Zeer ambitieus van opzet: het traditionele historische verhaal wordt ruim aangevuld met "teletijdmachine"-stukken. Zeer ongelijkmatig van niveau; de experimentele stukken zijn een mislukking, de andere eerder saai en helemaal niet synthetisch. ( )

Interesting if strange narrative style book that introduces to the cultural context that early Christianity developed in and against. The Jewish sect that Jesus may have been a member and founder of was not the Christianity that emerged as the post Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed church! This book gives you some of the reasons for those changes ( )

Hopkins' apparent difficulty deciding whether to write a television script or a narrative history results in an uneven text that will put off some readers while it simply baffles others. Creating fictional characters to "report" narrative history is calculated to capture a popular audience accustomed to television news; but it blurs boundaries between the fiction of the characters and the narrative of the history, and audiences that watch television news are rarely moved to read the transcripts. Despite these shortcomings, the book contains a substantial amount of information regarding the pagan context within which Christianity emerged and Roman attitudes toward practitioners of the new faith. Juxtaposing the campaign against Manichaeanism associated with Zoroastrianism in Persia with similar campaigns associated with Christianity in Rome may introduce a new audience to critical reflection on the interrelationship of politics and religion, with particular attention to the establishment of Christianity (the "strange triumph" of Hopkins' title). Bibliography and notes will provide a starting point for readers who wish to pursue the sources on which Hopkins draws, and they may in turn draw readers into the lively conversation about Christian origins and the "historical" Jesus that Hopkins provocatively labels an "illusion."

Religion