1. Stuff Early Christians Read Grace Church Bellingham Rick Brannan Mike Heiser Doug Mangum Matt Whitehead On Faithlife.com: http://faithlife.com/stuff-early-christians-read

2. Why Even Bother? What do you learn from reading books about the Bible, but aren’t the Bible? What could we learn by reading stuff early Christians read? How they understood and applied Biblical material What they got right What they got wrong Culture and method (both good and bad)

3. What Did They Read (or Hear)? Early Christian Literature Septuagint Old Testament Pseudepigrapha New Testament Apocrypha Apostolic Fathers Early Jewish Literature Dead Sea Scrolls Judaica

4. But Before Then? (Thanks Doug Mangum for the upcoming graphics)

6. Then What?

8. Septuagint (Rick Brannan) Greek Translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) Included full Hebrew Canon (our OT today) But added stuff: Additions to Esther, Daniel Apocrypha / Deuterocanon

9. Pseudepigrapha (Mike Heiser) Pseudepigrapha are “falsely attributed writings” Pseud = “false” Epigraph = “writing” (Does not mean “fake pigs”) Written as if from people known from the Bible, but not: Enoch “Testaments” of Abraham, Job, Patriarchs Life of Adam and Eve Assumption of Moses

10. Dead Sea Scrolls (Matt Whitehead) Biblical and Sectarian Scrolls “Biblical” Scrolls are transcriptions of the Biblical text e.g. the Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest known edition of Isaiah “Sectarian” Scrolls are non-Biblical material. This includes “pesher” (commentary on Biblical text) and other material like the Community Rule.

11. And after the New Testament?

13. Apostolic Fathers (Rick Brannan) Writings of those with direct connection to Apostles Epistles/Letters to churches and to people Sermons Handbooks Martyrdom Apocalypse

14. New Testament Apocrypha (Rick Brannan) Agrapha Sayings attributed to Jesus, but not found in the four canonical gospels Fragments Fragments of papyrus/parchment with gospel-like material, but not canonical Noncanonical Gospels Records of legendary and noncanonical acts and sayings of Jesus Noncanonical Acts and Letters Records of legendary acts of the Apostles, letters involving Apostles, etc.

15. And that Jewish stuff?

17. Judaica (Doug Mangum) Why Include? Because Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism, and in the early centuries the differences between the two were blurred. What are they? Talmuds Mishnah other material

18. How are we going to do this?

19. Each presenter will have their own way of introducing the material. What follows is what Rick plans to do.

20. The Content For each type of literature What is it? What is its relation to the Bible? Examples Why did early Christians (or Jews) read it? Overview of Content Examples, some large, of material. Read sections

21. The Schedule (subject to change) Session 1, October 3 Introduction (Rick Brannan) Septuagint (Rick Brannan) Session 2, October 10 Judaica (Doug Mangum) Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls (Matt Whitehead) Session 3, October 17 Sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls (Matt Whitehead) Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Mike Heiser) Session 4, October 24 Apostolic Fathers (Rick Brannan) New Testament Apocrypha (Rick Brannan)

22. The End Questions? Contact: Rick Brannan rick@logos.com