Your Cart:
0 items, $0.00 Value

Christianity: First Thousand Years & The Second Thousand Years Pack

Availability	Available now!
Product Type	DVD
Quantity
Price	$29.95
Check this price in another currency

International & Express Shipping

Description
These fascinating documentaries chronicle twenty centuries of belief and conflict, from the Crucifixion to the Reformation and the sweeping changes of Vatican II. Extensively researched, they include commentary from renowned scholars and much more.

Producer	Unspecified
Running Time	200 and 186 mins (4 DVD set)
Rating
Region Code	4
Video Format	PAL
Director	History Channel

Christianity:The First Thousand Years
It is an epic beyond anything Hollywood could imagine, embracing emperors and itinerant preachers, the teachings of a man accepted by millions as the Saviour and the battles fought in His name.

From the Crucifixion to the coming of the Crusades, CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THOUSAND YEARS traces the rise of one of the world's great religions. Scholars explore the intertwined fates of the Roman Empire and the faith it first persecuted, then adopted. Theologians reveal how the New Testament was shaped, and how pagan festivals were transformed into Christian holidays. And examine modern discoveries that shed new light on the dawn of Christianity.

Drawing on ancient texts, the Scriptures and visits to sites like Istanbul's magnificent Hagia Sophia, this is a spellbinding journey through CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THOUSAND YEARS.

"This story is enormously unlikely." --Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion, Princeton University

Pagels is right on the mark: what began two millennia ago as a Jewish sect has grown into the most widespread religion in history, despite unbridled oppression in its early years and countless denominational splits ever since. The last few years have seen a resurgence of interest in church history, and A&E's documentary Christianity: The First Thousand Years is a splendid example of solid scholarly research meshed with entertaining production values that speaks to this interest. The result is a resource with equal appeal for the historian and the theologian alike.

The issues that confronted the early church seem now quite strange since there are 2,000 years of tradition behind them today:

Should gentile converts to the Jesus movement have to adhere to the laws of kashrut?
What authority did Paul have as an apostle though he never personally knew Jesus?
What is Jesus' relationship to God?
How can a tripartite Christian theology be resolved with Judaism's strong tradition of monotheism?
Which texts should form the Christian scripture?
What relationship do the apostolic bishops at Jerusalem, Damascus, Rome, Constantinople, and elsewhere have to each other--and how should the church be structured?
What should be the central statement of faith of Christians?

Most of these issues were solved at the Council of Nicaea and at other early church councils--though authority of the papacy at Rome is a persistent divider both between the Eastern and Western churches and between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Christianity: The First Thousand Years provides background and the original perspectives that led to the East-West split--a split whose basis we hardly question today.

The rapid spread of the church from the controversial conversion of Constantine to the conquests of Otto is tied closely to the history of the Roman Empire itself. Without the empire as its catapult, it is unlikely that Christianity would have spread even to remote Iceland and Finland by the year 1000. The early church modeled itself structurally on imperial institutions, and it integrated itself into the fabric of imperial life. Indeed, the central role of Christianity in Byzantine life is one of numerous often-overlooked but fascinating historical perspectives that A&E manages to cover here.

The four-part set features Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, whose unusual but pleasant voices will be well known to viewers of A&E's TV series Mysteries of the Bible. Like the TV series, Christianity: The First Thousand Years is marked by thorough scholarship, including interviews with many highly regarded scholars such as Pagels. Snippets of these interviews are interspersed with photography from the Holy Land and some reenactments, leading to an informative and revealing exploration of the early church. --Erik J. Macki

Christianity: The Second Thousand Years
A panoramic journey through ten centuries of belief and conflict, Christianity: The Second Thousand Years chronicles not just the events and personalities that left indelible marks on the landscape of faith, but also the forces behind them.
From the Crusades and the Reformation to the sweeping changes of Vatican II, each fascination episode is illuminated through extensive use of historical documents, commentary for renowned scholars, and visits to the sites where history was made.

"Christians can often be quick to assume that the form and meaning of Christianity is static, but if we reflect on the year 2000 as a significant milestone, the second millennium of the world's largest religion has truly been an amazing journey of faith and turmoil. This four-part series is a millennial celebration, examining the evolution--good and bad--of Christian churches and theologies over the last thousand years. After a brief summary of the origins and early growth of the Church, the first part starts out examining how war and Christianization went hand in hand under Charlemagne and other Holy Roman emperors while military and perceived cultural threats loomed on the frontiers with Islam. The second part examines the height of the Church's influence and its corruption, which led to the Avignon papacy and the Reformation (the subject of the third part). The fourth part looks at primarily American reform movements in the 20th century through the leadership of people like Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Desmond Tutu. Although 1,000 years of Christian history will clearly be treated with some superficiality in only four parts--Eastern Orthodoxy and postwar ecumenism have been almost entirely left out, for example--this is an informative and entertaining documentary with A&E's typically high production values." --Erik Macki

Disc 1:
1. Introduction
2. The Dark Ages
3. Holy War
4. The Fourth Crusade
5. The Inqusition
6. The Reformation
7. The Renaissance
8. The Jesuits

Disc 2:
1. Introduction
2. Nicholas Copernicus
3. The Great Awakening
4. Temple of Reason
5. Industrial Revolution
6. Modern Society
7. Big Tent Revivals
8. Mutual Understanding