The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia--and How It Died

by John Philip Jenkins

Overview

The Untold Story of the Church's First Thousand Years

In this groundbreaking book, renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins offers a lost history, revealing that for centuries Christianity's center existed to the east of the Roman Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061472817
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/03/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	315
Sales rank:	114,427
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Reader of over four hundred audiobooks, Dick Hill has won three coveted Audie Awards and been nominated numerous times. He is also the recipient of several AudioFile Earphones Awards. AudioFile includes Dick on their prestigious list of Golden Voices.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

A Note on Names and -isms ix

1 The End of Global Christianity 1

2 Churches of the East 45

3 Another World 71

4 The Great Tribulation 97

5 The Last Christians 139

6 Ghosts of a Faith 173

7 How Faiths Die 207

8 The Mystery of Survival 227

9 Endings and Beginnings 247

Notes 263

Acknowledgments 299

Index 301

What People are Saying About This

Lamin Sanneh

“Philip Jenkins’ book is a tour de force in historical retrieval and reconstruction, a work of scholarly restoration that strikes an overdue balance in the story of Christianity. It is studded with insight, with the story presented in a lively and lucid style.”

Rodney Stark

“Philip Jenkins always writes well on very interesting topics. This time his topic is more than interesting-it is essential reading for anyone with any interest in the history of Christianity.”

Diarmaid MacCulloch

“...an exceptionally fine study of a great swathe of Christian history, hugely important in the Christian story but very little known. This thoughtful, elegant and learned survey will remedy the neglect of a subject which students of religion absolutely need to know about.”

Harvey Cox

“In this highly readable and sobering exploration of how religions - including our own - grow, falter and sometimes die, Jenkins adds a unique dimension to present day religious studies in a voice and style that non-specialists can also appreciate.”

Editorial Reviews

Philip Jenkins’ book is a tour de force in historical retrieval and reconstruction, a work of scholarly restoration that strikes an overdue balance in the story of Christianity. It is studded with insight, with the story presented in a lively and lucid style.

Lamin Sanneh

Philip Jenkins always writes well on very interesting topics. This time his topic is more than interesting-it is essential reading for anyone with any interest in the history of Christianity.

Rodney Stark

...an exceptionally fine study of a great swathe of Christian history, hugely important in the Christian story but very little known. This thoughtful, elegant and learned survey will remedy the neglect of a subject which students of religion absolutely need to know about.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

In this highly readable and sobering exploration of how religions - including our own - grow, falter and sometimes die, Jenkins adds a unique dimension to present day religious studies in a voice and style that non-specialists can also appreciate.

Harvey Cox

Using his skill to discredit murky thinking and propose new understandings where the old no longer serve a good purpose, Jenkins offers yet another jewel in what is becoming a crown of paradigm-shattering studies. [This book] will amply reward your investment of time and attention.

America

[Jenkins’] depiction of the long Christian history of Asia, Mesopotamia, and the greater Middle East is both a much-needed education and a spiritually fruitful provocation.

Books & Culture

The Lost History of Christianity is a fascinating study of the first thousand-plus years of the Church--a Church rooted in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. We have much to learn from the tale of its reach, its particular way of being Christian, and its eventual decomposition

Beliefnet.com (One of the Best Religious Books of 2008)

In leaner, clearer prose than ever before, Jenkins outlines and analyzes this history, which few present-day Christians have even heard of. This may be the most eye-opening history book of the year.

Booklist

Philip Jenkins’s marvelous new book...tells the largely forgotten story of Nisibis, and thousands of sites like it, which stretch from Morocco to Kenya to India to China, and which were, deep into the second millennium, the heart of the church.

The Weekly Standard

Jenkins’s well-crafted new volume...is not only a welcome addition to the literature on Christianity as a truly global religion, to which he has already made substantial contributions, but also an invitation to retrieve a forgotten chapter of history that has not inconsiderable relevance to current events.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly

Jenkins is one of America’s top religious scholars.

Forbes

The Lost History of Christianity is a fascinating study of the first thousand-plus years of the Church—a Church rooted in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. We have much to learn from the tale of its reach, its particular way of being Christian, and its eventual decomposition

Beliefnet Editors