“Origin of Christianity”: The Best Documentary Ever.

By Robin Marie on August 9, 2011

Origin of Christianity is a French film released in 2003. Bringing together top Biblical scholars from all over the world, it explores the formation of Christianity from the time of Jesus to a few centuries after his death. Because it treats the birth of Christianity as a historical, rather than a theological event, it caused a decent amount of controversy even in fairly secular France. But it is without doubt the best documentary, on any topic, I have ever seen.

I should warn you that the things that make Origin of Christianity so great to a history nerd like me might make it mind-numbingly boring to you. It is not like most documentaries – there are no reenactments, and it lacks even the presentation of paintings and landscapes which, in most documentaries, the camera slowly zooms into or out of during narration. Rather, it consists of hours of listening to top scholars discuss chapters of early Christian history, all of them in front of a blank black background. The only visuals we get are of ancient church manuscripts, although these are coupled with the delightful background noises of libraries and archives. In other words, you need to be rather interested in early Christian history to find this film engaging. You have been warned.

But if you want to learn about the early church, watching all ten episodes of this film is probably the easiest way you could possibly do so. The topics selected are of central importance to Christian doctrine and the subsequent unfolding of Christian history. The scholars are engaging, articulate, and diverse in their opinions. Indeed one of the great things about the film is that it displays the process of historical inquiry and debate – while there is general consensus per episode on important points, there are some issues where conflicting viewpoints of various scholars are explicitly contrasted to one another. Thus Christianity is treated not only as a matter of historical – as opposed to theological – interpretation, but as a matter of historical interpretation which, on many points, allows no one to be completely, comfortably sure they have discerned the complete truth.[1]

I’m going to briefly discuss just three of the many issues the film discusses. First, the film explores what kind of savior, exactly, Jesus was understood to be by his early followers. Was Jesus the spiritual savior of all people, or was he the messiah of the Jewish people who would drive the Romans out from Israel? While most of the historians agree that many of Jesus’ followers understood him to be a traditionally Jewish messiah, some insist more than others on this point. One bit of commentary, particularly amusing to an atheist, features scholar Moshe David Herr insisting that there is nothing in the words or deeds of the historical Jesus to ever suggest to someone that this man claimed to be the savior of all mankind – rather, he simply appears to be a Jewish rabbi, leading one of the many variations of Judaism that attempted to cope with the political subjugation of Israel. Other scholars disagree that Jesus’ followers interpreted him so conventionally, but the very fact that this is open to debate is incredibly important to understanding the real origins of Christianity.

But, assuming Jesus wasn’t claiming to be the son of God and savior of all mankind, how did we end up with that idea? That is where, to a significant degree, Paul comes in. Not until I saw this film, about five years ago, did I understand how central Paul is to the history of Christianity. Many go as far to say that Paul basically founded Christianity – if anything it should be called Paulianity.[2] Now again, the scholars debate about whether or not it is really accurate to claim that Paul founded Christianity. As one scholar notes, there is a tendency amongst Jews in particular to want to claim Jesus as their own, and thus blame all the Christian weirdness on this other guy, Paul. But nonetheless all agree that the particular flavor and doctrine of modern Christianity would have been impossible without Paul – it was Paul who won the early theological debates amongst Christians and thus set the tone, so to speak, for the future of the church.

The scholars of the film disagree, however, on how much Paul had to do with one of the most important developments of early Christianity – the very weird transformation of a Jewish sect into an anti-Jewish religion. Paul himself was of course a Jew, and yet some of the most clearly anti-Semitic passages of the New Testament – passages that were used by the church to justify anti-Semitism for centuries – are attributed to Paul. The disagreement revolves primarily around whether these passages are to be understood as a theological adjustment originating with Paul, or a forged addition to the Bible written decades or even centuries later. Both arguments have credit – one key anti-Semitic passage, 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16, does not appear to flow with the previous or following passages, suggesting that some later scribe or theologian inserted the passages after Paul’s death to justify the split with Judaism that had already taken place. On the other hand, Paul expresses his disappointment in the Jews for their failure to embrace Jesus in large numbers and, it appears, saw opening up the religion to gentiles as a way to reinterpret – and therefore salvage – the new faith. At one point, Herr passionately provides a metaphor for what the split between Judaism and Christianity must have been like for practicing Jews: as though someone assumed your identity, he says, and then proceeded to insist that they were the true Mr. Smith, as opposed to you; cultural alienation and theft, in other words. While this is one of the perhaps more emotional, rather than coldly objective, moments of the film, it is also one of the most compelling – for surely the evolution of a non-Jewish, indeed anti-Jewish religion out of a thoroughly Jewish sect is one of the most bizarre and consequential developments in all of human history.

This is just a sampling of the questions and topics the film explores. Other issues include such things as the role and identity of Jesus’ brother, James, the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary (and how this had a lot more to do with later Catholic history than early Christian history), and the impact of the destruction of the temple in the year 70 on the evolution of Christian theology.

A quick note on the religious leanings, or lack thereof, of the scholars featured in the film. Some of these historians appear to be Christian, judging from their wearing of a crucifix or their posts at religious institutions. Several others are Jewish. I imagine a few are nonbelievers, but of course none of them announce themselves to be so. The reason should be obvious – regardless of theological orientation, all of them are professional historians who are addressing the questions from a historical, critical viewpoint. Therefore whatever their faith, I do not think any of the Christian scholars would claim that their faith rests on an obvious, inevitable interpretation of scripture. For someone whose non-belief was greatly strengthened by historical knowledge, I might find this puzzling, but I do not find it objectionable. Every scholar in the film is there because they have earned the respect of their colleagues – and thus the rich contribution of various viewpoints and backgrounds merely enhances, rather than detracts from, the richness of the discussion.

I hope I have enticed you to check out this wonderful documentary, for it is well worth your time. If nothing else, this is a very easy way to quickly obtain more knowledge about the birth of Christianity than the vast majority of your Christian acquaintances. Indeed it seems to me that there is a deep tragedy when it comes to Christian faith and Christian history – the latter is so much richer, so much more interesting – and because it is so much more human, more inspiring – than closed minded and blind faith in traditional Christian doctrine. What a pity that so many Christians deprive themselves of the full and human history of their own religion.[3]

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Post-Script: For those of the “Jesus never existed at all” camp, you will be very disappointed; that idea is never discussed in this film, as it is not taken seriously by the vast majority of the historical community. Not surprisingly, I personally find this to be very good reason to be very suspicious of the Jesus Never Existed claim; while I understand those who promote this idea have their reasons, I have to point to a common complaint of scientists about creationist claims – shouldn’t it bother you that nearly all the professionals in a highly professionalized, trained field find your claim somewhat ridiculous? True, history is not a hard science, and the historical reality of some guy named Jesus can never be nearly so well supported as say, evolution or global warming. Nonetheless, it is still a discipline that rests on and requires evidence – and if the historical community as a whole finds the idea that Jesus never existed at all to be rather silly, I am prone to agree. Furthermore I hardly see why some atheists cling to this particular idea with such enthusiasm anyway – does it really strengthen the atheist position that much if Jesus never existed, is it really that important? I find the claims about Jesus’ divinity to be so obviously products of human history and human desire that I’m not sure why any non-believing person would additionally feel the need to write him out of history altogether. After all Joseph Smith clearly existed, and no one seems to think we need to dispute his corporal being to dismiss the claims of Mormonism. But perhaps this is a discussion for another post.

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