The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at OSU presented a series on The Early Church Sept. 20 to Oct. 25, 2007. From their 2007 Catalog:
We often measure our modern-day churches against what we imagine the early church to have been. But what was it really like?  Fortunately, we have many contemporaneous sources — the Didache, non-canonical gospels, apostolic fathers, Eusebius — that tell of the struggle of competing views on the proper interpretation of Christ's teachings.  We will examine the development of the ideas which govern modern religious practice.
Before studying science and engineering at CalTech and Stanford, Peter Moretti was subjected to a classical education.  He continues to enjoy collecting and reading translations of ancient texts, from the pseudepigrapha, on through patristic writings, to the archeological discoveries of papyri and scrolls in the last century.  He pursues the riddles raised by these texts as puzzles in a good detective mystery.  Moretti is an Emeritus Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, a Fulbright Scholar, and a registered Mechanical Engineer.  He has been awarded several Faculty Fellowships at NASA and a rotation with the U.S. Department of Energy.  Moretti's retirement is spent building a project car, singing Barbershop Quartet with "Three Old Goats & a Kid," developing a web-site for his church, and serving on boards.

The complete CLASS NOTES include an outline of the material, and a list of sources with OSU and Stillwater Public Library call numbers.

Lecture tapes & DVDs going into these topics in greater detail are offered by The Teaching Company.

A magazine covering scholarship in these areas is Biblical Archeology Review; it publishes many, often controversial, viewpoints.

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