Gregory J. Riley

There are many different understandings of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth. Riley reminds us that this has always been true, since the time of the very first Christians. The persistence of so many varieties of Christianity is not evidence of some late-arriving apostasy from the one true faith, but has always been in the nature of Christian faith.

The River of God narrates a "story" of worship. Christian belief is taken back to its begiinings, and shown to be wildly diverse. Christianity was firned friom many ancient cultural traditions. Author Gregory J. Riley, is professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology. Also wrote "One Jesus, Many Christs". The concept of metaphor is clear: many cultural streams converged to form the river of God, and material from those streams built up the delta. The show more subtitle claims, "A New History of Christian Origins." Not really "New" to many of us but perhaps to some. '
Credits the work of Elaine Pagels and Jack Miles, among others: Christianity is shown to be an excressence of cultural context saturated by folks looking for better gods.

Gregory Riley traces the origins of Christianity beyond its familiar sources in Judaism and in the Hebrew Bible. Riley reveals many sources - elements of Greek philosophy and science, Zoroastrianism (becoming Manichaean Christianity) throughout ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. "From the very beginning, " writes Riley, "there were several varieties of Christians."
Doctrinally disparate Christianities led to the present-day diversity of the Church. show less