Weekly Religion: Christianity

[maverickstruth]

Originally Posted by Dimitry

Thanks for the responses everyone!

maverickstruth, can you still post a few books that you recommend? I know that it's next to impossible to get a true and 100% accurate interpretation of history. What books at least have sound research behind them that show the "best possible" case scenario of what happened? Hopefully they're not 1000 pages either heh.

What I'm hoping is to at least have some understanding of religions (starting with Christianity because that's what I practice).



Where's here?

Sure... not today, and probably not tomorrow, but look for them by the end of the week. For starters, though, I'll recommend books by authors Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels. Both very good scholars who have very readable books... even have been on the New York Times bestsellers lists, I believe. And relatively short. But I will post some specific recommendations later on this week.

As for the "where's here" this probably isn't the link that was intended by J.R. Neumiller, but here's a couple of places you can start:

Chronology of the Great Schism
East-West Schism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, try Google-ing words and phrases like "Filioque", "Homoousia", "Homoiosia", "Great Schism" and the like... there is a wealth of material out there. Some good, some bad. Be aware, though, that most sites will tell you only either the E. Orthodox side of the story, or the R. Catholic side... when I compile my book list, I'll try to include some titles that deal with the Schism, as well, although it does happen about 1000 years later than my main area of study

[Dimitry]

Originally Posted by maverickstruth

Sure... not today, and probably not tomorrow, but look for them by the end of the week. For starters, though, I'll recommend books by authors Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels. Both very good scholars who have very readable books... even have been on the New York Times bestsellers lists, I believe. And relatively short. But I will post some specific recommendations later on this week.

As for the "where's here" this probably isn't the link that was intended by J.R. Neumiller, but here's a couple of places you can start:

Chronology of the Great Schism
East-West Schism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, try Google-ing words and phrases like "Filoque", "Homoousia", "Homoiosia", "Great Schism" and the like... there is a wealth of material out there. Some good, some bad. Be aware, though, that most sites will tell you only either the E. Orthodox side of the story, or the R. Catholic side... when I compile my book list, I'll try to include some titles that deal with the Schism, as well, although it does happen about 1000 years later than my main area of study

Haha thanks for the respone. I like how you research and present your ideas. Hope this thread continues with your posts because I greatly enjoy them.

No rush with the books, I probably won't run out buying them right away anyways as I'm cycling between 3 other books at this moment. I just always wanted to actually know something about my religion (and others), instead of just standing there and not understanding 95% of the stuff that goes on (in an Orthodox service).

[maverickstruth]

Originally Posted by Dimitry

Haha thanks for the respone. I like how you research and present your ideas. Hope this thread continues with your posts because I greatly enjoy them.

Thanks I'm glad you find it useful. I really enjoy sharing what I've learned and continue to learn (not only about early Christianity, but other religions too). Your post was actually quite good timing... I've been trying to decide "what I want to be when I grow up", and had been playing with the idea of starting a blog to spread what I've learned in my studies, if only because there is a lot of misinformation out there and it leads to so much misunderstanding (I actually started said blog a few months back, but then got quite sick for a while and haven't gone back to it... it was something I'd planned on restarting over the next few weeks). Your comment has been quite encouraging to me, since it makes me feel that maybe -- just maybe -- it's something worth doing. So thank you for that!

[Michael Chui]

maverickstruth: I am duly impressed by the depth of your knowledge. If the misinformation around can be corrected, then I think it would be wonderful to do so. If nothing else, announce your blog and I'll point to it where I can. Religious history is one of those things I'm interested in, but would rather spend what time I have on things I class with higher priority for myself. Good luck with wherever your ambitions take you.

[Dimitry]

I'll gladly devote time to your blog as I do to Steve's. Very worthwhile content to read. I'm behind you all the way on that one.

You can still pursue other things for now and just put 10-15 hours/week into the blog and invest more time if you see more and more people reading. That could be a good way to get into publishing content down the road and so on so forth!

[maverickstruth]

Thanks to all who have voiced their support. I don't want to derail this thread any futher (although I believe it may have gone past the point of no return), but the response has been very encouraging. I'll post when I've got the blog back up and running (it needs some help at the moment), so look for an announcement in the next couple of weeks -- probably not this week, but certainly before Christmas.

[maverickstruth]

Alrighty, as promised, here's a booklist of some titles that I recommend for reading in early Christianity. By no means is this list exhaustive, but it's a broad smattering which includes a bit of everything. I've put the authors' names first with a few suggested titles in brackets. For people like Ehrman and Pagels, all of their books are worth a read, but I've included the titles that are probably easiest to find.

So without further ado... the list.

Bart Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus, A Brief Introduction to the New Testament, Lost Christianities, Lost Scriptures, Christianity in Late Antiquity, After the New Testament)
Elaine Pagels (Beyond Belief, The Gnostic Gospels)
Margaret Miles (The Word Made Flesh)
Gérard Vallée (The Shaping of Christianity)
Paula Fredriksen (From Jesus to Christ)
John Dominic Crossan (In Search of Paul)
Willis Barnstone (The Other Bible)
James M. Robinson (editor) (The Nag Hammadi Library)

[maverickstruth]

Alright... I seem to have the last billion posts in this thread, so this will be the last one unless someone wants to start up actual conversation in it. Anyway, for those of you who expressed interest in my blog, it's up and running now. Link is in my sig.

Happy holidays (be they between-semester, Winter, Christmas, Hanukkah, or any others that I may be missing!) to all!