{"id":4278,"date":"2007-09-01T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-01T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/09\/the-earliest-christian-artifacts\/"},"modified":"2007-09-01T17:28:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-01T17:28:00","slug":"the-earliest-christian-artifacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/09\/the-earliest-christian-artifacts.html","title":{"rendered":"The Earliest Christian Artifacts"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>My <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookreviews.org\/pdf\/5643_6203.pdf\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">review<\/a> of Larry Hurtado\u2019s latest book, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802828957?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0802828957\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"1\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0802828957\" width=\"1\" border=\"0\"><\/em>, has just been published in the online <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookreviews.org\/pdf\/5643_6203.pdf\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Review of Biblical Literature<\/a>. The book makes a major important point, and does so well, namely that the actual manuscripts of early Christian literature, their physical features and characteristics, are largely unknown to most scholars of early Christianity in anything other than a superficial way. Hurtado\u2019s invitation to remedy this is so important that, in my review, I forego altogether commenting on a few insignificant but jarring features, such as the reference to \u201clinear Darwinian evolution\u201d (it isn\u2019t, and any educated individual ought to know that in our day and age), and the rather silly statement that the divine name in some manuscripts is \u2018set apart\u2019 from all other words by being transliterated as opposed to translated \u2013 as though this were not true of names in general. The book remains a wonderfully worthwhile read in spite of such features, which are extremely few, and is on the whole full of information that most scholars of early Christianity lack. In short: I recommend reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802828957?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0802828957\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Hurtado\u2019s book!<br><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"1\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0802828957\" width=\"1\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-5237551524338848447?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My review of Larry Hurtado\u2019s latest book, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, has just been published in the online Review of Biblical Literature. The book makes a major important point, and does so well, namely that the actual manuscripts of early Christian literature, their physical features and characteristics, are largely unknown to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Earliest Christian Artifacts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My review of Larry Hurtado&#039;s latest book, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, has just been published in the online\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/09\/the-earliest-christian-artifacts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Earliest Christian Artifacts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My review of Larry Hurtado&#039;s latest book, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, has just been published in the online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/09\/the-earliest-christian-artifacts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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