Secular approach to early Christian history

Review of Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart D. Ehrman

This is a history, from scholarly textual analysis, of doctrinal variations during the first 2 centuries after the death of Jesus, when several sects were in fierce competition to impose on everyone else their interpretation of what he intended to do and establish. In addition to brute politics, it was a highly literary endeavor, with competing narrativ…