resources-references, christianity, anthropologyI am interested in books addressing the issue from an atheistic/scientific/historical viewpoint. Currently, my opinion is that Christianity is a fusion of the Hellenistic and the Jewish cultures, and that Jesus of Nazareth is not a historical person, but the references in related Wikipedia articles are either mostly out-dated (pre-1950) or lack scientific credibility.
I would recommend anything by Bart Ehrman. Start with Misquoting Jesus.
Not a book, but there is a great lecture series from Stanford called “Historical Jesus” available for free on iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/historical-jesus/id384233911
Karen Armstrong’s A History of God is a great resource for the origins of Christianity, as well as Judaism and Islam, the three Abrahamic religions. It is a fascinating read.
http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292365691&sr=8-1
The source book for the Shehan Historical jesus is a book by John Crossan called the birth of Christianity my father who is a biblical scholar said it was very good and had better information then the shehan course.
Also read any contemporary authors Livy, Josephus to get a feel of the time and how people wrote. The more Ancient literature you read the more you relize how common the style of the bible was almost a an epic story genera of the time. I would also suggest acquaint your self with roman history about this time as the political reaction to roman rule is part of what Christianity. A great podcast for this is the history of rome.
Also I haven't read any but I would also look for a book on Paul as he was the catalyst to move Christianity from a Jewish death cult it its own religion. Most of what we think Christianity is came from Paul he wrote the first books and is the closest historical link with the legendary Jesus figure.
I really enjoyed this book. Jesus: The Cold Case by Bryan Bruce - ISBN: 9781869791971
Anyone else read this and what did you think?
Not a book, but five minutes of your time to give religion context:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ii_D3uDDY
The Origins of Christianity by Archibald Robertson is available online here:
http://www.ditext.com/robertson/christianity.html
[I haven’t got around to reading it yet - but it might be worth checking out]
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