Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew Book

Ebionites, Marcionites, and Gnostics. Oh my.

This is a great introduction to the history of the competing theologies and practices of early Christians as can best be determined from ancient texts that have been passed down and rediscovered.

The author Bart D. Ehrman, professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, argues and, in my opinion, demonstrates that early Christianity was anything but a monolithic religion and that the beliefs that eventually came to be called orthodox were more a matter of evolution than revelation.

Who was Jesus? Was he fully human, fully divine, a mix of the two, or both things at once?

Is there one God, two gods, or many gods?

Is the earth the creation of a Supreme Being or the work of a bumbling and perhaps evil quasi-supreme being?

To be called a Christian, did you first have to be Jewish?

Are the Hebrew scriptures sacred? Are they relevant?

Which of the many books in circulation (gospels, epistles, apocalypses) were inspired, apostolic, and worthy of preserving? Which of them were heretical, dangerous, and worthy of destruction?

These and many other questions had differing answers depending on who you asked and at what point in time you asked them.

Whether you're a Catholic, a mainline Protestant, an Evangelical, or, like me, a secularist, it's an interesting read.