The Faith and the Power: The Inspiring Story of the First Christians & How They Survived the Madness of Rome: A First Century History

by James D. Snyder

Book Overview

When Jesus left this world he left behind a faith and power that sustained his followers in a treacherous, turbulent world. This stirring account of the first forty years after the crucifixion digs... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967520029
• ISBN13: 9780967520025
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Pharos Books
• Length: 415 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Snyder hits a home run!

What a long overdue book! I wish I had access to all this information in one place 40 years ago when I was studying theology. Mr Snyder has succeeded in placing, in parallel, both the great sweep of Roman and Judaean military and political history and also the rise of the struggling Early Church. Christian or not, the reader will be enriched and enlightened by Snyder's careful placing of major events with the people who lived in their shadow. The heroes of the Early Church, Peter, James, John, John Mark, Paul become intensely human in their following of the Way; so also do the rulers.....Herod, Tiberius, Nero, Caligula,Claudius, etc. Snyder's account of the fall of Jerusalem is full of suspense, even though we know the outcome. And Paul's journey to Rome is written so that we more fully understand how it came about and how Paul may have endured his trial. We experience the shipwreck, imagine the sights and wonders of Imperial Rome, smell the fetid and noxious aromas of a city of one million people, and imagine the daily life of Christians living in the belly of the beast. Read this book! It will answer questions and provide insights you never even knew were available from the original sources.

Masterful Narrative

Considered solely as history or literature, the story of Christianity has an odd form to it. It's shaped something like an anaconda that ate a calf a few weeks ago. There's several thousand years of Jewish pre-history, then the brief span of Christ's birth, mission, crucifixion, and resurrection, then a couple thousand years of epilogue. After all, what--before or after--can compare with the story of the Savior? But if we take the longer view we begin to see just how remarkable the rest of the story is. Consider that at the time of the Crucifixion Christ was denied by even his own followers, a sect within an oppressed minority religion in a discrete portion of the mighty Roman Empire. Yet, from these rather inauspicious beginnings grew a religion of near 2 billion people, or one in three people in the world. For the believer this may have an air of inevitability--after all, how surprised can we be that the Word prevailed? However, even we must marvel that it spread so far, so fast. Here, surely, is a story worth telling. Well, James D. Snyder details the years from A.D. 30-71 in a masterful narrative that follows the post-Christ missions of the Apostles against the backdrop (though it's often in the foreground) of a hostile Rome and equally hostile Judea, which were meanwhile in conflict one with the other. He weaves the three strands--Roman, Jewish, Christian--into one compelling tale that sweeps the reader through a pivotal, but easily overlooked, period in history. If the madness of Rome makes for disturbing but fascinating reading and the heroic struggle of the Jews proves ultimately futile, the successive martyrdoms of the Apostles pack an emotional punch. the climax, though not quite the end, of the book comes when Peter tries to escape from his captors in Rome but meets Christ on the road and asks: Domine, quo vadis? ("Lord, where are you going?): Jesus replied: "I am going to be crucified once again." Then Peter repeated himself: "Lord, you will be crucified again? And Christ replied: "Yes, I will be crucified again." "Then, Lord," answered Peter, "I am returning to follow you." No sooner had Peter turned around than Jesus vanished. After weeping and collecting his thoughts, Peter understood that the words were meant for his own martyrdom, that the Lord would suffer with him as he would all who lived and died in his name. And so, Peter, bursting with new strength, returned to the prison glorifying God and singing praises to the risen Christ. [...] It is said that Peter asked only one thing of his executioners: "I beg you crucify me in this way--head down--and no other way." And he explained that he was not worthy to be executed as had his lord and master. That's strong stuff and goes some way to explaining the survival and triumph of the Gospel. We got no small number of self-published books through here and titles from smaller publishers. For the most part, even when they're worth reading you can see why

The Way It Was

The reader is given a chronological time table of events (somthing I appreciated) that puts the world of the early Christians in perspective as they deal with the turbulent politics of the first century. I came away from this very readable account with a more personal understanding of, and a deeper appreciation of the men and women who survived and kept the faith. It will have a permanent place in my bookshelf.

Piercing the Veil of Early Christianity

At Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA, I vividly recall being taught that to more fully understand the meaning of Scripture, one would also need to investigate the "sitz-en-laben," the German phrase for "the setting or situation in life." For example, to fully understand the words of Jesus on paying taxes to the existing authorities, it was essential that one understand the background which brought about both the Jewish and Roman - often inflexible - positions on the matter. The Faith and the Power, as it chronologically traces the three-fold perspective of Christian, Jewish and Roman histories, enables the reader to have a far clearer understanding of the intertwining of the who, what, when, where and how of these turbulent forty years of history than any source known to me.However, the book is also easy to read. Its use of taking all events in a chronological style of reporting assists the reader in maintaining a mental awareness of the sequence of events. By combining the three histories, the book offers new and enlightening information for anyone except, perhaps, for those scholars who have immersed themselves in this period of history.

"Through a glass darkly...."

As a non-scholar with a keen interest in the evolution of the Christian religion, I found this to be an exceptionally informative as well as well-written study of the earliest Christians in the years immediately following the crucifixion of Jesus. Of course, most of what most of us know about those years has been learned from reading the New Testament or perhaps from films which claim to be "faithful" to that era. Snyder carefully examines the works of Christian writers, of course, but also those of Jewish and Roman writers as well. He attempts to answer questions such as these:1. Why were the post-crucifixion years (the so-called "Apostolic Age") perhaps "the most turbulent and terrifying period in all history"?2. Nonetheless, why does it remain "such a murky period to even the most avid of history readers"?3. According to the most reliable historical material available, who wrote what? For example, "the 21 epostles of the new Testament are arranged in scant regard to chronology, and scholars still debate when many of them were written."4. By which strategies and tactics did the so many of the early Christians survive amidst the "madness" of Roman rule throughout its empire and especially in Judea? Also, to what extent were the early Christians also subject to persecution by those who previously felt so threatened by a carpenter from Nazareth?5. Which assumptions about the century following the crucifixion are now in doubt, if not invalidated by subsequent scholarship?These and countless other questions are addressed throughout Snyder's well-written and insightful narrative. Not all of them are answered and perhaps some of those can never be. To suggest that in no way diminishes the nature and extent of what Snyder achieves in this volume. Rather, my purpose is to acknowledge the challenges he faced and thereby to indicate the substantial value of what he has accomplished.