Loading...Are you interested in joining a Blog Book Club (the BBC)? We’re going to give one a try! This will function as a fund-raiser for the blog. This first BBC will involve three meetings over the course of three weeks, discussing one of my books and a published (unfavorable!) response to it. I will be joining participants in the third meeting for a Q&A about it all.
The first week all participants will read and discuss my book Misquoting Jesus. This is my best-selling book and probably my most controversial (which has always struck me as odd, since to my knowledge there isn’t any factual misinformation in it!) There were five books written to counter it!
The second week participants will read and discuss one of the counter-books, Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, by Timothy Paul Jones.
The third week everyone will join a Q & A, as we discuss the matter among ourselves, with questions from you and attempts to answer them from me.
How’s it sound? Want to come? The BBC is open to everyone who wants to come for a minimum donation of $30 (even if you come to only one of the sessions). With two provisos. FIRST, we are asking for, not requiring a contribution. If you simply can’t afford it but would love to participate, come anyway. SECOND, we are setting $30 as the minimum donation. If you think it’s worth more please feel free to go above and beyond, to your heart’s content. We encourage generosity, as a general principle.
All of the money will go directly to the charities supported by the blog. That’s our ultimate goal for the blog, to raise money for charity. Everything you can do to help will be much appreciated, and you’ll earn many stars in your crown.
The BBC meetings will happen over Zoom. The first two will be moderated by two experienced moderators, my blog assistant Diane Pittman and blog volunteer Lance Boyer, who came up with this idea and conceptualized it for us. I will be running the third myself.
We will be figuring out ways to accommodate however many people sign up, so that you can have a chance to say what you want, if you want, and to listen to what others have to say, no matter how many decide to give it a go (that’s easier on Zoom than live since we can set up break-out rooms, and so on).
For those who decide to come, we will be giving further information about how the sessions will work. Among other things, though, at the BBC:
- Participants are welcome to come to as many of the sessions as they like — hopefully all three, but hey, we all have lives…
- We will have volunteers summarize the important features in advance to get everyone on the same page
- We will have moderated interactions among participants for the first two sessions.
- I will run the third as a discussion/question-answer session. These questions are to be about the books (not about other topics of blog interest!)
- All sessions will last about 90 minutes (you can obviously leave at any point)
- We will allow participants to stay on longer if they choose
If you are interested in participating, THIS IS ALL THAT’S REQUIRED:
- Click this link to register (Do NOT indicate your interest here on the blog as a comment)
- Indicate the amount you are willing to donate
- Make the donation on the blog site itself (just go to the site, to the bottom of the landing page, and choose one of the two options for making the donation)
- Diane will send you a link to the meetings
- Start reading
The following is the schedule.
Meeting 1: Saturday Sept. 11; 3:00 – 4:30 pm (Eastern)/ Discuss Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman,
Meeting 2: Saturday Sept 18; 3:00-4:30 pm (Eastern) Discuss Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, by Timothy Paul Jones.
Meeting 3: Saturday Sept. 25; 3:00 – 4:30 pm (Eastern) Discussion of both books with Bart Ehrman
I very much hope you can come. If this first BBC goes well, we’ll have others like it. If it doesn’t go well, we’ll have others unlike it. I hope you can come!
Shouldn’t it be Sunday September 5, 12, & 19 for the BBC.
Sorry, you lost me!
This sounds like a great event. I have an unrelated question. Its about the ascension. In your opinion, does our modern cosmology complicate efforts by Biblical literalists to read the ascension stories as historical? In other words, could those stories only be veridical within cosmologies operative in the ancient world? Thanks.
ABsolutely! How, exactly, does one go “up” to heaven to be with GOd in our universe, where there is no “up” and no heaven “up there”? LIteralists would have to say that Jesus was simply accommodating the views of the disciples living at his time, that once he got out of sight he, well, got to heaven some other way….
This is a great idea. Just a couple of questions, Dr Ehrman. Could there be forum discussions of the books for those unable to join the zoom meetings (because of time differences/other commitments)? Was there any particular reason you chose Timothy Paul Jones’ book? Do you consider it the best of the counter-books?
I suppose the zoom meetings are themselves forum discussions — or do you mean on the Blog Forum? You know there is such a thing?! I chose that book because it was the first refutation and tried to take me on head-to-head, and I really didn’t think any of the books was particularly trenchant, so I wasn’t sure what other criteria to use.
I am unable to join in the BBC but would like to say in appreciation that it’s Prof Ehrman’s commitment to this type of information sharing – open dialogue & especially debate with direct sources of opposing views – which first drew me to his work & thinking. Anybody can write a book for their own echo-chamber of eager supporters & all too often that’s only what they do. But Prof Ehrman puts it out there & invites the contest of ideas. Keep it up please!
From this I do have a question though. In your debates you are frequently pitted against someone who plainly has a vested interest in their position – that is, they’d be out of a job if they did not oppose you & refuse to concede anything. Is it (or should it be) standard debating rules or etiquette that any such interests be declared up front? (You had to point that out once with William Lane Craig) I note the freedom you have as an academic – even the freedom to change your mind – so long as you rigorously apply academic processes.
I don’t think anyone I”ve debated would ever acknowledge the issue openly, and my sense is that most have never acknowledged it to themsvles, though I have had some heart-to-talks with one or two of them abut it. I think the actually open minded ones in the end have a very difficult tightrope to negotiate
I have not read Jones’ book, but I have seen a couple of videos he made and I was not at all impressed by his argumentation. (I assume that the videos included at least some of his “best” stuff.) He seems to assert a weaker version of Dan Wallace’s position that yes, there are “minor” problems in the text, but not so many that the “essential truths” have been affected. And the rest is just basic apologetics. (None of this is intended to diminish the potential interest in the blog proposed.)
I would love to do this!
I wish I could attend but I cannot. I work for a warehouse and I work Saturday from early in the morning to 6PM, PST. These sessions would occur near my lunchtime. Is there a way that these sessions will be recorded? I would love to hear Bart’s response to Mr. Jones’ critique.
Just a reminder to any UK readers that over here, ‘Misquoting Jesus’ came out under a different title, ‘Whose Word Is It?’ So no need to buy an extra copy of the same book.
Neatly ironic when you think about it: ancient copyists changed the texts they were copying, whilst modern publishers of a book about this subject changed the title of the book!
And God knows why, in this case….
I also note that Timothy Paul Jones repeatedly uses one tactic in his videos that is almost certainly also present in his books. He says that we can rely on the NT (based largely on his general arguments), and that Jesus, as depicted, relies on the OT, so we can necessarily rely on both books.
In addition to the debatable aspect of whether or not Jesus gives a full-throated support for every aspect of the OT, this tactic is a two-edged sword. (There are a few comments that can be used to support the idea, and I suppose it is likely that, since we don’t have Jesus at a pig-roast or crab and shrimp feast, he observed kosher laws.)
It is the usual conservative binary that often works to get people to accept even the silly stuff by positing the fear of losing everything. On the other hand, it presents the case for those that cannot accept the silly stuff that they need to go full Atheist, unless they reject the idea of the binary choice.
I registered and look forward to join! Thank you for setting the meeting times such, that we here in Europe can join at a reasonable time as well. 🙂
(Oh, and I already read your book twice because I wanted to make sure to understand every bit of it. Now let’s do it a third time!)
Hey Bart,
I think I understand Terrence’s question (first comment on this post.) He is as confused as I am! On your Blog Podcast you list the dates for the first BBC as Sunday Sept 4 (September 4 is a Saturday), Sept 14 (A Tuesday???) and the final week being Sunday Sept 18 (Again, that’s a Saturday.)
On the blog, you list the dates as Saturday Sept 11, Saturday Sept 18 and Saturday Sept 25.
You do have each one starting at 3:00pm EST, so I assume the starting time is correct.
Since Karin and I are supposed to help moderate this thing, I hope we can get these dates corrected. Is it possible to do a special podcast just to make sure everyone has the correct day and date? Oh, and which ones are the correct ones? I guess I should know that as well.
I’d also like to add that, since I’ll be helping to moderate, I am committed to staying on Zoom for the first two meetings however long it takes to ensure everyone has a chance to give input or get their questions heard.
See you at the first BBC and thanks for signing up, everyone.
Lance & Karin Boyer
HOw weird. By Blog Podcast do you mean the one John Mueller does or the one for GOld Members? I’ll look into it and we’ll straighten it out.
John Mueller’s blog podcast…Am I correct in assuming the BBC dates are:
3:00pm EST
Saturdays
11 Sept–Discuss Misquoting Jesus
18 Sept–Discuss Misquoting Truth
25 Sept–Bart Moderates Q&A about both books
YES!