Rating: 
Summary: Excellent effort to convey a 'feeling' for the past
Review: I found this book to be very readable and to have achieved what the author seems to have been trying to accomplish. Hopkins says he is trying to give readers a feeling for the complex spiritual landscape in which Christianity became dominant in the West. The only improvement I might have hoped to find in this book is a better linkage to historical events in secular society, in the usual event panorama presented in histories of this period. Nevertheless, I will keep this book handy to consult when I want to remind myself of the process of cultural evolution that shaped this important part of Western Civilization.
Rating: 
Summary: A flawed attempt to make history more readable.
Review: I was disappointed with this book. The admittedly clever techniques of trying to explain early Christianity through the notes of time travelers, a television script, make believe letters between early Christians, and critiques of these techniques from "colleagues" simply didn't work for me.Don't get me wrong, there is obviously solid scholarship behind this unique presentation. The information presented is very interesting but the method of story telling gets in the way. The author is a academic and not a novelist. The contrived nature of the novel-like elements detracted from the history being presented. The book did add to my historical understanding of the development of Christianity, but I would not wish to read another work of scholarship written in a similarly "innovative" style
Rating:
Summary: Excellent effort to convey a 'feeling' for the past
Review: It always worries me when I pick up a book on the religious shelf at my local book store seemly billing itself as history of early Christianity. I worry first because, there are some books like the Blood and the Holy Grail that are patently opinion and theory, and books by authors whose intention is to demean and or mock Christianity. If I had read the back cover more carefully, the phrase "dazzling invention" would have given me a clear signal that this book could have easily been on the fiction shelves. So my bad! I'm glad at least I didn't pay hardcover price for this book. I wish I hadn't paid the softcover price, but we pay for our education. Interesting fiction...not necessarily factual or historical. Hopkins states in the preface that he identifies his position as "my athiesm." And therein perhaps is what bothers me about the book. What would be the ultimate purpose of an athiest in writing a book about early Christianity,especially when he includes a great deal of information about anti-Christian grafitti from the times and some graphics that have no connection to his theme, but appear to be there just for the purient thrill?
Rating: 
Summary: A brew of fiction and fact?
Review: It always worries me when I pick up a book on the religious shelf at my local book store seemly billing itself as history of early Christianity. I worry first because, there are some books like the Blood and the Holy Grail that are patently opinion and theory, and books by authors whose intention is to demean and or mock Christianity. If I had read the back cover more carefully, the phrase "dazzling invention" would have given me a clear signal that this book could have easily been on the fiction shelves. So my bad! I'm glad at least I didn't pay hardcover price for this book. I wish I hadn't paid the softcover price, but we pay for our education. Interesting fiction...not necessarily factual or historical. Hopkins states in the preface that he identifies his position as "my athiesm." And therein perhaps is what bothers me about the book. What would be the ultimate purpose of an athiest in writing a book about early Christianity,especially when he includes a great deal of information about anti-Christian grafitti from the times and some graphics that have no connection to his theme, but appear to be there just for the purient thrill?
Rating:
Summary: Fails in Parts; Successful As a Whole
Review: Keith Hopkins has tried to achieve something different and unique as a historian in A World Full of Gods (The Strange Triumph of Christianity). Each chapter is written in a different style including one as a television play about an interview with a survivor of a Qumran sect living in Rome (his least successful chapter) and two chpaters told by time travelers to the ancient Roman Empire (moderately successful). Only one chapter is presented in the usual style of "objective" history and even that could be an argued point. He also includes throughout correspondence from colleagues in the field of ancient religious studies that are actually quite interestng and illuminating both for showing the complexity of religions in the Roman Empire as well as demonstrating the complexity of studying this ancient period in our own era. Many of the bits do not work especially well but, as a whole, the book is very effective in painting a portrait of an era and a land that was awash in religion of all sorts as well as for demonstrating that is was more amazing than inevitable that orthodox Christianity would triumph over its many rivals. This book is not a scholarly exercise but it should give the reader more of an interest in this fascinating period of history.
Rating:
Summary: Fails in Parts; Successful As a Whole
Review: Keith Hopkins has tried to achieve something different and unique as a historian in A World Full of Gods (The Strange Triumph of Christianity). Each chapter is written in a different style including one as a television play about an interview with a survivor of a Qumran sect living in Rome (his least successful chapter) and two chpaters told by time travelers to the ancient Roman Empire (moderately successful). Only one chapter is presented in the usual style of "objective" history and even that could be an argued point. He also includes throughout correspondence from colleagues in the field of ancient religious studies that are actually quite interestng and illuminating both for showing the complexity of religions in the Roman Empire as well as demonstrating the complexity of studying this ancient period in our own era. Many of the bits do not work especially well but, as a whole, the book is very effective in painting a portrait of an era and a land that was awash in religion of all sorts as well as for demonstrating that is was more amazing than inevitable that orthodox Christianity would triumph over its many rivals. This book is not a scholarly exercise but it should give the reader more of an interest in this fascinating period of history.
Rating:
Summary: An eccentric exercise in "popular" history
Review: Keith Hopkins is an internationally respected classicist who decided that he would do something different for his book on pagan religiousity the rise of Christianity. He would go out of his way to make his book more accessible to a popular audience and at the same time adapt some postmodern elements. So in his first chapter he introduces two time travellers who visit pre-Vesuvius Pompei who make them some properly footnoted comments on the culture and lifestyle of the region. Later they go to Egypt, look at the temples, the man seeks a love spell directed at the woman who isn't talking to him, then he is unfairly arrested and barely escapes before being tortured. At other points Hopkins has a TV interview of an aged Jewish sectarian, and later has an imaginary conversation between a Christian and his pagan colleagues. At the same time there are (fictional?) letters from other scholars which criticize Hopkins' prejudices. The result is certainly interesting. We certainly get a sense of the public, vigorous and somewhat misogynist sexuality of the Romans. The account of the ascetiscism of the Dead Sea Scrolls Sect is certainly interesting. Hopkins' discussion of Christianity emphasizes the potential alternatives to the central doctrines that became Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. He then goes into considerable details about the world-views of Manicheanism and Gnosticism, with its own elaborate geneologies and cosmologies. Hopkins also emphasizes the strong tendencies towards acesticism within Christianity. "It is ideal that we should feel no desire," says one Christian intellectual. Hopkins goes into considerable detail about the Acts of Thomas, with its miracles and its emphasis on newly converted Christian wives refusing their pagan husbands. The book also benefits from plates of thirty illustrations which are well chosen. One important fact that Hopkins properly reminds us is that the early Church did not emphasize the Gospels. ("It seems amazing now that the New Testament was not recognized as a single set of privileged Christian scriptures before the end of the second century.") Their major polemical tool was trying to find prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament. (The most famous of these is the classic mistranslation of Isaiah, in which the Hebrew, "A young woman shall conceive," was mangled into the Greek "A virgin shall conceive.") And so we get fascinating details about the topes of Christian martyrdom literture, about brother-sister marriages in Egypt, and pagan accusations of ritual murder against Christians. At the same time one might want something more. The book is well researched but the contrast with Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians is striking. There Lane Fox patiently sifted through the whole range of somewhat scarce evidence to give a picture of surprising Pagan vitality on the eve of Constantine's conversion. By contrast Hopkins account is somewhat sketchier. Hopkins gives the most recent figures on the growth of Christianity, with perhaps 0.3% of the population of the Empire around 200 and maybe 10% by 300. But the reasons for this growth are not given in much detail. Hopkins suggests that Christianity offered a sense of community and structure (especially in charity) that allowed it to grow until Constantine's patronage ensured its triumph. It is not clear, however, from Hopkins' account, why only Christianity possessed these traits that allowed it to grow and why the Roman elite would look upon it as a new state religion. One wonders whether the emphasis on Gnosticism and Manicheanism really represent their importance at the time, though given the lack of evidence it is not surprising that Hopkins cannot tell us more. All in all, this is an interesting, somewhat eccentric book, which could use more sociology.
Rating:
Summary: An eccentric exercise in "popular" history
Review: Keith Hopkins is an internationally respected classicist who decided that he would do something different for his book on pagan religiousity the rise of Christianity. He would go out of his way to make his book more accessible to a popular audience and at the same time adapt some postmodern elements. So in his first chapter he introduces two time travellers who visit pre-Vesuvius Pompei who make them some properly footnoted comments on the culture and lifestyle of the region. Later they go to Egypt, look at the temples, the man seeks a love spell directed at the woman who isn't talking to him, then he is unfairly arrested and barely escapes before being tortured. At other points Hopkins has a TV interview of an aged Jewish sectarian, and later has an imaginary conversation between a Christian and his pagan colleagues. At the same time there are (fictional?) letters from other scholars which criticize Hopkins' prejudices. The result is certainly interesting. We certainly get a sense of the public, vigorous and somewhat misogynist sexuality of the Romans. The account of the ascetiscism of the Dead Sea Scrolls Sect is certainly interesting. Hopkins' discussion of Christianity emphasizes the potential alternatives to the central doctrines that became Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. He then goes into considerable details about the world-views of Manicheanism and Gnosticism, with its own elaborate geneologies and cosmologies. Hopkins also emphasizes the strong tendencies towards acesticism within Christianity. "It is ideal that we should feel no desire," says one Christian intellectual. Hopkins goes into considerable detail about the Acts of Thomas, with its miracles and its emphasis on newly converted Christian wives refusing their pagan husbands. The book also benefits from plates of thirty illustrations which are well chosen. One important fact that Hopkins properly reminds us is that the early Church did not emphasize the Gospels. ("It seems amazing now that the New Testament was not recognized as a single set of privileged Christian scriptures before the end of the second century.") Their major polemical tool was trying to find prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament. (The most famous of these is the classic mistranslation of Isaiah, in which the Hebrew, "A young woman shall conceive," was mangled into the Greek "A virgin shall conceive.") And so we get fascinating details about the topes of Christian martyrdom literture, about brother-sister marriages in Egypt, and pagan accusations of ritual murder against Christians. At the same time one might want something more. The book is well researched but the contrast with Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians is striking. There Lane Fox patiently sifted through the whole range of somewhat scarce evidence to give a picture of surprising Pagan vitality on the eve of Constantine's conversion. By contrast Hopkins account is somewhat sketchier. Hopkins gives the most recent figures on the growth of Christianity, with perhaps 0.3% of the population of the Empire around 200 and maybe 10% by 300. But the reasons for this growth are not given in much detail. Hopkins suggests that Christianity offered a sense of community and structure (especially in charity) that allowed it to grow until Constantine's patronage ensured its triumph. It is not clear, however, from Hopkins' account, why only Christianity possessed these traits that allowed it to grow and why the Roman elite would look upon it as a new state religion. One wonders whether the emphasis on Gnosticism and Manicheanism really represent their importance at the time, though given the lack of evidence it is not surprising that Hopkins cannot tell us more. All in all, this is an interesting, somewhat eccentric book, which could use more sociology.
Rating: 
Summary: It was time
Review: Keith Hopkins' "writing history" is a worthy attempt to overcome the intimidating scholarly jargon that scares the majority of people and at the same time is an obstacle to the truth. Breaking new ground, it is a first step in the right direction. It attempts to uncover the brutality of believing in an historically unproven Christianity, with its gospel truth. Still Keith Hopkins is unable to give up the obsolete category of atheist Protestant. I thought that Atheism had been discredited by sophisticated scholars. Atheism doesn't exist because you cannot deny a construction of the mind: God. Every so -called believer is an atheist for another believer. A Catholic is an ateist for a Muslin and viceversa and so on with the others religions. One of the reasons that the United States is so great is because the founding fathers believed that God is a construction of man, the imagination is limitless. and nobody has the right to impose his imaginary construction on others, calling it the truth. In christian world the consequences of this imposition of one faith have been devastating and murderous. Anothor obsolete category that Keith Hopkins still clings to is the distiction between believers and nonbelivers. Many so- called believers hold on to farfetched stories and statements out of fear of giving up cherished childhood fantasies. Scholars ought to know better.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and interesting at times
Review: Multiple modes of presentation including time travelers, scripted show, description, letters critiquing sections of the book are sometimes interesting and entertaining. Clearly the author is well informed and feels free to present viable but unpopular views. Fundamentalists and literalists beware. Yet overall the book is a mixed bag and unsatisfying because the imbalance does not hold together to present a consistent perspective. Sometimes one may draw general conclusions at others instances may or may not be representative.
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