Review: The Lost Way, Stephen J. Patterson
The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins by Stephen J. Patterson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
For anyone intrigued by the origins of Christianity but frustrated by the limitations of the historical documents available to the layperson, Stephen J. Patterson’s The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins is not only a valuable resource (it includes the author’s translation of the two documents under discussion) but also a fascinating and inspirational read that will resonate long after you put the book down.
Speaking of the still-prevalent ideology of Doomsday, he writes in summary, “The apocalypse never came, and it’s not going to come. This idea belongs to the world of ancient mythology, and it wasn’t a very good idea to begin with. In it the Jewish God of shalom becomes a violent overlord, and the Prince of Peace becomes a supernatural warrior, a fire-breathing monster who lays waste the earth, its forests, its animals, and all but a remnant of its people—the chosen few. How many have believed they were the few!”
But his conclusions are not all reductive. Underneath the canonical books that end with the fire-and-brimstone of Revelations, Patterson discovers a message of the benevolent teacher of the ancient Wisdom tradition: “Jesus was saying and doing things that moved people. He was a sage and a prophet. In Q and the Gospel of Thomas we recover something of that original modality of Jesus—wisdom. This was the lost Way. When you see it in texts that feature it, like the wisdom gospels Q and Thomas, it is easy to see.”
If you can approach an area as tried-and-true as Scripture with the idea that there is more to them (and more of them) than meets the eye, I can vouch that The Lost Way will prove to be a valuable learning and growth experience.