Fabricating Faith
How Christianity Became a Religion Jesus Would Have Rejected

Richard Hagenston

According to Hagenston, Jesus had such a hard edge when it came to Gentiles that he coined his own unflattering term for them—dogs. He limited what he was offering strictly to Jews. Yet the religion that began in his name quickly transformed into a predominantly Gentile movement centered on blood sacrifice to obtain God’s forgiveness, a practice rejected by many Jews long before Jesus came on the scene. Furthermore the sacrifice was not just of an animal, but of Jesus himself. How did this happen? Hagenston exposes the roots of brutal justice underpinning traditional Christianity, but finds hope in a Jewish movement toward grace that preceded and influenced the historical Jesus.
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Gospel of Luke
Scholars Bible

What prompted the anonymous author of Luke to edit his sources—Mark and Q—and retell the story of Jesus? Using the Scholars Version translation that is true to the everyday Greek of the gospel writers, Pervo explores the who, when, where, why, and how of the Gospel of Luke. Includes the Greek text, introduction, notes, and cross-references.
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Elaine Pagels Interview

In this one-on-one interview, bestselling author and MacArthur Prize recipient Elaine Pagels tells a wide-ranging story. She explains how Billy Graham’s preaching sparked her interest in religion, and talks of her early encounters with Gnostic texts and with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Through the interconnections between the personal and professional, Pagels addresses the problem of how we are to define Christianity meaningfully in ancient and modern times.
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The Earliest Christian Text: 1 Thessalonians

Gerd Lüdemann

Paul’s letters were written before any other Christian texts, even the gospels. And the earliest text of all is 1 Thessalonians. This new English translation is both intelligible and true to the meaning of the original Greek text. In the accompanying commentary, Lüdemann engages critically with the theology of the early Paul, including Paul’s virulent attacks on circumcision and other Jewish practices. Readers desiring a more in-depth study will find detailed appendices on Pauline chronology and later letters.
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Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report

Edited by Dennis E. Smith and Joseph B. Tyson

Acts was long thought to be a first-century document, and its author Luke — a disciple of Paul — an eyewitness or acquaintance of eyewitnesses. It was considered history, pure and simple. But Westar’s Acts Seminar concluded that Acts is from the second century, a conclusion that directly challenges the view of Acts as history and raises a host of new questions, addressed in this final report of the Acts Seminar.
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The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon

Jason D. BeDuhn

The earliest version of the New Testament, now in English for the first time!

History preserves the name of the person responsible for the first New Testament, the circumstances surrounding his work, and even the date he decided to build a textual foundation for his fledgling Christian community. So why do so few people know about him? Jason BeDuhn introduces Marcion, reconstructs his text, and explores his impact on the study of Luke-Acts, the two-source theory, and the Q hypothesis
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From the Big Bang to God

Our Awe-Inspiring Journey of Evolution

By Lloyd Geering

Until two hundred years ago, most people in the Western world believed that earth and sky were no more than six thousand years old. Then science brought that date into question. In the pages of From the Big Bang to God, Geering simply and concisely tells the story of evolution and traces the rise and fall of God as a human response to discoveries about the universe.
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Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles

Volume 5 of the Early Christian Apocrypha series

Clayton N. Jefford

Rediscovered in 1873, the Didache provides a glimpse of early Christian ritual and liturgy. It is the very first manual for Christian life. Here Clayton Jefford presents parallel translations of the original-language manuscripts — from Greek, Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Georgian. His detailed introduction places the Didache in its historical context, and cross references and notes on sources enable in-depth study.
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Revelations

A lecture by Elaine Pagels

Early “Christians” seized on the Book of Revelation as a weapon against heresy and infidels of all kinds—Jews, even Christians who dissented from their increasingly rigid doctrines and hierarchies. But were they its original targets? Elaine Pagels persuasively interprets Revelation as a scathing attack on the decadence of Rome. She argues that its author, John of Patmos, was taking aim at the Roman Empire following the “Jewish War” in 66 CE, when militant Jews in Jerusalem, fired with religious fervor, waged an all-out war against Rome’s occupation of Judea, and their defeat resulted in the desecration of Jerusalem and its Great Temple.
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