From an award-winning biblical scholar, the untold story of how enslaved people created, gave meaning to, and spread the word of the New Testament, shaping the very foundations of Christianity in ways both subtle and profound.For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture has credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. But the truth is that these individuals, who have been rewarded with sainthood for their work, did not write alone. In some meaningful ways they did not write at all.Hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of enslaved coauthors and collaborators, almost all of whom go unnamed and uncredited. They were responsible for producing the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament. In fact, there was no aspect of textual production and circulation in which they did not play a part: they made the parchment and papyri on which Christian texts were written. The
