Books about early Christianity

by EdenOne 32 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • EdenOne
    EdenOne

    I've just finished reading two (imo) great books:

    "A History of Christianity - The First Three Thousand Years", by Diarmaid MacCulloch

    "Misquoting Jesus", by Bart Ehrman

    I've purchased now another four:

    "Jesus, Interrupted" and "Lost Christianities", by Bart Ehrman

    "The Jesus Dinasty" and "Paul And Jesus", by James D. Tabor

    Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts? Can you recommend other works about the historical Jesus, early christianity(ies) and the formation of the Bible canon?

    Eden

  • Laika
    Laika

    NT Wright's 'Christian origins' series is pretty good, if a bit heavy.

  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    A couple of good On-line articles are to be found on this site : http://www.davidpratt.info/homepage.htm

    That is the guy's homepage, ignore the first items and scroll down to the two articles, in black ink, "The origins of Christianity" and "Who was The Real Jesus" . (I may not have those titles spot on, but other articles are in blue ink).

    At the end of each article he quotes a number of scholarly source books, which may be worth a look.

  • Ucantnome
    Ucantnome

    I recently read The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, Robert Louis Wilken.

  • Chris Tann
    Chris Tann

    I recomend The Secret Initiation Of Jesus At Qumran. Also if you are open to hearing both sides of the argument: The Case For the Real Jesus, or mabey it's called The Case for the Historical Jesus by Lee Strobel.

  • Doug Mason
    Doug Mason

    “St. Paul versus St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions”, Michael Goulder

    “The Rise of Christianity”, W.H.C. Frend

    “Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325”, Geza Vermes

    “A New History of Early Christianity”, Charles Freeman

    “Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years”, Philip Jenkins

    “Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew”, Bart Ehrman

    “AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State”, Charles Freeman

    “When our world became Christian 312-394”, Paul Veyne

    The Bible was created by the Church. The Bible did not fall out of the sky, therefore read on their canonisation processes.

    “Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament”, Bart Ehrman

    “The New Testament Apocrypha”, M.R. James

    “The Apocryphal New Testament”, J.K. Elliott (based on the book by M.R. James)

    “The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning”, Harry Y. Gamble

    “The Problem of the New Testament Canon”, Kurt Aland

    “The Formation of the New Testament”, Robert M. Grant

    “A High View of Scripture?”, Craig D. Allert

    Doug

  • Magnum
    Magnum

    Doug, thanks for the list. Like EdenOne, I, am interested in books like that.

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    My suggestion would be Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus (1999). Both authors studied with the same prof. They agree on certain historical facts. One is a believer and the other is not. They take turns addressing certain NT issues.

  • Hairtrigger
    Hairtrigger

    They just went on my " Must read ", list!! Thanks.

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    I wrote a term paper in college on the "historical Jesus," which meandered to "son of man" theories. It was a long time ago. I suggest a Google Scholar search of journals.

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