Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

by Bart D. Ehrman

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195141830
• ISBN13: 9780195141832
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 9.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

sensational insights

parallels, confirmation, insights.

Fantastic lay read on what becomes cannon and what didn’t and why

Ehrman takes a messy and divisive topic and brings a tempered clarity to the discussion. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the history of Christianity or comparative religious studies.

Documents ALL the original Christians.

This book belongs in every persons home library that is on a quest for religious truth. Professor Ehrman takes us to the starting point of Christianity and shows the splintering of the church into the Pauline Christians, the Jersulem churches (followers of Jesus's brother), the Petrine Christians (Catholics),and the Gnostics later on. It is fascinating to read the history of how the proto-orthodox fought so hard about the theology of whether Jesus was man or God or both before the orthodox Christians came to dominate. It will take you from Jesus up to Constatine's Roman Catholic Church. Of the forty books I have read on Christian origins this is the best by far, due to it being written historically with out all the irrational emotion that accompanies the Atheist fundamentalists or the Christian fundamentalists.This is educational and fact based, by a teacher.I highly recommend.

Christian Origins Re-examined

Incredible. Superlatives pile up when I think of this book. Lost Christianities should be read by every Christian. Far too many people believe that the New Testament and every Christian belief and doctrine sprang up full grown from the death of Jesus. Bart D. Ehrman demonstrates that this is not so with great precision and style. And it is an eminently readable work. It is not a long book, and by no means exhaustive, but in 12 chapters and just under 300 information packed pages, Professor Ehrman manages to draw a coherent outline of Christianty's development out of a myriad of conflicting and opposing beliefs, and shows how, in the end, the victors wrote the history books. This book's companion volume, Lost Scriptures, is not essential but is very helpful. I did not have a copy of this myself until I was halfway through Lost Christianities and my experience was greatly enhanced by its addition, giving me recourse to the texts described but necessarily truncated in the main volume. If you are interested in the early history of Christianity, Lost Christianities is a must have. It belongs on every shelf.

Sects and the Single God

Ehrman has written a fascinating book about early Christian writings which did not become part of the New Testament and Christian sects which gradually disappeared or were suppressed as Christianity became a powerful and orthodox religion. In the decades following the crucifixion of Christ all manner and forms of Christian belief and worship flourished in the eastern part of the Roman empire. The author describes a number of these movements and philosophies and their writings. Some were Jewish and followed Jewish law, such as the Ebionotes; some were anti-Jewish and rejected Jewish law, such as the Marcionites; some were diverse and deeply-philosophical such as the Gnostics. The proponents of each produced their written propaganda, often self-serving accounts of Jesus's supposed teachings or accounts of Jesus supposedly authored by one or another of his disciples. Ehrman sorts out the forgeries and tells what we know of the literature that wasn't deemed worthy of being included in the New Testament by the "proto-orthodox" Church leaders. He tells a fascinating tale of a possible modern day forgery by a biblical scholar alongside an ancient forgery of the "Gospel of Thomas." He devotes two chapters to the Gnostics, a movement which can resonate today with the sophistication of their thought. Unfortunately, many of the early Christian writings have been lost so only a fragmentary description of them and the sects they represented is possible. One suspects, however, that early Christianity was as diverse as it is today, encompassing as it does everything from snake charmers to Papal pomp. "Lost Christianities" is written in a lively style that is comprehensible to the non-specialist (me!). Like sausage making, the making of the New Testament was not always a admirable blend of choice ingredients. Non-believers could conclude that it was arbitrary and accidental; believers would see the hidden hand of God winnowing the worthy from the unworthy in creating the world religion of Christianity. The highest praise I can give a book is that it inspired me to explore the subject more deeply and "Lost Christianities" has done that. Smallchief

How Did We Get the Bible and Modern Christianity?

Review of Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, by Bart D. EhrmanReviewer: Mark LamendolaThe advice "Don't discuss politics or religion" usually makes good sense, because such discussions often pit one uninformed opinion against another-with a net negative result.What happens, however, when a person undertakes massive research to present an objective, respectful, scholarly view of a religious subject? One possible result is a captivating book that opens your mind and touches your heart. Bart Erhman achieved that result with this book.Ehrman discusses the various agendas of the authors behind both "scripture" and "heresy." He discusses how various writings supported the case for one faction of Christianity or another. He discusses what these writings were, how they came to be, how they were discovered after centuries of being lost, and how scholars have analyzed them.During all of this discussion, Ehrman doesn't push an agenda of his own. Indeed, he appears to explain the views and goals of each faction without taking the side of any of them. Consequently, the book moves the reader to a deeper, more informed, appreciation of Christianity. That appreciation creates a desire to replace divisive dogma with healing spirituality.The New Testament did not exist in early Christian times. It came about much later, and was a weapon in the battle for dominance among various factions. It served to unite many disparate churches into an orthodoxy. But, that orthodoxy necessarily negated the views of those whose "scriptures" weren't included in the New Testament. The New Testament is a collection of writings that support a particular set of views of Christianity (Ehrman explains why this is both a good thing and a bad thing).Many of the canonized books are not what they are commonly purported to be. In fact, some of them are forgeries. At first glance, such a statement seems inflammatory. Perhaps that's why Ehrman takes the reader through the evidence-rather than making simple proclamations. Here's a tidbit to consider. You may not know that III Timothy was considered for canonization, but then dropped-while II Timothy was included though it was known to be a forgery. What about the other books of the New Testament? And what about the other books that didn't make it into the New Testament? Ehrman answers those questions in a manner that does not attack Christianity, but instead reframes it in the spirit of truth.Many churches have split over differences in "following God's Word." Often, the underlying disagreements arise over interpretations of a passage in the New Testament. The "combatants for Christ" may mean well, but they both are most likely basing their differing interpretations on a forgery-rather than an Apostolic letter. As a result, we have many sects of Christianity rather than one true way.As varied as our flavors of Christianity are today, however, the variance was much greater in the early years of Christian

An excellent contribution to Christian history

If you like mysteries, true detective stories, and historical controversies, Professor Ehrman's newest book is just right for you. It is about early Christianity, or more accurately, early "Christianities." Why the plural? Simply because in the first centuries after Christ, there was no one single group which could be called the authentic "Christian" religion. There was, instead, a diversity of Christian groups, each with its own beliefs, practices, and sacred texts. There was no New Testament. There were many other books, gospels, epistles, and so forth, other than those that would eventually become the New Testament as we know it today. These other books were widely read and fervently followed by various groups of early Christians. Some of these early Christian groups held beliefs that today would be considered bizarre. Some of them believed there were two Gods, not one, and some believed there might be twelve, or as many as thirty gods. Some believed that a malicious deity, rather than one true God, created the world. Some taught that Jesus' death and resurrection had nothing to do with salvation. Still others insisted that Jesus never really died at all. If such beliefs were once common, why do they no longer exist? What were these other books which were considered as Christian "Scriptures"? What did these other Scriptures say? Do they still exist? Ehrman's book is about the struggle for orthodoxy, or "right belief," in early Christianity. You will see the process by which certain Christian beliefs gained legitimacy, while others were relegated to be mere footnotes to history. You will see how Christianity developed in those early years, hear about the early Christian writings, many lost to history but some newly discovered, and you will witness the development of the New Testament into an approved canon of Scripture. But how did this take place? Who decided which books should be included in the today's Canon? Since there were so many books available at the time, who decided, and on what grounds, which should be included? How do we know they got it right? Many of the early writings were known to be forgeries. How can we sure that forgeries weren't included in the New Testament? Along the way in this adventure story you'll meet the Ebionites who kept Jewish customs and strictly followed the Jewish laws. They thought that Jesus was the most righteous man on earth and because of this was "adopted" by God to be his son when he was baptized by John the Baptist. They denied that Jesus was himself divine, but insisted that he was fully human and the result of a sexual union between Joseph and Mary. They did not hold to the doctrine of the virgin birth. You'll meet the Marcionites, whose founder, Marcion, argued that the Christian God of love could not have also been the Creator God of the Old Testament. He believed that the gospel of Jesus Christ is entirely a gospel of love to the exclusion of the Mosaic Law. He believed that the original gospel of