Loading...So, in almost exactly a month, my new book How Jesus Became God, gets published, March 25. The book is completely done and produced. I received a preliminary copy a couple of days ago. I think it looks *great* — a very interesting piece of cover art, good blurbs on the back, interesting explanations about what the book is. HarperOne has done a terrific job with it.
Naturally I’m interested, concerned, and invested in how well it does. Any author who thinks s/he has something to say – which, by definition, is every author — very much wants lots and lots of people to read their work. And with a book like this, which in my opinion deals with what is arguably the most important question in the history of Western religions, it’s especially important (to me). So I am eager for this to happen.
There are several things that authors really want when they’ve written a book that will be seen as controversial. For one thing, the author wants a lot of controversy! Not only because that sells books, but because it gets people talking about really important things. And that’s why we’re in the business we’re in.
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I had read that a response-book was being published at the same time your new book is due to hit the stands. I questioned in my mind how someone could write such a book, responding to your yet unpublished work. Thanks for sharing how that is possible.
I am somewhat of a new comer to your blog and eagerly look forward to each of your postings! I am spending much time this winter catching up on your prior posts in the achieves.
I have just recently finished reading two of your books: ‘Misquoting Jesus’ and ‘Did Jesus Exist?’. I am anxiously awaiting the release of ‘How Jesus became God’.
This old retired gent thanks you for all of your efforts in sharing your insights and life’s work through you blog, videos and books.
Gene in SW PA
Dr Ehrman,
Did you read any of the response books to Misquoting Jesus? If so, which one(s)? What did you think of it?
I”ve looked at all of them. Timothy Paul Jones sent me his Misquoting Truth before it was published. He had a lot of misinformation in the first chapter about me personally, so I gave him corrections (he hadn’t asked for them). Almost none of the books — from what I’ve read and heard from others — says anything unpredictable.
I pre-ordered it a long time ago. As I like to compare the views of leading NT scholars ( even more interesting than comparing Gospels!) , do you think you have arrived at different views than let’s say Vermes ‘ Christian Beginnings ?
Vermes was a scholar’s scholar; brilliant and learned. But his book doesn’t deal with the issues that my book addresses.
Your book is ordered!
I am looking forward to it. Seems as if it’s been ages since the last one.
Actually it wasn’t long ago: Did Jesus Exist. I try to publish one every two years, but made an exception in this case.
I know it’s a popular book, but I still hope for lots of footnotes at the back of the book. I’m very excited for you and hope the book is a big success.
I know a great deal of controversy will automatically be generated among evangelicals and fundamentalists without your having to lift a finger. But are you ever tempted at times to make the book seem more controversial than it is? At least I do not expect it to be seen as that controversial among critical scholars.
No, I just write the books to describe history as I think it can be reconstructed, in a form that is pleasing to a general reader.
I feel better now that I know that their book will help create interest in the subject and in your book and that you are basically okay with it. To me, for them to publish their book, on the same day as your book, initially sounded tacky and nasty …. Learning about the ineffectiveness of advertising books is helpful.
Another sure way to turn a book into a bestseller is to have a TV interview with Lauren Green. Make sure your publicist gets this arranged 😉
Lauren Green: “Welcome to Fox News, Professor Ehrman. Now, you are an agnostic-atheist. Why would you want to write a book about Jesus – whom we know is God incarnate?”
The name is Simon Gathercole, not Gatherpole, and by the British academic title system, he is not yet a professor.
Are you familiar with his scholarly work? I suppose to get to position of senior lecturer in NT studies at Cambridge, his research output must be of high calibre. Yet he is an evangelical, so presumably hold to some form of biblical inerrancy. I wonder how people like him manage to reconcile their theological stance with their scholarship?
It would good to read a series of posts on your response to the Zondervan book.
Right, Gathercole. Just a typo. and thanks for the correction about his position.
Would you ever be interested in a formal debate with the counter-side? I’ve always thought it would be fascinating to see a debate between the author of a “controversial book” and the author of one of the counter books. You could even do something a little different and include a copy of each book in the ticket price so everyone in the audience would have had a chance to read the works. That way you’d have a pretty informed audience from the start.
There will be a back and forth at the annual Society of Biblical Literature meeting next November, and I’ll be doing some other back-and-forths with some of them (see today’s post).
Please let us know if any of such events are intended for audiences like us! Thanks!
Ah, I wish they were! But alas, the Society of Biblical Literature meetings are for biblical scholars from around the world, and the papers are at a high level of discourse. Lay folk who have tried to go generally have found them inaccessible and completely boring….
I’m looking forward to the book. It seems to me that the Christian message was a harder sell once Jesus became God. A lot of things seem to make less sense (at least to me): Jesus’ humanity in the synoptic gospels, the nature of the atonement, the Trinity (that came later I realize), etc. Of course, I am clearly wrong – they’ve done quite well with it…
I am looking forward to hearing you on this topic–How Jesus Became God– through the Smithsonian in DC on April 12th. I will bring your book in hopes that I may get it signed– or do we have to buy the book there? Can’t wait!
Yup, bring your book!
I bet that your book will be in the NYT top 10 list within 3 weeks from it’s release.
Bet?
I’m not going to take your money. I can tell you right *now* it won’t be. Needs media attention first. But hope springs eternal.
I also read that there’s going to be a “showdown” of Christologies (only an Evangelical fanatic will call it this) in a section of SBL, where some of the authors of “How God became Jesus” will discuss your book (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2014/02/forthcoming-christology-showdown-in-san-diego/). Fortunately James McGrath will also be on the panel, hopefully to give perspective on the issue, instead of prompting the Defence to regress into traditional Evangelical talk (the James Tabor/Michael Brown discussion was a typical display of Evangelical parroting instead of addressing the challenges levelled against conservative Christianity). Michael Bird and I don’t like each other (aaaaw!) hence our playing nasty here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2014/01/book-announcement-how-god-became-jesus-the-real-origins-of-belief-in-jesus-divine-nature-a-response-to-bart-ehrman/
Anyway, I can’t wait for your book, Bart. Hopefully it will get as many people as possible talking about and reconsidering the viability of their beliefs.
Here’s hoping your book not only does very well, but inspires great debate and endless dialogue, Bart!
Can’t wait to read this! Seems the logical follow-up to “Did Jesus Exist?”.
“Publish it yourself, Miles. I’ll chip in. Just get it out there. Get it reviewed. Get it in libraries. Let the public decide.”
Jack’s not-so-sophisticated advice to Miles regarding book publishing in the movie “Sideways”.
Great movie.
You mean I have to wait a WHOLE MONTH? Ah, man!!
That’s what I’m saying, Scott! I thought it would be here at the end of the month. Oh! the miserable wait that has befallen me!
If the New Testament contains a good explanation of “how God became Jesus” why is it necessary to write another book describing that, to counter your book? Why don’t they just point to the Bible and say, “There’s our response”? I’ve always thought it interesting that believers claim the Bible is a divinely inspired book, but they find it necessary for lesser non-divine minds to write books explaining it. I guess God needs their help to get his message across – although based on the multitude of denominations and the diversity of beliefs they’re not helping much!
I was given a copy of Misrepresenting Jesus by an evangelical who said people like you have an agenda to destroy god,and that the writer of this book did not have an agenda,well it was obvious form the start that this man definitely had an agenda,I had to force myself to finish the book,for me I found it was a difficult book to read unlike Misquoting Jesus which I found easy to read,and have read a couple of times.I know you haven’t read it but would be interested in the thoughts of blog members who have read it.
I too found “Misrepresenting Jesus” to be really “Misrepresenting Bart”. It is just a whine by and for Christians. I found it very disappointing. They do not understand or do not want to understand what Professor Ehrman says time and time again, that he is writing as a Historian not a Theologian! Did you see the YouTube video advertising it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJfeY2o7VNw
Nope! Not sure I want to!!
There have been a number of books with the same general theme, e.g., From Jesus To Christianity by L. Michael White, and When Jesus Became God by Richard E. Rubenstein. In publicizing the book do you address what may be new in your book, or do you just ignore books with a similar theme?
I don’t deal with them because they don’t deal with the topic that I deal with. Rubenstein, for example, is interested in the Arian controversy, which is just a small part of my interest. (His book is not well titled: Jesus became God centuries before the Arians came around)
I have a feeling that your book will do well, because the title is intriguing and gets to the heart of Christianity.
Interesting look into the publishing game. A few years a go, a childhood friend of mine, who today is a curator at the Masonic George Washington Memorial in Alexandria, Va (and an active Mason himself) shared with me a hubbub in his circles about an upcoming Dan Brown book that was to be about Washington, masonry, etc. (I actually don’t recall if that book ever came out).
These particular masons were abuzz, worried about mischaracterization of both Washington and Masonry, and he was exploring the idea of trying to publish a refutation. I didn’t think to suggest that they could probably get a lot of help from Brown’s own publisher and publicist!
Bart, you should get a percentage of the response-books. You’ve become an industry all on your own. What would they do without you?! Your post reminded me to order the book, which I did just now. I very much look forward to reading it.
I’ve had it pre-ordered for nearly as long as Amazon has had the pre-order option available. This will be the first (as far as I know) book to focus entirely on this particular topic. To the best of my knowledge, this has only been covered as a chapter or so in any other books I’ve read, in unsatisfying depth, and generally with unsatisfying reconstructions. This topic particularly interests me, perhaps even a bit more than the “who was Jesus and what did he probably say and do” question which has been covered well. I’ve constructed a narrative in my own mind of loosely what I *think* happened from point A to B, but this is a rather unstructured, insufficiently researched, minimally coherent set of unwritten ideas, and I have been dying for a qualified scholar (and best that it is someone whose writing quality is engaging and excellent) to take it up and lay out a proper reconstruction.
So we’re finally down to a matter of weeks. I should have Casey’s “Did Jesus Exist” book finished up by then. I’m enjoying it, but so far I’m not so sure that it brings much that wasn’t already addressed in Bart’s book other than possibly a deeper look at the underlying aramaic sources and a more extensive discussion of dating the gospels — which he hasn’t really sold me on the really early dates. Pre-40 for Mark is just not seeming likely to me.
Pre-40 for Mark?!? Wow!!!
Casey spends about 12 pages laying out his case, which is largely based on cultural context for his reconstruction of Aramaic sources, and then goes on to agree with Crossley’s “The Date of Mark’s Gospel” which proposes a date of c. 40 CE — perhaps not “pre-40” as I suggested above (slightly faulty memory) but this is still really, really early. I can’t say that I’m well enough acquainted with the cultural elements that he depends on to or the validity of his reconstruction of the Aramaic sources in all instances (I’m generally favorable to the *idea* of Aramaic sources, and some examples seem compelling), so I can’t say that he’s *wrong* so much as that what I’ve read of the more mainstream dating has persuaded me a good deal more than his approach.
Yes, I don’t know of a single scholar (of the hundreds — thousands? — that I know) who holds to such an early date. But, well, scholarly consensus is not *evidence*!!
I should also note that he proposes 50-60 CE for G.Matt — and just to offer an overly simplistic single data point as an example of why I would guess this is too early: Wouldn’t the Olivet Discourse have provided at least one reason for having a terminus a quo of 70 or so? Which I think Price and some of the other mythicists go even further and argue that this is should be a terminus a quo of 132 thinking it is actually a better fit if referring to the Bar Kochba revolt. I’m not quite sure why that should be, but then I never quite followed some of the other mythicist arguments either.
Yes, there are several passages in Matthew that show, in the opinion of most scholars, that it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE — e.g., Matt. 22:7.
Professor given that its all about media attention to sell books have you thought about hanging out a bit with Dawkins and the like? it worked WONDERS for Lawrence Krass and i imagine young secularists are a big part of your target audience. what ever else you can say about him he gets media attention. its quite ironic that there are a billion Christians world wide yet nobody people would have a clue who Micheal Coogan or Dale Allison ect are, some of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the bible! i do believe religious experts have the potential for significant fame with the right marketing
I do know Richard Dawkins (had dinner with him a couple of years ago). And we’ve talked about doing an event together. But we’ve never been able to schedule it.
what are your thoughts on the “new” atheists? i image most bible scholars (even the liberals) dont wanna know about them because they take such a strong anti religious stance (never mind the fact that the while American right seems to want to destroy Dawkins field of study to the ground). when you met him did you tell him he should have talked to you before writing about early Christianity in “The God delusion”. If you d end up doing an event feel free to do so in Oz
I think they are doing a real service. I do wish they (most of them; not all of them) learned more about religion before trashing it.