Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection. By Markus Vinzent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. vi + 485 pp. $107.23 hardcover.

Abstract

manuscripts to radiocarbon dating, whether because of non-destruction policies (small bits of material would be lost) or for fear of finding that the manuscript in question was not as early or as valuable as previously surmised. In all, Nongbri calls for far greater care in the evaluation of early Christian manuscripts and far greater restraint in the claims made about them and on the basis of them. His detailed stocktaking of manuscript discoveries, of the many problems attendant on them, and of the numerous resulting uncertainties provides ample reason for the more scrupulous approach to these materials that he recommends.