Customer Reviews

The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (Oxford Illustrated Histories)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I gave this book three stars because it has some very good qualities, and some qualities that detract from it. First, it offers a history of Christianity that neither focuses on the positive aspects nor on the negative aspects of the religion. Instead, it attempts to offer an objective retelling of the story of Christianity's spread. As far as this goes, I recommend this book.

There are two problems with this book, however. First, it is certainly very biased toward the British. Written by many English scholars, this is not terribly surprising considering their propensity for a superiority complex. But, if one can ignore this bias, and even laugh at it in some places, it does not take away from the learning experience of reading this book. What does harm this experinece are the assumptions that the authors make about the knowledge of their audience. I have a fairly good background in Christian history, and I read this to fill in some of the gaps. What I found were a lot of teasers to stories I did not know. The authors would mention some fairly obscure person or event without elaboration, expecting the reader to understand what he/she was talking about. This became quite annoying after awhile.

In conclusion, this book is a good read for anyone who wants to learn more about Christian history, but don't expect it to be comprehensive.

The Oxford folks have produced a very good overview of the Christian world from the death of Christ to the present time.

This book gives a good accounting of the major doctrinal and organizational challenges facing Christendom over the last two centuries as well as detailing its growth from a band of Jewish reformers to the world wide force it is today.

I would have liked a little more on the early rise and struggle of the church to find its place both doctrinally and in the Roman world, but this is a very solid book for someone wanting to explore the breadth of Christianity's two millennia.

Religion, particularly Christianity, is one hair Oxford loves to split in as many ways as they can find. This overview of Christian history is well written and thorough. There may be other books of greater importance in specific areas of study, but this book is a good beginning. Church libraries may consider this book just because it covers a lot of ground in a single volume.

It covers the basics, the persecutions, the rise of Roman acceptance of Chrisitanity, the middle ages, and the Reformation. It carries the story to the present offering the reader a good understanding of the subject matter. It has illustrations throughout, but most are black and white. In an era when color printing is not really cost prohibitive any longer, this is kind of a shame. But the text is top-notch andthe reader will learn much from this volume.

This strange history of Christianity either overlooks or omits all account of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity from the moment of origins through the medieval and modern periods. As a popularized history, it chooses not to delve deeply into theology, but it is strange that it offers nothing about the influence of religious, cultural, and social differences between Judaism and Jews, and Christianity and Christian on the history of the latter. This history of Christianity resembles what might have been the story of its past if the early Church had decided to omit the Holy Scriptures from the Bible and pretended that Jews ceased to exist after the Crucifixion.

I'm not devout, but I am curious. After having read the Bible cover to cover, it seems reasonable to get a grasp on the historical truths, such as they are known. Its another revelation and not one your'e likely to hear while sitting in the pews. Without any sign of being judgemental, the editor pieces together the sum total of what is known about the Bible passages and who wrote them, or, who wrote the pieces from which the Biblical authors "borrowed", to write the Bible. Plagiarism is everywhere. This is a highly recommended work for those who are not inclinded to accept the common view, but rather want to know what the Church already knows but doesnt talk about.

Gives me a review of ancient history, along with years of Christianity.I use this book mainily in a class I take at church. Its called "Education for Ministry". Its a four year course. I find it interesting just to review in my mind all the history that has gone before me. Good book,

I have not read the entire book, but it does contain all the information I expected.