I recently read two wonderful books by Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew and Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.
Lost Christianities charts the development of different branches of early Christianity/ies, through an examination of various lost gospels and other early Christian writings. It also presents a framework for understanding the emergence of 'proto-orthodoxy', that stream which eventually triumphed over other versions and established itself (post-Constantine) as orthodox Christian faith.
Misquoting Jesus examines the development and transmission of the canonical New Testament texts, discussing the way in which thousands and thousands of copyist errors and deliberate changes accumulated over time. Ehrman explains how many of the letters traditionally ascribed to Paul are in fact later forgeries, introduced for various theological reasons. He debunks the fundamentalist notion of a received text (textus receptus) and describes the methods used by biblical scholars to reconstruct the earliest versions of the text and thus take us a close as possible to the original meaning of the biblical authors.
Both books are fascinating introductions to New Testament studies. I'd studied the literary and textual development of the Hebrew bible but had never really delved into the New Testament. As a result I've decided to learn Koine Greek, so that I can begin to read the NT in the original language.
I started self-paced lessons a few weeks ago, using Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. I'm just starting to get into Greek grammar and nouns. I thought it would be impossible to learn a new language at this stage in my life, but it's actually progressing nicely so far. I'm looking forward to being able to perform my own exegesis.
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