Rating: 
Summary: No Anti-Conservative Agenda, Only Balanced Scholarship
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: No Anti-Conservative Agenda, Only Balanced Scholarship
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The Most *UNbiased Author in my Extensive Library!
Review: Ehrman's book "Lost Christianities" has to be the MOST UN-biased material that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Ehrman doesn't give "his view" and move on, as a lot of writers do. As a matter of fact, when you've finished the book you're left wondering if Ehrman even *has a view! He seems to have a very unusual knack for *becoming (for the moment) each particular group, or person that he speaks of, therefore seeing, and showing, all points from all sides. This is the first of Ehrman's books that I've had the pleasure of reading...and recommending. I hope to add all of Ehrman's books to my library, with high hopes that the others stand just as intriguing, enlightening and unbiased as this one. Thank you Ehrman! You've did a fantastic job!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: First off, I would have to agree with my Chicagoan neighbor that Mr. Edward Lopez is criticizing beliefs that he has no knowledge of (this represents my own reaction, not my neighbors). It's just another example of an angry atheist that feels compelled to write a lengthy review about a topic he claims that he hates. All of his comments are completely irrelevant. For example, he's right that Jesus Christ was not his real name. It was Eaysooce Christos (Go to Seminary before you speak of things you have no idea about Ed), at least that is how it appears in the Greek texts. However, the terms Christ, anointed, and Messiah are all proper descriptions of our Lord and therefore appropriate to use. I'm not even going to waste my time with the rest of his unintelligent statements.This is another great book by Prof. Ehrman. Once again he is not afraid to do a serious enquiry into areas that many Christians, although most likely sincere, tend to avoid. If you are not familiar with the many nuances and trials of Christianity in its formative years then this is a must have. This book is probably not the best choice for scholars who are quite aware of most of what Ehrman is saying, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't read it anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Pre-reading thoughts
Review: I just started to read this book and I can honestly say that, so far, it looks like I may finish it. But I have a few comments before I write a review. First: Christian scholar is an oxymoron. For anyone who studies religion, particularly judeo/christian, the conclusion is that there is no historical evidence for Jesus. Second: the guy's name was not Jesus Christ, it was Jesus the Christ, or Jesus the anointed. Third: capitalizing christianity is ridiculous as we don't capitalize king. Fourth: there is no such thing as christianity since, as I said, christ was a title. Christianity is meaningless. Fifth: the more education you acquire about religion, particularly the judeo/christian, the more atheistic you should become as what is evident is that man created god in his image since there were never any REAL gods; it is a human creation. Sixth: it is impossible for a person such as the claimed Jesus to exist, the miraculous one. If such a person as Jesus existed, he was merely a guerilla fighter who was tired of the Roman yoke and felt a duty, such as Martin Luther King did, to free the jews from continued persecution. After all, why would his disciples need to carry weapons? Seventh: the New Testament has nothing to do with the Old Testament and any references to the O.T. in the N.T. are just for show since the O.T. belonged to the jews. Eighth: since there were no effects from the alleged Jesus in the Mediterranean until centuries after his alleged death (and resurrection, hah!), Jesus is immaterial in the real world. Ninth: since the judeo/christian religions were restricted to the Mediterranean area until the conquistadors started to spread the poison of christianity, again christianity was not a factor for anyone outside the Mediterranean area. In other words, if the conquistadors had not eradicated the Central and South American peoples, christianity would have been a local Mediterranean religion. Keep a clear mind: religion is only for those who are conditioned. Conditioning results in beliefs, there is no other way. Everyone is born an "atheist" (with a clear, unconditioned mind) and some lose this clear thinking as relgion is drummed into their minds. I don't think that a real book review is necessary after the above as the book won't change humankind one iota, the way knowledge such. Mental conditioning is difficult to erase, just ask cult deprogrammers.
Rating:
Summary: A real eye opener!
Review: I must say that this book has brought me full circle as a Christian. As a youth, I was raised in a fundamentally Baptist church where everything written in the Bible was taken literally, with no room for interpretation. As I got older, I realized this was not the case and eventually changed denominations to Methodist.
In this Methodist church, I got a Sunday school teacher who was really into teaching Bible history. It stands to reason that, if you are going to put all your faith into something, that you should learn as much as you can about it. Instead of sticking my head in the sand and thinking "well, it's in the Bible, so that's how it is," I decided to read about Bible history.
Almost as a revelation, I was listening to an NPR interviw about this book on my way home from work one night and decided to get it.
I must say, it was a real eye-opener. I never realized that there were so many sects in early Christianity at the beginning, largely because the forerunners of the church today snuffed out much of the evidence of their existence. I never knew that the "New Testament" as we know it today did not exist at the beginning. Finally, I never realized how the Canon had been altered as it was passed down by hand from scribes, or at times "edited" by those who wanted to teach a certain viewpoint (case in point, the part of the New Testament that says women shouldn't speak in church! Now how many churches today use that to keep women from becoming ministers, deacons, etc?!).
In short, it is a great book.
-Coop
Rating:
Summary: Education for the curious.
Review: If you have ever thought about the origins of Christianity, questioned who wrote the bible, who put the New Testament together as we know it, this book will surprise you about how much you don't know. A rare book that is scholarly, yet easily understood to the layperson who is tired of insecure dogmas, and ready for objective historical truths.
If you are a Christian looking for reassurance and want somebody to tell you what you want to hear, go buy some 50 page large print Lee Strobel "books". If you're ready to grow up and think for yourself, "Lost Christianities" is a good place to start.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent contribution to Christian history
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent contribution to Christian history
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A Critical Review of Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities
Review: In the book Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, Bart Ehrman examines a wide diversity of early Christian texts and the various belief systems they represent. The primary purpose of this book is to shed light on the early Christian writings that came to be "rejected, attacked, suppressed, and destroyed" (ix). As a result of the battle for Christian orthodoxy, these texts and forms of Christian faith were declared heretical. In this book, Ehrman provides a general discussion on the wide variety of " Lost Christianities" in order to show the diversity of Christian beliefs and practices in the second and third century. Ehrman's book is directed toward a general audience that has little to no background in the studies of early Christianity. It is clear that one of Ehrman's main objectives is to educate the general population (both Christian and non-Christian) on the formation of the canonical NT, while emphasizing how one group emerged from the battle victorious. Ehrman encourages the reader to think about the major influence orthodox Christianity has had on western civilization. With this in mind, he asks the reader to imagine what civilization would have been like if a different form of Christianity won the battle for orthodoxy. This critical review will examine some of Ehrman's main discussions in Lost Christianities. It will also attempt to determine the merit of this book according to its general purpose, by analyzing Ehrman's ability to display information and to make clear and distinct arguments.
Ehrman's book is divided into three main parts. The first part, entitled "Forgeries and Discoveries," uncovers some of the discovered hidden Christian texts, including a Gospel claiming to be written by Jesus' disciple Simon Peter, an account of the life of Thecla an alleged disciple of the apostle Paul, as well as other interesting accounts, which represent an even larger number of texts that had been determined to be forgeries either in the second and third century or in recent scholarship. The problem of forgery was fairly widespread in the second and third century and in many cases distinguishing the authenticity of a text has not been an easy task. Ehrman supports the recent arguments questioning the authenticity of some of the canonical NT writings, particularly the supposed Pauline letters 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and 2 Thessalonians. Although most Christian scholars have been reluctant to label any canonical book a forgery (the term "pseudonymous" is usually incorporated instead), almost every scholar has agreed that the non-canonical books (the ones excluded from the NT canon) are indeed, forgeries. Nonetheless, many followers of Jesus would have considered these writings and others to be sacred scripture. Ehrman points out that these writings display drastically different beliefs about Jesus and his message than what is known to us in the canonical books of the NT; the writings are the greatest representation of the diversity of Christianities in the second and third century.
The second part of Ehrman's book called "Heresies and Orthodoxies" deals with various faith movements within early Christianity. Ehrman points out that "this matter of being `right' was a concern unique to Christianity" (91). Although Ehrman's comment appears to be overstated, his argument does make sense in the religious context of the first and second century, especially in the midst of Roman polytheism. In comparison to the Roman religious beliefs, the salvation pronouncements of Christianity had an exclusivist nature. For instance, many of the early Christians believed that salvation comes only through Jesus (e.g. John 14:6). Ehrman discusses the four main early Christian movements about which we have any substantial evidence. He includes the following: the Jewish Christian Ebionites, the anti-Jewish Marcionites, the early Christian Gnostics, and the group he labels proto-orthodox. Ehrman spends a good amount of time on each of these early Christian movements giving the reader a general overview of their belief systems. He points out the difficulty in gaining an accurate assessment of these movements, since most of the evidence comes from biased proto-orthodox sources.
The third part of Ehrman's book deals with major conflicts between the various Christian movements. As each movement began to spread the Christian message, the differing views were conflicting and creating more diversity and confusion. In order for Christianity as religion to gain any sense of unification, it needed to define orthodoxy. Thus, the last part of Ehrman's book discusses the battle for orthodoxy, primarily taking place in the fourth century. Each movement held to particular beliefs on specific literary grounds, and each claimed that their view should be considered as orthodoxy. Hence, the faith that eventually emerged victorious is what has been passed down through the centuries, beginning with the basic orthodox creeds and a NT canon that was deemed authoritative for all Christians.
Overall, Lost Christianities is a good overview and general discussion of early interpretations of the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth. Ehrman addresses some of the foremost controversial texts while provoking a good discussion and rendering liberal conclusions. It appears as though Ehrman has a good understanding of the texts themselves as well as the scholarly debates that have revolved around the various writings over the past century. His task is a difficult one because he is writing for a popular (non-scholarly) audience, yet he is able to maintain a balance between overview and depth in most of his discussions. Ehrman provides definitions for many theological terms, which allows the book to be conducive to a reader who does not have background in theological studies, in particular, studies concerning the formation of the NT canon and orthodoxy.
When speaking about his arguments as a whole, Ehrman generally does a good job providing textual evidence. However, some of his arguments appear to lack a solid foundation and as a result Ehrman's conclusions seem to be based on pure speculation. For example, in the examination of Saying 114 of the Gospel of Thomas, Ehrman makes an argument concerning gender relations in the ancient world. Saying 114 is one of the most controversial Gnostic verses because it quotes Simon Peter and Jesus saying, "women are not worthy of life" and therefore, should become a living spirit resembling a male. "For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." Ehrman points out that this view of women is not entirely in line with other Gnostic texts and therefore, has "caused a good bit of consternation, especially among feminist historians" (63). Ehrman then goes on to argue the following: "As we know from medical writers, philosophers, poets, and others, women in the Greek and Roman worlds were widely understood to be imperfect men. They were men who had not developed fully" (64). He does not however, provide any sufficient textual evidence to back up a view that is "widely understood" about women in the ancient world. Ehrman may be accurate in saying that women were viewed as subordinate and unreliable in comparison to men, but he makes an over-generalization in order to make an argument for the Saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. Why would this cause such consternation among feminist historians of early Christianity, if this view of gender relations were "widely understood" in the ancient world?
Another aspect of Ehrman's book that was disconcerting is his overall treatment of the group, which he labels, proto-orthodox. Among his discussion of the four central faith movements in early Christianity the proto-orthodox group is listed. It appears as though Ehrman applies this title as a means to efficiently refer to `what will become' orthodoxy. The term is inherently misleading. Ehrman is referring to proto-orthodoxy as if it were an organized group just as the Ebionite and Marcionite movements. By using the title, proto-orthodoxy to name a group that has yet to be formed, it appears that Ehrman is avoiding the idea, that among the wide diversity of Christianities in the second and third century, there may have been a majority view, which practiced a form of Christianity similar to the victorious orthodox view. Ehrman's argument that there was a wide diversity of Christian beliefs before the emergence of orthodoxy is well based in textual evidence; however, he tends to over emphasize the influence of their presence. As a result, he discredits, does not address, and appears to blatantly ignore the idea that there was a majority view in the second and third century, which prevailed and eventually became orthodoxy. Instead, Ehrman hides behind the ambiguous group called, proto-orthodoxy.
Despite the minor criticisms mentioned, Ehrman's book Lost Christianities is a good general overview of the battle for orthodoxy and the formation of the NT canon. The book introduces a wide diversity of writings that are representative of the various faith movements, which claimed to be Christian in the second and third century. Although some of Ehrman's arguments lack textual support and tend to over generalize in order to make large claims, he provokes a good discussion. The greatest contribution this book has to offer is that it encourages the general public to gain an understanding of the origins of orthodox Christianity and to ponder its profound historical significance.
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