A World Full of Gods: The Strange Triumph of Christianity

Rating:
Summary: Hopkins hits the nail of christian origins on the head
Review: Some have criticized Hopkins' book for not being scholarly. If they mean by this that it does not bore the reader with yet another positivist history of early christianity, they are right. However, critics cannot fault the author for his research. The footnotes present factual evidence in the scholarly tradition to back up Hopkins' interpretation. This book is way overdue. It meticulously and creatively lays out the context of the christian origins. The lay reader will come away with an existential hermeneutic of history based on informed knowledge of the context of christian origins. This is the most important contribution of Hopkins' book. The author traces the role of episcopal christianity in establishing the 1)canon of scripture (necessitated by Marcion and then gnostic christians), 2)the chain of bishops(replacing reliance on Jewish scriptures for legitimacy), and 3) the rule of faith. This sequence was critical in creating the identity of that form of christianity that became a historical force to be reckoned with. The bishops forged a historical reality from the myth of Christ, thus institutionalizing the church under their control. The modern secular world has compartmentalized religion to time and place. The ancient world was not secular. Religious symbolism was literally "in your face" for the ancients. Hopkins does the interested modern a service by opening the door to the complex and syncretistic cultural world of the Roman Empire. In short this book provides a useful tool for appreciating, not merely gaining information, about the world, challenges, and contributions of christianity.

Rating:
Summary: Unusual Take on History
Review: The author, an esteemed university professor of history, takes an unorthodox approach with this book on the Late Antique/Early Christian period. The book reads almost like a novel, in that Hopkins sets up actual scenarios of people traveling back in time to witness for themselves what Rome was really like (they visit Pompeii in 76 A.D. - in enough time to escape Vesuvius). Other travelers visit other areas of the Roman Empire later in the first century and on into the fourth (i.e., Syria and Egypt). While the premise smacks of the new Michael Crichton novel envolving time travel, Hopkins does thoroughly footnote, and his bibliography indicates extensive study of the major scholars in the field. While this new approach may be problematic to some, it is fresh and opens up new ideas for further study. For instance, Hopkins recreates a Roman bath house, with obvious attention payed to the aftifacts that have been discovered and written accounts of life in Rome that have survived to the present day. There are some problems: passing by houses in Pompeii that display mosaics of dogs that say, in Latin, beware of the dog, Hopkins proposes that the dog, in reality, would be chained there as well. There is literally no way to know this for sure. While problematic in certain details, Hopkins should be commended for producing a vivid account of the period, a time in history that is already receiving a reassessment from scholars in many areas of research.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting approach to history
Review: The borders between history and fiction blur in Mr. Hopkins book, yielding an interesting read, but a lurking impression that maybe this isn't really history. It left me with rather the same feeling I have after reading a well-researched historical novel -- just how much artistic license has the author taken. Without having a broad base of knowledge, one must trust that Mr. Hopkins knows his subject and has only taken license in presentation is he believes that his fictional creations do not materially alter the facts. Although I don't expect his method will soon change the way history is written, I did enjoy his genre-bending; his approach kept my interest to the end and I did pick up some interesting information about religious trends that competed with Christianity in its formative years.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting approach to history
Review: The borders between history and fiction blur in Mr. Hopkins book, yielding an interesting read, but a lurking impression that maybe this isn't really history. It left me with rather the same feeling I have after reading a well-researched historical novel -- just how much artistic license has the author taken. Without having a broad base of knowledge, one must trust that Mr. Hopkins knows his subject and has only taken license in presentation is he believes that his fictional creations do not materially alter the facts. Although I don't expect his method will soon change the way history is written, I did enjoy his genre-bending; his approach kept my interest to the end and I did pick up some interesting information about religious trends that competed with Christianity in its formative years.

Rating:
Summary: Who needs another ponderous treaty?
Review: The stories of Keith Hopkins are a refreshing way to bring to the reader the feeling of the times.This book,however,is better read after Pagans and Christians of Robin Lane Fox.Then you can savour better the athmosphere,and appreciate the zany tidbits about curious beliefs regarding Our Saviour.He would really be amused by this book.

Rating:
Summary: Who needs another ponderous treaty?
Review: The stories of Keith Hopkins are a refreshing way to bring to the reader the feeling of the times.This book,however,is better read after Pagans and Christians of Robin Lane Fox.Then you can savour better the athmosphere,and appreciate the zany tidbits about curious beliefs regarding Our Saviour.He would really be amused by this book.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: This book is a collection of essays with early Christianity as a (tenuous) link between them. I liked KH accounts of Mani, the originator of Manicheaism, his many examples of early tensions between the Christians and the Jews and, especially, his accounts of the "feverish imagination of the Gnostics". The core belief of Gnostics is that inside every human there is a spark of divinity, put there from a supreme Divinity which is lodged in the high heavens of outer space. The divinity within each human can be awakened only through a process of contemplation and self-knowledge. It can also be accomplished with the assistance of a divine mediator, such as JC. Although a human instructor can sometimes help, more often than not interference by the "human" dogma can, according to the gnostics, be counterproductive. The gnostic approach to the "teachings of JC" is thus very different from the "catholic" doctrine, which has invested a lot of effort into suppressing individual quest for inner truth in order to establish a universal belief system (for some reason, the efforts by Augustine, Iraeneus, et al. to push a one to-be-accepted-by-all dogma reminded me of the birth of Communism). Hopkins' book is basically a deconstruction of that dogma. The basic idea is that contemporary Christianity is a theological mishmash selected to support the ideological and political interests of bishops during the early AD and today seems rather uncontroversial. The last chapter does a pretty good Job in textual analysis of the 4 canonical gospels and their contextualization into the writer's theological and ideological interests. Personally, I found the accounts of life in the Ptolemaic Egypt and imperial Pompeii a bit slow, although Hopkins does his best to titillate the reader with tidbits of info on Egyptian sex magic ritual practices, Roman sex life and asceticism, which is the religious eroticism of the true Christian ("Laughter", wrote Clement of Alexandria disapprovingly, "is the prelude to fornication"). In short, this is not an integrated work of scholarship designed to press a theological or historic point. The idea is to entertain and to teach through the many delicious and well-selected morsels. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: This book is a collection of essays with early Christianity as a (tenuous) link between them. I liked KH accounts of Mani, the originator of Manicheaism, his many examples of early tensions between the Christians and the Jews and, especially, his accounts of the "feverish imagination of the Gnostics". The core belief of Gnostics is that inside every human there is a spark of divinity, put there from a supreme Divinity which is lodged in the high heavens of outer space. The divinity within each human can be awakened only through a process of contemplation and self-knowledge. It can also be accomplished with the assistance of a divine mediator, such as JC. Although a human instructor can sometimes help, more often than not interference by the "human" dogma can, according to the gnostics, be counterproductive. The gnostic approach to the "teachings of JC" is thus very different from the "catholic" doctrine, which has invested a lot of effort into suppressing individual quest for inner truth in order to establish a universal belief system (for some reason, the efforts by Augustine, Iraeneus, et al. to push a one to-be-accepted-by-all dogma reminded me of the birth of Communism). Hopkins' book is basically a deconstruction of that dogma. The basic idea is that contemporary Christianity is a theological mishmash selected to support the ideological and political interests of bishops during the early AD and today seems rather uncontroversial. The last chapter does a pretty good Job in textual analysis of the 4 canonical gospels and their contextualization into the writer's theological and ideological interests. Personally, I found the accounts of life in the Ptolemaic Egypt and imperial Pompeii a bit slow, although Hopkins does his best to titillate the reader with tidbits of info on Egyptian sex magic ritual practices, Roman sex life and asceticism, which is the religious eroticism of the true Christian ("Laughter", wrote Clement of Alexandria disapprovingly, "is the prelude to fornication"). In short, this is not an integrated work of scholarship designed to press a theological or historic point. The idea is to entertain and to teach through the many delicious and well-selected morsels. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful.
Review: This book is fantastic. Using historical information the author recreates the ancient world. Five pages into the visit to Pompeii, I was completely hooked. This is a book that everyone should read.