Summary of Rodney Stark's Cities of God

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The history of the early church is often told through the accounts of various books that were written about it. But many historians today don’t believe in evidence, and instead argue that since absolute truth must always elude the historian’s grasp, evidence is inevitably nothing but a biased selection of suspect facts.

#2 The world’s first missionaries were Jews, and the world’s first converts became Jews. Jewish missionary activities decayed once Christianity became safely ensconced as the Roman state church.

#3 The history of Judaism is clear: it was the first great missionary religion. Jews sought converts, and they were quite successful in doing so. The best estimate is that by the first century, Jews made up 10 to 15 percent of the population of the Roman Empire, nearly 90 percent of them living outside Palestine.

#4 The Romans and the Greeks were both God-fearers, meaning they were Jewish monotheists who remained marginal to Jewish life because they were unwilling to fully embrace Jewish ethnicity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822520011

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Insights on Rodney Stark's Cities of God

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The history of the early church is often told through the accounts of various books that were written about it. But many historians today don’t believe in evidence, and instead argue that since absolute truth must always elude the historian’s grasp, evidence is inevitably nothing but a biased selection of suspect facts.

#2

The world’s first missionaries were Jews, and the world’s first converts became Jews. Jewish missionary activities decayed once Christianity became safely ensconced as the Roman state church.

#3

The history of Judaism is clear: it was the first great missionary religion. Jews sought converts, and they were quite successful in doing so. The best estimate is that by the first century, Jews made up 10 to 15 percent of the population of the Roman Empire, nearly 90 percent of them living outside Palestine.

#4

The Romans and the Greeks were both God-fearers, meaning they were Jewish monotheists who remained marginal to Jewish life because they were unwilling to fully embrace Jewish ethnicity.

#5

The success of Christianity as a religion can be explained by asking: How did they convert so many people so quickly. It was a miracle, but not a complete one. It was a miracle that was at odds with Christ’s directive that all Christians should convert the world, and a miracle that was inconsistent with the doctrine of free will.

#6

The method of correlating doctrinal appeals with a target population continued to be used because no one had ever ventured out of the library to watch people undergo conversions. When researchers did, they found that doctrines are of very little importance in the initial decision to