Robin Lane Fox (M / Britain, 1946), scholar
Robin Lane Fox (M / Britain, 1946)
A graduate from Magdalen College Oxford, Robin Lane Fox taught Ancient History at the University of Oxford, from 1970 to 2012. While primarily focused on ancient Greece (and the figure of Alexander the Great), Fox has written three books dealing with the history of Christianity,
Works
Books
- Pagans and Christians (London [England]: Viking, 1986; and New York, NY: Knopf, 1987).
- The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible (London [England]: Viking Penguin, 1991; and New York, NY: Knopf, 1992).
- Augustine: Conversions and Confessions (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2015).
Pagans and Christian (1986)
"Religion and the religious life from the second to the fourth century A.D. when the gods of Olympus lost their dominion and Christianity, with the conversion of Constantine, triumphed in the Mediterranean world."--Publisher description.
Contents: Pagans and Christians -- Pagans and their cities -- Pagan cults -- Seeing the gods -- Language of the gods -- The spread of Christianity -- Living like angels -- Visions and prophecy -- Persecution and martyrdom -- Bishops and authority -- Sinners and saints -- Constantine and the church -- From pagan to Christian
Translations
- Italian ed. : Pagani e cristiani, tr. Mario Carpitella (Roma: Laterza, 1991).
The Unauthorized Version (1991)
"When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" he received no answer. In this provocative, vastly learned, and elegantly argued book, a historian of international reputation asks the same question of the Bible, with triumphant results ... The Unauthorized Version discusses the two incompatible creation stories in Genesis and the historical errors in the Gospels' accounts of the Nativity. It introduces us to a Bible that came late to monotheism, propounded a jumble of conflicting laws, and whose authors wrote under assumed names. Far from debunking the scriptures, though, Robin Lane Fox locates their core of truth: his book is a bold and original contribution both to the history of religion and the literature of belief."--Publisher description.
Contents: As it was in the beginning -- The Unerring word -- 'Hear, O Israel' -- In Defiance of the facts -- Authors anonymous -- Jesus and the scriptures -- Pseudonymous Christians -- Adding and subtracting -- From Scrolls to books -- Original scripture? -- Ideas of history -- The First historians -- From David to Paul -- Digging and traveling -- Fifth gospels -- Concurrent heathens -- Jesus on trial -- Back to the future -- The Old in the new -- The Bible as story -- 'Divine letters' -- Human truth
Translations
- Italian ed. : Verità e invenzione nella Bibbia, tr. Donatella e Piero Spinelli (Milano: Rizzoli, 1992).
Augustine (2015)
"In Augustine, celebrated historian Robin Lane Fox follows Augustine of Hippo on his journey to the writing of his Confessions. Unbaptized, Augustine indulged in a life of lust before finally confessing and converting. Lane Fox recounts Augustine's sexual sins, his time in an outlawed heretical sect, and his gradual return to spirituality. Magisterial and beautifully written, Augustine is the authoritative portrait of this colossal figure at his most thoughtful, vulnerable, and profound."--Publisher description.
"This narrative of the first half of Augustine's life conjures the intellectual and social milieu of the late Roman Empire with a Proustian relish for detail."--New York Times