The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark
This is an Amazon review not posted on Amazon.
My most honest opinion is that you should not waste your time on this book, or at least not your money. He is not an historian. He is a sociologist, and he uses sociological models for studying the present to study the Roman empire in the first four centuries of the "Common Era." That is a presuppositional error, both about history and research methods.
He also ignores any numerical data in the New Testament, claiming there were much fewer than 5,000 Christians in Jerusalem a few years the fall of the Temple, when the New Testament had recorded there were that many a few years after the crucifixion. He also claims there were actually very few martyrs in the whole of the Roman Empire, maybe about 100. So what were Peter and Paul and John and the writer of Hebrews worried about?
He also seems to think the spread of Mormonism in the U.S. is a template for the spread of Christianity. Faulty logical and analogy.
This is not to say there aren't some interesting parts and that he uses no historians' material, but it's not a legitimate record of the historical spread of Christianity and actually a lot of speculation. I can see why some academics would be interested, but I was disappointed.
My most honest opinion is that you should not waste your time on this book, or at least not your money. He is not an historian. He is a sociologist, and he uses sociological models for studying the present to study the Roman empire in the first four centuries of the "Common Era." That is a presuppositional error, both about history and research methods.
He also ignores any numerical data in the New Testament, claiming there were much fewer than 5,000 Christians in Jerusalem a few years the fall of the Temple, when the New Testament had recorded there were that many a few years after the crucifixion. He also claims there were actually very few martyrs in the whole of the Roman Empire, maybe about 100. So what were Peter and Paul and John and the writer of Hebrews worried about?
He also seems to think the spread of Mormonism in the U.S. is a template for the spread of Christianity. Faulty logical and analogy.
This is not to say there aren't some interesting parts and that he uses no historians' material, but it's not a legitimate record of the historical spread of Christianity and actually a lot of speculation. I can see why some academics would be interested, but I was disappointed.
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