Revelatory Experiences and Religious Innovation in Earliest Christianity

Over a number of years I have contended that powerful religious experiences comprised a major factor in the religious innovations represented in earliest Christianity. These are experiences that strike the recipient with the force of new revelation, typically introducing new beliefs or a significant reconfiguring of previous beliefs. In this essay, I return to the topic, surveying more recent interest in religious experience and also proposing some of the specifics of the experiences that helped to generate innovations in earliest Christian circles, with special attention to the eruption of the remarkable Jesus-devotion that distinguished them.