false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171570481m/107273.jpg 107273 7 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. 103407 book 2002 Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew total:280|5:81|4:124|3:66|2:8|1:1| 280 1116 505 37 2 2 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 01 16:32:02 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 10 16:30:25 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 27 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 12 10:32:35 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 12 10:34:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 29 19:46:07 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 20:18:01 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jun 19 10:42:33 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 11:04:02 -0700 2009
Religion is a very tough and sensitive topic. I know from my own book, which d...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 26 08:28:20 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 08:36:16 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 18:13:35 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 18:15:58 -0700 2009 Bought this book with its companion volume, Lost Scriptures, and read it on a recent China trip. I enjoyed it; Ehrman's an entertaining and thought-provoking read. However, having listened to the Teaching Company lectures of same name and read much of his other material, I didn't get too much out ...

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Each chapter addresses a different "lost" view of Christianity - from the stories of Christ's childhood, to an entire Gospel written by a woman - filling in ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 12:55:15 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 12:58:56 -0700 2009
While I loved "gnosti...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=107273