Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 09/23/2005

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9043 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2004-08-24
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 240 minutes

Customer Reviews

Something new with every view
History is constantly changing as new information is brought to light and our environment allows us to see things differently. This series attempts to help us with the next step in understanding the forces evolved in creating the first Christians.
I was very surprised to find so much new information presented in this series. My original intent was to see what Elaine Pagels [author of "The Gnostic Paul" ISBN 1563380390] looks and sounds like. I found a lot more treasure.

Going beyond the institutionalized church of today we find some of the many elements that struggled to create the understanding we have today. I was not totally aware that the different time periods of the gospels and location was so significant. The second revolt of the Jews also known about was not emphasized as well as in this series. The real positive impact of the series is that it sets a foundation for further investigation.
There are several drawbacks in the series, all to do with presentation. First it is a series of sound bites. Some nice scenery and inspirational music surrounds little 15 second question and answer interviews. The people that they interview contradict each other; this would be o.k. if they weren't mixed up together. One person says that there was no middle class just "Have's and have not's." Then a second person comes in and says that the meeting was attended by all the middle class and not represented by the upper class or the lower class farmers. The nature of what the people are thinking at the time is subject to the interpretation of the speaker with no supporting evidence (of course this may be due to the short time on the review.)
In any event this will need repeated reviewing. Hopefully there will be an updated version with later findings.

A fascinating story
As a student of world religions, I found this four-part series, which I originally watched on television, to be packed full of great information from a wide variety of disciplines. It traces the evolution of Christianity from its days as just another Jewish denomination to its final break into an entirely new faith, along with the evolution of the historical Jesus (admittedly a rather obscure figure, given that apart from Josephus, he isn't mentioned in any extrabiblical sources) into a figure of much greater importance (hence the title of the series). A lot of programs about early Christianity tend to repeat the same old story over and over, but this series goes beyond what we already know to fill in all of the gaps. After all, a lot of times what isn't said in the Bible is more telling than what actually is said. Biblical literalists and those who believe the Bible to be absolutely inerrant probably won't be happy with some of these new reinterpretations, but what good is your faith if it can't stand up to some challenges? One must have a pretty weak faith if it falls apart or feels threatened by new historical information, or modern-day schools of thought that don't adhere to an absolute black and white view of the Bible. Isn't it better to become stronger in your faith by constantly re-examining and scrutinising what you believe in and forming your own independent beliefs?

The series explores such topics as the journal of Perpetua, an early martyr, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the amazing books found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 (it's criminal and heartbreaking how the mother of the boy who found them threw a couple of them into her kindling fire!), the differences between the four Gospels and how they each reflect their respective eras and locations (Mark starts out in a very Jewish vein and ends on a depressing note, while John is very anti-Jewish and paints the Jesus movement as much stronger and in control at the end), Constantine's conversion, Masada and Shimon Bar Kochba, the destruction of the Second Temple, how Christianity developed in the various places it travelled to in the region, and Jesus's true social class. All in all, the history of Christianity's first few centuries is a fascinating and multi-faceted story. It's a guarantee that everyone can learn something new by watching this.

Some good points of view, some not.
This DVD presents mostly the points of views of several bible scholars. Most of the observations about how Christianity initially developed are acceptable, and some are very good; but most of the final commentaries are way off target.
First, Constantine the Great did tell the Christian soldiers that, in a vision, he had been instructed to place a cipher of Christ (not exactly a cross, as they indicate in the DVD) on the shields of his soldiers, in order to win a crucial battle against Maxentius and to become the sole Roman emperor. But all these scholars appear to ignore that, at the same time, he had told the pagan soldiers that, in a visit to a sanctuary of Apollo in France, he also had a vision in which this pagan god had promised victory and long life to him; thus, it is evident that he was more of a shrewd politician than a true convert.
Second, at the end of the DVD, the narrator says that, with the adoption of Christianity by Rome, some saw the fulfillment of the prophesy that "the kingdom of the world would become the kingdom of God," or vice versa, and that now Jesus of Nazareth had become Jesus the Christ. Well, on one hand Saint Paul had started teaching extensively and in different terms about Christ more than two centuries before; and, on the other hand, Constantine stands for one of the most, if not the most corruptive person in the history of the Church, for now it was the Roman state who pulled many of the strings in the government of the Church, and, in general, authority in the Church became a matter not only of brotherly service, as Jesus taught, but of power and political influence.