The Faith and the Power is a factual, riveting history that enables the reader to dig into the bedrock of early Christianity – before the existence of popes, crusades and cathedrals -- to the struggling apostle’s world of Olympic gods, rigid aristocracy and tormented masses. The result is a griping, inspiring tale of courage and compassion in a world of despotism and depravity.
The strength of The Faith and the Power is its ability to clarify a forty-year period that was as confusing as it was critical to building the traditions that endure today in churches of all denominations. Author-journalist Snyder aids the reader by:
- Telling the story of earliest Christianity in chronological order - something the books of the New Testament don't do.
• Including 41 pages of endnotes, original maps, and illustrations of people and places of the mid-first century. • Organizing chapters into the most detailed chronology of the period ever compiled.
• Casting new light on the close interaction between Roman, Christian and Jewish societies and showing how profoundly each one influenced the fate of the other. Thus, one learns, for example, how the debaucheries of emperors Caligula and Nero depleted the Roman treasury, why this caused a “raid” on the Jewish temple treasury, and why desperate Jewish authorities felt compelled to crack down on the newly-emerging “sect” called Christians. And as readers come to understand why the Jews rebelled against Roman oppression, they learn why and how the Christians went their separate way.
Note: The Faith and the Power covers the same period as an earlier Snyder book, All God's Children. The latter is an historical novel, the former as an historical study .