History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon

The New Testament stands unchallenged, in the words of Professor Bart D. Ehrman, not only as the "'bestseller' of all time," but also as the most important "book—or collection of books—in the history of Western civilization." Yet how many of us, Christian or otherwise, are as knowledgeable about the New Testament as we would like to be? Even many who consider themselves Christian find themselves asking some—perhaps even all—of the questions so often posed by those who are not. What different kinds of books are in the New Testament? When, how, and why were they written? What do they teach? Who actually wrote them? How were they passed forward through history? And, perhaps most important of all, why and how did some books, and not others, come to be collected into what Christians came to consider the canon of scripture that would define their belief for all time? In The History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon, Professor Ehrman offers a fast-moving yet thorough introduction to these and other key issues in the development of Christianity. Drawing on the award-winning teaching skills and style that have made him one of our most popular lecturers—respectful yet provocative, scholarly without sacrificing wit—Professor Ehrman has crafted a course designed to deepen the understanding of both Christians and non-Christians alike.

And it's an illuminating perspective, indeed, ranging across issues of language, oral history, the physical limitations of spreading the written word at a time when the printing press lay far in the future, and, of course, the theological forces that were shaping Christianity, molding a commonly accepted canon from the various expressions of the faith spreading across the ancient world.

All of these factors eventually produced a canon: the New Testament, whose 27 books can be grouped into four genres:
The four Gospels, the accounts of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we know as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, though all four were written anonymously, with authorship being attributed only by later Christians
The book of Acts, which is a historical account of the life of the Christian Church and its missionary efforts after Jesus' resurrection
The 21 Epistles, the letters written by Christian leaders—most notably, Paul—to Christian communities dealing with problems of faith and living
The book of Revelation, sometimes called the Apocalypse of John, which describes the end of the world, when God will destroy the forces of evil and establish a perfect utopia on Earth.
In exploring the forces that finally produced this finished canon, Professor Ehrman deals with far more than theology.