Before the Cross

Most people were taught that Christianity arrived a fully formed divine revelation delivered to a chosen people in a specific place and time, distinct from and superior to everything that came before it. History tells a different story.

Before the Cross: World Religions and the Origins of Christianity traces the origins of the world's major religious traditions and the ancient threads that connect them to the Christianity that emerged from the Mediterranean world two thousand years ago. From the creation myths of ancient Mesopotamia to the philosophical schools of Greece, from the Zoroastrian concept of heaven and hell to the dying and rising gods of Egypt and Canaan, from the mystical traditions of India to the suppressed diversity of early Christianity itself, this book maps the vast inheritance that shaped the tradition billions of people call their own.

Drawing on more than a century of scholarship in comparative religion, ancient Near Eastern studies, biblical archaeology, and the history of early Christianity, Before the Cross examines what the world believed before the walls between religions were drawn-and what becomes visible when those walls come down.

This is not a book written against Christianity. It is a book written for honest engagement with it. Understanding where a tradition came from does not diminish it. It makes it more real.

Before the Cross is for the reader who has always sensed the story they were handed was incomplete. For the scholar who wants the historical record alongside the spiritual reflection. For the person who left a tradition and is still trying to understand what they left. And for anyone willing to follow the questions wherever they lead.

The ancient world did not wait for Christianity to ask its questions. It had been asking them for thousands of years.