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The Rise of Christianity
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
- GenresHistory
356 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1947
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April 7, 2026
I got this obscure volume somewhere and I have had it for years, not quite interested enough to read. The other day I started to feelin' interested in the New Testament again, and the very early church; none of the books I found recommended were available at my library, and I thought, why, I can shop at home, and read this. It is a no doubt out-of-date book from the 1940s, but quite in keeping with other Biblical criticism that I know of: it is thoroughly skeptical, denying the virgin birth, the early institution of the eucharist much less its efficacy, the resurrection, or any other supernatural events; rejects the vast majority of the New Testament text as we have it as history or even genuinely written by the people whose names have attached to it (with the exception of scattered pages of Paul), and comes to the very common opinion among secular 21st Century people, that Jesus was just a real cool dude who said some nice stuff.
The main interesting thing about this is biographical as regards the author: he was an Anglican bishop, who would seem to me to be pretty much apostatizing, but he continued on being a bishop until his death years later. I highly suspect every scholar who goes looking for the historical Jesus finds the very one he is looking for (including when that means 'discovering' that there was no historical Jesus at all!!!1! It's all a conspiracy, maaaaan!) and in this case, the good Bishop Barnes finds, as much textual criticism does, that texts that make him uncomfortable are spurious interpolations by later decadent churchmen, which we can tell because of the vibes, you see. I have no real problem with this, and I think it's actually true of every historian ever; I am sure that Caro found the Robert Moses he wanted, Williams found the Huey Long he wanted, and Schlesinger found, just like the two aforementioned, the FDR he wanted, who is a very different character indeed from Caro's and Williams's FDRs. I am glad of Barnes's thoroughgoing emphasis on pacifism, somewhat wary of his heart-in-the-right-place defense of Jews (while frequently contrasting the "Aryan" and "Semitic" characters and emphasizing their incompatibility...echh...), and I have to admit thoroughly bored by his Cool Dude Jesus, as much as I agree (doesn't everyone?) that the personality of Jesus as it comes through in the gospels can be irresistable. I'm sort of most interested in his Paul, who is neither the perfect (far more than Jesus himself) exegete of Christianity that he was for centuries of Augustinian assholes, nor the supervillainous fount of the evil Conspiracy To Keep Cool Dude Jesus Down as with most Cool Dude Jesus guys whether hippie-Christian or atheist. The good Bishop has a pretty finely tuned judgement of the man and his intellectual powers, saying that he's far too smart for this or that passage in his epistles, while also thinking he's a bad writer and somewhat dopey and missing the point. Kind of like, if you'll excuse me, what I think of the good Bishop Barnes himself, no doubt a skilled mathematician, a comrade in pacifism, and a guy whose sense of what religion should be could not possibly be more diametrically opposed to mine.
The main interesting thing about this is biographical as regards the author: he was an Anglican bishop, who would seem to me to be pretty much apostatizing, but he continued on being a bishop until his death years later. I highly suspect every scholar who goes looking for the historical Jesus finds the very one he is looking for (including when that means 'discovering' that there was no historical Jesus at all!!!1! It's all a conspiracy, maaaaan!) and in this case, the good Bishop Barnes finds, as much textual criticism does, that texts that make him uncomfortable are spurious interpolations by later decadent churchmen, which we can tell because of the vibes, you see. I have no real problem with this, and I think it's actually true of every historian ever; I am sure that Caro found the Robert Moses he wanted, Williams found the Huey Long he wanted, and Schlesinger found, just like the two aforementioned, the FDR he wanted, who is a very different character indeed from Caro's and Williams's FDRs. I am glad of Barnes's thoroughgoing emphasis on pacifism, somewhat wary of his heart-in-the-right-place defense of Jews (while frequently contrasting the "Aryan" and "Semitic" characters and emphasizing their incompatibility...echh...), and I have to admit thoroughly bored by his Cool Dude Jesus, as much as I agree (doesn't everyone?) that the personality of Jesus as it comes through in the gospels can be irresistable. I'm sort of most interested in his Paul, who is neither the perfect (far more than Jesus himself) exegete of Christianity that he was for centuries of Augustinian assholes, nor the supervillainous fount of the evil Conspiracy To Keep Cool Dude Jesus Down as with most Cool Dude Jesus guys whether hippie-Christian or atheist. The good Bishop has a pretty finely tuned judgement of the man and his intellectual powers, saying that he's far too smart for this or that passage in his epistles, while also thinking he's a bad writer and somewhat dopey and missing the point. Kind of like, if you'll excuse me, what I think of the good Bishop Barnes himself, no doubt a skilled mathematician, a comrade in pacifism, and a guy whose sense of what religion should be could not possibly be more diametrically opposed to mine.
Displaying 1 of 1 review