The "new thinking" on Christ, based on later materials, often likes to debunk the Bible. One theory its promoters try to posit as fact is that there was no cohesion in early Christianity; that there was more division and confusion than unity. Therefore, traditional Christianity is not to be trusted.
This, however, is untrue, something the advocates of the new materials would know if they actually studied the original sources that predate the new.
Darrell Bock thoroughly discusses this in his book, The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. One of the points of contention in the discussion surrounds the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Bock makes it clear, through the citing of the oldest original sources, and comparing when they were written with those of the new, that there was indeed cohesive agreement in the early church that Jesus died for sin:
"One of the core elements is that Jesus Christ came and died for sin--to acquire humanity's salvation through the forgiveness only He could now offer. This is part of the core knowledge of faith. Every major traditional source of the first two centuries notes this teaching." Darrell L. Bock
"As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ," Ephesians 4:14-15
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