Customer Reviews

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew and Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament: 2-Volume Set

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This is fundamentally a popular treatment of the topic that doesn't tell us that much new about the subject. But it is not a bad introduction. Indeed, if you are not aware that the Christian New Testament was not agreed upon until more than three centuries after the death of Jesus, that there is a whole host of other "Christian" literature some of which has as good (or bad) a claim to holy inspiration as the canon, that there were a whole host of Christian sects which radically deviated from the eventual orthodoxy, that in many areas these Christian sects were the original representatives of Christianity, and that what we now know to be Orthodoxy won its battles by, among other things, altering the text of holy scripture, then you should read this book.

Ehrman's book is divided into three parts. The first looks at four Christian works that failed to enter the New Testament. Ehrman first looks at the remainder of "The Gospel of Peter," which survives to this day as an account of the crucifixion. Interestingly, Ehrman suggests we have about as many copies and references to it from this time as we do with the Gospel of Mark. We also learn about "the Apocalypse of Peter," which gives a guided tour of hell (women who braided their hair are especially miserable.) Ehrman then discusses the Acts of Thecla, a supposed apostle of Paul. We then get a discussion of the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of supposed sayings of Jesus. Some scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas may go back to the mid-first century, but Ehrman is rather sceptical. Then we look at the Secret Gospel of Mark. According to leading Biblical scholar Morton Smith there is a seventeenth/eighteenth century copy of a letter of Clement of Alexandria (2nd century) which quotes from the supposed secret gospel. It tells of Jesus raising a man from the dead, and then insinuates a homosexual encounter between the two. Unfortunately, we have only photographs Smith took of the letter, and no-one has been able to find it in the Israeli monastery where Smith supposedly discovered it. Indeed, we cannot rule out the idea that Smith forged the letter himself.

Ehrman then discusses the many groups whom emerging proto-orthodoxy eventually condemned as heretics. There were the Ebionites, who saw Christianity as part of Judaism, and viewed Jesus as fully human. There were the Marcionites, after their founder Marcion who viewed the God of the Old Testament as fundamentally flawed, and viewed Jesus as an emissary from the true God who would liberate humanity. They were the producers of the first Christian canon: ten Pauline epistles and an edited Gospel of Luke. Then there are Gnostics who promoted a variety of views about Jesus, usually denying his humanity. Some, the Docetists, thought that Jesus's suffering was illusory since the real Jesus did not have a real body. Others, known as Adaptionists, thought that Jesus was only adapted to receive the power of the Christ at the time of his baptism, and that it left him on the cross. Ehrman provides interesting reasons why these groups were not successful. Ebionites were too Jewish, the Gnostics were too spiritually elitist, while Marcion's religion was too new to fit the conservative religious prejudices of the day. We also learn that one of the pillars of Orthodoxy had to become an antipope, because the properly elected pope believed in "heresy": the idea that Jesus was not God the son, but God altogether. The majority of the Roman church had come to this view because they believed a) Jesus was God and b) there is clearly only one God in the Bible. The antipope Hippolytus argued correctly that Jesus and God are clearly two separate people in the New Testament, and then argued, not so correctly, that Jesus must therefore be divine in a separate sense from his father.

Ehrman then discusses Orthodoxy's response. By the third century there was consensus about most of the books of the New Testament, though there were heated debates over books such as Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and the Apocalypse of John. Opponents correctly realized that the apostles did not write these books. (Over the past two centuries scholars would realize that seven Pauline letters are the only books in the New Testament correctly attributed to their author.) We read about the Epistle of Barnabas, an early Christian letter that almost made it into the Bible. It would have been extremely embarrassing had it done so, since it claims that weasels conceive through their mouths, that hyenas change their sex every year, and that rabbits grow a new orifice every year. The most interesting part is Ehrman's discussion of the corruption of the New Testament text. We know that "heretics" altered biblical texts. The Ebionites changed a couple of letters and turned John the Baptist into a vegetarian. Ehrman also discusses Orthodox "corrections." We know about some of them because enough alternate texts survive to see the manipulation. For example the Proto-Orthodox altered passages in Luke where Mary refers to Joseph as Jesus' father. Other Christians tried to alter Jesus' final statements in Mark ("why have you forsaken me,") because it fit too well with the adoptionist heresy mentioned above. But other manipulations are harder to track. It appears that Luke's reference to Jesus "sweating blood" may have been an addition to counter Docetist beliefs. While the addition of "by the Grace of God," to a passage in Hebrews may have countered another heresy. As we do not have the original texts, we cannot tell how much of the New Testament was altered to fit the desires of Orthodoxy.

Review of Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, by Bart D. Ehrman

Reviewer: Mark Lamendola

The 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 Christianity. Understanding this basic fact and understanding where our divisive doctrines came from will help anyone be a better member of the Christian family. For anyone who seeks to achieve such a goal, this book tills the soil and plants the seed. If you can do just a little watering and weeding, your faith will grow like a mustard seed.

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.

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Bart Ehrman's rather short work on the diversity of early Christianity, though flawed in a number of ways, offers readers a solid background in this complex subject. The author reviews the major movements, such as the Ebionites who as Jewish-Christians who saw Jesus as fully Human, the Marcions who rejected the notion that the deity of the Hebrew Bible could be the one of which Jesus spoke, and the Gnostics who saw the material world as unredeemably flawed and saw Jesus as a messenger carrying the secrets of how to redeem the spirit. Each of these movements deserve a several volume treatment, however, given his space limitations Ehrman offers a reasonable thumbnail sketch of each.

That said, not all of his treatments are equally strong. He shines in his review of the Gnostic movement, offering a strong brief description of its basic tenants and myth structure. Unfortunately, he can only review a few of the Gnostic sects, which many scholars believe where both diverse and widespread. He also takes the position that the pro-orthodox Christians (those that became Catholic) successfully wiped out Gnosticism in antiquity. Many scholars disagree with this position, believing that Gnostic movements survived underground at least until the Middle Ages, offering as proof several popular medieval heresies that were clearly Gnostic in nature.

His review of the Ebionites offers a good basic foundation in those who believed that Jesus was the fully human Jewish messiah spoken of in scripture. Again, however, Ehrman's description is too brief.

The real weakness of the text is in the treatment of the struggle and eventual victory of the proto-orthodox movement. One cannot summarize the complexity of late pagan Rome in a mere 300 pages, let alone while dealing with a host of other topics. Thus, while Ehrman offers a good sketch, it remains little more than that. He has no room to consider the influence of popular pagan cults such as Mithras and Isis on nascent Christianity's theology. He also cannot deal at any length with the immense popularity of Judaism through the empire (Judaism was a proselytizing faith in this period) as well as the large number of non-Jews who did not convert but participated to various degrees in Jewish life, and the fertile ground this created for the new faith.

Ehrman also has a rather irksome habit of making statements without offering enough-- or even any -- supporting evidence. As an example, his treatment of the reasons and methods of detection of early Christian forgeries is one of the text's most interesting sections. The idea of producing forged works purported to be from those close to Jesus is a fascinating topic worthy of careful study. So to is the idea that texts were often altered, such as the various endings offered for the Gospel of Mark, in order to defend a particular theological view.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to space limitations, Ehrman too often declares texts forgeries and offers estimated dates for their production without offering any evidence or argument as a basis for the position. Thus some Scholars date the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, a series of sayings attributed to Jesus to the mid first century. Ehrman places it in the late second century. Those hundred years represent a world of difference for how we should read the text. Ehrman's offering of a date without a defense of his position does the reader a disservice, and one that he repeats again in several other places with other texts. I hoped that he corrected this with his introduction to the individual texts in his companion work, "Lost Scriptures," but was disappointed to find that he does not; offering again dates without a basis.

Despite these flaws, I still give this book a high rating. Readers looking for an accessible introduction to the subject will find just that. I only wish the author offered a larger and deeper alternative text, or a suggested reading list for those hungry for more.

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.

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 Jesus had been corrupted by Judaizing tendencies among the earliest disciples and that the Old Testament had no validity for Christians.

And you'll meet the Gnostic Christians. They believed in a pervasive dualism. Good and evil, light and darkness, truth and falsehood, spirit and matter were opposed to one another in human experience as being and nonbeing. The created universe and human experience were characterized by a radical disjunction between the spiritual, which was real, and the physical, which was illusory. This disjunction resulted from a cosmic tragedy, described in a variety of ways by gnostic mythology, as a consequence of which sparks of deity became entrapped in the physical world. Ehrman discusses the Nag Hammadi documents, a group of gnostic writings which were found in 1945 and now constitute the only significant body of gnostic works known to modern scholars.

For those who want a mystery with controversial overtones, an entire chapter is devoted to the Morton Smith affair and the alleged Secret Gospel of Mark. Smith was a renowned professor of ancient history at Columbia University. Some years ago he spent time in scholarly research at Mar Saba, a famous Orthodox monastery, some twelve miles from Jerusalem. There he claimed to have discovered a previously unknown letter by Clement of Alexandria, an important early church father of the third century. In this letter, Clement goes on to quote two passages from a Secret Gospel of Mark, both dealing with activities in which Jesus was involved. The story involves Jesus becoming "acquainted with a young man who loves him and comes to him wearing nothing but a linen cloth over his naked body. Jesus then spends the night with him, teaching him about the mystery of the Kingdom." Smith's interpretation of this story, including his suggestion regarding homoerotic overtones, created a furor in the academic community. The question is, as Ehrman notes: "Is this an authentic letter of Clement, or was it forged? And if it was forged, forged by whom?"

In summary, Ehrman's book considers the varieties of belief and practice in the early days of Christianity, before the church had decided what was theologically acceptable and determined which books should be included in its canon of Scripture. Part of the struggle over belief and practice in the early church was over what could be legitimately accepted as "Christian" and what should be condemned as "heresy." It considers the struggle for "orthodoxy," that is, what beliefs are "right" or "true," and the attempt to label, spurn, and overthrow "heresy," that is, what beliefs are "wrong" or "false." Christians today typically think of the New Testament as the basis for a correct understanding of the faith. But what was Christianity like before there was a New Testament? Read Professor Ehrman's book and you may discover some clues.

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.

In my view, Bart Ehrman speaks with more strength and clarity than any other New Testament scholar. I have heard him in person, listened to his tapes and read his books. He exudes competency, frequently reminding us that his conclusions are those of a historian. In the case of "Lost Christianities," this means he will not be an advocate for or against any specific early theology - instead, he will explain how the eventual winning Christian theology came to be dominant within the context and politics of that era.

I was subjected to more than my share of fundamentalist preaching, yet values at home were more those of inquiry and evidence toward the world in general. Ehrman's approach is more to my liking than reiteration of a dogma I've already heard, documented by passages of scripture preselected to prove a certain view. Consider the development of early Christianity subjected to the same kind of scrutiny one of Shakespeare's plays might receive from a college professor of western world literature - in which speculation is kept to a minimum and explanation is made as to the historical and political forces at work. This is Ehrman's forte.

Where does Ehrman stand? He is non-committal, so it is hard to say, although it is obvious he takes a liberal stance of some sort. Perhaps not for all readers but certainly for that group - religious or not - who wish to enjoy a scholarly account of the evolution of early Christianity - this is your book.

With all the hype that early Christian sects have received due to the popularity of "The DaVinci Code" and other such books, it's nice to read a book that puts it all into perspective. Bart Ehrman does an excellent job of examining current historical evidence with an objective eye and painting an accurate picture of these early Christian groups. As a Christian, I was fascinated by the fact that there were so many disparate viewpoints, such as some Christians' beliefs that there is more than one God, that Jesus was human but not divine, that he was divine but not human, etc. It seems that people at the time were very busy at figuring out the nature of God and Jesus and trying to make sense of it all. What is ironic, though, is that Jesus preached a simple message of love and mercy, and humans had to complicate everything by over thinking things (as usual).

Ehrman presents all sides of the story without siding with either one. In fact, it's hard to decipher his own religious beliefs from reading the book, which means he does a good job of keeping it objective. Readers' reactions to the book will depend on their own personal beliefs. Some may become interested in some of the "lost" Christianities and become angry that they were suppressed and forgotten for so long. Others, like me, will come away from the book with a new perspective on Christianity once it's been placed in its historical context.

The book was obviously written for the masses, and not so much the academic crowd. The text was easy to read and never boring. In fact, I had a hard time putting it down once I started! I was riveted from beginning to end.

Ehrman condenses the insights of critical scholarship in a very readable and lively book. I won't here repeat what others have said in their reviews, but will say this much.
For those with a more conservative background, Ehrman may have a reputation of being antagonistic towards the faith. Ehrman certainly may not have the conception of the early church that many conservatives do, but the charge of a liberally biased scholarship should not be laid at this scholar's door.
There are a number of times where Ehrman has the opportunity to adopt a radically liberal position, but chooses not to on the basis of evidence, etc. There is the impression that he simply wants the reader to understand the diversity and sloppiness of the history of early Christianity, not undercut a person's faith.
One of the things I like especially about this book, and Ehrman's methodology in general, is his willingness to ask the "What if...?" questions. "What if the history of the early church was eventually dominated by the Ebionites, Gnostics, etc.?" These are important questions to ask, simply because they usually turn up answers (or even other questions) that assist one thinking outside the box.
Simply put: Evangelicals and other conservatives need not fear the contents of this book, but would benefit greatly (as everyone else) by being challenged with evidence of the enormous diversity of the early Christian movement(s). I find no evidence whatsoever of a "liberal" agenda. Rather, judicious and penetrating scholarship lies behind this very readable and introductory text, which will help only to underscore the necessary element of faith in one's existential encounter of Christ, instead of the uncertainties of historical evidence.