Heretics: The Other Side of Christianity
Ludemann's critical examination of "holy scripture and its authority" is a meticulous historical investigation of early Christianity that seeks "to direct attention once again to Jesus." General readers may find the extensive documentation intimidating; but the argument is accessible, and the documentation is tucked away in notes. Beginning with Lessing's insight that the New Testament was a work of the Catholic Church and Lessing's claim that we may draw our own conclusions about Jesus, Ludemann sets about to welcome the heretics of primitive Christianity back into the Christian community as valuable human witnesses to the human Jesus. A heretic is one who makes a choice, and Ludemann notes that this was done on all sides in the processes of canonization by which the New Testament was formed, just as it must be done by contemporary Christians who would draw conclusions for the present from historical reconstructions. No doubt, some readers will be put off by Ludemann's assertion that the Bible is the word of human beings, not the word of God.Steve Schroeder