This brilliant book, new in paperback, attempts to explain just that, and along the way, challenges our perceptions about what the religion was really like in its early stages. There were numerous early Christianities, all competing for the mantle of orthodoxy; heretics could be just as much trouble as the Romans. It was heretics who first created a Christian bible out of Paul s letter and Luke s gospel. The New Testament was a later imitation, compiled much later towards the end of the second century. Hopkins also argues that there were many Jesuses, as shown by the varied portrayals in the Gospels: the human Jesus of the early books, John s mystical Jesus, and the teacher we find in the Gospel of Thomas.
- ISBN10 0753810654
- ISBN13 9780753810651
- Publish Date 6 July 2000 (first published 28 October 1999)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 30 November 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Orion Publishing Co
- Imprint Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 416
- Language English