Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780465096404)

One of America's foremost scholars of religion examines the tumultuous era that gave birth to the modern Judeo-Christian tradition

In The Crucible of Faith, Philip Jenkins argues that much of the Judeo-Christian tradition we know today was born between 250-50 BCE, during a turbulent Crucible Era. It was during these years that Judaism grappled with Hellenizing forces and produced new religious ideas that reflected and responded to their changing world. By the time of the fall of the Temple in 70 CE, concepts that might once have seemed bizarre became normalized-and thus passed on to Christianity and later Islam. Drawing widely on contemporary sources from outside the canonical Old and New Testaments, Jenkins reveals an era of political violence and social upheaval that ultimately gave birth to entirely new ideas about religion, the afterlife, Creation and the Fall, and the nature of God and Satan.

Author: Philip Jenkins
ISBN-10: 0465096409
ISBN-13: 9780465096404
Publisher: Basic Books
Language: English
Published: 09/19/2017
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.30w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/10/2017
Library Journal 07/01/2017
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2017
Choice 06/01/2018

About the Author
Philip Jenkins is a distinguished professor of history at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University. The author of twenty-seven books, Jenkins divides his time between Texas and Pennsylvania.