Bart D. Ehrman - The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

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ALSO BY BART D. EHRMAN

Jesus Before the Gospels

How Jesus Became God

The Other Gospels

The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction

Forgery and Counterforgery

Did Jesus Exist?

The Apocryphal Gospels

Forged

Jesus, Interrupted

Gods Problem

The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot

Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene

Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament

Misquoting Jesus

The Apostolic Fathers

Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code

A Brief Introduction to the New Testament

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

Christianity in Late Antiquity

Lost Christianities

Lost Scriptures

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture

The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen

Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels

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Copyright 2018 by Bart D. Ehrman

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2018

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Interior design by Lewelin Polanco

Jacket design by Alison Forner

Jacket image by Sedmak/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ehrman, Bart D., author.

Title: The triumph of Christianity / Bart D. Ehrman.

Description: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016056895 | ISBN 9781501136702 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, 337Influence. | Church historyPrimitive and early church, ca. 30600.

Classification: LCC BR180 .E47 2017 | DDC 270.1dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056895

ISBN 978-1-5011-3670-2

ISBN 978-1-5011-3672-6 (ebook)

I am deeply grateful to everyone who has helped me write this book. First and foremost is my brilliant and insightful wife, Sarah Beckwith, not only a partner for life but also an extraordinarily helpful reader, who has provided numerous pointers and perceptive observations. Four other scholars with deep expertise read the entire manuscript and made insightful comments: Elizabeth Clark, John Carlisle Kilgo Professor, emerita, Department of Religion, Duke University; Harold Drake, Professor of History, emeritus, University of California at Santa Barbara; Andrew Jacobs, Mary W. and J. Stanley Johnson Professor of Humanities, Scripps College; and James Rives, Kenan Eminent Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These are among the top scholars in the world in the fields I cover in the book. Their comments and suggestions have been invaluable to me, and they saved me from several serious faux pas. For those that remain, the fault, alas, lies with me.

I also chose to have several non-scholars read the book, and in doing so I have done something rather unusual. This will take a bit of explaining.

I started the Bart Ehrman Blog just over five years ago. The blog covers all the areas of my academic interest: the New Testament, the historical Jesus, the writings of Paul, the early Christian apocrypha, the Apostolic Fathers, the manuscript tradition of the early Christian writings, the history of Christianity during the first four centuries, and so on. I post about a thousand words a day on the blog, five to six times a week. The only hitch is that to read my posts, a person has to join the blog, and to join costs money (but not much).

I do the blog, and charge the money, in order to raise funds for those in need. Every penny goes to charitiestwo local to me, two internationalthat deal with poverty, hunger, and homelessness. The blog keeps growing, as do the moneys that we raise through it. Last year we raised $120,000. I hope to do even better this year. For those interested in joining, go to www.ehrmanblog.org.

As I have done previously, I decided to offer members of the blog a chance to read the book and make comments on it, prior to publication, in exchange for a donation of a set amount. Several members took me up on the offer. I provided them with the manuscript; they read it and made remarks; and I took their comments seriously in making my final revisions. I am deeply thankful to them all: Randy Corbet, Patty Floyd, Paul Jacobs, Jon Sedmak, Steve Sutter, Trevor Wiskus, and my two friends Gabriela Laranjeira and Bill Sutherland. I am grateful as well to blog member Jim Stevenson, for helping me think about the rates of Christian growth in the first four centuries, and especially James Bell, who provided extraordinary assistance in showing how such calculations of growth must work.

I have also had the benefit of assistance from several graduate students in the Program of Ancient Mediterranean Religions at UNC, all of them already experts in early Christian studies: Luke Drake, Andrew Hagstrom, and Shaily Patel. These are fine scholars and I am lucky to have them in my world. Special thanks go to my recently graduated PhD student Travis Proctor, now teaching at Northland College, who read the entire manuscript and made incisive comments.

This book would not have seen the light of published day if it were not for the guidance and vision of my literary agent Roger Freet, who helped me envision the project, develop it, and produce it. Roger excels at his work and enjoys a good martini and an occasional cigar. We are perfectly matched.

I also would like to thank Megan Hogan, assistant editor at Simon & Schuster, for numerous helpful comments on the manuscript. Most especially, I am grateful to my new editor, Priscilla Painton. Her passion for books and the intellectual life broadly, and for this project in particular, have been both gratifying and inspiring. Throughout the process she has given me the benefit of her keen insights, high standards, and remarkable editing talents, and I am deeply in her debt.