From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity by Bart Ehrman (Audible)

Brand Strategy is the New Theology

by Someone Who’s Definitely Not a Heretic (but probably is)

I never cared much for the Jesus business. As a lifelong B2B operator, I’ve always found B2C a bit… beneath me. Too much emotional manipulation. Too many jingles. Not enough quarterly strategy calls.

But then I decided to educate myself on all things marketing. And it dawned on me that Christianity isn’t just a religion. It’s the OG of B2C empires. Forget Coca-Cola. Forget Nike. Forget iPhones that are basically the same every year with one new camera filter. Christianity took an obscure Jewish apocalyptic rabbi with maybe 200 followers and turned him into the center of a multi-billion person global movement. With merch! Cathedrals! Spin-offs! Fan fiction!

Now that’s brand power.

So naturally, I turned to Bart Ehrman’s From Jesus to Constantine, which—spoiler alert—is the most approachable, methodical, and unintentionally hilarious work of Christian historiography you’ll ever read. It’s like SaaS onboarding manual for divine startups. Except instead of churn rates and CAC, we’re talking martyrdom, Paul’s PR genius, and how to hijack an empire without even drawing a sword.

Jesus: The Accidental Brand Mascot

Let’s cover our bases here. Jesus did not start Christianity. He didn’t even try. As Adam Gopnik recently wrote in The New Yorker’s article “Do You Know Jesus?”:

“Even if he existed, his actual purposes, whatever they might have been, are marginal to the development of Christianity as a religion.”

Translation: Jesus was the face of the brand, not the founder. Like Colonel Sanders, but with less fried chicken and more end-of-days prophecy. The man had charisma, sure. But strategy? Scalable infrastructure? Channel partnerships?

No, that was Paul. Paul was the pivot guy. The Steve Jobs to Jesus’s Wozniak. If Jesus had stuck around, we might be doing weekly Torah study and awkward foot-washing sessions. But not Paul. Paul saw a market gap. Gentiles, wandering around, bored of Roman gods and tired of sacrificing goats. Paul gave us Paulism (rebranded as Christianity for mass appeal).

Ehrman lays it out with surgical precision. We go from oral traditions to written gospels like we’re tracking the evolution from sticky notes to Notion. He shows how Paul took a failed messiah narrative and made it palatable—nay, irresistible!—to a Greco-Roman audience with zero patience for circumcision and a healthy appetite for mystery cults.

The First 300 Years: From Cult to Corporate

What From Jesus to Constantine does masterfully is track how a small, fringe sect with no money, no power, and no influencers (unless you count angry Greek philosophers) scaled into the official religion of Rome. Ehrman walks us through it like a seasoned consultant explaining a market takeover.

Want to know how Christians got accused of cannibalism? Blame PR gaps around the Eucharist. Want to know why they were occasionally burned alive? They refused to burn incense to the emperor. Basically, they didn’t know how to read a room. But that stubbornness—combined with a killer value prop (“eternal life!” “forgiveness of sins!”)—eventually won out.

“One subject that never dies, and, more significantly, never bores, is the life and times of the first century Jewish rabbi and martyr Jesus, whose followers founded a religion in his title, Christ” — Gopnik again, nailing the point.

Ehrman also reminds us that early Christianity wasn’t unified. It was a mess of conflicting doctrines, regional power struggles, and heresies that make modern office politics look like summer camp. The “winners” weren’t always the nicest or most accurate. They were just the best at gatekeeping and retroactive canon creation.

Lost Christianities: AKA, The Failed Startups

My favorite part was learning about all the rival Christianities that didn’t make it. Gnostics, Ebionites, Marcionites—they all had their pitch decks, but failed to secure Series C funding from the Holy Spirit.

It’s like watching a VC reality show where only one startup gets acquired by the Roman Empire. And guess what? The one that wins rewrites all the press releases. Ehrman covers this too, explaining how proto-orthodox Christians retroactively buried their competition—sometimes literally.

Why You Should Read This Book (Even If You’re Dead Inside)

This isn’t just church history. It’s business history. It’s identity formation. It’s brand storytelling with eternal consequences. Ehrman presents it clearly, logically, without the sanctimony that usually clings to this subject like stale incense.

If you’ve read Misquoting Jesus or How Jesus Became God, you’ll find familiar themes—but here they’re cleaner, tighter, and more digestible. It’s a lecture series turned into a masterclass in narrative dominance. If Jesus was the spark, Paul was the marketing agency, and Constantine was the VC who said, “Fine, let’s scale this thing.”

Three Career Lessons from the History of Early Christianity

(Because yes, everything is about your LinkedIn profile now.)

1. You Don’t Need to Be the Founder to Be the Star of the Show.

Jesus preached, but Paul scaled. He didn’t invent the product—he just knew how to sell it. If you’re working with someone else’s ideas (say, a 200-year-old diamond cut or a “charming fixer-upper with potential”), don’t sweat it. Be the voice. Be the face. The market rewards clarity and charisma, not originality. Paul didn’t die for anyone’s sins, but he still got all the newsletter subs.

2. Tell Your Story—or Someone Else Will Do It Worse.

Early Christianity survived because it built its own canon. Literal canon. With scrolls. Your business probably doesn’t need scripture, but you do need a narrative. Why your rings? Why your listings? If you don’t control the story, your competitors (or customers) will make one up for you—and it’ll be way less flattering.

3. Start with the Underserved—Then Flip the Table.

Christians didn’t pitch Caesar first. They went to slaves, women, immigrants—the people nobody else bothered to market to. If your stuff isn’t resonating with the high-ticket crowd, stop chasing them. Find the ignored, the overlooked, the niche-with-cash. Build community where others see crumbs. You don’t need to impress the emperor to change the empire. You need 12 die-hard apostles who’ll repost everything you launch.

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Final verdict: From Jesus to Constantine is the best book on early Christianity for anyone who’s ever looked at the Bible and thought, “This could use a funnel strategy.” It’s clear, methodical, and Ehrman doesn’t pull punches. Read it for the theology. Stay for the business acumen.

If your brand lasts 2,000 years, you’ve officially crushed your KPIs. If it didn’t - learn from the strongest competition for people’s souls and attention which is even more important for our earthly pursuits.