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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 270
EAN: 9780195182491
ISBN: 0195182499
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: September 15, 2005
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Sales Rank: 11414
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Product Description:
The early Christian Church was a chaos of contending beliefs. Some groups of Christians claimed that there was not one God but two or twelve or thirty. Some believed that the world had not been created by God but by a lesser, ignorant deity. Certain sects maintained that Jesus was human but not divine, while others said he was divine but not human.
In Lost Christianities, Bart D. Ehrman offers a fascinating look at these early forms of Christianity and shows how they came to be suppressed, reformed, or forgotten. All of these groups insisted that they upheld the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, and they all possessed writings that bore out their claims, books reputedly produced by Jesus's own followers. Modern archaeological work has recovered a number of key texts, and as Ehrman shows, these spectacular discoveries reveal religious diversity that says much about the ways in which history gets written by the winners. Ehrman's discussion ranges from considerations of various 'lost scriptures'--including forged gospels supposedly written by Simon Peter, Jesus's closest disciple, and Judas Thomas, Jesus's alleged twin brother--to the disparate beliefs of such groups as the Jewish-Christian Ebionites, the anti-Jewish Marcionites, and various 'Gnostic' sects. Ehrman examines in depth the battles that raged between 'proto-orthodox Christians'--those who eventually compiled the canonical books of the New Testament and standardized Christian belief--and the groups they denounced as heretics and ultimately overcame.
Scrupulously researched and lucidly written, Lost Christianities is an eye-opening account of politics, power, and the clash of ideas among Christians in the decades before one group came to see its views prevail.
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Rating:  -
I was very interested in this book since i read the Bible every day.But i was very disapointed.The author does a very poor job in trying to make us, the readers, feel interested in his job.That is basically because i felt i was listening to a very boring lecture as i was reading this book.The basis of this book is to analyze non-canonical books to see if they can shed some light into our understanding of Christianity.But the author falls miserably because the investigation into this books are just ... Read More
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In my opinion, you have two kinds of lay persons (outside of students): i) Thoroughly interested dabblers who know more than most laity but aren't quite conversant enough with the material to write/speak about the subject, say in a book or during a lecture; ii) The completely uninformed (or misinformed).
As a member of the first class of laity, the scope of this book is broad enough to relay bits of information that some one like myself may not have known, and to express that information ... Read More
Rating:  -
Survey of non-canonical writings from early Christianity, how they came to be, how they were used and by whom, and why they weren't included in the final form of the New Testament . The writer seems to want to make the point that many non-orthodox writings were equally deserving of inclusion, and that the final form of the New Testament was only the result of human political maneuvering. But the bizarre nature of these writings would lead the Christian to identify them as obviously non-inspired and the ... Read More
Rating: -
Bart Ehrman has made a living treading the treacherous territories of New Testament scholarship. Very few things--except perhaps politics--can make more people agitated and angry the way discussion on religion does. Ehrman navigates this forest with aplomb. He makes no secret that he sees things a certain way, and he seems to have no qualms about laying out his evidence.
Lost Christianities is something of a companion volume to Lost Scriptures in that they both aim to elucidate the beliefs of ... Read More
Rating:  -
Excellent book from a very smart scholar. I have enjoyed his books and lectures - some sanity among the crazy fundies out there!
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