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psteve's review
4.0
This is a book about the growth of Christianity in the 1st & 2nd centuries, written as a response to work by one J.P. Holding who made a number of claims about that growth. A common claim made by Holding and others is that Christian origins were too improbable for it to be false. Carrier pretty much demolishes these arguments, one by one, in such exhaustive detail that you almost feel sorry for Holding, except for the fact that Carrier repeatedly shows him to be a liar at best and a very poor scholar at worst. On the one hand, the book is kind of shackled by this structure; in having to structure it according to the claims of Holding, Carrier is limited in how he can tell the story. But what emerges is a rounded picture of society and religion in the first couple centuries of the Common Era, and is well worth reading. I'll keep my eye out for more of his books. The truth is always more interesting and rewarding to read than propaganda.
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