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Summary: Lost Christianities:The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths
Review: An engaging, succinct review of how modern Christianity emerged from the teachings of Jesus. Ehrman describes,in a clear and interesting style,little- known, ancient disputes about who Jesus was and what his words meant, in the years immediately following his crucifixion. He explains how the 4 Gospels and other Letters of Paul, Revelation, etc. ended up as the canonical "New Testament", and describes the other "Gospels" and other writings that did not make the cut, and why. I was fascinated with his description of the "Gospels" of Peter, of Philip,Mary, Coptic Gospel of Thomas, Acts of Paul and Thecla,etc.and the strange beliefs they contained.
This is not a beginner's book, but for someone with moderate knowledge of Christian beliefs and an interest in what happened in the years immediately following Christ's death that resulted in the modern edifice of Christian beliefs. Ehrman writes with an immediacy of these events as if you were there with the early Christians in 50 or 60 A.D. and later, trying to make sense of the life of a slaughtered and much-beloved teacher.
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Summary: Belief System Soul Candy
Review: Anyone: send a copy to Mel Gibson.
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Summary: Fantastic book on early Christian polemics
Review: As a scholar, it's difficult to find books that you can recommend to laypeople that will give them a clear, balanced, concise, and interesting history of religion. But Ehrman's book does just that.<i>Lost Christianities</i> is a riveting and eye-opening book for the average reader, but scholars will also find it of interest, as it gathers a lot of scattered information and puts it into one place, contextualizing lost scriptures and the current version of the Christian Bible with historical evidence. Ehrman himself is not a Christian (though he was raised as such), and so has a more objective approach to the material. Much of this book may be shocking to Christians, but it's fascinating stuff that's important to read, I think. Most importantly, this book is extremely well-written and a pleasure to read. The information is presented clearly, with a strong pace that pulls together threads as skillfully as a mystery novel - only there's nothing fictional about it. Ehrman manages to make a typically dry subject (essentially, early Christian polemics) rich, exciting and informative for the average reader, and explains complex terms and ideas in a straightforward way. As to the previous reviewer who neglected to review the book but instead wrote a treatise on Christianity... first off, there was a historical Jesus, and he probably differed from the Biblical Jesus. Jesus was not Greek, and therefore his name wasn't Greek. It was actually probably Yeshua (similar to Joshua). "Christ" means "The Anointed One," and is in fact a title, but I'm not sure how that invalidates the term "Christian." As to its capitalization, all proper nouns are capitalized in the English language, and therefore we capitalize Christian, just as we do Muslim or Jew, or New Yorker, for that matter. Finally, religion is something that has been constructed by people, but faith expresses a belief in the numinous qualities that individuals experience around them. Decrying Christianity or any other religion as invalid simply because it disagrees with your own beliefs makes you no better than those whom you criticize. And please, yes, someone send this book to Mel Gibson.
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Summary: The Winners Write History
Review: Author Bart Ehrman provides a lengthy and objectively neutral account of the early origins and development of Christianity. His scholarly research is extensive, cross-referenced, and corroborated. 300 years after the death of Jesus Christ the religion of Christianity was still not set in stone. There were competing sects, totally opposed to each other's beliefs, writings, and edicts. There was considerable disagreement over whether 1) Jesus Christ was human but not divine, 2) divine but not human, and 3) human and divine at the same time. There were also several additional beliefs within these spectrums. Some of the early "Orthodox" sects actually believed that there were actually 2 to 12 gods in the Christian religion. Ehrman's research also proves (again) that many of the Christian sects that were considered "divergent" were actually the Orthodox sects themselves. And, the elements of Christianity that are considered "Orthodox" today are the sects that actually altered the scriptures and basic tenets of the Christian religion. The author examines in detail 4 writings that were excluded from the New Testament. One concept written about in "Lost Christianities" is the alleged "Secret Gospel of Mark." According to the eruditic and well-known scholar Morton Smith, there is a 17th or 18th Century copy of a letter by Clement of Alexandria, dated from the 2nd Century that reveals the "secret gospel." Quotes from the "secret gospel" describe Jesus raising a man from the dead, and then initiating a homosexual encounter between the two of them. As is common with many phenomenons, and alleged previously unknown "discoveries," only blurry photographs remain of document, and the original is "thought" to be held in Israel. Fact or fiction? As is with all religions, it's hard to tell the different between the two. Remember the Shroud of Turin? That was a fake as well. But the Christian church attempted to block any carbon-date testing of the Shroud. I was particularly interested in Constantine The Great's influence over the Christian religion. His influence is felt today. If Constantine had not converted while he reigned over the Byzantine Empire the Christian religion, and it's world-wide influence and basic tenet's, would be radically different today. On Trinity: the concept of Trinity was finally decided upon by the Council of Nicea in 324 A.D. in Turkey. The Council stipulated that there was a "Father, son, and holy spirit," and this was the official line, or "belief" to be followed: Trinity. Those who maintained the belief that Christianity was a monotheistic religion were killed and forced into exile. This monotheistic sect of Christianity still survives today. All this decided, over 300 years after Jesus Christ died? Will the "true" Christianity ever be known? Have billions of people been practicing a false faith because of the alterations? A faith that was altered by human politicians and bureaucrats three hundred years AFTER the death of Jesus? How will Christians resolve this? Will they mentally sweep this under the rug? After finishing this book those with objective and open minds will realize what religion is all about for the most part. History, politics, public relations, and official lines propagated by the victors. Those who were and are "believers" may have questions and be confused. Those who are "blind followers" will simply make rationalizations, equivocations, and continue to have "faith."
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Summary: Interesting but not well-organized
Review: Bart Ehrman appears to bring to his study of early Christianity's contending variants a sincere attempt at impartiality. He accepts, as would most (but not all) writers on the subject, that a historical Jesus existed and acted much as the gospels describe. Beyond that, there is a healthy skepticism in his assessment of the genuineness of the relevant writings and of the motives of those who authored them and of those that either canonized or denounced them. He presents an interesting survey of the many sects that vied for control of the Jesus legacy, analyzes their writings -- many only recently discovered -- and speculates on how our world would be different if some alternative to what we know as orthodox Christianity had emerged as dominant. His method of organizing this material is confusing and leads to an excessive number of forward and backward references. Too often it seems as if he is struggling in his attempt to make scholarly and arcane material accessible to the layman. He takes the rubric "tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; and then tell them what you've told them" to excess. His inclusion of a chapter on Morton Smith's claimed discovery of a secret version of the Gospel of Mark is diverting and illustrates a few points. But Ehrman's treatment of this episode from the 1950's is undercut by his apparent belief that Morton Smith fabricated the document. What then is the purpose in giving it such an extended treatment? This contributes to the feeling that Ehrman has not clearly thought through a successful approach to structuring his material.
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Summary: A good scholar, but . . .
Review: Bart Ehrman is a brilliant man, and a great writer. I am not certain that anyone could doubt this. He is certainly learned not only in the New Testament, but also in the works of the ANE. But I think that Ehrman errs (no pun intended!) on a few issues. Orthodox Christianity was hardly in a place to control, dominate, and eventually snuff out the "real Christianity's" presented in the Gospel of Thomas or Mary Magdalene. The Roman Government had no problem with "spiritual resurrections" and private mystical experiences of a palestinian Jew. To them, these people were no doubt strange--but they were not a threat. It was infact the Orthodox Christians who were the real threat to Rome--for they claimed that since God had raised Christ bodily from the grave, Jesus must be the true lord of the world (and therefore Caesar is not the world's true lord). This was the scandal that Rome tried to stomp out. The Gnostic "Christianitys" were not a threat to the Roman Government, and the Church for years did not have any power to literally stomp them out. In other words, the "Davinci Code-esque" nature of books like this are extremely interesting, but not very credible. I thank Bart for writing, but I disagree with him.
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Summary: Interesting introduction to a complex topic
Review: 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.
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Summary: Excellent discussion of little-known texts and traditions
Review: Dr. Bart Ehrman provides an impressive overview of many of the texts and traditions of early Christianity. He rightly points out that history has been written by the winners (the "proto orthodox"). The version of history that came to us suggested that the proto orthodox were ALWAYS the orthodox, and all others were heretics. This book goes into great detail, demonstrating that this simple notion was indeed false. Thriving communities were based upon "other" gospels and letters, and some found Paul's version of Christianity to be the REAL heresy. I would also highly recommend Dr. Ehrman's course from The Teaching Company on this topic. He is an engaging lecturer as well as excellent scholar.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent discussion of little-known texts and traditions
Review: Dr. Bart Ehrman provides an impressive overview of many of the texts and traditions of early Christianity. He rightly points out that history has been written by the winners (the "proto orthodox"). The version of history that came to us suggested that the proto orthodox were ALWAYS the orthodox, and all others were heretics. This book goes into great detail, demonstrating that this simple notion was indeed false. Thriving communities were based upon "other" gospels and letters, and some found Paul's version of Christianity to be the REAL heresy. I would also highly recommend Dr. Ehrman's course from The Teaching Company on this topic. He is an engaging lecturer as well as excellent scholar.
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Summary: Fascinating, readable, essential for thinking bible students
Review: Dr. Ehrman began assembling the material in this book over 10 years ago, and has refined his presentation of it in classes taught at the University of North Carolina. My first exposure to the material was in such a class, and the knowledge I gained and the insight I developed has informed my understanding of not only Xtianity, but of every other world religion ever since. If you are interested in exploring the complicated and very important interactions between faith, inspiration, and human societies, if you are interested in understanding the historical context of religion and the development of religious traditions, if you want to separate fact from myth about which Christian beliefs are more inspiration-based and which ones are based on human social customs and church traditions, you would do yourself a great favor to read this book. If you ever wondered how the New Testament came into being, you will also find just about everything you ever wanted to know here. Perhaps most useful for practicing Xtians is the examination of different heresies; each one is examined as it occurs in the historical course of refining Church teaching, and discarded for sound theosophical reasons. Why is this so important? Because heresies tend to recurrance, and as you read about them you will recognize amongst your friends and neighbors, perhaps yourself, tendencies towards these tempting errors in thinking. You will thus be better able to avoid them.
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