In a study that explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, Ehrman traces how early struggles between "heresy" and "orthodoxy" affected the transmission of the documents. Ehrman's incisive analysis makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of early Christianity.



Victors not only write history: they also reproduce the texts. Bart Ehrman explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, examining how early struggles between Christian "heresy" and "orthodoxy" affected the transmission of the documents over which many of the debates were waged. He makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the social and intellectual history of early Christianity and raises intriguing questions about the relationship of readers to their texts, especially in an age when scribes could transform the documents they reproduced. This edition includes a new afterword surveying research in biblical interpretation over the past twenty years.