Loading...In my previous post I indicated that I was not at all inclined to write a textbook on the New Testament. In fact, before the editor at Oxford University Press asked me to do it, I had never given it a moment’s thought – except for that moment when I thought (some years before), that whatever I did with my publishing career, I did *not* want to write such a thing. Looking back on it, I’m not sure why I was so dead set against it. I suppose it was because my plan was to write scholarship for scholars and nothing but scholarship for scholars.
About a week after I turned down the offer to do the textbook, she called me again to see if I had changed my mind. No, I hadn’t. But I had started thinking about it. When she called me the third time I had begun to think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
There were several reasons I had begun to change my mind. For one thing, I had been teaching undergraduates for probably seven or eight years at that time, and I really loved it. I enjoyed the classroom, giving lectures, communicating with students, taking something complicated (like the Synoptic Problem, or Paul’s view of the Law, or the literary genre of the apocalypse) and making it simple enough for a nineteen year old to understand without dumbing it down so much that it was wildly inaccurate. And I realized that writing a textbook would be doing almost exactly the same thing – something I loved to do – but in writing instead of in a lecture.
Moreover, it occurred to me that it would be fun to do something different from hardcore scholarship for a change, and that in fact if I did something different, the variety of writing experience might actually make me more, rather than less, productive as a scholar, as I would not be as likely to burn out so quickly by going at the hard scholarship full tilt the entire time. In addition, it occurred to me that writing a textbook would be simpler than writing a scholarly monograph. Truth be told, it suddenly seemed attractive to write a book without footnotes! What a relief!
Before agreeing to take it on, I decided…
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Glad the editor was willing to wait for you to make up your mind, and didn’t move on to someone else! She must have had a very high opinion of you.
Or she couldn’t think of many options off the top of her head!
Lucky for us that you took “the road less traveled” ( by scholars) because it has been such a delight learning about early Christianity through your trade books. I even read this textbook! I think it was the latest version and it is excellent! I would have loved using a book like that when I was in college. Unfortunately, when I went to school in the late 1960’s ( 1966-70), the textbooks were awful and difficult to read. Not the communications that yours are: indeed, one of your major gifts is that ability to bring complicated matter to the level of the lay person/college student. What a pleasure!
Your New Testament textbook is an awesome book both in format, with its boxes, and content. You do have a gift for simplifying complex ideas without “dumbing it down.” If a 19-year-old can learn calculus and physics, then he/she should be able to learn this stuff as well.
Hey bart just wondering
So is that jesus and at peter looks like
Or Paul ?
Mobile users home page ?
I’m not sure what you’re asking.
If I had to put
Mobile users home page
Picture or painting into words
Like old western redish sky backround with 3 crosses 3 years of history 30-33
Any hoo
It looks like they talked about god ?
Hope what’s after this
So what was that spark in the first place
AN EXPERIENCE non deny able that’s how
Who ever had the most knowledge back then was the most important not like now days how much money yu have or how you look
Jesus loved talking about god
So did John the Baptist
What do you know about Mithraic mysteries
And who did Caesar worship at time of jesus ?
The classic study is by F. Cumont; but no one buys his views any more; a very interesting, intriguing, and “different” view is the book by David Ulansey; and a more widely accepted set of views can be found in the work of Roger Beck. Caesar worshiped the traditional Roman gods.
Not sure what you mean by traditional roman gods ?
The gods that the Romans traditionally worshiped.
Can you list some examples please ?
Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Quirinus….
Off-topic question: Are there any hints in any of the Gospels that whomever wrote them had access to the letters of Paul? If G of John was written around 100 and the first of Paul’s letters around 50, that’s 50 years for them to circulate. Would you expect that the bulk of Christendom in 100 had at least heard of Paul and had access to at least some of his letters?
Thanks!
Hi Bart,
I thought about my question a bit more, and realized that at least the author of Luke had heard of Paul because of Acts (doh!). I guess my question has more to do with the differences in the messages of Jesus vs Paul, and if a growing influence of Paul’s theology is reflected in the Gospels. Is the theology in the G of John closer to Paul than the G of Mark for example…
Thanks!
Yes, he certainly knew about Paul. But whether he know about Paul’s *letters* is another matter. He never mentions them! Or even the fact that Paul wrote them.
It’s debated. There’s no really good evidence either way.
My interest in the origins of the Bible began when I read “Who wrote the Bible?” by Richard Friedman. I started looking for a NT version of this book and couldn’t find one. I ended up writing Elaine Pagels asking for a good place to start. Despite her not knowing me and this being out of the blue, she wrote a kind reply recommending your UG text. I enjoyed reading it and it gave me a good start.
Thanks to Elaine!!
1. When choosing a textbook to read on the history of Christianity, what are the factors that I must consider? Teach me how to choose the right author and the right publisher because I only want to read consensus scholarship and not fringe scholarship.
2. How important is the choice of publisher in choosing the textbook that I want to study? Which top publishers would you recommend?
3. What are the most important figures of merit of a textbook author should I look at before even seriously considering to read their work?
Do you want a university-level textbook (with study questions, glossaries, and such), or a trade book that discusses the issue (such as Diarmaid MacCullouch? You need also to consider whether you want it to cover teh entire shooting match from Jesus to 2022, or a period (e.g., the early church). If a textbook, considering a publisher is *VERY* important. You want one of the best textbook publishers, for example Oxford University Press.
1. In the sciences and engineering, the productivity of a researcher is measured by the amount/quality of journal articles and patents. In music and fine arts, a scholar is measured by the quality of his masterpiece. How about in your field? What is the generally accepted metric of scholarship prominence?
2. Can I buy PDF versions of your best non-abridged university-level textbooks? Do you have links where I could pay?
3. I want university-level textbooks and not trade books. How do I judiciously choose a textbook aside from considering the author/publisher?
4. How do I determine consensus and fringe scholarship? Is there a website or textbook that lists these?
1. Scholarly monographs and peer-reviewed articles; 2. If you go to the publisher’s website you’ll see your options (in this case Oxford University Press); 3. Apart from asking someone in the field what might be the top options, I’m not sure; 4. The problem is that even the websight or textbook that does the listing might be fringe! Again, it’s best to confer with someone in the field. I usually buy highly recommended books by experts on Amazon and see which other books they talk about (recently Ive done that with astrophysics and evolutionary psychology, e.g.)
1. If your New Testament textbooks are considered to be the best textbooks on the topic, which New Testament textbooks would you consider to be the second and third best?
2. What are the major differences between your “A Brief Introduction to the New Testament” and your “The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings”? Do they serve different purposes at the university level?
3. What is the most respectable textbook on “Old Testament history” that is widely recognized by top universities and is also comparable in terms of stature to your best-selling New Testament textbooks?
4. Can you name some textbook authors on “Old Testament history” with prominence and stature equivalent to you? I also want to read their work.
1. I think Mark Powell’s is very good. I used to use Spivey and Smith’s Anatomy of the NT; it has been updated by Cliff Black but I’m not sure what it’s like now. Stephen Harris’s book sells well, but I don’t like it very well: he’s not a biblical scholar and I don’t find his writing very interesting. 2. Both books are used in colleged and universities; the Brief one is a condensed version, missing some chapters and discussions to make thinks simpler. 3. Both John Collins Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Michael Coogans The Old Tesatment are widely used. They are both internationally known scholars; Collins is one of the top scholars in the field in teh known universe.