Die ersten drei Jahre Christentum

The earliest period of the Christian church would be lost in the darkness of history if it were not for the canonical Acts of the Apostles by Luke. It is regarded as the only source on the early days of the Church and has therefore had a tremendous impact. Last but not least, the dates of Jesus' resurrection and ascension as well as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost have become the basis of our calendar. But Luke is not only regarded as the only source, his picture of the ideal apostolic community in Jerusalem is also often presented as historically reliable, and this is still the case today. Gerd Lüdemann shows that neither is true. First, he subjects Luke's account to sharp criticism and exposes it as a free invention by the author. He then reconstructs the first three years of Christianity on the basis of the second source on the early days of the Church, the letters of St Paul. As a result, Lüdemann is able to show that at the beginning of the church there was a Christian community in Damascus and one in Jerusalem at the same time, whose beliefs and practices differed greatly from one another. 'The New Testament scholar and historian Gerd Lüdemann has meticulously attempted to shed light on the first three years after Jesus' death up to around the conversion of Paul.'Norbert Copray in: Publik-Forum No. 8, April 2013.