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“Books were at the very heart of the Christian religion—unlike other religions of the empire—from the very beginning. Books recounted the stories of Jesus and his apostles that Christians told and retold; books provided Christians with instruction in what to believe and how to live their lives; books bound together geographically separated communities into one universal church; books supported Christians in their times of persecution and gave them models of faithfulness to emulate in the face of torture and death; books provided not just good advice but correct doctrine, warning against the false teachings of others and urging the acceptance of orthodox beliefs; books allowed Christians to know the true meaning of other writings, giving guidance in what to think, how to worship, how to behave. Books were completely central to the life of the early Christians.”
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
“At about the same time that apologies began to be written, Christians started producing accounts of their persecutions and the martyrdoms that happened as a result of them.”
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
“If communities of believers obtained copies of various Christian books in circulation, how did they acquire those copies? Who was doing the copying? And most important for the ultimate subject of our investigation, how can we (or how could they) know that the copies they obtained were accurate, that they hadn’t been modified in the process of reproduction?”
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
“Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife should give her a certificate of divorce’ [a command found in Deut. 24:1], but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife for reason other than sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” It is hard to see how one can follow Moses’ command to give a certificate of divorce, if in fact divorce is not an option.”
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
“Christians came from the ranks of the illiterate. This is certainly true of the very earliest Christians, who would have been the apostles of Jesus. In the Gospel accounts, we find that most of Jesus’s disciples are simple peasants from Galilee—uneducated fishermen, for example. Two of them, Peter and John, are explicitly said to be “illiterate” in the book of Acts (4:13). The apostle Paul indicates to his Corinthian congregation that “not many of you were wise by human standards” (1 Cor. 1:27)—which might mean that some few were well educated, but not most. As we move into the second Christian century, things do not seem to change much. As I have indicated, some intellectuals converted to the faith, but most Christians were from the lower classes and uneducated”
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
― Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
Devon Seeley’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Devon Seeley’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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