Crucible of faith : the ancient revolution that made our modern religious world / Philip Jenkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jenkins, Philip, 1952- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity--Origin.

Christianity.

Cosmogony, Ancient.

Judaism--History--Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.-210 A.D.

Judaism.

History.

Judaism--Post-exilic period (Judaism).

Judaism--History--Talmudic period, 10-425.

Judaism--Talmudic period.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxxi, 303 pages : illustrations, maps, genealogical table ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, 2017.

Summary:

"In The Crucible of Faith, Philip Jenkins argues that much of the Judeo-Christian tradition we know today was born between 250-50 BCE, during a turbulent "Crucible Era." It was during these years that Judaism grappled with Hellenizing forces and produced new religious ideas that reflected and responded to their changing world. By the time of the fall of the Temple in 70 CE, concepts that might once have seemed bizarre became normalized-and thus passed on to Christianity and later Islam. Drawing widely on contemporary sources from outside the canonical Old and New Testaments, Jenkins reveals an era of political violence and social upheaval that ultimately gave birth to entirely new ideas about religion, the afterlife, Creation and the Fall, and the nature of God and Satan."--Amazon.

Contents:

The old world: living with radical monotheism

The years of the Greeks: the Jewish world confronts Greek empires

Antioch in Jerusalem: the limits of the law

Enoch the prophet: startling new scriptures remap the spiritual universe

Tyrants follow tyrants: a century of national agony

Daniel's revolution: visions of cosmic warfare

The light and the life: wars of light and darkness

The powers above: hoe the universe filled with angels and demons

The Word was with God: rethinking the world's creation

Smashing God's house: how apocalyptic and messianic ideas drove political action

Making faiths: the making of world religions

Conclusion: Closed histories.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-284) and index.

ISBN:

9780465096404

0465096409

OCLC:

968771463