What enabled the Jesus movement to expand so rapidly? Ever since its emergence, there has been much deliberation about what the decisive factors for its spread were and still are. Questions and research interest have come from all directions and have been as diverse as their answers and corollaries. The groundbreaking works of Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794), Adolf von Harnack (1851 - 1930), and Rodney Stark (*1934) are retraced in this essay to find out how the Jesus movement reached the Roman Empire's towns and cities. Taking the most recent research, the author then identifies six pairs of opposites that were essential to the movement's appeal and the spread of groups of believers. This also serves to reinforce Harnack's foundational insight that from its earliest beginnings, Christianity was able to embrace and integrate opposites (complexio oppositorum).
Enthalten in:
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche; 2019/1
(2019)
Serie / Reihe: Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
Personen: Schliesser, Benjamin
Schliesser, Benjamin:
Vom Jordan an den Tiber : wie die Jesusbewegung in den Städten des Römischen Reiches ankam / von Benjamin Schliesser, 2019. - Seite 1-45 - (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche)
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