ABSTRACT
The previous chapters in this book have mapped out various ways in which early Christianity can be studied. Plainly a subject that boasts such a long and diverse intellectual lineage will have generated a great deal of published material. If we focus solely on the modern scholarship produced about the earliest Christian writings, those found in the New Testament, few people would be inclined to disagree with Stephen Mitchell’s verdict that they ‘have been overwhelmed by their interpreters’ (Mitchell 1993: II, 3). So where are interested novices to the subject to begin their studies? How are they to gain access to this arcane and hotly debated world? This final chapter aims to provide such beginners with a map of the literature as it exists, suggesting possible entry points. Of course, like anything else in this book, what I give below is highly subjective: there is no single right way to approach early Christianity (but perhaps many wrong ways), so what follows is not meant to be prescriptive. In any case, I hope to have offered enough alternatives for individuals to choose their own routes. But the most important factor to bear in mind is that what follows – like this book in general – is intended simply as
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to investigate the topic further.
