Lost Scriptures
I just finished reading Bart Ehrman’s Lost Scriptures. I quite enjoyed this book. It is a collection of non-canonical gospels, acts, epistles and apocalypses. It also includes the earliest canonical lists.
There is a wide variety of theological views presented as texts are included from the Apostolic Fathers, New Testament Apocrypha and the Nag Hammadi Library. It is quite interesting to see the theological diversity even within each of these categories.
This book is meant to be a companion volume to Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. In that book, Ehrman suggests that the canon was wide open and then after an ecclesiastical victory, the orthodox imposed their own canon. Reading through Lost Scriptures, one can see that the right books were chosen for the New Testament.
There really is no comparison between the quality of the canonical and the non-canonical books. This book also blows away the theory that the church destroyed the heretical books in that for some texts all we have is what the church fathers preserved for us. This is a good book that is worth reading.
doesn’t Ehrman assert that the bible is flawed? I’ve only read “Misquoting Jesus” which I would not endorse. But you endorse this new book. Have you read other stuff by Ehrman? I’m curious about what he actually stand for now.
Yes, Ehrman sees the Bible as flawed and he is definitely an unbeliever. I like Lost Scriptures only because it is a collection non-canonical texts that give us a glimpse of what was happening in the first centuries.