After Jesus Before Christianity (Paperback)

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.

Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years?

Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found: 

• There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century
• There was nothing called Christianity until the third century
• There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality.

Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity. 

After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.

Erin Vearncombe is a professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the social realities of the earliest Jesus groups.

Brandon Scott is the Darbeth Distinguished Professor of New Testament Emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, and the author of many books.

Hal Taussig recently retired as professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He edited the award-winning A New New Testament and has published fourteen books.

The Westar Institute is dedicated to fostering and communicating the results of cutting-edge scholarship on the history and evolution of the Christian tradition, thereby raising the level of public discourse about questions that matter in society and culture.