The Origins of Christianity: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Origins of Christianity, credited to Thomas Whittaker, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Origins of Christianity, by Thomas Whittaker. Read by JoeD. The full title of this book is The Origins of Christianity with an Outline of Van Manen’s Analysis of The Pauline Literature. Willem Christiaan van Manen (1842-1905) was a Dutch theologian. The vast majority of van Manen’s radical criticism of the New Testament and Christian origins has never been translated into English. In this book, Thomas Whittaker outlines the arguments of van Manen for an English-speaking audience. Van Manen’s work is not now generally known, but his views obtained notoriety by the articles and books that he wrote, in which he maintained that none of the Epistles that bear the Apostle Paul’s name were in fact written by him. From van Manen’s conclusions, Whittaker goes further and relegates the whole body of the New Testament to the second century, and even places the beginning of the Christian movement until after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. Of Paul himself very little is certain, though Whittaker maintains that there may have been an itinerant preacher of that name. Whittaker comes to the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth is entirely a mythical personage, but holds that what afterwards became Christianity or Paulinism had its origin in a Jewish-Messianic movement. (Summary by JoeD)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Origins of Christianity
• Author credits: Thomas Whittaker
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Listed recording duration: 8:18:55

Catalogue topics

• non-fiction
• new testament
• criticism
• radical criticism

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface — 12:18
2. 01 - Introduction - The Origins of Christianity. 1 - Biblical Criticism and its Verification, 2 - The Church-State of Judea, 3 - Post-Biblical Eschatology of the Jews — 33:31
3. 02 - Introduction - The Origins of Christianity. 4 - Alexandrian Judaism, 5 - The Preparation for the Gospel — 30:14
4. 03 - Introduction - The Origins of Christianity. 6 - The Destruction of Jerusalem and its Consequences, 7 - The Anti-Hellenic Reaction — 31:50
5. 04 - Introduction - The Origins of Christianity. 8 - Paulinism, 9 - The Catholic Church, 10 - The Later History of Paulinism, 11 - Philosophy Against Revealed Religion, 12 - Conclusion — 47:41
6. 05 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 1 - The Acts of the Apostles. Section 1 - The Origin of Acts — 59:28
7. 06 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 1 - The Acts of the Apostles. Section 2 - Paul According to Acts — 24:28
8. 07 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 2 - The Epistle to the Romans. 1 - The Nature of the Work, 2 - The Unity of the Book, 3 - It's composition — 34:52
9. 08 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 2 - The Epistle to the Romans. 4 - Whence Came the Epistle? — 58:41
10. 09 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 2 - The Epistle to the Romans, 5 - Justification of the Proposed Explanation, 6 - The Antiquity of the Book — 38:16
11. 10 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 3 - The Epistles to the Corinthians. Part 1 - The First Epistle- 1 - The Nature of the Work, 2 - The Unity of the Book, 3 - Its Composition — 26:43
12. 11 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 3 - The Epistles to the Corinthians. Part 1 - The First Epistle. 4 - Whence Came the Epistle? — 53:13
13. 12 - Van Manen on the Pauline Epistles. Part 3 - The Epistles to the Corinthians. Part 2 - The Second Epistle- 1 - Character Unity Composition, 2 - Whence Came the Epistle? — 47:46

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