In a study that explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, Ehrman traces how early struggles between "e;heresy"e; and "e;orthodoxy"e; affected the transmission of the documents. He argues that proto-orthodox scribes of the second and third centuries occasionally altered their sacred texts for polemical reasons--for example, to oppose adoptionists like the Ebionites, who claimed that Christ was a man but not God. Ehrman's incisive analysis makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of early Christianity.