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Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
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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
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - New Theories re: old ideas
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 ... Read More
Rating:  - Great book
Excellent book from a very smart scholar. I have enjoyed his books and lectures - some sanity among the crazy fundies out there!
Rating: - SUPERB
This book is an excellent introduction to the characters referred to so often on the subject of early Christianity and exactly what role they played and what position they took. For readers who would like some famous names fleshed out a bit, like Eusebius, Irenaeus, Ignatious of Antioch, Marcion, Polycarp, Tertullian and others, this is a very engaging way to learn more about why these names are so important in the early decades and centuries as they themselves are writing about the lively early christian ... Read More
Rating: - Informal Intro to Early Christianity
Lost Christianities is a casual introduction to early Christian history and the academic study of the New Testament. Bart Ehrman describes the beliefs and texts of several competing Christian groups. The Gnostics, Ebionites, Marcionities, and proto-orthodox (Dr. Ehrman's name for the group that came to dominate by the fourth century) receive the most attention.
The author was the Religious Studies chair at UNC and the publisher is Oxford University Press, but everything between the copyright ... Read More
Rating: - An Interesting but Literalist Approach
Ehrman's "Lost Christianities" is a valuable resource that is at its best when offering translations and summaries of actual early Christian texts, revealing a fascinating diversity of views within the early Church. The history of early Christian disputes and how they led to Rome's dominance, and the destruction of alternative paths, is highly readable and engaging.
The book's main weakness is not so much its secularism, but its surprisingly constricted approach to interpretation. Ehrman tends ... Read More
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