The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

Bart D. Ehrman

Feb 2018 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by George Newbern

About this audiobook

The “marvelous” (Reza Aslan, bestselling author of Zealot), New York Times bestselling story of how Christianity became the dominant religion in the West.

How did a religion whose first believers were twenty or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the empire became the official religion of Rome, converting some thirty million people in just four centuries? In The Triumph of Christianity, early Christian historian Bart D. Ehrman weaves the rigorously-researched answer to this question “into a vivid, nuanced, and enormously readable narrative” (Elaine Pagels, National Book Award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels), showing how a handful of charismatic characters used a brilliant social strategy and an irresistible message to win over hearts and minds one at a time.

This “humane, thoughtful and intelligent” book (The New York Times Book Review) upends the way we think about the single most important cultural transformation our world has ever seen—one that revolutionized art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics, and law.

Ratings and reviews

Knocked it out the park. I DIDNT EXPECT to really get into this book as much as some of Dr. Herman's other work and boy did I call it wrong. It so far has probably been my favorite book of his I've read. It was informative without being over my head and honestly it was one of those books that was fun and when it's over your kinda bummed out. But that just makes you wanna read more, learn more and that's the best review I could give it. Man I should have started with that. 😜

About the author

Bart D. Ehrman is a leading authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity and a distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The author of six New York Times bestsellers, he has written or edited more than thirty books, including Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, The Triumph of Christianity, and Heaven and Hell. Ehrman has also created nine popular audio and video courses for The Great Courses. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages, with over two million copies and courses sold.