Saving paradise

Theologians Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker set out to study art from the Mediterranean world that shows the dead, crucified Jesus. Their search led them to a surprising finding: for roughly the first thousand years of Christianity, believers did not picture Jesus mainly as a dying man. Standard histories of the faith and its art had largely passed over this fact or explained it away.

The churches of that early period were decorated with images of a Christ who was alive and at home in a flourishing world. He is shown as a shepherd, teacher, healer, or enthroned ruler, and at different ages, from infant to bearded elder. Even when the cross appears, he stands before it calm and risen. These works present paradise as the present world, filled with beauty and made holy by God's presence.

The book traces Christianity from its earliest centuries to the present, asking how that early celebration of the physical world gave way to a theology centered on suffering and torture, and which shifts in society and doctrine drove that change. It is written for general readers interested in the history of Christian thought and art.