In this course we examine the origins of Christianity. Although we deal with biblical, as well as other contemporary, materials, the approach is not theological but historical. We want to understand how and why Christianity assumed the form that it did by examining its background in the Jewish community of Palestine, its place in the classical world, its relationship to other mystery religions of the time and certain variant forms (now known as Gnosticism) which it assumed prior to the crystallization of orthodoxy.
