Top 10 Craziest Facts About the Origins of Christianity (That They Don’t Teach You In Sunday School)
Christianity is currently the world’s largest religion, with around 2.4 billion followers worldwide (LINK 1). Those of us who were raised Christian, or in predominantly Christian countries like America (where 83% of the population identifies as Christian and almost all of the U.S. Presidents have been Christian), are pretty well versed in the basics of Christianity’s history and tenets: Egypt, plagues, Crucifixions, Crusades, repenting sins, loving one another, etc. But are some pretty bizarre facts and scholarly theories about Christianity’s rise to prominence aren’t very well known, that definitely would’ve made Sunday School a more interesting place.
1. The Abrahamic God was the first Monotheistic God (and it Got Weird)
Before the Abrahamic God (or, as modern Christians refer to him, “God”) arrived on the scene, the main ‘template’ for religion was Polytheism: a pantheon (unified group) of multiple gods. Polytheism was the central driving force of all early civilizations around the time of the Old Testament Israelites. Egyptians, Mayans, the Chinese, the Aztecs, and the ancient Mesopotamians made every …show more content…
It’s used all the time at weddings as a beautiful testament to marriage and romantic love. In fact, Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians in a time of crisis. Paul’s ‘mass production’ of Christianity meant that his only way to control what happened to a congregation that he set up, after he left to go create another one, was to write them letters. This particular letter was written because Paul was worried he was losing this congregation to rivals to his authority, in particular, a guy named Cephas, who apparently was such a good leader of his congregation that the congregants were starting to forget that Paul founded the church in the first
Christianity is currently the world’s largest religion, with around 2.4 billion followers worldwide (LINK 1). Those of us who were raised Christian, or in predominantly Christian countries like America (where 83% of the population identifies as Christian and almost all of the U.S. Presidents have been Christian), are pretty well versed in the basics of Christianity’s history and tenets: Egypt, plagues, Crucifixions, Crusades, repenting sins, loving one another, etc. But are some pretty bizarre facts and scholarly theories about Christianity’s rise to prominence aren’t very well known, that definitely would’ve made Sunday School a more interesting place.
1. The Abrahamic God was the first Monotheistic God (and it Got Weird)
Before the Abrahamic God (or, as modern Christians refer to him, “God”) arrived on the scene, the main ‘template’ for religion was Polytheism: a pantheon (unified group) of multiple gods. Polytheism was the central driving force of all early civilizations around the time of the Old Testament Israelites. Egyptians, Mayans, the Chinese, the Aztecs, and the ancient Mesopotamians made every …show more content…
It’s used all the time at weddings as a beautiful testament to marriage and romantic love. In fact, Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians in a time of crisis. Paul’s ‘mass production’ of Christianity meant that his only way to control what happened to a congregation that he set up, after he left to go create another one, was to write them letters. This particular letter was written because Paul was worried he was losing this congregation to rivals to his authority, in particular, a guy named Cephas, who apparently was such a good leader of his congregation that the congregants were starting to forget that Paul founded the church in the first