[LMB] OT: "In the First Thousand Years of the Church"

[James Burbidge]

On 30/03/2008, Kirsten Edwards <carbonelle at juno.com> wrote:
> Mr. Burbridge recommends:
>  "..E.P. Sanders as a more balanced author on many of these topics..." and "...more on Church history, probably Peter Brown and Jaroslav
>  Pelikan (doctrinal history proper for the latter)...."
>
>  How would you rate Paul Johnson's two books on the subject? THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS and HISTORY OF CHRISTIANY for the (extremely) lay historian?

Older, less detailed, and more of a representation of the consensus at
the time  (which has changed on a number of things, and broken down on
others.  My copy of the Johnson _History of Christianity_ is 1976, and
a good deal has happened since then, especially in late Classical and
early mediaeval studies.

There's also a general approach question: even though it's older, I'd
probably recommend Noth's _History of Israel_ over the Johnson book
covering the same period because it grapples with matters of detail
which the other skims across.

James