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]
Continue reading…
