New Testament

Week 30: Post-New Testament Christianity & the Great Apostasy

Notes and lesson materials will be posted after the class has been held.

Lesson 30 notes

Lesson 30 slideshow (on‑screen version)

Lesson 30 slideshow (printable version)

Walter Bauer, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.” Dr. Bauer’s 1934 book revolutionized the study of early Christianity. Everything written on it since then has been a reaction to his thesis, which was that what came to be known as “orthodoxy” was just one of numerous forms of Christianity in the early centuries.
Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, UT: BYU Press and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2005). This book, which is available for free online, is one of the best books on the Great Apostasy for Latter-day Saint readers.
Stephen E. Robinson, “Nephi’s ‘Great and Abominable Church’,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1998): 32–39. Robinson, a religion professor at BYU, evaluates the Book of Mormon’s statements on the “great and abominable church” and identifies what organization Nephi₁ was referring to.