Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity by Kyle Smith (review) / Nicole Kelley in Journal of Early Christian Studies, n°3 (2025)

Public ISBD [article]  inJournal of Early Christian Studies > n°3 (2025) . - pp. 471-473 Titre : Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity by Kyle Smith (review) Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Nicole Kelley, Auteur Année de publication : 2025 Article en page(s) : pp. 471-473 Langues : Anglais (eng) Résumé : This book is (aptly) described by its author as “a magpie’s collection of stories and scholarship” that has been distilled “into an entertaining narrative for a general reader” (273). Have you ever asked what the Jägermeister label is about, or pondered why hazelnuts are also called filberts? Did you ever wonder who came up with the b.c./a.d. idea in the first place? The answers to these and other questions await you in the pages of Kyle Smith’s Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity. It is half Eusebius’s Church History, half Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and more fun to read than either of those. It is engaging and accessible enough to work in an undergraduate classroom (it has all the good stories and none of the scholarly jargon). Its “Notes for Further Reading” and bibliography are excellent resources. Especially given its host of high-quality images, this book is a bargain. [article] Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity by Kyle Smith (review) [texte imprimé] / Nicole Kelley, Auteur . - 2025 . - pp. 471-473. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Journal of Early Christian Studies > n°3 (2025) . - pp. 471-473 Résumé : This book is (aptly) described by its author as “a magpie’s collection of stories and scholarship” that has been distilled “into an entertaining narrative for a general reader” (273). Have you ever asked what the Jägermeister label is about, or pondered why hazelnuts are also called filberts? Did you ever wonder who came up with the b.c./a.d. idea in the first place? The answers to these and other questions await you in the pages of Kyle Smith’s Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity. It is half Eusebius’s Church History, half Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and more fun to read than either of those. It is engaging and accessible enough to work in an undergraduate classroom (it has all the good stories and none of the scholarly jargon). Its “Notes for Further Reading” and bibliography are excellent resources. Especially given its host of high-quality images, this book is a bargain.

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