Lost Christianities : the battles for Scripture and the faiths we never knew
Bart D. Ehrman (Author)
"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' 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' closest disciple, and Judas Thomas, Jesus' 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."--Jacket
Apocryphal books (New Testament) Criticism, interpretation, etc
xv, 294 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780195141832, 9780195182491, 0195141830, 0195182499
52335003
Major Christian apocrypha discussed, dates and contents
Introduction : Recouping our losses
pt. 1: Forgeries and discoveries
The ancient discovery of a forgery : Serapion and the Gospel of Peter
The ancient forgery of a discovery : the Acts of Paul and Thecla
The discovery of an ancient forgery : the Coptic Gospel of Thomas
The forgery of an ancient discovery? Morton Smith and the secret Gospel of Mark
pt. 2: Heresies and orthodoxies
At polar ends of the spectrum : early Christian Ebionites and Marcionites
Christians "in the know" : the worlds of early Christian gnosticism
On the road to Nicaea : the broad swath of proto-orthodox Christianity
Winners and losers
Quest for orthodoxy
Arsenal of the conflicts : polemic treatises and personal slurs
Additional weapons in the polemic arsenal : forgeries and falsifications
Invention of scripture : the formation of the proto-orthodox New Testament
Winners, losers, and the question of tolerance
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