Discussions and comments about Bart’s latest book.
Major Issues in the Earliest Christian Centuries (In my Book After the New Testament)
What were the key issues, controversies, developments, and concerns of the Christian communities of the first three centuries? These are the topics considered in my book After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed, 2015). In the previous post I explained that the book is a collection of most of the most important writings from the second and third centuries -- the period right after the books of the New Testament were themselves written. Here I talk about the various themes that I used to organize my collection, themes that I judged to be the most significant for anyone trying to understand Christianity in earliest times. This will take two posts. ****************************** By way of introduction to this collection of ancient Christian writings, I should say a word about the nature of the rubrics I'll be using and the logic of their sequencing. This need not entail a lengthy discussion: each chapter begins with a sketch of the important historical aspects of the topic, and each individual [...]