The Heresy of Orthodoxy & The Gospel and the Greeks
Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 10:28 am
I recently read these two books and thought they were very good for those interested in the subject matter they cover.
The Gospel and the Greeks by Ronald H. Nash goes into the question: Did early Christianity borrow their beliefs and/or practices from pagan religions and practices of their time?
This book covers a lot of ground and gives plenty of insight into the constant and undying assertion from outside the church that Jesus was just another pagan myth, recently popularized by the Zeitgeist video on youtube.
Personally, I found the book boring because I'm not very interested in this issue but I still wanted to look into it because of all the misinformation in our world today.
The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Andreas J. Kostenberger & Michael J. Kruger is a critique of the Walter Bauer (and now Bart Ehrman) Thesis that early forms of Christianity were very diverse. That there were many separate but acceptable forms of Christianity and that it was not until "Orthodoxy" came along much later in the fourth and fifth centuries whereby "Christianity" was nailed down and anything that didn't fit in this later "Orthodoxy" was considered "Heresy". The claim is that before later councils ruled, Christianity was so diverse as to not have any theological foundation going back to Jesus. This book does a great job exposing the weaknesses of the Bauer-Ehrman thesis.
Unlike the first book mentioned above, this book was very interesting to me. In part because of all the things Bart Ehrman has said negatively about the bible but also because I just find this and textual criticism interesting.
The Gospel and the Greeks by Ronald H. Nash goes into the question: Did early Christianity borrow their beliefs and/or practices from pagan religions and practices of their time?
This book covers a lot of ground and gives plenty of insight into the constant and undying assertion from outside the church that Jesus was just another pagan myth, recently popularized by the Zeitgeist video on youtube.
Personally, I found the book boring because I'm not very interested in this issue but I still wanted to look into it because of all the misinformation in our world today.
The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Andreas J. Kostenberger & Michael J. Kruger is a critique of the Walter Bauer (and now Bart Ehrman) Thesis that early forms of Christianity were very diverse. That there were many separate but acceptable forms of Christianity and that it was not until "Orthodoxy" came along much later in the fourth and fifth centuries whereby "Christianity" was nailed down and anything that didn't fit in this later "Orthodoxy" was considered "Heresy". The claim is that before later councils ruled, Christianity was so diverse as to not have any theological foundation going back to Jesus. This book does a great job exposing the weaknesses of the Bauer-Ehrman thesis.
Unlike the first book mentioned above, this book was very interesting to me. In part because of all the things Bart Ehrman has said negatively about the bible but also because I just find this and textual criticism interesting.