The New Testament.

A best-seller for almost two millennia. While you’re at it, you might want to read the Old Testament, too .

James Robinson, ed.,

The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). Translations from the Coptic, including the Gospel of Thomas .

David Freidrich Strauss,

Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972). Originally published in German in 1835 and still a classic of rationalism .

Albert Schweitzer,

The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1955). Originally published in German in 1906, Schweitzer’s book offered a thorough historiography up to then. Schweitzer devoted his life to practicing medicine on the disease-beset coast of Africa, convincing many that he had much in common with the subject of his book .

Edmund Wilson,

The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969). The 1947 discovery of these documents near the shore of the Dead Sea created even more furor than the Nag Hammadi find. Many, including Wilson, believed the texts would change our view of Christian origins by shedding light on a sect that had much in common with Jesus’ early followers. Scandalously long delays in publishing the scrolls convinced many, again including Wilson, that church leaders were suppressing evidence because it challenged the uniqueness of Christianity. In the 1990s, after Wilson’s death, the scrolls were finally opened to all scholars, and most concluded that they confirmed his basic claim that Christianity grew out of first-century Judaism. They’ve been a disappointment, however, to those who hoped to find a direct connection to Jesus. The first part of Wilson’s book was originally published in 1955 .

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