Robert McL. Wilson

The Emergence of the Christian Religion

History & Biography

“Birger Pearson's latest book is not a history of Christian origins, but provides, as he says, 'windows' into the historical process by which the Christian religion developed from being a minority group within Judaism to become in the fourth century the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. A couple of New Testament hapax legomena in 2 Peter suggest reminiscence of classical myth, another chapter deals with gnostic reinterpretation of the Old Testament, a third with philanthropy in the Greco-Roman world and in early Christianity, and there is more . . . The twelve-page index of ancient sources and the literature cited in the footnotes bear witness to Pearson's mastery of his subject.”