New Testament

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

25 May 2023

• 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 who was a religion professor at BYU before his death in 2018, evaluated the Book of Mormon’s statements on the “great and abominable church” and identified the organization Nephi₁ was referring to.