Christianity, the First Three Thousand Years

The first generation s of christians were jews of the eastern mediterranean. They lived in a hellenistic world shaped by greek elite culture, at least from the time of alexander the great's conquests four centuries before. The constant experience of misfortune and destruction did not kill the jew's faith in their own destiny. It drove them to conceive of their god as passionately concerned with their response to him - passionate in anger as well as love towards them. And they had to try to fit together these two irreconcilable jewish and greek visions of god. But that sliver of alternative christianity, the few per cents, was once the future of the