I recently referred a friend to one of Ehrman's books

[BlueK]

"Lost Christianities" which is about the myriad of Christian groups that were around in the very early days of Christianity and how different they were from each other, as well as from what emerged as the "orthodox" Christianity we have today. It also covers a lot of the issues he addresses in his more famous book, "Misquoting Jesus." She loved it. She is an LDS convert who grew up in an evangelical family having been taught that the Bible was infallible. This gave her some intellectual support for what she already had accepted by faith. Sometimes I wish more members had interest in these kinds of things or that we at least weren't so quick to follow in step with our evangelical friends in automatically condemning anything academic. I'm in no way downplaying the importance of spiritual conversion. But there is a place for understanding the history that led to why there was a restoration in the first place.