sands of time, grains of truth - looking for resources on history of christianity

[Julian the apostate]

Alright i'm starting a new project or atleast accumulating the research for it.

I'm considering looking at the change in Christianities moral and ethical beliefs throughout the last 2 thousand years
ex. homosexuality was initially very acceptable to the church but as Romano-hellenic culture faded things changed

So...
any resources that you think would help please recomend
and the biographies of
Aquinas
any of the apologists
Julian the apostate
Constantine
The apostle Paul

also any websites or books that would have first hand sources
any other biogaphies or books that may be useful

Thank you all

[Decker]

The Bible..New Testament

[Fisherking]

Well that should keep you busy for the next few hundred years…if it is only the changes made.

Actually getting a clear picture of what Jesus said vs. what the Church said he said would be enough for a life's work.

Good Luck!

[Julian the apostate]

oh i know it is just i wanna find out what i can because its intresting as most history is. i'm just saying if you have anything along these lines that you would suggest please do

[Lorenzo_H]

Look for a book called "The history of Christianity" by Paul Johnson. It's guaranteed to be brilliant.

[nokhor]

a book that i found to have excellent information is "The Early Church" by Henry Chadwick ISBN 0-14-020502-0. It has some details on the elements that led from Judaism to Jewish Christianity and the elements coming from the hellenistic world at large that shaped 'Gentile'Christianity and the interactions between the two. As well as the forces that shaped the various early Christian movements, i.e Gnosticism, Asceticism, etc.

[Marquis of Roland]

Read anything you can find dated before the Council of Nicaea, gnostic texts, dead sea scrolls, etc. The Church of Ethiopa I think is the oldest and most original form of Christianity that still exists.

The Romans cannot be trusted!

[IrishArmenian]

Read up on anything from the Gospel of Timothy. Timothy was Jesus' "brother". Timothy was obviously human, which is why I use the quotes. It tells of a much more feasible birth of Christ which has him being born in a cave. That explains Herod's not finding him.
Also, I believe the Ethiopian Church is one of the oldest, however, as far as national churches go, read up on St. Grikor (Gregory the Illuminator). He founded the oldest nation-wide church.

[Boulis]

About two semesters ago, I taught a History of Christianity course. I was thinking of assigning the Johnson book that one poster mentioned above because I am a big fan of his book, [I]Intellectuals.[I] But someone recommended Justo L. Gonzalez's two-volume series, [I]The Story of Christianity[I] and it was superb.

So I would say go with that for great comprehensive coverage. In my opinion, it only has two (slight) weaknesses: it is marginally biased toward Protestant interpretations of early Church history and it is sometimes a bit too "devout" for a history book. Still, it is excellent.

[Pindar]

ex. homosexuality was initially very acceptable to the church but as Romano-hellenic culture faded things changed

What do you base this claim on?

[ShadeHonestus]

What do you base this claim on?

My question as well...

[Julian the apostate]

albiet i'd say maybe tolerated would be a better word but like a lot of parts of the culture of the Roman empire it was accepted to some extent. Some people say that st. paul was homosexual. At the very least it was far more common for openly gay men to reach high positions within the clerical and secular world because of how it to some extent permeated the roman culture. Rome even in the days of the early papacy had some reputation for debauchary. This was based largely on a few things i've read on Paul. this sounds stupid but can't remember the articles and a few books i've read on european history. If i'm wrong i'd love to hear that on any point. Thank you

[The Spartan (Returns)]

i reccomend looking at biography book on St. Augustine.

[Lorenzo_H]

albiet i'd say maybe tolerated would be a better word but like a lot of parts of the culture of the Roman empire it was accepted to some extent. Some people say that st. paul was homosexual. At the very least it was far more common for openly gay men to reach high positions within the clerical and secular world because of how it to some extent permeated the roman culture. Rome even in the days of the early papacy had some reputation for debauchary. This was based largely on a few things i've read on Paul. this sounds stupid but can't remember the articles and a few books i've read on european history. If i'm wrong i'd love to hear that on any point. Thank you

What about the passage of the Bible which clearly says "Men shall not have sexual relations with other men." Paul himself taught against this sin in one of the Churches he wrote a letter to.

[Icefrisco]

for the whole topic in general, we really dont know anything about the first 100 years of christianity. the earliest records come from around 80-120 c.e. how can there be a debate on the changes of a religion if we dont know the first 100 years of it. frankly, all we know of jesus is that his name was on a roman scripture of crucifixations. even at that we dont know if its jesus of nazareth. there were other people naems jesus and at that the romans were more then happy to crucify people.

[Tribesman]

This site might interest you Julian
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ also if you select a text the page will have links relative to the book concerned , studies of them and events around them .

[Pindar]

albiet i'd say maybe tolerated would be a better word but like a lot of parts of the culture of the Roman empire it was accepted to some extent. Some people say that st. paul was homosexual. At the very least it was far more common for openly gay men to reach high positions within the clerical and secular world because of how it to some extent permeated the roman culture. Rome even in the days of the early papacy had some reputation for debauchary. This was based largely on a few things i've read on Paul. this sounds stupid but can't remember the articles and a few books i've read on european history. If i'm wrong i'd love to hear that on any point. Thank you

Hello,

There seems to be a few issues here. In your initial statement I asked about your saying: "... homosexuality was initially very acceptable to the church" were you putting forward a doctrinal or ecclesiastical position? If either was your intent, then you would need to cite the proper reference. If your claim is that there were gay Christians who were tolerated (as in your second post): 'tolerated' and 'very acceptable' are quite different in meaning: tolerate indicates opposition to a thing that is nonetheless allowed from some other reason. So, if we go with Late Antiquity gay Christians were tolerated in their gayness, again specific examples would be needed. If the examples of toleration are not specially due to some stance within Christian notions themselves, then claiming this was a religious based toleration seems problematic.

Note: The references to Paul are problematic given there are examples of him condemning homosexuality in his Epistles.

[Suraknar]

I found this Document a very nice read about Christianity.

http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/About.htm

It is somehow outdated in its form towards some terminology, (Grecian instead of Hellenistic) but it contains very intresting Information.

Maybe of help.

[Suraknar]

Some more direct articles on the question, with good references of Authors thruout History:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/

Also Surprisingly Wikipedia has a quite some articles on the subject, starting with this one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History..._homosexuality

On another note, I would be curious asweel to know what Pindar has asked, reference and examples, because as far as I know Christianity eliminated any acceptance towards Greek-Roman practices of Same Sex Relations, categorising them as "Pagan".

In any case, hope this helps in your research.