Enter the World That Gave Birth to Christianity
This is the First Century, a podcast devoted to stories from that influential period of history, including Rome, Judea, Christianity, and more. Your host is Dr. Brian Schmisek. Get ready to go back in time and enter a world before computers, the stagecoach, the printing press, or even stirrups for horses were invented. We are about to enter…The First Century.
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The podcast tells the story of the world in which Christianity emerged—a world shaped by cultures, language, political power, intrigue, religious traditions, theological insight, and the people who lived through one of history’s most transformative periods.
The narrative draws on classical sources, ancient primary texts, and biblical scholarship, blending, translating, paraphrasing, and consolidating material from authors including Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Philo, Seneca, Cassius Dio, Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder, the New Testament, Eusebius, and many other ancient sources (see show notes of each episode for details). Where the historical record leaves gaps, the podcast occasionally incorporates legendary traditions or carefully constructed narrative scenes to help bring the ancient world to life.
We reconstruct the ancient world as a living, unfolding story. We hear Augustus, Tiberius, Jesus, Paul, Herod, Pilate, Caligula, Messalina, Agrippina, Peter, and others emerge within the same ongoing chronological narrative. Lives intersect, their worlds intertwine, and the development of Christianity becomes part of a much larger story, all rooted in scholarship and the ancient sources.
The result is history as an ongoing story of persons, peoples, power, faith, conflict, and ultimately the search for meaning.
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