I'd like to give the book to my father for Christmas. He is woefully ignorant of how the text he believes to be divinely written and canonized came into being. He knows about the (legendary) origins of the LXX and the Council of Trent, but the intervening 700 years are a mystery to him. He's a fundamentalist Southern Baptist minister, so I'd prefer if the book didn't question the historicity of Jesus or approach the historicity of miracles/ the supernatural. I'd very much like the book to cover at least the major sects of early Christianity (e.g. Marcionites, Arianism, the various gnostic sects) and definitely how the canon was formed (e.g. "four gospels for four winds").
Thanks in advance for the recommendations.
I'd prefer if the book didn't question [...] or approach the historicity of miracles/ the supernatural
This is a pretty tall order. My best guess would be to recommend Bart Ehrman's A brief introduction to the New Testament which is an undergraduate-level introduction to the methods and contexts of New Testament studies, going book-by-book. This is pretty much a must-read for people new to textual criticism and the study of the New Testament and Christian origins.
That said, it has a very textbook feel and Ehrman, while not dismissive towards faith and miracles, roots his study in the real world and makes it clear that a historian cannot consider miracles to have likely happened.
I hope this helps.
I'm not quite sure what you are looking for, or where the 700 years comes from that you are referring to, and I'm not as experienced in books written from Christian perspectives as I am with others but I'll just leave these here for you to look into until someone else has more suggestions so you have somewhere to start for now. They are all written by Christian professors/scholars. This being the case however I am not sure that they will accomplish your goal. I only have real experience with the one written by Jeffers which is more about life in the era the NT was written.
http://www.amazon.com/Backgrounds-Early-Christianity-Everett-Ferguson/dp/0802822215
http://www.amazon.com/The-Greco-Roman-World-New-Testament/dp/0830815899
http://www.amazon.com/Arius-Heresy-Tradition-Rowan-Williams/dp/0802849695
http://www.amazon.com/An-Introduction-New-Testament-Carson/dp/0310238595/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y