For Pity's Sake

Steve Ruis

Nov 9

As I have stated in my previous posts I am slowly making my way through Bart Ehrman's "The Triumph of Christianity," the subtitle of which is "How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World."

My last post was entitled "Infuriating" and it is clear now that I should have been a bit more restrained. Maybe I could have started with "Frustrating" and then gone to "Irritating" before Infuriating, so I am left with nothing stronger for this post and it is on the same chapter as the last one.

Ehrman caps his chapters on "conversions with a section, entitled "Incentives for Conversion: In Sum" (page 158). I wish I could supply the whole section, it being just a little over one page in length, but I think that stretches the "fair use" principle a bit too far, so you are going to just get a few quotations, along with my commentary.

"They (Christians) spread their religion simply by word of mouth within their networks of personal relationships, with converts telling their families, friends, neighbors, and other associates of the "good news" they had come to believe."

Ehrman states this as a fact and I suggest that an honest historian would frame it a bit differently. Ehrman eliminated all of the other reasons for the conversions of pagans and so "It seems that word of mouth was the mechanism . . ." would be a better phrasing. Or maybe, "The rate of conversions must have been low as only word of mouth seems to have been in play . . ." Stating this as a fact is not supportable by the evidence and it condemns Christianity to a very, very slow growth rate. Think about it, the numbers of Christians at the begin was very small. Sure there were a lot of spectators in Jerusalem, according to the gospels and the Book of Acts, but to call them believers would be a stretch, more like curious onlookers. Then when Jesus is executed, even the accounts tell us his followers scattered like rats. So, at the beginning their numbers were tiny. Then consider "word of mouth" at that time. Advertisers today will tell you that word of mouth is precious advertising, but we have: telephones, televisions, telegraphs, all kinds of written works (magazines, books, etc.), and the Internet (blogs, text messaging, email, YouTube, influencers, etc.). None of this was available so it was mouth-to-ear, period. And outside of major cities like Jerusalem and Rome, etc. there just weren't that many people talking. So, word of mouth is not a major determinant of the spread of that religion.

"What made the difference were the amazing stories that verified the Christian message."

Again, this is stated as a fact when it is just a supposition based upon his conclusion that word of mouth was his vehicle of transmission. He says this because miracles, martyrs, proselytizers, etc. are not in common evidence.

How does he know that their stories "verified the Christian message"? This is completely hypothetical. And one could reasonable support such a supposition because Christianity began to grow, really, when the gospel accounts were "published." Those stories did seem to affect people.

"Few people could claim to have observed any of these spectacular miracles of faith. But that was not necessary. All that was needed was belief that such things had in fact happened, and possibly they would continue to happen."

So, it wasn't the Christian message per se but the stories that people told that caused people to convert? And why were these referred to as "spectacular miracles of faith." Most Romans, Ehrman tells us, consider Christians to be foolishly stubborn and deserved their punishments. Was it the story of Jesus casting demons into hundreds of pigs, which ran into the sea and drowned themselves, thereby bankrupting some poor pig rancher? Or Jesus curing some lepers? Did they trot out those cured lepers to provide personal testimony?

"We know this was a convincing message because it eventually took over the Roman Empire."

He begins the next chapter with "Nearly everyone agrees that approximately half the Roman Empire claimed allegiance to the Christian faith by about 400 CE." He then calls this astonishing and that ". . . no massive conversions would have been needed for the church to attain such high numbers."

Uh, hello? Gosh, maybe it was this: "In 380 CE, the emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which made Christianity, specifically Nicene Christianity, the official religion of the Roman Empire. Most other Christian sects were deemed heretical, lost their legal status, and had their properties confiscated by the Roman state." And "Theodosius followed this by the prohibition of all pagan sacrifices; and when he was established as sole Emperor . . . a series of edicts were issued in 391 AD and 392 AD abolishing all pagan cults and ceremonies - including, for instance, the Olympic Games."

By the year 400 CE if a person of the Roman Empire (not all were citizens) were to be asked what their religion was, what did you think they would say? Would they claim the "official Roman state religion" as theirs or one of the outlawed pagan cults?

Ehrman keeps banging his drum that it was the messages of Christianity, the theology, etc. that attracted people when by all accounts it was politics, pure and simple.