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God’s Ghostwriters

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What to expect

The untold story of how enslaved people created, gave meaning to and spread the message of the New Testament, shaping the very foundations of Christianity in ways both subtle and profound.
For two thousand years, Christian tradition has credited the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. But hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a huge number of enslaved co-authors and collaborators. Their influence on the spread of Christianity, the development of foundational Christian concepts and the making of the Bible was enormous, yet their role has been almost entirely overlooked until now.
Filled with profound revelations for reading and understanding the texts themselves, God’s Ghostwriters is a groundbreaking and rigorously researched book about how enslaved people shaped the Bible, and with it all of Christianity. It’s also an intimate portrait of lives not often considered by history, and a reckoning with the motives and methods of the early Christians as they spread their message across the known world.

Critics Review

  • ‘In God’s Ghostwriters, Candida Moss takes this story much further, foregrounding the contribution of enslaved people to the very generation of Christian scripture itself in a tour de force that will be a revelation to many… But this, in essence, is what makes her book such an intellectual triumph – it encourages us to think of the New Testament in particular, and early Christian writing in general, in provocatively exciting new ways. It also expands our notion of what constitutes a family of “authors” and expertly guides our eyes to see authors previously unseen.’ Irish Independent

    ‘[Moss’s] massive achievement is to shift the paradigm and tell the early Christian story (as far as is possible) from the perspective of the enslaved. This ought not to challenge the faithful reader. “Divine identity”, she reminds us, “is incompatible with enslavement only if one thinks that enslaved people are less valuable than other people.”’ Spectator

    ‘Erudite [… and] innovative’ Publishers Weekly

    ‘At once eminently readable and rigorously researched, God’s Ghostwriters cements Candida Moss as the most compelling voice in Biblical scholarship. The role of enslaved people in the writing and dissemination of the gospels has been ignored for far too long’ Reza Aslan, New York Times bestselling author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

    ‘A fascinating and beautifully written book. Candida Moss makes the invisible hands that wrote the Bible visible. She writes with a depth of scholarship and a lightness of touch that make this book both powerful and compelling’ Catherine Nixey, author of The Darkening Age

    ‘A lucid, convincing, and deceptively transgressive book, God’s Ghostwriters gives the unfree a rightful place in history’ Rev. Jarel Robinson-Brown, author of Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer

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