Lost Christianities: The Battles For Scripture And The Faiths We Never
Knew By Bart D. Ehrman (Paperback, 2005)

Product Description

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 & shows how they came to be suppressed reformed or forgotten All of these groups insisted that they upheld the teachings of Jesus & his apostles & 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 & 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 & Judas Thomas Jesus's alleged twin brother-to the disparate beliefs of such groups as the Jewish-Christian Ebionites the anti-Jewish Marcionites & 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 & standardized Christian belief-and the groups they denounced as heretics & ultimately overcame Scrupulously researched & lucidly written Lost Christianities is an eye-opening account of politics power & the clash of ideas among Christians in the decades before one group came to see its views prevail