Thanks for sharing brother. That was very interesting. Currently I'm working through an audio book you might be interested in called Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley. You can get it free with an Audible trial.
New Testament Miracles: Past & Present
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Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out.
I recently stumbled across a book I'd forgotten about by eminent Roman historian Ramsay MacMullen called Christianizing the Roman Empire (100-400 AD). He is a secular historian interested in explaining the amazing rapid rise of Christianity to its dominant status in such a short time; replacing pagan religion in just a few hundred years (prior to Emperor Constantine). Most secular historians advance complex theories related to politics, economics, socialization and the like to try to explain the rapid rise and spread of Christianity---a religion that was intolerant of paganism, required exclusive devotion to one God the Father & Lord Jesus Christ, and that taught abhorrent ideas to Jews & Greeks alike (like a 'nonsensical' crucified Messiah 'victorious' through suffering, and bodily resurrection from the dead). The decision to become a Christian and renounce paganism was also not some casual, 'altar call' decision, but adversely affected one's economic and social standing (one's very livelihood), because of how integral pagan religion and sacrifice was to society and economics of the time. Every merchant guild had its own patron gods or goddesses that sacrifices and festivals (and economics!) revolved around. It was difficult to participate in any aspect of society without encountering the problem of paganism. All these circumstances (and others I haven't even touched on) combined to make Christian conversion a very difficult and risky decision---and the rapid rise and spread of Christianity all the more difficult and mysterious to explain by secular historians.
As New Testament scholar CFD Moule once famously wrote:
"If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole of the size and shape of the Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with?. . . the birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church. . . remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the church itself"
The resurrection explains the birth and rapid rise of Christianity in the early decades of the first century, but it doesn't address the continued explosive spread of Christianity over the next two to three hundred years. This is the problem secular historian Ramsay MacMullen sought to explain. But unlike most historians, he doesn't advance complicated theories, but simply presents the primary, firsthand accounts in the centuries that followed, and what those accounts say is amazing. Whether Christian or pagan (or even staunch enemies of Christianity), all report the same phenomenon: mass conversions of people as a result of miraculous displays, signs and wonders, healings, and exorcisms (often in power 'contests' that pit the power of Christ against a pagan deity). On the basis of these primary source accounts from Christians and pagans alike, Ramsay concludes that the main reason why Christianity spread so rapidly across the Roman Empire from 100 to 300 AD was due to mass conversions of people as a result of miracles, healings, exorcisms, and the like that they witnessed or heard about from others---mass conversions attested to by both pagan and Christian alike. You don't often find a secular historian who will come to such a conclusion, but to his credit, MacMullen follows the evidence to its logical conclusion (not that MacMullen necessarily believed these were real miracles; but as a historian he is objectively reporting the reasons given for mass conversions in account after account after account in the two hundred or so years following the initial birth of the first century church).
On the Christian side, we can add New Testament scholar Craig Keener's massive two-volume tome of several thousand pages documenting phenomenal miracles and the power of God both past and present. The first book is called "Miracles: the Credibility of the New Testament Accounts" & the second is called "Miracles Today," which documents hundreds of stories from countries around the world of documented firsthand accounts of God's continuous miraculous workings even in our midst today---a phenomenon that we can trace all the way back to Jesus and the first century church, as attested to in the New Testament. (Massive books, but highly recommended).