Loading...I have been providing the “Introduction” to my book After the New Testament. Here is the end of it. In this version, I include two additional paragraphs on chapters not found in my first edition (chapter 10 and chapter 14). I’ll explain why I added these chapters (and the reading s in them) along with the other changes that I have made in the book, in a subsequent post.
In reading through the new edition of the book – I’m virtually finished and ready to send it in to the publisher – I have been struck by just how significant these early texts that I anthologize are. Second and third century Christianity was a highly intriguing phenomenon, and there was a lot “to it.” As soon as I’m done with all my current writing projects (and the gods know when *that* will be) I am planning on writing a college-level textbook on the period, going from after the period right after the New Testament , around 100 CE, up through the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. But for now I need to settle for this second edition of my reader.
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Given the wide dissemination of forgeries in the names of the apostles, different groups eventually had to decide which “apostolic” books were to be ascribed authority and which were not. The New Testament as we have it today comprises twenty-seven books that were collected and deemed Scripture by the group that won the early struggles for theological dominance. Other groups had other sets of books; and even within proto-orthodox circles, there was no complete agreement as to which books should be included and which rejected. This much can be seen from the various “canon” lists that survive from second- and third-century authors, Christians living many years before any final decisions were reached (the first “canon list” that gives exactly our own set of twenty-seven books was written in 367 CE — nearly 300 years after most of the books of the NT were actually written!). The most important surviving lists are presented in Chapter 9.
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Can’t wait! And for the book between the OT and Council of Nicene.
so too there was a movement to solidify and structure the organization of the church, in part to prevent “heretics” from acquiring any kind of foothold within it.
In any event, the best way to become familiar with the history of early Christianity is not simply to read about it in the works of modern-day scholars, but to become inundated in the primary sources themselves.
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Which is precisely why the Gospel of Judas should be your first topic in the new Reader’s Forum. When is it coming, Bart?
It’s like the Parousia. We know it’s coming soon, but we just don’t know when…..
Prof Ehrman
Looking forward to reading this work. Thanks for the preview.
A question. Do we have any clue as to what became of the original community of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem and environs? Did they survive post-70 or where they caught up in the destruction of Jerusalem?
I’m aware of such groups as the “Ebionites” and I’m haunted by the fact that eventually the groups that most closely resembled the original followers of the historical Jesus had come to be considered heretical and were condemned by the Church!
thanks
The early legends were that they fled Jerusalem and went to Pella.
Wow! Still another terrific post. Never fear, you are never going to run out of things to post. I am particularly interested in seeing the different canon lists and in the arguments about “literal” versus “figurative” Biblical interpretation. Is this book aimed at the level of the Barnes and Noble crowd, the textbook crowd, or the scholars only crowd?
You are incredibly productive. If I, in contrast, can mow the yard, rake some leaves, read your blog, hit a few golf balls, fix a leaking kitchen sink and see an occasional movie with the wife that is about all I can do in a given day.
Sounds like a great day to me!
A thought on how the role of women in the Church is still being debated today…
The new Pope is being hailed as a progressive, and in many ways he is. But he just named a flock of new Cardinals…no surprises.
A week or two before, I’d seen a TV interview with the wonderful Catholic bishop of the area where I live. (I’m an agnostic, for intellectual reasons; no “progressive changes” could lure me back to Catholicism. But that doesn’t prevent my admiring this bishop.) He recently turned 75, so he’s had to submit his “willingness to retire” papers – no word yet on when he’ll be replaced. He said in this interview that technically, *a Catholic Cardinal doesn’t have to be a priest* – so he’d like to see the Pope name one or more female Cardinals! (It’s pretty clear that he’d favor ordaining female priests; but female Cardinals could be named *now*, without any change in Church rules.)