The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition (Early African Christianity)

This book rewards the study of the search for the truth about Africa and its contribution to the world in all areas not because of its superiority but because of its position of being on the receiving end of centuries of crimes of false narratives which continue to plague us to this day. And though not exclusively contained to those of African descent we all stand to benefit from the continual unearthing of the truth

Eastern thinking and African thinking are not close to being the same. Thomas Oden has given scholarship and his experiences a persuasive argument for Biblical students (I am one) to rethink what they have been taught from their earliest training. With this book one must have a fairly good background in history stretching forward from about 2500 years ago.

I believe the Dr. Oden is a great writer. I also listened to his lectures at Dallas theological seminary about early Christianity in Libya. As a Coptic Orthodox Christian since birth, I smell the aroma of the church father teachings in Dr. Oden's writings. I believe his books are a must-read for every christian who wants to live the early christian history in the twenty first century.

When I started looking for early Christian history, I was disappointed by Adolf Harnack's dismissiveness of Eastern Christian History, and frustrated by the difficulty finding other sources (although, I've found more since). After reading W.H.C. Frend's Early Christian Archeology, I realized for the first time the vast opportunity for extending and continuing research and publishing in the field of Early Christianity. I aspired to do some of that work myself. Thomas C. Oden's The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition is the first published work I have read to challenge the Euro-centric, history of Christianity, and starts to give us a well-footnoted account of what happened in Africa after the apostolic Pentecost. This book is such a joy and a relief to read! Instinctively I have have known where one ought to look for the data, and what would be there, and, look!, here it is! Thomas Oden takes us in to the continent of Africa, into the cities we've read about, down the streets, and past the buildings, into the archives and offices of the Coptic Church. Here the protected and cherished treasures of nearly two millenia have been preserved, and Oden gains access to the ancient books, and manuscripts and the Coptic hierarchs whose faithful stewardship have guarded these early witnesses. Oden crafts the timeline, weaves the threads of historical witness, and the African memory of Mark's apostolic journeys and leadership into a compelling tapestry of the establishment of Christianity in Egypt in the first century. Oden poses a lot of questions, good questions, the questions that are forming in your mind as you read. He seems to tease us with the the substance of the puzzle pieces as he connects them, and at the same time entices and challenges us to join him in the detective work of this rare and amazing period in history. His unanswered questions describe the missing pieces. Sometimes the text is repetitive, but remembering that Oden is a professor, and a teacher, he knows that repetition will cement key bits of information in our minds, tug at our curiosity, and perhaps compel one of us to get up out of our comfy chair, and pack our bags, because we want to learn the languages, build relationships with people in the African countries, gain access to archives, begin digging in the sand for more sources, and tell more of these powerful, hidden stories of Early African Christianity to others. Read this book. Be surprised by the story Thomas Oden has to tell. Be inspired, the fields are ripe and the laborers are few.

An outstanding presentation of the early church that's little known to the West. The philosophies of history promulgated in Europe and America in the 20th century discounted anything that happened in the early church. We need to rediscover the patristic theologians, particularly those in Africa. The church did not begin in Rome, but rather in Alexandria and Cyrene. JW

This book was recommended to me by our pastor. I had never heard or read anything about this phase of Mark's life ministry which is not even mentioned in Scripture., I have had some considerable post graduate Biblical and theological education but have never been introduced to this part of Mark's story.

The book is well written in understandable layman's language. The author presents an Insightful, thought-provoking work with a new twist on how we might define history. It was indeed an eye opening journey for me in a previously uncharted space.

Amazing and interesting summary of the African position of the Apostle Mark.

The book is loaded with facts and useful comments. I am writing a novel based on the work of Mark and the controversy about who wrote the Gospel of Mark. .

A most interesting book on Mark with a great deal of background information on his life.

Very interesting book

For the first time, we have a book that takes ecclesiastical narratives seriously. This does not mean that these narratives are accepted but are considered for assessment against historical evidence. The emergence of Christianity in Alexandria (and Egypt) is one of the greatest unresolved mysteries in scholarship. Since Walter Bauer's "Orthodoxy and Heresy" scholars throughout the world no longer accepted the scenario proposed by Eusebius of Caesaria. The nature of earliest Egyptian Christianity was probably embarrassingly heretical enough to be superseded by the story of Mark the evangelist. However, in the light of recent discoveries, most importantly Secret Mark, some credence was given to the idea that Mark the Evangelist played an important role in earliest Christianity. In the light of this, Thomas C. Oden proposes a comparative study between the different theories and evidences. The huge materials he surveyed from Coptic and African sources (shaping what he calls "African Collective Memory") make this book a fresh contribution to the question of earliest Egyptian Christianity. For further light, I offered a critique in my blog KingsReader Mina Monier PhD scholar King's College London