Lesson Two Reading Materials

Backhaus, K. Echoes from the Wilderness: The Historical John the Baptist. Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus. Brill (2010)

Brakke, D. “A New Fragment of Athanasius’s 39th Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon.” Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010): 47–66. English translation of the first document to list the 27 books of the New Testament.

Dilley, P. C. “The Invention of Christian Tradition: ‘Apocrypha,’ Imperial Policy, and Anti-Jewish Propaganda.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 50 (2010): 586–615. Studies the continued invention of apocryphal texts after the closure of the New Testament canon.

Ehrman, B. D. Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne (March 19, 2013)

Fredriksen, P.  Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York: Knopf [Random House], 1999).

Johnson, L.T. Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 39–68.