Did Christians Outbreed the Competition? Scott Alexander & Rodney Stark's Rise of Christianity

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss Scott Alexander's review of 'The Rise of Christianity.' They explore how Christianity spread rapidly in its early days, challenging common beliefs about widespread conversions driven by miracles. Instead, factors such as higher fertility rates among Christians, effective social networks, and the appeal of Christianity's treatment of women played crucial roles. The episode delves into the socio-cultural context of ancient Rome, comparisons with modern cult movements, and the implications for both historical understanding and contemporary religious dynamics.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! Today we are going to be discussing a very interesting piece, Scott Alexander's review of The Rise of Christianity.

And in it, he goes through how Christianity spread as fast as it did, it is astounding how quickly Christianity was able to spread in its early days. And it was not through the, tactic that most people think, which is widespread conversions based on either miracles or just the logic of what was in the text.

Instead, it appears to have mostly been downstream of Christians having more children, having more surviving children. And having an ability to convert women at a much higher rate in the early days.

But the children, childbirth appears to be the core of this. Also, their plague surviving rates appear to have been quite different. So we're going to go over each of these in turn.

Speaker: [00:01:00] In ancient Rome, where altars shone, the pagan gods once ruled alone. But quietly came a faithful breed Not through big signs, but with small seed They gathered in humble prayer No sweeping crowds or mass fanfare They built their homes with children glad More babes they bore than pagans had

Malcolm Collins: The challenge Well, Andy,

Simone Collins: even the Christianity seemed to have spread through the kindling of Judaism, which had already spread, which is also fascinating.

It's just such a cool

Malcolm Collins: overview. Yeah. The challenge with any Scott Alexander piece is he writes In a way, we're typically when we're reading a piece, we are throwing out 90 percent of it. This time we're keeping probably well over 80 percent of it with a number of factual and textual additions because there's a few minor errors [00:02:00] he makes.

And there are a few areas where I just happen to for whatever reason know additional information that helps flesh things out a lot.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's fun. Because what I love most about Scott Alexander's book reviews is you get a great summary of the book, then you get additional research and annotation from Scott Alexander, and now I'm getting layer three from Malcolm.

This is like tiramisu now, you know, first you start with the muffin and then you get a cupcake and now I'm getting, whoa, man, this is great. Let's

Malcolm Collins: go

Simone Collins: into it.

Malcolm Collins: All right, dive in.

Simone Collins: Scott Alexander writes, The rise of Christianity is a great puzzle. In 40 AD, there were maybe a thousand Christians. Their messiah had just been executed, and they were on the wrong side of an intercontinental empire that had crushed all previous foes.

By 400, they were 40 million, and they were set to dominate the next millennium of Western history. Imagine taking a time machine to the year 2300 AD, and everyone is a Scientologist. The United States is over 99 percent [00:03:00] Scientologist. So is Latin America and most of Europe. The Middle East follows some heretical pseudo Scientology that thinks L.

Ron Hubbard was a great prophet, but maybe not the greatest prophet. This can only begin to capture how surprised the early Imperial Romans would be to learn of the triumph of Christianity. At least Scientology has a lot of money and cutthroat recruitment arm. At least they fight back when you persecute them.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so I think that this is all really important to note because a lot of people do not realize how quickly Christianity basically came out of nowhere from a small persecuted group that was not seen as particularly different during Jesus's lifetime than other small, roaming Thaumatological Performing Rabbis. So, quick note here if you don't know what I'm talking about. Thaumatological performances is a type of magical performance, which is like a miracle working as a magic trick. It was [00:04:00] really common for random rabbis to roam around and perform these types of miracles.

You know, you have like the circle drawer, you have the, I'll add a few in post here.

You have Hani bond. Doza. , who performed numerous miracles, including making vinegar burn like oil for Shabbat candles. When his daughter mistakenly use vinegar instead of oil. He also extended the links of beams for a woman's house through blessing. Additionally, he was known for controlling rain with his prayers. He wants prayed for rain to stop while he was traveling and it ceased immediately. You have Honi the circle drawer. He is famous for his miracle of praying for rain during a severe drought in Israel, he drew a circle and the dust stood inside it and vowed not to leave until God sent rain. Initially only I liked drizzle fell, prompting him to pray again for more substantial rain.

Ultimately God answered his prayers with a heavy downpour Shimon bar Yochai., he. Performed healing miracles. And.

It was said that he could burn people with his gaze. One notable miracle involved the emperor's daughter who was possessed and he was called to help her. Additionally, [00:05:00] during this time in a cave, He and his son were miraculously sustained by carob tree and a Sprig of water. After emerging from the cave, it was reported that everything looked at a world burnt to ashes. Indicating his extraordinary spiritual. Power.

I say this because I think it actually undermines the amazing growth of the early Christian community. To overstate how unique Jesus would have appeared to people of his time.

And I would note here, the point I am not making is that all of these other miracle workers actually performed their miracles. But what I am saying is that it was widely believed that they had, so if me a random person around this time had a group of people come to me and say, Hey, there was this rabbinic miracle worker, and here are some of the miracles he performed.

I'd be like, yeah, a guy told me about another one yesterday. And a guy told me about a different one the day before., Like it wouldn't have been unique.

and people can be like, well, you know, he raised people from the dead. That was totally unique. And it's like, well, not really.

[00:06:00] If you go to the old Testament, for example, the widow of Zarephath son raised by Elijah, the prophet, the shin termite woman's son raised by

Elijah successor. , and then from the new Testament you have Thomasa Dorcas raised by the apostle Peter. , you have YouTube Chris raised by the apostle Paul. , so that again, if you over emphasize, like, if Abe, if Jesus was just this amazing guy that nobody could possibly deny in everyone who saw him was immediately like, yeah, I'm on board with this, you've changed everything. , this story actually becomes a little less remarkable because it's like, oh, well, that's why it's spread.

But when you realize that. Within the context of his time, Jesus would not have been that different for many of the other people in the region who had followings. , it becomes absolutely amazing how quickly it grew and a miracle that is. In fact, I think a bigger miracle than many of the miracles that Jesus has reported to have, Carried o