Lost Christianities

The Battles of Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

By: Bart D. Ehrman

Narrated by: Matthew Kugler

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.

©2003 Oxford University Press (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

awesome learning experience as always

we forget that Christianity has changed considerably over time. some ideas come back into style after an era.

In-depth

A long, in-depth book about forgeries. I learnt many new things about the birth of christianity through the author's books. Sometimes the audio was cut abruptly though, and I always thought that I accidentally paused it somehow, but no, the audio was not cut properly at places.

excellent app and presentation!

depth of understanding!
research author prior to listening - I
am glad to have listened I learned so much !

stimulating and informative

Difficult to follow at times because of the abundant references, but also informative because of them. I wouldn't want him reading every verse in every version obviously. It is well done and the difficulty comes naturally. In other words, if you've memorized the bible, this book would be easy to follow... but then... you would be a scholar (unlikely still one of the "faithful") and this information would already be quite familiar. Basically, Christians WILL have some references to look up, and as "Christians" it's a good exercise to start doing it. Not knocking Christians here; I get it: we wanna be good people and we want our opinions to be respected if not validated. Sometimes a bit lazy, but we wanna be good and claim to know. I can appreciate that desire to be good.

excellent book and presentation

Very revealing, and enjoyable book. Thank you for creating it for us to read. Going to read this one a few times.