Lost Christianities

I wonder how different my spiritual life might have been had I come across this book when I was about 12. Lost Christianities is a fascinating overview of the many varieties of Christianities that existed in the first several hundred years following Jesus' life. All these belief systems held in common that Jesus was a Messiah, but otherwise vary tremendously. Several of them creatively (and with reasonable logic) resolve some of the contradictions that I found irreconcilable when I first read the Bible as a kid. For example: the god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament are not the same god. The god of the Old Testament is vengeful, prone to spiteful rages, and the only god for the Jews (not the only god in existence). The god of the New Testament is merciful, loving, a god for everyone, Jew or not. How is this the same god? Some said it wasn't. The Old Testament god of the Jews was an inferior god. A god, who, frankly, screwed up occasionally. (Hence rainbows). The New Testament god is overrules that one. So throw out the Old Testament and stick to the New. Great. Problem solved. Then there's the whole Trinity thing, which is a pretty confusing way to solve the problem of "one god + Jesus" issue. Another group solved that one by saying that Jesus was never anything but a human. The Christ was the holy spirit who basically borrowed Jesus' body until his crucifixation, at which point it hightailed it back to heaven (hence the "oh, god, why have you forsaken me?") Also reasonable logic.

So what happened to these and all the other alternative explanations? This is the central question that Ehrman seeks to answer. His final answer is that the belief system that eventually won out and became what we identify as Christianity today was the system that happened to be most prevalent in Rome, where there was power, wealth, and lots of practice with beauracratic organization and people management. That system won, largely by discrediting other texts that were floating around as scripture, selectively editing others, and possibly forging others (certainly known forgeries were eventually included in the New Testament). And then, of course, in later times, other belief systems were squashed as heresies. And so we have Christianity today, which, despite all the many sects, essentially believe the same thing. I wonder how many Christians actually know the history of their sacred text?