of Arabia - conquering the Near/Middle East, North Africa, Spain and much of the Silk Road region, replacing Christianity with Islam as the religion backed by Imperial power. Christianity continued to spread through northern and eastern Europe through the Middle Ages, but couldn't make headway eastwards through the various Islamic Empires.
Ehrman knows more about roman civilizations than I'll ever even care to know, and yet he makes such bizarre statement with so much conviction, makes me question all his statements of fact. Hell is not an original Christian concept. All Christian concepts are either Jewish or Greek, and he'll isn't Jewish, but the Greek heros, like Odysseus, had visited their dead in Hades, a version of hell. The math is wonky because its at a limit case with no adjustment for the model over time. If 50% people are Christian and 50% an all encompassing pagan, and both missionaries are equally successful, then no one gains adherents. It's quite simple: if Christianity is exclusive to everything else, then everything else is exclusive to Christianity defacto. Now let's say you have a massive plague that everyone is dying. If you are pagan you die alone, if you are Christian you die with loved ones and get rewarded in heaven. Unless like Ehrman implies, virology science was advance enough to know that Christianity means doom, the choice is obvious on moral grounds. Christianity's strongest attribute is its moral claims. Everything else God can do, the pagan gods could do as well, you just had to go to more trouble to worship more of them, but that also increased your chance that at least some will help you. Finally all this business about Jews not wanting the world to believe in one God. Literally all Messianic claims are about that. That's why Christianity is Missionary. When Jews were conquered by Babylon, for other nations it means the conquering gods are stronger. Why not for the Jews? Only because they did believe there is only one God.
AT about the 14 minute mark, Bart is describing Christianity's viral (or memetic) quality. Because as a belief system it is better equipped to reproduce itself in the minds of others, it naturally grows and wipes out other ideas. It's pretty sad that it wipes out all that rich variety, but it's seemingly inevitable also just based on the evolution of thought complexes in human brains..
Christianity offered upward mobility for those in the lower caste communities. It offered patronage to them and a wider familial connection. It offered social services like medical care and schooling, and inspired the arts. Always fascinating to watch people in our modern western society lambaste the very system that got them there in the first place. Always a dumb idea to kick the chair from under you.
- sure - - like the upward mobility that the good hapless pagan Africans had when they were forced to convert to Christianity by European Christians after enslaving and brutalising them
@@therion5458 "There wasn't significant progress in art and science until the Renaissance when people in Europe started to "wake up" and find inspiration from pre-Christian culture." That is a myth. Science and art continued to progress in the middle ages same as they always have. The Romans didn't know how to do double entry book keeping, or how to make a long sword.
What people don’t understand is that if 5-10% of the Roman Empire was Christian in the 4th century that 5-10% was an urban phenomenon. In cities the percentage of Christians was much much higher. Interestingly the holdouts to paganism were almost exclusively rural even into the Middle Ages.
Xianity required constant fellowship to buck you up and keep you on the straight and narrow, which required a close-knit good-sized large town or city, not conscripts scattered hither and yon out in the distant fields. That was Pagan Country, in fact the countryside was where the long-established old religion, paganism, predominated for centuries, lasting for 1000 years more in secluded pockets. So you get several Popes named Urban, denouncing pagans out in the boonies. The greatest concentration of Xians lived in Roma or, later, Constantinople.
I’m agreeing with you: Christianity was an urban phenomenon. What I was trying to say is that 5-10% of the empire Christian means that the urban population was much higher. Urbanization was around 25% or even lower in 4th century. With that being the fact there is a real possibility that the urban level of Christianity could have been as high as 30% before the conversion of Constantine. Also that 30% included the movers and shakers of the empire (the urban elite). Also Pagans didn’t worship Jupiter or other classical gods. Jupiter maybe cared about the state but not you. Romans were much more interested in ancestor worship and more lower level spirits and gods.
Bart makes the argument clear that university is NOT for undergraduates. The professors at universities are focused on research to the detriment of ‘general studies’. Go to a city or state college for the AA. And then transfer to a university. Everyone is happier.
@@MMG-q1v But Bart E. is using miracles, or the convincing of people that a miracle occured as explanatory for the rise of Christianity. So..what you're saying doesn't really work there
@@MMG-q1v Normal things happen often. Really odd things happen less often. Odd things are miracles and tragedies. There are as many tragedies as there are miracles. But it is in human nature/sociology (??) that we remember the good things and often want to relate them to higher powers. Tragedies on the other hand can kill off people. And we can easily see them as punishments that we want to forget.
I feel like the principle of exclusivity, where one Christian convert means one less pagan, doesn't quite match everyday cult practices. The Americas, for example, are full of blended Christianity with native religions (in much the same way that Buddhism and Taoism, and Buddhism and Shintoism, blended their religions together). And there's lots of evidence of shrines from local religions spread all over Eurasia and are still in use by people who primarily claim to be Christian (and some shrines take one Christianized names (Saint So-And-So's Spring, etc)). And many of those Christians pray to other gods (some reborn as saints) and participate in their cult practices, often without realizing it because it's just part of their culture. It seems to me that people in the upper echelons and in the Christian priesthoods may have practiced exclusivity, but the everyday people seemed to largely incorporate Christianity into their existing religions.
In the Americas, there was a lot of forced conversion. The syncretic religions we see today are not a result of a blend of two religious cultures but a form of resistance. I think the same thing may have happened in Europe as well. But people in both Europe and America were often given the choice of Christianity (or the "correct" version of Christianity) and the sword. I don't much about European or the history of Buddhism. But in my neck of the woods, Santería other "blends" are a reaction to the brutality of the Conquista and the brutal chattel slavery that accompanied it.
@@edwinlucianofrias1643 Very good points about how Christianity "blended" with native religions in the Americas (and much of Africa). What I was trying to point out is that, even in Europe, Christianity never conquered "alone", it always had to make concessions with the native religions and cultic practices. The way a religion was practiced in public doesn't always match with how it's practiced in private (particularly with poorer peoples), and we still have some modern day rituals that have pre-Christian origins, yet have survived brutal purges. For example, there are a lot of different ways Europeans celebrate Christmas, because different cultic regions added Christmas to their already present cultic celebrations. There are also a lot of gods who become saints, such as the goddess Brigid becoming Saint Brigid, but her Christian feast day is on the Celtic celebration of Imbolc and she's still the patroness of basically the same things she was goddess of. And of course, she's not the only god-turned-saint. And then there's the curious case of good "Christian" Scandinavians trying to prevent Christian missionaries from reaching the Arctic Saami peoples, because the Scandinavians believed the Saami had special magic and they didn't want the Christians to destroy the Saami magic because the Scandinavian peoples wanted the magic for themselves.
I have heard that Christianity grew at roughly the same rate in its early years that the Mormon church has grown since its founding in 1830. Does anyone know if that’s true, or direct me to a source on the topic?
5:00: off the bats, historically religion was more practices and less theology. And our god is this but no force conversion which began with Christianity and Islam. I like how the Jews don't make people join them in their way of worship. Thanks for the video. This was amazing.
with all this worshipping, what made people think that 1. they needed to worship a god, 2. why did any god need worshipping, and 3. what would any real god would even care to be worshipped?
they didn't worship gods because they felt the gods needed to be worshipped; they worshipped gods because they felt that THEY needed to court the gods' favors.
Very True. The monothestic teachings of Jesus overtaken by Roman polytheism gave birth to the dogma of Trinity. The Roman sun god Sol Invictus's birth day was 25th December. The Sabbath (Saturday), weekly holy day which Jesus observed changed into Roman weekly holiday of Sunday. Vatican replaced Jerusalem as the religious headquarter of Christianity.
Rome, as a culture and beliefs, has completely corrupted the monotheistic message of Jesus. That's how we get the "Christian" creed where Jesus himself is God (in Rome they would have said "a god"), the "Father" is God and the Holy Spirit is also God, all three being distinct but one.
These glasses are the best ones with her platinum hair...she has others that are pink and contrasts with blue hair just takes away from the seriousness and her smarts so I just look away...bad hair daze.
@@MorningClarity Speaking as a 67 yr old Constitutional Conservative real university educated (BW is that like BC?) think it is shock treatment or so you can remember her as unique...lots of effort and money to spiffup...you need to learn to appreciate the narcissism which is IN you know...postmodernism.
Well, as far as Christians taking over Rome, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned that Rome destroyed Israel. I'd consider that a feature to the discussion.
In the description it does not mention Megan Lewis at all, and no link to her channel. I was curious because I recognized her voice from other videos, but not her face (that Clark Kent thing I guess, where changing glasses is a great disguise) It took some googling, but found it. Just a note that you should include at least her hame and channel in your description (unless she asked you not to) www.youtube.com/@DigitalHammurabi
I LOVE Bart Ehrman and have listened to many of his videos. But one thing he doesn't seem to talk about much is politics. The pagan religions may not have been exclusive, but the Roman state was. It's hierarchy definitely thought that Roman culture was superior to the barbarians round about. It's true that they did not initially impose Roman-ism on everybody lock stock and barrel and allowed people to follow their own gods (so long as they also made sacrifices to the gods that supported the Cesar and his lineage--hence the conflict with Jews who did not wish to do that). But, theirs was an agenda of insidious conversion. If you wanted to rise up in the Roman state hierarchy even in the outback and even as a former "barbarian" you did have to start adopting Roman ways. So the idea that one had to be part of an elite, a "conversion" if you will, was there and melded very well with the Christian idea of superiority and "conversion" of the used-to-be barbarians and now "pagans." The idea of universal conversion also combined well with the idea of the Roman EMPIRE later the HOLY Roman Empire.
wow, brilliant! so informative and lots of "food for thought" - THANK YOU! I'm really interested in this transition from polytheism to monotheism and then the later "monotheistic ma non troppo" culture of multiple saints and martyrs.
Robin Lane Fox proposed that Christianity's success was due to superior organization and administration. He felt the practice of appointing bishops for life was extremely powerful and compared Christianity's success to Manichaeism which was also a missionary religion at the time.
Not just organization---but a way to maintain it---tithe. Does any other religion require all adherents to support those who are teachers? So now there is a class dedicated to study and teaching and supported by the followers----I think all our universities were seminaries. Teaching a learning becomes a very important value...minus the dark ages where the common person is forbidden from reading the bible.
‘Pagan’ and ‘heathen’ are exonyms used by Christians to belittle the adherents of the traditional religion(s) of the Roman Empire. Shouldn’t we start using an endonym or at least a less biased term? Some early Christians referred to them as Hellenes apparently, which sounds a bit more polite. Neo-Platonist is also a term I have seen used for those defending their religion in later centuries, but that may be a modern term.
This is very interesting, and I believe that even in the modern world, it still works.
I am convinced that among the church, the general adherents do not really care about the theological intricacies, but mostly care about what work for them in the denomination. Maybe because one of their children was healed, or one church gave them emotional support during their loss, or maybe they get some charity, and so on.
Agreed. This is one thing that drove me away from the Faith, nobody really cared about theology or actually believing Christianity. Just vaguely following their own version of God that lets them hate others but excuse themselves.
I am learning Koine Greek because of Bart's work. And I look forward to Megan's upcoming works on Assyriology.
I would absolutely love to hear the two of you talk about the ancient pagan responses to Christian sects.
Neoplatonism, hermeticism
Agree! That would be awesome.
So interesting and informative. I look forward to each weeks vlog. Megan and Bart are so good with their interactions. Thank you so much for taking the time to help in our quest to understand.
I just now finished Bart's course on Mark - am still reeling from all the complexities to think about, and will now use Mark as the Gold Standard to study Paul and the other Gospels.
Highly Recommended.
Matthew was written before Mark
@@JoseZamorano-c8h 99% of Bible scholars believe that Mark is the oldest gospel and John is the newest gospel. Mark was written in the year 70 or 71, right after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Matthew and Luke were both written between 80 and 90. John was written around the year 95 to 100, the same time when the book of Revelation was written. (The book of Revelation was written by John of Patmos, but that is definitely not the same person who wrote the Gospel of John. The author of the Gospel of John is anonymous.)
@@marknagel8852 All of that is unsubstantiated. Biblical scholarship is a shoddy field. Our first testimony to the order they were written says Matthew was first - that’s our assumption then. And it turns out the Mark first theory is hatched to fit with nineteenth century evolutionary simple to complex models. Which is true in evolution and not necessarily true of texts
@vincentverona7773 it completely was
@@JoseZamorano-c8h What is your evidence that Matthew was written first please?
This is a great series of videos. They always leave something to think about. Thanks
I love Dr. Erhmam's book The Triumph of Christianity and recommend it unequivocally.
ADDENDUM:
I have a friend who thinks of himself as a Christian who has "compassion and empathy" (which I don't have, according to him). Anyway he INSISTS to me that I became an atheist because "I want to be my own god." He has no idea how arrogant, condescending, and contradictory he's being.
The triumph of Christianity and his research is amazing. I was stunned when he revealed the reason why Romans were converting to Christianity and decimating paganism
This is one of amazing channels I have ever seen .
You make a great podcasting team! Love listening to you! Thanks!!
Thanks for the positive comments about Canada. 🍁
Can I suggest the obvious?
The reason that Christianity (and then Islam, later) was able to spread like no other religion before it was because of the simple reason that this was the first religion that WASN'T limited to your region/ tribal affiliation. What I mean by that is, before this, you worshipped the God/ Gods that your tribe had always worshipped. You would NEVER worship the Gods of some other region, or of some other tribe, because they would never accept you! Those Gods didn't care about you and wouldn't protect you/ care for you in any way! When the Christians (and muslims) came along, they were the first people to say "It doesn't matter what tribe you're from or what land you were born in, our God will love you and protect you!"
There were plenty of religions who did the same that came much before christianity. Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka, Confuciunism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Vedanta, Ajivika, among a few of a lot of them
And the Romans spread their religions with their conquest. As a Roman subject, you added the worship of the Roman gods to your own - including the cult of the emperor.
@@jeffmacdonald9863
The Romans didn't INSIST that you take up their religions, though. Most regions were allowed to keep their old religions, but were required to allow Roman religious practices, also. The Jews objected to this and specifically to the statue of the Emperor being placed in the Great Temple, given equal status as a God (as per the cult of the emperor). This was the cause of much of the strife that only ended with the diaspora.
@@Vivek10010
Buddha wasn't a God. Buddha was a person who lived and then gained enlightenment. Buddha then provided a guide for other people who wished to follow this example and to also gain enlightenment.
That's VERY different from worshipping a God and a God who gives you commandments, telling you what to do and what not to do, too! It's more of a philosophy, than a religion, in that respect. So too is Confucianism, so too is Taoism...
I don't know much about the others, except for Zoroastrianism and I can confidently say about that "You're wrong." A Greek who wanted to worship the Zoroastrian Gods would need to join the tribes of Zoroastrians, if he wanted protection from their Gods. If he were to return to Greece, Ahuramazda would have no power to protect him from the ire of Zeus. These Gods were all the Gods of this tribe or that tribe... Even though the Titans created the world and Zeus (with Athena, using the handiwork of Prometheus) created humans, the Titans and the Olympian Gods weren't Gods of the whole world and everyone in it; They were the Gods of the Greeks. Their influence and power didn't extend very much farther than Mount Olympus. An Egyptian who worshipped Athena and paid homage to Zeus, but who lived (and then died) in Egypt, would still find that Horus and Anubis guided their souls through the Afterlife, rather than finding Hades claiming them from foreign lands.
@@Raz.C You dont even know what the ideologies I posted even talk about. There were at least two athiest in there too lol.
The rest of your post is just redundancy and gibberish
I like to watch out for which new glasses Megan will be wearing and if the hair will change colour or style. Her collection must be huge 😊
Bart doesn't mention the mass conversion of whole tribes by converting the chief, which certainly was the case in Britain. Also on Charlemagne's campaign in northern Europe, if anyone did not convert, they were killed, this tended to be quite successful.
All that, while true, comes later. Bart's talking here about how it through and took over the Roman Empire - reaching some 30 million by the end of the 4th century. Only by the very end of that was Christianity the official state religion.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 exactly --before Christianity was a tool it was a force
answer to richardshowers,this is not part of conversation on early christinity;you talking about much later periods...
It's why you find Jews in most countries in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa. The Legend of the Wandering Jew may well be based on a real person. We wandered all over, settling where we weren't hated, until we were and it was time to leave. As Tevya says in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Maybe that is why we always keep our hats on."
Good episode. Megan's ever-changing hair color and glasses seem to be her trademark
His rant about his experience with Christians after leaving Christianity is something that I really get.
Likewise!
One thing I've noticed about Christians....you could have sinned in the most heinous way( just take a pick of sins) but if you ever tried to ask for help in the area of doubting the veracity of the bible, I have seen the sweetest of Christians turn into "atilla the hun"!
It's like a personal attack on their character which I find rather weird.
I realised before my deconversion when I was struggling with the bible, one should never express your doubts to fundamentalists!
They always say it's good to ask questions but today I know so long as you're willing to agree with their set answers at the end of the questioning.
Always to remember if you have an opinion that's different from Christian fundamentalists, you are "wrong" and they are "right "
@@philippeters9231 also you are either being deceived or actively lying to try spread doubt.
Thank you Bart for a really great episode!!
The spark that ignited Christianity (yes, it started out small), from an anthropological perspective, is that it is a revitalization movement. Revitalization movements, described in Anthony Wallace's seminal 1956 article in American Anthropologist, notes that these movements are a "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture." Rodney Stark outlines in a couple of places (pp. 77-79, 213-215) in The Rise of Christianity, how Christianity arose from a revitalization movement. There are a number of factors that spark revitalization movements. Dissatisfaction with economic conditions, perceived relative depravation, ecological conditions, living conditions such as horrendous population densities where Christianity spread, etc. It is a dissatisfaction of these conditions and a deliberate attempt to create a new world and new social relationships, often characterized by a new or revitalization ethic, renewed social relationships and mutual assistance, and egalitarian themes or teachings. While it created a spark, it also allowed Christianity to subsequently grow and develop in the Empire during the later tremendous growth of Christianity and much later in the US during the Great Awakenings. While certain revitalization leaders are credited with miracles and weather control, such as Jesus, and Wodziwab and Wavoka during the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements in western North America, other leaders, such as Alexander Campbell (Disciples of Christ) have no such associations with such supernatural feats as they are within societies marked by more modern understandings of the world. Christianity as a revitalization was not a one-off type of phenomenon. My point is that first, while anthropologists have written extensively on it, no biblical scholar I know of ever mentions revitalization movements. However, they are so important in understanding religions that they certainly ought to be. Secondly, it would be very profitable to study movements like the Ghost Dance, Mormonism, restoration movement, early Methodism (as Wallace points out), and other movements for their contribution to biblical scholarship.
One explanation that the good professor does not mention, but I have seen thrown around quite a lot, is that Christians were significantly less likely to kill their female offspring and were in general more supportive of women in roles of authority, which led to increased conversions amongst women in the ancient world. Stark, who Ehrman mentioned in this episode, talks about this in a few of his works.
I'm not saying this is an argument I personally believe in, just that I hope Ehrman talks about it in a future episode.
Treatment of women played a huge role. I'm not sure why Bart doesn't mention it.
Dr. Gregory J Riley, in the book “One Jesus Many Christs” says that Christianity spread because of Christian bravery in the face of torture and execution. Riley points out that in ancient times people admired heroes who faced death bravely and died with dignity. But heroes like Heracles and Achilles were heroes because they were warriors. Jesus, because he was a peasant, made being a hero accessible to everyone - especially the poor and marginalized. And the Christian willingness to be martyred, according to Riley was a major point of conversion for on lookers. Riley quotes one early Christian writer as saying, “When we’re killed we conquer.”
This reminds me of emperor Jillian the prophet (apostate) he made a point not to kill any Christian’s because he agreed that martyrs spread the faith. He said instead that Christianity should be mocked out of existence because that way it was the idea that was killed.
Except as Bart and others have pointed out the extent to which Christians were persecuted has been greatly exaggerated by Christian writers. Christians were persecuted when Nero needed a scape goat but otherwise not that much. And that in itself doesn't seem very compelling. There were plenty of Jews and also "barbarians" (e.g. Gauls, Germanic Tribes) who showed great bravery resisting the Romans and dying for it.
@@michaeldebellis4202 Yeah - but where they were persecuted the willingness of Christians to go to their deaths as martyrs won over onlookers.
Get Bart's book The triumph of Christianity he does some fascinating research and makes an amazing discovery why Romans converted to Christianity... It's shocking especially from an atheist
I do not think claiming at 32:25 that pagans (assuming ancient greek and romans) had no concept of afterlife is corect. Was the underworld governed by Hades and Pluto not effectively the afterlife? I think that argument is wrong.
I'm not taking a side, I haven't read enough, but, "pagans, by and large, didn't believe in an afterlife," really shocked me. Is this true? The norse had valhalla. The ancient Egyptians sure as hell believed in an afterlife. I know the Zoroastrians believed in one. The greeks and romans didn't believe in one? Or did they officially believe in it but regular roman Joe 6 pack didn't really believe in it? I really wanted to interrupt there and ask for elaboration.
A Canadian 🇨🇦 conference on atheism? Intriguing!
I always wondered about a “potluck” theory of conversion. Not so much a direct charity theory, but private dinners as a way for building a community that no other religion at the time offered. Someone talks to a christian and there is some interest, the christian invites the family over for dinner. Maybe it was an holderover from the Jewish sadder dinner. If most of the social safety net was based on a large extended family, this would be a way to build a sort of artificial extended family.
It would also be a way to improve your business. Weekly meetings with people you would not meet otherwise is something that the infrequent public celebrations of the pagan gods didn’t offer.
Oh this is why Amway is so.succesfull
@@kacabingkaikaca_bingkai5332 Yes - modern American evangelicalism is multi-level marketing at its most successful, especially if you have a religious licence to start the process.
That only makes sense if you think that the Pagans didn't have dinner parties. For some reason I don't find that very likely.
Excellent discussion, thanks.
I seem to remember that Gibbon devoted an entire chapter to this question
This episode seems to focus on before the "conversion" of Constantine (ironic that the famous convert or "changer" was named after being a constant). In Bart's previous video "Did Constantine Really Convert", at the 30:40 mark, he talks about many good reasons for converting after he did: it was the emperor's religion, Constantine favored it and showered it with money, suddenly huge construction was devoted to it which led to mass employment, and bishops (rich community leaders) got huge tax breaks.
ruclips.net/video/0V_2VwBNHas/видео.html#t=30m40s
He does, but I think he also argues that the growth rate of Christianity didn't really change with Constantine's conversion.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 do you recall where he said that? I'd doesn't seem to reconcile with his list of ways that it impacted Romans after the conversion
@@progidy7listen to it again. He explains it shortly after.
Because it was advantageous for him to bring his dividing kingdom together. He wasn't a true believer in the one true God. He was a Roman trinitarian. A false pagan doctrine he carried into this new faith.
I may be at work right now but I’m sure my boss will understand that Dr. Ehrman just uploaded.
Would love to see an episode or two on the popular reponse to early Christianity.
I find it interesting that I don't see comments from believers. Those of us who have accepted Christ can affirm that there is a very real, tangible, inner strength, and peace we receive as well as clear answering of prayers. People may have wanted to convert because they saw the change that occured in those who accepted Christ. Bart hardly made a throwaway comment about that.
For those who don't believe in God, my feelings and experiences are very real to me and others around me. If there is no God I think we have to absolutely admit that Jesus was an even better miracle worker than the Bible claims. He changed the world, culture, our approach to how we view our fellow humans and did this talking about stuff that no one actually wants to do. His affect is really amazing when you think about it!
WHERE in Ontario? I'm here...I want to attend!
The funny thing is, Jesus wasn't a "Christian", he was a Jew. Why does everybody miss this point?
I was circumcised in my early teens for sanitary reasons and 55 years later I still have the scars on it because I had an involuntary nocturnal erection the night after the surgery. I was scared to death when the following morning the nurse that was in charge waked me up to change the sheets because there was an hemorrhage due to the tearing of the foreskin around the stitches. But I think the main reason for not circumcising in those times was that in the greco-roman culture circumcising was seen as mutilation.
It is mutilation.
Your comments are dependent on the assumption that the local people of the Middle East where the Christianity took root initially were free individuals with free will to choose. In the ME the choice of tribal chief and later the choice of feudal lord would matter. Once the chief or lord becomes Christian, there was no other option left for the serf/peasants. So, any comment/conclusion that ignores the contemporary socio-economic structure of the ME could not be accurate.
I'm more interested in thinking about the future where Christianity declines to just a relative handful of believers again. There was an article in _Harper's_ magazine a few years ago about the collapse of the Zoroastrian religion and its likely extinction in this century. At one time there were millions of Zoroastrians in Southwest Asia, and the religion influenced the beliefs of the later Abrahamic religions. Today there are only a few thousand Zoroastrians left, and they aren't reproducing enough or accepting converts. The last Zoroastrian could very well die by 2100, and the people living afterwards won't notice the religion's absence.
The same thing is likely to happen to Christianity eventually. Religions come and go like everything else, after all.
Sorry chief. But Bart's expertise is in the past, not the future.
Maybe religions don't become extinct, they morph into other religious/social movements ?
I think that if the human race doesn’t destroy the planet then eventually we won’t have religion anymore. There was a time when we had no real science but eventually the rationality and usefulness of science compared to other ways of understanding the world won out. Our scientific understanding of concepts like morality, society, culture, and psychology are still where physics and astronomy were over a thousand years ago, but eventually they will mature and we’ll stop looking to Bronze Age myths for answers about modern values.
What about praying for intersection. You just ask without the need of offerings, and the “miracle” is spread out after being granted.
I find the "argument from health care" to be fascinating and I wonder if Ehrman's total dismissal is epidemiologically informed. It stands to reason Christians would more likely become infected, but then they, too would benefit from nursing. There is also the factor of herd immunity which is more likely to develop with exposure instead of shunning.
Brilliant analysis
Does anyone seriously address the extent ro which the Roman Empire "took over" christianity? Does Dr. Ermine address this in any of his publications?
"You just want to sin" is such a weird argument. If I were a believing Christian up to that point, the desire to sin wouldn't nullify my belief in a living God who would punish me for my sins any more than my desire to commit certain crimes causes me to forget the police exist.
I think all the dropping of the OT laws re: circumcision, shellfish, pork, clothing, etc. probably made it easier. When in Rome... Another great episode - thanks Bart and Megan!
Going against sky buddy’s rules…nice religion
Dietary restrictions, Holy day observances, clothing, circumcision, removal of the importance of a geographically localized area and genetic racial priority.
Amazing how the political factor wasn't mentioned at all.
Great video, as always!
I’ve had some good fortune worshipping Apollo. Highly recommended.
22:43 the episode "how insane was christianity at the time" will be a gr8 episode. _JC
Christianity didn’t end paganism, rather, coalesced it into one pagan system.
i just cant take Megan seriously with these Minion glasses 🤣
Do you think she cares?
14:45 "mechanics of evangelism" personal connection in conversation.. but why? 27:30 "first you have to ask...why do you need a god?"...so today why do you need a god? or how is it that today we don't need a god and then they did?
Living without the concept of a deity around the Bronze Age was unimaginable…the difference with Christianity is that, unlike the majority of other religions, it did not require you to make sacrifices to cleanse you from your sins (which could be quite expensive) but rather believe in the only sacrifice already happened in the face of Jesus…quite an economic, empathetic and emotional solution fit for most people without means (making up the vast majority then and now) found quite inviting. To own a goat back then was an expensive capital good that you would never waste to sacrifice for the high priests to eat on their own, while all you get is (maybe) partial absolution and the intestines for some soup…
I have seen that theory before. But that was never the reason that converts gave. The reason that they gave was always Miracles.
Where does she get those glasses? Great! Super scholarship Dr. Bart! Thx!
Really like her spectacles and just the platinum is fine with me...dynamic duo with their spouses would be an interesting roundtable
I have some questions and complaints. 1) The Greco-Roman world worshiped winners. Gods who made great deeds and defeated their enemies. What the Christians worshipped was an utter loser in their eyes. Being crucified was the most humiliating way to die and would bring dishonor to the killed's family. That Jesus was innocent wouldn't have mattered one iota to the Romans. The argument "our god is more powerful than your gods" makes littel sense since Jesus was crucified. 2) We know that Christianity spread more rapidly among the poor and among women. However, surviving accounts on why people converted to Christianity would mostly be why rich people converted. So relying on such data causes sampling bias. 3) Couldn't it just be that the Christian message appealed to the masses? Slaves were treated as disposable property. Along comes Christians and tells them that they too should be loved and respected, that they too have an immortal soul that can be saved. 4) A pagan whose brother was killed would need to take revenge and kill the killer or at least his brother (most people couldn't rely on the "justice" system) or they would lose their honor. Perhaps people realized how destructive retributive justice was and that the Christian option of forgiving - without loss of honor - was superior?
This is a phenomenal one
Thanks again!
31:38 "looked up EVERY ancient conversion account" wow...
Many other commentators have mentioned Bart’s omissions, but the one I find most telling is the tidy little story he paints about “Christianity” as if it were a fairly unified belief in a flesh and blood man that started in Galilee and Jerusalem and spears outward.
There was not one early Christianity, there were dozens, possibly even hundreds. The evidence Bart omitted undermines his argument for a historical Jesus, which is why he likely glossed over the Platonic and Stoic influences, the mystery cult patterns and the burgeoning monotheistic tendencies in contemporary first and second century philosophy.
The orthodox Christian church molded through Constantine and imperial power was the real catalyst for a “Christian” consolidation that in turn forged a mythology of its own beginnings, as told through the texts it conveniently sanctioned. The competing Christianities were destroyed.
Basic maths will give you the numbers you want. If you talk to 10 people in one month and convert one then, in the second month, there's 2 of you each talking to 10 people and converting 1. So, in the third month, there's 4 of you... If each person manages to talk to 10 people and convert one every month then by the end of the year your community has grown from just you to over 2,000 people.
All i could think was the movie "o brother where arr thou"
"Im the god damn Pater Familias!"
AMC Story Notes taught me that definition lol
I hope you would include the Jewish law and Christianity controversies in one of your discussions. I wonder why everyone less concerned about an issue that was very controversial in early centuries of Christianity
26:25 Marcus Aurelius's dates are: born 121; succeeded 161; died 180, so not really "at the end of the third century", although many of his successors had names which included Marcus Aurelius, seven of them from 268 to 305. I don't buy the "Our god is more powerful." theory because (a) he isn't, and (b) it's only an argument for Henotheism. I think the "turn the other cheek" component of its theology is key: for the lower classes and women, they get pie in the sky (meek...shall inherit the earth, etc.) and for the ruling classes, they get a pliant workforce.
Interesting comment about philosophies at the time being exclusive in a way that religions weren't. Exclusive and evangelist, in the sense of wanting to convert others for their own good.
It's almost like Christianity merged philosophy and religion into a single thing
Thinking a little further about this - Buddhism kind of did the same thing, as did later (and even some contemporary) middle-eastern religions. Islam, Zoroastrianism, etc.
In China maybe that doesn't happen? And we see philosophies like Taoism and Confucianism continue to play the same kind of role we're talking about for Hellenistic era philosophies.
I enjoy these conversations but there is SOOO much fluff
I end up tapping thru about half of the videos
I wish they were longer
That's interesting, perhaps Acts itself reflects a tradition of using conversion stories as a tactic for converting people. Reading about 500 people converting at once might create a kind of peer-pressure where people want to be part of the consensus of these crowds which may or may not have existed.
How exactly did anyone "count" the number of Christians in the Roman Empire. This is just a supposition based on estimated population size. How about: we don't really know. We don't even know much of what early Christians believed or how they practiced their faith, the variations and difference and how much traditional faiths and Christianity were amalgamated or diverged? We mostly have texts citing earlier texts of the elite of society who may not have known or cared what the rural underclass great majority felt or believed
I was wondering which disciple was present at the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate? If none of them were there who recorded the conversation or wast the whole this a fabrication?
Thank you.
Fascinating as always, thank you so much. Still, there remains one major question for me, which is how big was the believe in Christ at the very beginning, and is there anything which made it special in a first place? I mean, I am under the (maybe false or exagerated?) impression that 1st cent judaïsm was extremely diverse with quite a few prophet around preaching the soon coming apocalypse or things like that, and Jesus was just one among many (or just some?) others, which we do have trace of because it starts becoming big pretty fast and we got the accounts we now call the new testament writen couple of decades afterward. So my main interrogation here would be : is there anything with jesus which made it/him special in a first place, did those would brought it to the cross had any idea it was more than just one more dissident to kill, did his ministry, which according to the gospel didn't last more than 2 or 3 years made his teaching real nascent cult with more believers than other prophet from his time we may have any idea about? It seems to me that this podcast provides very good ideas about how it did spread througt the roman empire, but my question here would be how it did even became a particular thing in the very first place? Last but not least, I've red somewhere that in some hellenistic hight middle class of the time (like the appostles), there were some kind of a fascination for judaïsm for it had some kind of aura of ancient exotic mysticism, which we could compare the modern fascination in occident or Bouddhism, and that explains why chritianity did work in these middles, because it gave the opportunity to embrace judaïsme without all the Judaïc code around (circumsision, not eating pork...). How much of that is true. I know that's a lot of questions, maybe for a next episode ??
When someone tells you what you think and believe that is the height of arrogance
Timing is perfect. Thank you so much. Once have funds will like to join discussion as really set-apart of which God wants for all of us but once you ask for Truth and open the door to Bart and Megan, one must be courageous as mkultraed-christianese does not resemble the Scriptural teachings but scapegoat "getoutofjail" card from personal responsibility.
What did conversion actually mean in terms of altered behavior and belief for most new converts?
Probably the same as it does today, they follow the 80-20 rule.
Most modern Christians don't actually believe the stuff they say they believe if belief is defined by actions and not words (not saying they're not Christians, just saying they behave like sports fans on a Sunday cheering for their team at church. "Go Jesus!"
There are always a percent of people who really believe (in terms of actions not just words) and they follow the path set out as they see it, doing good works, etc., etc.
This is most evident in big mega-churches today, where obviously the vast majority of people are there for the music and fun.
It's less evident (or there's more serious followers) in tight-knit smaller churches, well, at least this was my experience when I was a believer.
It takes a real commitment to "pick up your cross" and actually do the things commanded in the New Testament.
Keep the commandments and stop the sins that are attributed to the them.
I’m struck by how in the spread of Islam, the “umma” was a political and military power as well as a religious community. Could something similar have happened in the Christian case? Were Christians likely to band into political groups like Muslims did?
I wonder if Paganism lacked the sensations of Spiritual Uplifting common to Christianity and was more a ' Quid Pro Quo ' exchange of sacrifices and performance of outward but unfulfilling rituals in exchange for perceived better harvests, protection from disease etc and what people felt during some practices of Christianity that was lacking in Paganism convinced the curious Jesus was a superior entity to Pagan deities.
The selling point, as it is today, is that the resentful running from themselves have a home. This perfectly innocent man, and his Godrman alterego, has powers to have them covered.
They believed in the hope of Superman to save them.
Whereas, the disciples of John the Baptist taught 'repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near' to seek the narrow way to reveal your thorns to be set free.
A Christianity loved by the world with priests, or a revelation of pride hated by the world.
I'd like to hear Bart's take on why Christianity failed to grow in the "eastern world" as it did the western world.
It did, Rome wasn't as strong though the further east you go and arabs were nomadic then the collapse of Rome happened and muslims stormed in filling the void under threats of death.
Christianity still exist in these parts all be it largely under ground or a tiny persecuted group.
@@jameswright... Yeah, that's basically it. Christianity spread throughout the Roman world and then when it became the state religion of Rome that consolidated it there - both in the western and eastern parts of the Empire. Including North Africa. It also spread along the Silk Road towards China, but without Imperial support wasn't nearly as dominant.
Then the Western Empire fell and then Islam exploded out of Arabia - conquering the Near/Middle East, North Africa, Spain and much of the Silk Road region, replacing Christianity with Islam as the religion backed by Imperial power.
Christianity continued to spread through northern and eastern Europe through the Middle Ages, but couldn't make headway eastwards through the various Islamic Empires.
26:22 Second century*
I am a father, and I do make decisions on reg... im a patre familius!
Ehrman knows more about roman civilizations than I'll ever even care to know, and yet he makes such bizarre statement with so much conviction, makes me question all his statements of fact.
Hell is not an original Christian concept. All Christian concepts are either Jewish or Greek, and he'll isn't Jewish, but the Greek heros, like Odysseus, had visited their dead in Hades, a version of hell.
The math is wonky because its at a limit case with no adjustment for the model over time. If 50% people are Christian and 50% an all encompassing pagan, and both missionaries are equally successful, then no one gains adherents. It's quite simple: if Christianity is exclusive to everything else, then everything else is exclusive to Christianity defacto. Now let's say you have a massive plague that everyone is dying. If you are pagan you die alone, if you are Christian you die with loved ones and get rewarded in heaven. Unless like Ehrman implies, virology science was advance enough to know that Christianity means doom, the choice is obvious on moral grounds.
Christianity's strongest attribute is its moral claims. Everything else God can do, the pagan gods could do as well, you just had to go to more trouble to worship more of them, but that also increased your chance that at least some will help you.
Finally all this business about Jews not wanting the world to believe in one God. Literally all Messianic claims are about that. That's why Christianity is Missionary.
When Jews were conquered by Babylon, for other nations it means the conquering gods are stronger. Why not for the Jews? Only because they did believe there is only one God.
AT about the 14 minute mark, Bart is describing Christianity's viral (or memetic) quality. Because as a belief system it is better equipped to reproduce itself in the minds of others, it naturally grows and wipes out other ideas. It's pretty sad that it wipes out all that rich variety, but it's seemingly inevitable also just based on the evolution of thought complexes in human brains..
We got some serious optical fashion going on here!
The glasses are the star of the show . . .
Christianity offered upward mobility for those in the lower caste communities. It offered patronage to them and a wider familial connection. It offered social services like medical care and schooling, and inspired the arts. Always fascinating to watch people in our modern western society lambaste the very system that got them there in the first place. Always a dumb idea to kick the chair from under you.
- sure -
- like the upward mobility that the good hapless pagan Africans had when they were forced to convert to Christianity by European Christians after enslaving and brutalising them
@@therion5458 "There wasn't significant progress in art and science until the Renaissance when people in Europe started to "wake up" and find inspiration from pre-Christian culture." That is a myth. Science and art continued to progress in the middle ages same as they always have. The Romans didn't know how to do double entry book keeping, or how to make a long sword.
What people don’t understand is that if 5-10% of the Roman Empire was Christian in the 4th century that 5-10% was an urban phenomenon. In cities the percentage of Christians was much much higher. Interestingly the holdouts to paganism were almost exclusively rural even into the Middle Ages.
Xianity required constant fellowship to buck you up and keep you on the straight and narrow, which required a close-knit good-sized large town or city, not conscripts scattered hither and yon out in the distant fields. That was Pagan Country, in fact the countryside was where the long-established old religion, paganism, predominated for centuries, lasting for 1000 years more in secluded pockets.
So you get several Popes named Urban, denouncing pagans out in the boonies. The greatest concentration of Xians lived in Roma or, later, Constantinople.
I’m agreeing with you: Christianity was an urban phenomenon. What I was trying to say is that 5-10% of the empire Christian means that the urban population was much higher. Urbanization was around 25% or even lower in 4th century. With that being the fact there is a real possibility that the urban level of Christianity could have been as high as 30% before the conversion of Constantine. Also that 30% included the movers and shakers of the empire (the urban elite). Also Pagans didn’t worship Jupiter or other classical gods. Jupiter maybe cared about the state but not you. Romans were much more interested in ancestor worship and more lower level spirits and gods.
Bart makes the argument clear that university is NOT for undergraduates. The professors at universities are focused on research to the detriment of ‘general studies’. Go to a city or state college for the AA. And then transfer to a university. Everyone is happier.
Bart's explanation for how Christianity gained the Empire was convincing people that miracles occurred?
People of the time did not have to be convinced that “miracles” happen. Miracles were taken for granted as a part of everyday life.
@@MMG-q1v But Bart E. is using miracles, or the convincing of people that a miracle occured as explanatory for the rise of Christianity.
So..what you're saying doesn't really work there
@@MMG-q1v Normal things happen often. Really odd things happen less often. Odd things are miracles and tragedies. There are as many tragedies as there are miracles. But it is in human nature/sociology (??) that we remember the good things and often want to relate them to higher powers. Tragedies on the other hand can kill off people. And we can easily see them as punishments that we want to forget.
I feel like the principle of exclusivity, where one Christian convert means one less pagan, doesn't quite match everyday cult practices. The Americas, for example, are full of blended Christianity with native religions (in much the same way that Buddhism and Taoism, and Buddhism and Shintoism, blended their religions together). And there's lots of evidence of shrines from local religions spread all over Eurasia and are still in use by people who primarily claim to be Christian (and some shrines take one Christianized names (Saint So-And-So's Spring, etc)). And many of those Christians pray to other gods (some reborn as saints) and participate in their cult practices, often without realizing it because it's just part of their culture. It seems to me that people in the upper echelons and in the Christian priesthoods may have practiced exclusivity, but the everyday people seemed to largely incorporate Christianity into their existing religions.
In the Americas, there was a lot of forced conversion. The syncretic religions we see today are not a result of a blend of two religious cultures but a form of resistance. I think the same thing may have happened in Europe as well. But people in both Europe and America were often given the choice of Christianity (or the "correct" version of Christianity) and the sword.
I don't much about European or the history of Buddhism. But in my neck of the woods, Santería other "blends" are a reaction to the brutality of the Conquista and the brutal chattel slavery that accompanied it.
@@edwinlucianofrias1643 Very good points about how Christianity "blended" with native religions in the Americas (and much of Africa). What I was trying to point out is that, even in Europe, Christianity never conquered "alone", it always had to make concessions with the native religions and cultic practices. The way a religion was practiced in public doesn't always match with how it's practiced in private (particularly with poorer peoples), and we still have some modern day rituals that have pre-Christian origins, yet have survived brutal purges. For example, there are a lot of different ways Europeans celebrate Christmas, because different cultic regions added Christmas to their already present cultic celebrations. There are also a lot of gods who become saints, such as the goddess Brigid becoming Saint Brigid, but her Christian feast day is on the Celtic celebration of Imbolc and she's still the patroness of basically the same things she was goddess of. And of course, she's not the only god-turned-saint. And then there's the curious case of good "Christian" Scandinavians trying to prevent Christian missionaries from reaching the Arctic Saami peoples, because the Scandinavians believed the Saami had special magic and they didn't want the Christians to destroy the Saami magic because the Scandinavian peoples wanted the magic for themselves.
Do you two go to the same optometrist?
I have heard that Christianity grew at roughly the same rate in its early years that the Mormon church has grown since its founding in 1830. Does anyone know if that’s true, or direct me to a source on the topic?
Where are the time stamps my loved ones???
5:00: off the bats, historically religion was more practices and less theology. And our god is this but no force conversion which began with Christianity and Islam. I like how the Jews don't make people join them in their way of worship.
Thanks for the video. This was amazing.
Megan’s frames super intense they remind me of the Nazi archaeologist in raiders of the lost ark
with all this worshipping, what made people think that 1. they needed to worship a god, 2. why did any god need worshipping, and 3. what would any real god would even care to be worshipped?
they didn't worship gods because they felt the gods needed to be worshipped; they worshipped gods because they felt that THEY needed to court the gods' favors.
The title is backwards. The Romans took over Christianity.
That's exactly the first thing I thought.
romans use christianity.
spanish empire use christianity.
both empire now are gone, christianity remains.
Very True.
The monothestic teachings of Jesus overtaken by Roman polytheism gave birth to the dogma of Trinity.
The Roman sun god Sol Invictus's birth day was 25th December.
The Sabbath (Saturday), weekly holy day which Jesus observed changed into Roman weekly holiday of Sunday.
Vatican replaced Jerusalem as the religious headquarter of Christianity.
Rome, as a culture and beliefs, has completely corrupted the monotheistic message of Jesus. That's how we get the "Christian" creed where Jesus himself is God (in Rome they would have said "a god"), the "Father" is God and the Holy Spirit is also God, all three being distinct but one.
Dont simp too hard for Rome.
are the glasses supposed to be distracting?
Only for you.
These glasses are the best ones with her platinum hair...she has others that are pink and contrasts with blue hair just takes away from the seriousness and her smarts so I just look away...bad hair daze.
I find everything about her unnecessarily distracting. Glasses. Hair. Demeanor. What would motivate a person to present themselves this way?
@@MorningClarity Speaking as a 67 yr old Constitutional Conservative real university educated (BW is that like BC?) think it is shock treatment or so you can remember her as unique...lots of effort and money to spiffup...you need to learn to appreciate the narcissism which is IN you know...postmodernism.
Well, as far as Christians taking over Rome, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned that Rome destroyed Israel. I'd consider that a feature to the discussion.
In the description it does not mention Megan Lewis at all, and no link to her channel.
I was curious because I recognized her voice from other videos, but not her face (that Clark Kent thing I guess, where changing glasses is a great disguise)
It took some googling, but found it.
Just a note that you should include at least her hame and channel in your description (unless she asked you not to)
www.youtube.com/@DigitalHammurabi
That’s easy to answer. “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
I LOVE Bart Ehrman and have listened to many of his videos. But one thing he doesn't seem to talk about much is politics. The pagan religions may not have been exclusive, but the Roman state was. It's hierarchy definitely thought that Roman culture was superior to the barbarians round about. It's true that they did not initially impose Roman-ism on everybody lock stock and barrel and allowed people to follow their own gods (so long as they also made sacrifices to the gods that supported the Cesar and his lineage--hence the conflict with Jews who did not wish to do that). But, theirs was an agenda of insidious conversion. If you wanted to rise up in the Roman state hierarchy even in the outback and even as a former "barbarian" you did have to start adopting Roman ways. So the idea that one had to be part of an elite, a "conversion" if you will, was there and melded very well with the Christian idea of superiority and "conversion" of the used-to-be barbarians and now "pagans." The idea of universal conversion also combined well with the idea of the Roman EMPIRE later the HOLY Roman Empire.
love meg's eye glasses🙂
the elton john of biblical scholarship!
Create the need then fill the need - I never thought of it like this before but seems Christianity spread same way the iPad did 😂
wow, brilliant! so informative and lots of "food for thought" - THANK YOU! I'm really interested in this transition from polytheism to monotheism and then the later "monotheistic ma non troppo" culture of multiple saints and martyrs.
The first network marketing company. Wow! Now worth Trillions today! 🇨🇦
Robin Lane Fox proposed that Christianity's success was due to superior organization and administration. He felt the practice of appointing bishops for life was extremely powerful and compared Christianity's success to Manichaeism which was also a missionary religion at the time.
Not just organization---but a way to maintain it---tithe. Does any other religion require all adherents to support those who are teachers? So now there is a class dedicated to study and teaching and supported by the followers----I think all our universities were seminaries. Teaching a learning becomes a very important value...minus the dark ages where the common person is forbidden from reading the bible.
30:33 most disease is self limiting. it is a gr8 grift. & the _"MLM theory of exclusive evangelism"_ is gr8. _JC
Do "moderate" and "very liberal" mean the same thing?
‘Pagan’ and ‘heathen’ are exonyms used by Christians to belittle the adherents of the traditional religion(s) of the Roman Empire. Shouldn’t we start using an endonym or at least a less biased term? Some early Christians referred to them as Hellenes apparently, which sounds a bit more polite. Neo-Platonist is also a term I have seen used for those defending their religion in later centuries, but that may be a modern term.