About this ebook
This book takes readers outside the pages of the New Testament and into the courts, archives, and gossip of the Roman world. Drawing on Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and other Greco-Roman writers, it asks a simple but far-reaching question: What did outsiders see when they looked at Jesus and the first Christians?
Without trying to “prove” or “disprove” faith, the book:
Sets Jesus firmly in the world of emperors, governors, and crucifixion.
Shows how early Christians appeared to Roman officials, as a stubborn, suspicious, and yet surprisingly moral movement.
Explores how worship of a crucified man as divine challenged Roman ideas of power, piety, and loyalty.
Places Roman texts in dialogue with the New Testament, highlighting both convergences and tensions.
Clear, concise, and grounded in serious scholarship, The author offers historians, theologians, pastors, and thoughtful lay readers an accessible guide to what Rome, often reluctantly, tells us about Jesus Christ and the movement that bore his name.
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About the author
Shawn Armstrong has served as an ordained minister since 2005, uniting pastoral experience with a historian’s eye for context and detail. His work reflects a deep interest in how Scripture, theology, and history meet in the real world of empires, cultures, and ordinary people.
He is also the author of several theological books, including Revealing the Divine, The Final Days of Jesus Christ, and Veil of Revelation. In this volume, Armstrong continues his exploration of Christian origins, this time through the voices of Rome looking in from the outside.
