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

This book is an excellent introduction to the characters referred to so often on the subject of early Christianity and exactly what role they played and what position they took. For readers who would like some famous names fleshed out a bit, like Eusebius, Irenaeus, Ignatious of Antioch, Marcion, Polycarp, Tertullian and others, this is a very engaging way to learn more about why these names are so important in the early decades and centuries as they themselves are writing about the lively early christian world of conflicting doctrines and theologies.

I found it useful and enjoyable to have Ehrman's companion book to this one, "Lost Sciptures", as a handy reference that added another very rich dimension to the experience. Being able to actually read the scripture to which the ancient fathers were referring brings this book to life.

Lost Christianities is a casual introduction to early Christian history and the academic study of the New Testament. Bart Ehrman describes the beliefs and texts of several competing Christian groups. The Gnostics, Ebionites, Marcionities, and proto-orthodox (Dr. Ehrman's name for the group that came to dominate by the fourth century) receive the most attention.

The author was the Religious Studies chair at UNC and the publisher is Oxford University Press, but everything between the copyright page and the bibliography of this book reads like a popular press title. Accessibility is emphasized everywhere with frequent storytelling and even definitions big words in parentheses. Anything technical is banished to a further reading entry in an endnote. This, however, means the search for the reasoning behind some of Dr. Ehrman's more puzzling claims must be undertaken at a library.

The book is loosely organized into three sections. The first describes ancient texts and includes stories about the discovery of some and the forgery of others. The second describes a diverse array of Christian sects. The final tells how the proto-orthodox responded to other groups and how the New Testament canon became standardized. In all three sections, this book is easy, informative, and occasionally even convincing.

Ehrman's "Lost Christianities" is a valuable resource that is at its best when offering translations and summaries of actual early Christian texts, revealing a fascinating diversity of views within the early Church. The history of early Christian disputes and how they led to Rome's dominance, and the destruction of alternative paths, is highly readable and engaging.

The book's main weakness is not so much its secularism, but its surprisingly constricted approach to interpretation. Ehrman tends to adhere to literalism in his analysis, which leads him into some blind alleys. One example: in discussing the references to the author of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas as Jesus' twin, Ehrman wonders if this implies the mother of Jesus gave birth to Joseph's son at the same time as she delivered Jesus, and points to Greek mythology in which Hercules the son of Zeus had a mortal twin. Very literalistic. But I recently read an analysis which put forth the view that in referring to Thomas as Jesus' twin, the meaning (or at least a meaning) is that humanity is/can be the "twin" of the son of God, if we (humanity) will step up and claim our true natures. This esoteric interpretation has basis in Gnostic theology, and it's surprising that Ehrman doesn't even mention it.

Ehrman also repeatedly refers to many ancient gospels as "forgeries." I think that term would have been better reserved for medieval or modern hoaxes (of which there are many). Yes, we know that many gospels, maybe all, both canonical and otherwise, were not actually written by the apostles themselves. But if an unknown scribe collected the oral traditional associated with an apostle and then produced a work under the apostle's name, it seems that labeling it as "fraudulent" or a "forgery" is not really appropriate and, in fact, somewhat misleading.

Ehrman's a really bright guy, but this is just plain bad scholarship. He's so concerned with showing any sort of Christianity to be irrational, he completely loses himself. Ehrman underqualifies nearly all of his positive claims, and when he summarizes views that contradict his, those views clearly obliterate any chance of his working at all. Take, for example, his discussion of "secret Mark". He really, really wants there to be a secret Mark, but he's a good enough scholar to present other's viewpoints. Even after presenting all the multi-faceted evidence that it was completely forged, he still just plain wants to think there was such a thing. This book reads much like the Da Vinci Code: really entertaining narrative, but pure fiction.

This is the third publication of Bart Ehrman I have read, and I have been equally enthralled by all three. I come away from reading this book with a much clearer understanding of early Christianity. Bart delves into the major directions that various faiths took after the period of Jesus and the apostles. All of these faiths, interestingly, believed that they were on the correct path. We learn about the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the Gnostics and, of course, the proto-orthodox.

The book also discusses the formation of what we know as the canon of scripture, and how it took centuries to coalesce into a unified book. Eventually Athanasius in 367 CE decreed which books would be included in the canon, and at the synod of Hippo in 393 CE, the great orthodox theologian Augustine of Hippo threw his weight behind the list. But in the centuries before this, things were quite different.

It is interesting to note how events of the fourth century in Rome profoundly directed the course of events. Emperors Diocletian and Maximian led a campaign to suppress Christianity which failed, and then Constantine's embrace of the religion led to about fifty percent of Rome claiming to be Christian by the end of the fourth century up from several percent at the beginning of the century. This was an important turning point for the proto-orthodox movement.

It is unfortunate that many of the texts of the "losers" have been suppressed, destroyed or otherwise lost. We could probably have a much clearer picture of just what happened in those formative years of the birth of Christianity.