The Faith and the Power: The Inspiring Story of the First Christians and How They Survived the Madness of Rome [Paperback]

James D. Snyder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2002

When Jesus left this world he left behind a faith and power that sustained his followers in a treacherous, turbulent world. This stirring account of the first forty years after the crucifixion digs into the bedrock of early Christianity, rediscovering the strengths that empowered the apostles in the darkness of a debauched Roman Empire.The Faith and the Power brings readers face to face with the period’s most powerful personalities - Peter, Paul, Caligula, Nero, Herod Agrippa, Josephus - and how they influenced each other’s destinies. It illuminates Acts of the New Testament by unearthing such important new insights as why emperors purged the early Christians and why Nero’s insatiable greed forced the Judaism into a suicidal rebellion. And it shows why Rome itself nearly self-destructed and in that process gave rise to a more powerful message of a loving, gracious God.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Eschewing the "wide brush" approach to history, Snyder (a journalist and amateur historian) offers 40 years of ancient Roman and Christian history in 363 pages more than nine pages of historical scrutiny per year. Snyder also shuns the conventional academic apparatus of copious footnotes (only 113) and, in his words, "lengthy scholarly asides that so often detract from the main story." What remains is an intensive yet breezy consideration of first-century Apostolic history with a decidedly Roman flavor, colored by the interpretations of the author. Despite the scholarly nature of this subject (Ancient Roman and Near Eastern history, c.30-71 C.E.), its intended audience seems to be the biblical reader seeking a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the politics and culture into which Christ came and the developments immediately following his death. In this, Snyder succeeds, offering a readable account, aided by pages of maps, readings, and people identifiers. Scholarly readers will not find much new here, but for the more serious student of biblical history, this work provides a good entry point into a turbulent period of history. Sandra Collins, Duquesne Univ. Lib., Pittsburgh
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Snyder examines the first century of Christianity: the period directly following the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and preceding the fall of Rome. Posing the question of how Christianity survived in the predominantly pagan Roman Empire, he interweaves Biblical, Jewish, and Roman sources, chronicling the turbulent, often violent, era subsequent to the death of Octavian Caesar Augustus. From A.D. 30 to A.D. 71, Christians lived in flux and peril, yet they managed to persevere and even to thrive in an extremely hostile environment. Paradoxically, the very chaos that threatened Christianity also provided members of this new faith with both a focal point and the opportunity to band together in opposition to a common enemy. Arranged chronologically, this digestible account provides a comprehensive overview of a transitional juncture in church history. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 415 pages
• Publisher: Pharos Books; 1 edition (March 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967520029
• ISBN-13: 978-0967520025
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #890,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Introducing James D. Snyder


Jim Snyder has been a writer, editor and publisher since graduating from the Northwestern University School of Journalism in 1958. He soon moved to the nation's capital and became a governmental affairs correspondent for several magazines. In 1984 he founded Enterprise Communications Inc., which produced business magazines and trade shows.

When Enterprise was acquired by the Thomson-Reuters news organization in 1997, Jim returned to his first love, writing. His first book, the culmination of 18 years of research "whenever I had the time to travel and study," was All God's Children, a historical novel covering the earliest days of Christianity from A.D. 30 to A.D. 70. "Some people said it was too long," he says, "so I wrote a shorter version of the same story as a straight history. Either way,those 40 years after the crucifixion were probably the most turbulent, dramatic and misunderstood in human history."

Adds the author: "Although the first two books involved a lot of travel to places like Rome and Jerusalem, the actual writing took place at our home on the Loxahatchee River in Florida. I love to kayak, and often it leads me up Jonathan Dickinson State Park to the site of Trapper Nelson, its famous 'celebrity-recluse.' The result was a book entitled Life and Death on the Loxahatchee, and it opened my eyes to the wealth of history in South Florida that was waiting to be researched and written."

Next came two pictorial histories, Five Thousand Years on the Loxahatchee, the story of Jupiter-Tequesta, and Black Gold and Silver Sands, describing the struggle and success of farming in Palm Beach County. Snyder's fourth book on Florida history is A Light in the Wilderness: The Story of Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and the Southeast Florida Frontier.

Jim has been a long-time volunteer at the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and Museum, most recently serving as Chairman of the Board. He has also served on the board of Friends of Jonathan Dickinson State Park for several years. Recently he was a member of the Florida Historical Commission, which oversees state grants for renovation of historic structures.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Through a glass darkly....", May 30, 2002

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Faith and the Power: The Inspiring Story of the First Christians and How They Survived the Madness of Rome (Paperback)

As a non-scholar with a keen interest in the evolution of the Christian religion, I found this to be an exceptionally informative as well as well-written study of the earliest Christians in the years immediately following the crucifixion of Jesus. Of course, most of what most of us know about those years has been learned from reading the New Testament or perhaps from films which claim to be "faithful" to that era. Snyder carefully examines the works of Christian writers, of course, but also those of Jewish and Roman writers as well. He attempts to answer questions such as these:

1. Why were the post-crucifixion years (the so-called "Apostolic Age") perhaps "the most turbulent and terrifying period in all history"?

2. Nonetheless, why does it remain "such a murky period to even the most avid of history readers"?

3. According to the most reliable historical material available, who wrote what? For example, "the 21 epostles of the new Testament are arranged in scant regard to chronology, and scholars still debate when many of them were written."

4. By which strategies and tactics did the so many of the early Christians survive amidst the "madness" of Roman rule throughout its empire and especially in Judea? Also, to what extent were the early Christians also subject to persecution by those who previously felt so threatened by a carpenter from Nazareth?

5. Which assumptions about the century following the crucifixion are now in doubt, if not invalidated by subsequent scholarship?

These and countless other questions are addressed throughout Snyder's well-written and insightful narrative. Not all of them are answered and perhaps some of those can never be. To suggest that in no way diminishes the nature and extent of what Snyder achieves in this volume. Rather, my purpose is to acknowledge the challenges he faced and thereby to indicate the substantial value of what he has accomplished.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Snyder hits a home run!, June 21, 2005

By 

James H. Caldwell (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Faith and the Power: The Inspiring Story of the First Christians and How They Survived the Madness of Rome (Paperback)

What a long overdue book! I wish I had access to all this information in one place 40 years ago when I was studying theology.

Mr Snyder has succeeded in placing, in parallel, both the great sweep of Roman and Judaean military and political history and also the rise of the struggling Early Church. Christian or not, the reader will be enriched and enlightened by Snyder's careful placing of major events with the people who lived in their shadow. The heroes of the Early Church, Peter, James, John, John Mark, Paul become intensely human in their following of the Way; so also do the rulers.....Herod, Tiberius, Nero, Caligula,Claudius, etc.

Snyder's account of the fall of Jerusalem is full of suspense, even though we know the outcome.

And Paul's journey to Rome is written so that we more fully understand how it came about and how Paul may have endured his trial. We experience the shipwreck, imagine the sights and wonders of Imperial Rome, smell the fetid and noxious aromas of a city of one million people, and imagine the daily life of Christians living in the belly of the beast.

Read this book! It will answer questions and provide insights you never even knew were available from the original sources.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful Narrative, May 31, 2005

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Faith and the Power: The Inspiring Story of the First Christians and How They Survived the Madness of Rome (Paperback)

Considered solely as history or literature, the story of Christianity has an odd form to it. It's shaped something like an anaconda that ate a calf a few weeks ago. There's several thousand years of Jewish pre-history, then the brief span of Christ's birth, mission, crucifixion, and resurrection, then a couple thousand years of epilogue. After all, what--before or after--can compare with the story of the Savior?

But if we take the longer view we begin to see just how remarkable the rest of the story is. Consider that at the time of the Crucifixion Christ was denied by even his own followers, a sect within an oppressed minority religion in a discrete portion of the mighty Roman Empire. Yet, from these rather inauspicious beginnings grew a religion of near 2 billion people, or one in three people in the world. For the believer this may have an air of inevitability--after all, how surprised can we be that the Word prevailed? However, even we must marvel that it spread so far, so fast. Here, surely, is a story worth telling.

Well, James D. Snyder details the years from A.D. 30-71 in a masterful narrative that follows the post-Christ missions of the Apostles against the backdrop (though it's often in the foreground) of a hostile Rome and equally hostile Judea, which were meanwhile in conflict one with the other. He weaves the three strands--Roman, Jewish, Christian--into one compelling tale that sweeps the reader through a pivotal, but easily overlooked, period in history. If the madness of Rome makes for disturbing but fascinating reading and the heroic struggle of the Jews proves ultimately futile, the successive martyrdoms of the Apostles pack an emotional punch. the climax, though not quite the end, of the book comes when Peter tries to escape from his captors in Rome but meets Christ on the road and asks: Domine, quo vadis? ("Lord, where are you going?):

Jesus replied: "I am going to be crucified once again."

Then Peter repeated himself: "Lord, you will be crucified again?

And Christ replied: "Yes, I will be crucified again."

"Then, Lord," answered Peter, "I am returning to follow you."

No sooner had Peter turned around than Jesus vanished. After weeping and collecting his thoughts, Peter understood that the words were meant for his own martyrdom, that the Lord would suffer with him as he would all who lived and died in his name. And so, Peter, bursting with new strength, returned to the prison glorifying God and singing praises to the risen Christ. [...]

It is said that Peter asked only one thing of his executioners: "I beg you crucify me in this way--head down--and no other way." And he explained that he was not worthy to be executed as had his lord and master.

That's strong stuff and goes some way to explaining the survival and triumph of the Gospel.

We got no small number of self-published books through here and titles from smaller publishers. For the most part, even when they're worth reading you can see why a bigger house didn't pick them up. Not so with Mr. Snyder's fine book. I'm not familiar enough with Pharos Books to know what kind of distribution and publicity they could generate. But this is a text that belongs on your shelf along with the much more widely-known Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox and The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity by Richard Fletcher. Taken together they carry the story of Christianity's rise from the First Century to the Fourteenth in immensely readable and enjoyable fashion.