TTC Video – Lost Christianities – Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication

In the first centuries after Christ, there was no “official” New Testament. Instead, early Christians read and fervently followed a wide variety of scriptures—many more than we have today.

Relying on these writings, Christians held beliefs that today would be considered bizarre. Some believed that there were two, 12, or as many as 30 gods. Some thought that a malicious deity, rather than the true God, created the world. Some maintained that Christ’s death and resurrection had nothing to do with salvation while others insisted that Christ never really died at all.

What did these “other” scriptures say? Do they exist today? How could such outlandish ideas ever be considered Christian? If such beliefs were once common, why do they no longer exist? These are just a few of the many provocative questions that arise from Lost Christianities: Christian scriptures and the Battles over Authentication.

Course Lecture Titles
1. The Diversity of Early Christianity
2. Christians Who Would Be Jews
3. Christians Who Refuse To Be Jews
4. Early Gnostic Christianity—Our Sources
5. Early Christian Gnosticism—An Overview
6. The Gnostic Gospel of Truth
7. Gnostics Explain Themselves
8. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas
9. Thomas’ Gnostic Teachings
10. Infancy Gospels
11. The Gospel of Peter
12. The Secret Gospel of Mark
13. The Acts of John
14. The Acts of Thomas
15. The Acts of Paul and Thecla
16. Forgeries in the Name of Paul
17. The Epistle of Barnabas
18. The Apocalypse of Peter
19. The Rise of Early Christian Orthodoxy
20. Beginnings of the Canon
21. Formation of the New Testament Canon
22. Interpretation of scripture
23. Orthodox Corruption of scripture
24. Early Christian Creeds

By Professor Bart D. Ehrman, M.Div., Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary
TTC / TGC Course No. 6593