Jesus and After: The First Eighty Years

This book is an overview of the history of Early Christianity. Each chapter is based on one selection from Jewish texts or from those produced by the Jesus sect of Judaism. It gives a sense of how things happened, from the words of certain ancient prophets, to Jesus' effort to bring about those prophecies, to the efforts of his followers to reshape their expectations after his death. It follows the movement as it came to regard Jesus himself as divine, a process which eventually led to the separation of the sect from the parent religion. It ends with a glimpse of a surviving early Christian church on the shores of the Black Sea, and how it appeared to the Roman administrator who was in charge of executing those who, like the Early Christians, refused Emperor worship. From the evidence of two deaconesses whom he tortured, which Pliny reported to Emperor Trajan, we too learn what were the regular practices of that church.