Snippets from Epic: An Around-the-World Journey Through Christian History by Tim Challies

Tim Challies went on 3-year journey around the world, exploring different objects that help us look back at Christian history. Finding this book interesting and would like to write down summaries of some of the objects! Will probably be quoting verbatim quite a lot.

1. John Rylands Manuscript P52

This is a tiny 8.9cm x 6cm fragment of the Book of John in the Bible, containing verses from John 18. It is significant because it's dated to be from ~AD125-150, which means its the oldest surviving copy of New Testament. It was found in Egypt in 1920 amongst a collection of ancient papyri.

I had the opportunity to see this manuscript a few times when I visited the John Rylands library in Manchester (where it now resides amongst other random exhibits). Actually most visitors don't give it much attention because it's just this tiny little piece of papyrus. However:

"The P52 manuscript fragment is significant not only because of its content but also because of where it was found. Bruce Metzger once described its importance in this way: "Just as Robinson Crusoe, seeing but a single footprint in the sand, concluded that another human being, with two feet, was present on the island with him, so P52 proves hte existence and use of the Fourth Gospel during the first half of the second century in a provincial town along the Nile, far removed from its traditional place of composition (Ephesus in Asia Minor). From this fragment we can deduce that already in the first half of the second century Christians were living along the Nile, and they were reading the very same words John had written the century before, the same words that we read today in different translations. Just as we value those words and pore over them to promote understanding and application, so did our brothers and sisters, the earliest Christian believers. Picture a Christian in ancient Egypt reading the account of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, marveling at God's grace, and praying with faith that Christ would soon return. P52 may not be the most substantial of the ancient manuscripts..yet it is a significant link to the past..It is an object I could look at and listen to and grow in my convictions about the providence of God in preserving his words. 

If faith comes through hearing and hearing through the Word of God, we are reminded that you and I are Christians today only because God has preserved his Word, the Bible. And he has preserved his Word through copy after copy of the original manuscript, even through small fragments of papyrus like this one. "

2. Alexamenos Graffito

Carved on a plaster wall in Rome around ~200AD, the graffiti depicts a man on the left in a posture of worship towards another man on a cross with a donkey head. The inscription says "Alexamenos worships his God". 

"Here is Jesus,..and Alexamenos one of his committed followers..This graffiti is the earliest surviving depiction of Jesus hanging on a cross. This fact alone gives it great significance. Yet it is also important to note that this is not a religious icon meant to elicit awe or worship. The graffiti is a mockery of an ancient Christian and the God he worshiped. It is a mockery of any so-called God who would die the shameful death of a criminal and any person who would be naive and foolish enough to worship him.

While we don't know much about Alexamenos,  we know that he was a Christian, a man who proclaimed that Jesus is Lord. He worshiped a God who became a man,..who endured the most painful and shameful death devised that time..Alexamenos was mocked for what he believed. Living approximately 150 years before..the apostle Paul had written that "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18)"

A Christian in the year 200AD was suffering for his faith. This has been true of those who followed Jesus Christ throughout history, until today. 

3. Marie Durand's Inscription

In the 1700s in France, Protestants there (Huguenots) suffered severe persecution by Catholic authorities. Because of Marie's connection to her preacher brother, she and her husband were sent to separate prisons. Marie was just 18 years old when she was locked up in the Tower of Constance. Te prisoners were given a very straightforward escape. All they had to do was to say the words "I recant". They just had to deny their Protestant "heresies", and they could immediately walk free. 

But Marie steadfastly refused. She was 57 years old when she was finally released from that tower (when a local prince found out about the prison and ordered the release of the prisoners). She returned home alone, died at 65, spending the majority of her life in the prison.

"As I looked carefully..I found a word carved into the stone, a word attributed to Marie. It is simple the French word "register" (resist). It is a word of commitment to the cause of Christ, a word that challenges any who would stand on the edge and consider calling down for the priest. Resist! Resist the temptation to recant. Resist the temptation to compromise and, instead choose to remain in Christ..For decades she maintained her convictions and remained in that tower."

4. Brookes Slave Ship Model 

William Wilberforce (born 1759) professed Christian faith at a young age, but before long, he abandoned it and committed himself to pursuing worldly pleasures. At 21, he was serving as a member of the House of Commons in the UK. His friend was a committed Christian who acted and spoke freely about his Christian convictions. His words and example made Wilberforce reconsider and closely examine the claims of Christianity, and slowly began to embrace the faith.  

"By 1785, Wilberforce was professing faith in Christ and exhibiting changed behaviour, first in the use of his time and money. He began to wonder if a career in politics could be reconciled with his new faith, and it was here that he made the wise decision to seek the counsel of John Newton (a London pastor, former slave trader who had been transformed by the grace of God and called to preach the Gospel)..Newton assured Wilberforce that the Lord could and would use a committed Christian in politics..His mission was now to apply Christian principles as he understood them to the world as he saw it around him."

For the next 20 years, he showed patient endurance, bringing forward the bill for abolition of the slave trade, which would fail year after year.  

A model of a ship named the Brookes used to transport slaves was given to Wilberforce. 

"The model shows the slaves squeezed together tightly on bare planks, with hands and feet shackled, in such a condition that they could not possibly move..a remarkable piece of propaganda, portraying the truth of the slave trade in a powerful way. It accomplished its purpose as Wilberforce and other abolitionists insisted that people must look at the ship and visually acknowledge the reality of the African slave trade.

Wilberforce's Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade finally succeeded on February 23, 1807..it was not until 1833 that slavery itself was abolished and hundreds and thousands of slaves held in British colonies were finally set free..he lived to hear the passing of that final abolition bill..He received the news with joy and died peacefully three days later, a man who had committed his life to righting a great injustice and pursuing a great and worthy cause, a cause that was rooted in his convictions as a Christian. "

 

5. The Slave Bible 

"As slavery continued in British-held territories, some people expressed concern for the souls of these slaves..As missionaries worked among the slaves of British-owned islands, they naturally wanted to introduce people to the Bible. Yet this introduced a problem. How could these missionaries teach the Bible to slaves without condemning slavery and therefore angering the slave owners? How could they show concern for souls while hiding what the Bible taught about slavery from the slaves themselves?

In 1807, the London publisher Law and Gilbert provided the answer with the first printing of Parts of the Holy Bible, Selected for the Use of the Negro Slaves.. This was a "Bible" radically truncated to remove any passages or verses that condemned slavery or condoned racial equality. So pervasive is the message of freedom in the Word of God that only 232 of the Bible's 1189 chapters made the final cut. Gone was the story of Israel's exodus from captivity from Egypt...passages emphasizing reconciliation between all humanity as a duty and privilege of the Christian faith,..the beautiful throne room vision of all humanity, every skin colour and ethnic group, assembled before God...used to give slaves the message of reconciliation with God without the accompanying message of reconciliation with man.

Far from an object to celebrate, it's a sober reminder of the lengths human beings will go to hide and cover their sin..Knowing that this great evil was often perpetuated by those who called themselves after the name of Christ humbled me."

 

There are so many more interesting objects and stories from this book, you'll have to read about them for yourself here :)