Recently I finished The Heresy of orthodoxy: How contemporary culture’s fascination with diversity has reshaped our understanding of early Christianity by Köstenberger and Kruger. The first is a New Testament scholar and the latter is an early church scholar, so they are particularly capable of bringing clarity to the origins and early years of Christianity. This book is dedicated to debunking and replacing the “Bauer thesis” about early Christianity; many of you do not know it by name but have heard its claims from History Channel hot takes, annual Time Magazine Christmas exposés, your liberal religion professor, or Twitter. Here’s a few claims that you might recognize: Jesus and Paul’s teachings contradict each other. Paul is the true founder of Christianity. The New Testament we have today is the product of political and theological power grabs in the 4 th century. The early church had a bunch of other books like the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Phillip, Gospel of Nicodemus,