Christianity by the Century: Sixth Century CE (500-600)
For many ordinary people, daily life was overshadowed by catastrophe. The Plague of Justinian… swept across the Mediterranean world, killing millions and leaving entire regions depopulated.
Why the Ancient Romans Destroyed the Jewish Temple
Dr. Ward Sanford discusses the early years leading to Rome’s destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Drawing from his historical novel’s first book, he mixes careful research with fictional characters to illuminate the forces that erupted between 63 and 66 CE. An interview with Dr. Ward Sanford.
Christianity by the Century: Second Century BCE
The second century BCE was a crucible for Christian evolution. Jewish heritage provided the containment for the melting and fusing of new materials from Greek culture—the flowering of seeds planted in this tumultuous century.
Christianity by the Century: Third Century BCE
What older scholarship once dismissed as a “silent” era—an apparent gap between the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic writings and later Jewish literature—turns out to have been a crucible of creativity.
Early Christian Maps and a Fantasy
We have a habit of confining our thinking about early Christianity only in the context of the Roman Empire. But the real maps of Christian location were far greater and much further East. Presenter: Dr. Jason BeDuhn with guest host Sara Barnacle
Macrina: A Remarkable 4th-Century Christian Woman
If Gregory didn't write about her, we wouldn't necessarily know about her. I think those virtues are tied into how she relates to the body, how she thinks about death and the community that she builds around herself. An interview with Dr. Erin Galgay Walsh.
Jesus’s Peaceful Resistance to Rome Based on Genesis 1
The metronome of the world beats to distributive justice, and that is a completely different vision from the normalcy of civilization, which basically says, “I’m bigger than you, I’m stronger than you. I’m going to take your stuff.” An interview with John Dominic Crossan.
The Origin of the Word ‘Christ’
The shifts from ‘Messiah,’ to christos, to christus, to ‘Christ’ were momentous. In the process, the root meaning of g-d’s anointed king was forfeited and with that several things were lost.
Finding Depth in Jesus’s Farmer Parables
"There are long traditions in Greek and Roman and Judaean writing, using farming to think about important aspects of life like morality, wisdom, virtue, and education." An Interview with Dr. Ian Brown.