St. James’ Sunday Study Group Lectures

The Diversity of Early Christianity

Lecture # 6
Oct 27, 2019 11:45 am. To 1:00 pm.

In the last lecture, we discussed the important role played by the apostle Paul in the explosive expansion of Christianity across the Roman Empire in the middle decades of the 1st. century. Because his letters occupy such an important part of the New Testament and because he is the great hero of the Book of Acts, it is tempting to elevate Paul’s historical importance to the level of his canonical (or literary) prominence. But it is an important function of historical study to correct simplistic and distorted views of the past. In this lecture, we will look at other manifestations of earliest Christianity witnessed by the New Testament.