The First Hundred Years AD 1-100: Failures and Successes of Christianity's Beginning: The Jesus Movement, Christian Anti-Semitism, Christian Sexism

by Daniel Walker

Eminently readable historical treatment of the Jesus Movement in First Century context. Vividly describes the life and death of Jesus and how his charismatic teaching became a worldwide religion; how Jesus the man became Jesus the Christ. Plus the heroic Jewish fight against despotic Roman rule and the violent separation of Christianity from Judaism.The reader encounters the ancient land of Palestine, King Herods incestuous family, fascinating legends surrounding Christianitys birth, the wanderings and violent deaths of the 12 apostles, the mysterious Cross Gospel and Secret Gospel of Mark and a strange writing called Q.Separate chapters spotlight two shames of Christianity. Christian Sexism portrays the denigration of women from co-equal disciples of Jesus to permanent second-class status. Christian Anti-Semitism begins with the Gospels of Mark and John and the letters of Paul and highlights centuries of conflict between the Jewish people and the Roman Catholic Church.An appendix sorts out todays confusing proliferation of versions of the New Testament, explaining their origins and detailing both serious and humorous textual differences. Helps answer the question of which version to use.

292 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2001

About the author

Daniel Walker has worked as an undercover investigator for a number of nonprofit organizations working to free women and children from sex trafficking in the United States and in over a dozen countries around the world. He holds a master's degree in Third World economic development from Eastern University in Philadelphia.

He has over twenty years of experience in law enforcement and is currently working as a police detective based in New Zealand. He has also founded Nvader, a organization to combat human trafficking.

Reviews

[Junipa · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. Took me a while to finish it.

[Kenghis Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The historiography surrounding Jesus and the early church ellicits a level of acrimony simply unimaginable for any other set of historical events. Nor is the rancour confined to the halls of academia or the barricades of Belfast. The controversy that surrounded Mel Gibson's "The Passion" is at its heart historiographical - does the film depict historical fact? Indeed, the attention this controversy received demonstrates some measure of public interest in the question of "what really happened" in those crucial years.

Dan Walker's "The First Hundred Years: Failures and Successes of Christianity's Beginning" presents a long overdue review of the controversy explicitly written with the nonspecialist in mind. The work is refreshingly concise given the enormous complexity of the subject. However, Walker does not patronize his readers. To weave a coherent historical narrative, Walker quotes liberally from the Bible but incorporates Josephus, archaeological studies, and of course the Apochrypha only after explicating to his readers all the perils associated with these sources. The book also manages to survey the main academic controversies in plain language as well.

By far its most promising attribute is Walker's presentation of his subject. Initially, I was skeptical. Can one intelligently discuss the sociopolitical controversies of Roman Judea, the life of Jesus, the fate of Judaism at this time, the contemporary research in academia, the history of the early Christian church, and the birth of Christian anti-semetism and chauvanism - all in a span of 254 pages? Yet, for those of us seeking a thoughtful introduction to these questions, Walker's book is a resounding success. His survey of prior sholarship on the historical Jesus and the economic, social, and political realities of Judea before, during, and after Jesus's life are particularly insightful for those of us whose familiarity of Jesus had heretofore been restricted to the Gospels. A novice feels sufficiently informed to put the hooplah surrounding periodic media upheavals such as this "Passion" affair into context.

For a second edition, Walker would do well to compile a thorough bibliography of the scholarship he himself
evidently carefully consulted for those readers interested in pursuing some topics. Personally, I found a more thorough examination of the linguistic questions involved in early Christian historiography conspicuously absent from the book. Sadly, these are largely relegated to an appendix, and the discussion there focuses more on translation issues that arise when shopping for an English Bible. While Walker can be pardoned for not mastering the plethora of dead languages needed to jump into the academic debates about this region at this historical moment, his discussion of the historiography nevertheless is handicapped by this relegation. Perhaps a second appendix or more consistent references to the linguistic problems of historiography in the main text would be in order.

Ultimately, "The First Hundred Years: Failures and Successes of Christianity's Beginning" succeeds at being at once a concise and informative guide despite its monumental subject. For any open and curious mind, this book will help put into an informed perspective a historical problem of unmatched contemporary complexity.