Book Discussions Archives - Page 11 of 31 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

The Odd Modern Way of Reading the Book of Revelation

Back to my possible trade book on the book of Revelation and the way it has affected not just modern conservative Christianity but also secular society (literature, film) and political policy (environmental legislation; second Amendment discussions; policy on the Middle East). In my description-to-myself of what I’m imagining the book to be, after discussing these various effects of Revelation, I start talking about Revelation itself, and how it came to be read as a blueprint for our future (a reading that seems so *natural* today, but is not how the book was read until the 19th century). ******************************************************** Armageddon in the Book of Revelation The thesis of my book is that all of these manifestations of apocalyptic thought in American discourse – religious, literary, cinematic, social, and political – ultimately stem from a particular way of reading the book of Revelation, a reading that, despite a few scattered precedents throughout history, came to the fore only at the end of the 19th century. Critical biblical scholars are unified in thinking it is based on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:22-04:00March 29th, 2019|Book Discussions, Revelation of John|

Armageddon and American Politics

As I indicated at the beginning of this thread, I am in the process of thinking my way into the next trade book, which I think will be on the book of Revelation and how it has been read by modern fundamentalists, who think it is predicting what is going to happen in our own world very soon, and how that reading has immigrated into, and even infested, the wider culture, the actual secular world, both socially and politically. I said a few words about the social impact of apocalyptic thinking since 1945, and the advent of the nuclear age (the End really *is* near!), and now, as it has transmorgrified (a word we ought to use more often) in the post-Soviet era to issues connected with climate change, etc. One of my theses is that the social concerns have come to affect the political landscape in America, particularly starting in the 1980s. My ideas on this are not based on wild speculation, but on very interesting scholarship produced by American cultural and political historians, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00March 25th, 2019|Book Discussions, Revelation of John|

Secular Versions of the Coming Apocalypse

I have been describing my ideas about the book I’m proposing to write, tentatively called Expecting the Apocalypse. In the past couple of posts I’ve talked about the heightened expectation that the world would be ending soon with the return of Jesus, an originally fundamentalist Christian view that started off in the 19th century and that has moved into much broader circles in American culture. Part of my book will be looking not only at this religious view, but also at how it has, in our lifetimes, moved into a variety of secular discourses, and is, in fact, in its secular guise, all around us, affecting seriously what is happening in both society and politics, and therefore of real importance for our daily lives. If I write this book, it will be the first time I’ve ventured outside of biblical and early Christian scholarship involving “religion” into areas of cultural importance to most people living in the modern world – which is another way of saying that this kind of material is not something that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00March 22nd, 2019|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Revelation of John|

Fundamentalist Visions of the End of the World

I have started to explain what I’m hoping my next trade book will be, focusing on the book of Revelation and its effect on modern thinking about the End of the World soon to come. I’m tentatively calling the book Expecting Armageddon, and it would roughly cover three areas: the religious expectation that God’s judgment is right around the corner – for example in the fundamentalist belief of an imminent “rapture”; the secular versions of this idea, that the world as we know it is soon to be destroyed in one way or another – for example, through nuclear holocaust (as portrayed, e.g., in novels and film), and the political implications of these beliefs (e.g., in understandings of the Second Amendment; environmental legislation; and the U.S. support for Israel) (! Who would-a thought?); and the demonstration that all this perspective is based ultimately on a certain understanding/way of reading the book of Revelation, a mode of interpretation that scholars have long argued is untenable. I’m pretty pumped about the possibility of the book. But I [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00March 20th, 2019|Book Discussions, Revelation of John|

Expecting the Apocalypse: My Idea for the Book

Instead of one long (and possibly laborious) thread on my current research for my scholarly monograph on Otherworldly Journeys, I’ve decided to talk about that work sporadically, here and there on the blog, over the course of the next couple of months. I would like to give a greater focus on the books I’m working on for a general audience. As I have mentioned, I have two in view just now and am in the process of planning them. I don’t have a contract for either one yet, but hope to present the possibilities to my publisher soon. One, as I have indicated, would be on the expectation that the end is coming soon, both among many Christians but also in the secular culture at large, all based on a certain reading of the book of Revelation (the secularists usually don’t realize this!) that scholars have long found untenable. That is the one I’ll start in on here on the blog. My normal process for coming up with a proposal for a publisher is to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00March 19th, 2019|Book Discussions, Revelation of John|

An Early Otherworldly Journey

Back to my scholarly monograph on Otherworldly Journeys. I pointed out in previous posts that when scholars became particularly interested in these various accounts in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian circles, they were particularly intrigued with the question of where the idea came from, that a living person could see the realms of the dead. I then devoted a couple of posts to exploring why, in the 19th century, this was a matter of such interest. I don’t at all deny that this question of “origins” is important, but I’m not particularly interested in pursuing myself. There is already enough of that, for my taste! I’m interested in other things, and am somewhat surprised that other scholars have not wanted to pursue them at greater length. My book will not be an exhaustive study of the phenomenon – that would require several books, or, for at least a pretense of comprehensiveness, a book of over 600 pages. And my days of 600-page books are over. I will instead be picking my spots and pursuing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00March 18th, 2019|Afterlife, Book Discussions|

My Next Scholarly Book: Visits to Heaven and Hell

As I have indicated on the blog before, I like to mix up the various kinds of research and writing projects that I do. My time is not split evenly, but over the years I have written scholarly books for scholarly audiences, trade books for the wider reading public, and textbooks for college-level students. Usually it’s one thing at a time, but as it turns out now I’m in the midst of three tasks – revising two of my textbooks (The New Testament and a Brief Introduction to the New Testament), writing up proposals for two future trade books to submit to my publisher to see if they would agree to publish them, and, principally, working on the next scholarly project. When I first started thinking about the scholarly project, I came up with the title: “Observing the Dead: Otherworldy Journeys in the Early Christian Tradition.” I may still call it that – as you may know from my other posts over the years, titles usually are the last thing decided when it comes to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:04-04:00March 6th, 2019|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Heaven and Hell, Finally

As I indicated earlier, I’m thinking about doing a series of posts on the various research and writing projects on my plate. As of yesterday, my trade book on the afterlife is finished and moving into production (meaning that it will now go to a copy editor to deal with grammar and style, correct typos, etc.; it will then come back to me to review his/her suggested corrections; it will then…. and so it goes, till it comes out in a year from now). I had announced that the book was actually finished months ago, and it was, kind of. But we still hadn’t settled on a title, and the title mattered because in the Preface of the book I discussed the title as a way of introducing the thesis and themes of the book. If the title changed, well, that made the discussion irrelevant. We’ve settled now on the title. I *had* been calling it “The Invention of the Afterlife,” which a lot of blog readers, and others, rather liked, and a lot of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:04-04:00March 5th, 2019|Afterlife, Book Discussions|

Guest Post! Joel Marcus on His New Book on the John the Baptist

Many readers of the blog will already be familiar with my long-time friend and colleague from Duke, Joel Marcus, one of the top New Testament scholars in America (or anywhere else, for that matter). Joel and I have known each other for over thirty years -- since he started teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary, soon after I finished my PhD there. He is especially well known for his massive and learned two-volume commentary on the Gospel of Mark for the Anchor Bible commentary series. Joel has now produced a full book on John the Baptist, both as he is portrayed in our Gospels (and Josephus) but also, of even more interest, as he can be reconstructed historically. What can we actually know about him? The book is the most authoritative account ever to appear, and will be the standard study for our generation. It is called John the Baptist in History and Theology. Joel has kindly agreed to post a summary of the book and its key findings (some of them gratifyingly controversial) for us here [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:43:45-04:00February 1st, 2019|Book Discussions, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

My Pod Cast Interview with Sam Harris

On May 1, 2018 I was interviewed by Sam Harris for his podcast "Waking Up." Ostensibly the interview was to be about my book "The Triumph of Christianity: How A Forbidden Religion Swept the World" but we covered a wide range of topics, from my autobiography to numerous substantive issues, including the nature of miracles, the composition of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus, the question of heaven and hell, the book of Revelation, the End Times, contradictions in the Bible, the concept of a messiah, whether Jesus actually existed, and the conversion of Constantine! Now *that's* a lot to talk about in a single interview! Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00January 4th, 2019|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Video Media|

The New Edition of My New Testament Textbook

People have been asking when the new edition of the next Bart Ehrman Textbook will be available. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have finished editing my textbook on the New Testament for its seventh edition (title still: The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings). The book was first published in 1997 and has always been designed for college/university students taking a one-semester course on the New Testament. In it, I do not presuppose any knowledge of the topic but begin at ground zero. The Next Bart Ehrman Textbook When I started doing research on the first edition of this textbook back in the mid-90s, I had very clear ideas about what I wanted it to be. First and foremost, I wanted to approach the New Testament from a rigorously historical perspective. It is not that I had any difficulties at the time, either professionally or personally, with introductions that were more geared toward theology, exegesis, or literary criticism. But I wanted my book to be different. I wanted [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:43-04:00October 23rd, 2018|Book Discussions, Teaching Christianity|

How I Take Notes on What I Read for a Trade Book

Now that I have finished writing the draft of my book on the afterlife – which I’m tentatively titling “Heaven, Hell, and the Invention of the Afterlife (that will be the title until my publisher changes it!!) – I have received several questions from blog members about aspects of the writing itself. One reader wanted to know how I keep track of all the things that I read in preparation for writing a book like this (or like anything else). Here is how: When I decide what the next book is going to be, I start in on research by reading some of the most basic, thorough, and relatively recent discussions of the topic by competent scholars. I typically know already what those books are because, well, I’m a scholar in the field and one gets to know these things. Plus, if you want to write a book about something, you already know a good deal about it, including who has written what about it. From there I start compiling bibliography of everything of importance [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:28-04:00September 23rd, 2018|Book Discussions, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Writing a Historical-Critical Textbook that Isn’t Critical

Now that I’ve finished the draft of my book on the afterlife, and am waiting for readers’ comments, I am turning to a revision of my textbook: The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. It was first published in 1997 and this will be the seventh edition. It’s hard writing a decent textbook (and not so hard to write a lousy one). A constant struggle. In breezing through blog posts of years gone by, I’ve seen that I was having the struggle precisely six years ago, when writing (the first edition of) my textbook on the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation. Now *that* was a chore. And I was confronted by one problem in particular. Here is how I described it at the time. ******************************************************* Writing any kind of book whatsoever is really difficult. But each *kind* of book is difficult in its own way. I tend to write three kinds of books: scholarly works for scholars (not for general consumption!); popular trade books for broader audiences of intelligent adults; and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:27-04:00September 20th, 2018|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Opportunity Knocking: A Chance to Read a Draft of My Book

Here’s a unique opportunity. Well, it’s not unique because it’s one you’ve had before. But you get it now again! As most of you probably know, I’m now finishing up my book on the afterlife. The title won’t be decided for a very long time, but at this point ’m rather liking “Heaven, Hell, and the Invention of the Afterlife.” The basic question I address is where the widespread views of heaven and hell came from, that when you die your soul goes to one place or the other. I will be arguing that this is not a view taught in the Old Testament or by Jesus himself. So why did it become the dominant view? Throughout history, the vast majority of Christians believed it; even today, 72% of Americans believe in a literal heaven and 58% in a literal hell. So where did it come from? The book is virtually finished. I’m doing the final edits now – today in fact, barring natural disaster (such as, well, a visit from Florence). I will be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:27-04:00September 14th, 2018|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

Looking for Feedback on My Views about Jesus and the Afterlife

I am now editing my book on the afterlife, and there are a few controversial theses in it. One of them involves the views of Jesus. I’d like to know what you think of my argument, and to see if you find it convincing or not. If not, I’d like to know why. Here is a rough idea of what I’m planning to say (until you instruct me otherwise!) First, Jesus did not think the coming kingdom of God (soon to arrive with the coming of the Son of Man in judgment on the earth) was for faithful Jews only. It was for all those who did God’s will. Many Jews, in fact, would not be allowed to enter. As Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel, “many will come from east and west” to enjoy the heavenly banquet with the Jewish patriarchs in “the kingdom of heaven” but many of those from Israel “will be cast into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:10-12). It is important to note that he [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:13-04:00September 7th, 2018|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Progress Report on the Afterlife

It is a good time for me to give an update on my progress on my trade book that deals with the early history of heaven and hell. I have not decided on a title yet – that won’t come until much further down the line, after it is actually finished and ready to head to press. At that time, my publisher, my agent, and I will all toss about ideas for titles that are both the catchiest we can come up with and are faithful to the intents and purposes of the book. For now I am continuing to call it “The Invention of the Afterlife” or, on occasion, “Heaven, Hell, and the Invention of the Afterlife.” I know several members of the blog don’t like a title with “invention” in it, since it sound like someone actually *invented* the afterlife. But if I do continue to use the term I’ll explain what I mean by it. There are lots of views about the afterlife. The most common one in our western culture is [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:13-04:00September 2nd, 2018|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

The Core of My Dissertation on The Gospel Quotations of Didymus the Blind

Here is the second of three posts on how Bruce Metzger directed my rather technical dissertation on the Gospel quotations of the fourth-century church father Didymus the Blind, from six years ago on the blog. THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF MY POSTS OF MY RELATIONSHIP WITH BRUCE METZGER, MY MENTOR As I started thinking about how to write up this second post on my dissertation (the first post was posted some days ago), I remembered one of my clearest pieces of advice that I ever gave to myself, many years ago now, based, already then, on substantial experience. Never , ever, NEVER ask a graduate student what s/he is writing the dissertation on. They invariably will tell you, and it will take a half hour, and your eyes will glaze over in 30 seconds. So just don’t do it. With that principle in mind, I think I had better not go into all the ins and outs of the dissertation. I’ll just go into some of them…. The reason it is so painful listening to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:58-04:00August 15th, 2018|Book Discussions, Fourth-Century Christianity, New Testament Manuscripts|

Finishing my Work on the Afterlife

I am now virtually finished with all my research for my book on the afterlife, and after mopping up a few loose ends, I should be able to start writing next week. It’s been a two-year adventure so far. I always find it amazing how much you can learn in two years of intense research on a topic that you already know (or think you know) a good deal about. The way I can check on how much I’ve progressed is by looking at my early notes on the topic. Almost always, when I decide I’m going to write a book, I jot down all my initial ideas of what I want the book to contain, what kinds of insights I want to discuss in it, what direction I want it to go, how I’m viewing the topic at the time. Then, at the end (now!) I look back at what I wrote at the beginning, and I think – this happens every time – Oh my God! I was *so* ignorant and unaware!! That’s [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:56-04:00July 24th, 2018|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

How I Write: The Crucial Phase

I have a very distinctive way of writing books, even though every time I write one, I think it’s the only sensible way to do it. For years I’ve encouraged my students to do it this way when they write their dissertations, and I’ve talked to friends and colleagues about it, subtly (well, sometimes not so subtly) suggesting they do it. And so far, after writing books for over thirty years, I’ve not convinced a single person to do it this way! I’m sure that’s because everyone has to do it their own way. You really have to be in your own comfort zone when writing a book, you have to feel it’s the best way for you. And that’s because no matter how you do it, it’s really hard. My wife is now working fervently on her next book, a study of Shakespeare’s late tragedies in light of a philosophical tradition (which comes out of a certain reading of Wittgenstein) called Ordinary Language Philosophy, and just about every day she exclaims, “It’s HARD to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 19th, 2018|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

How Does an Author Write a Trade Book? Phase 2.

On and off I have been talking about the process I take for writing a book, and will continue that conversation here in this post, to explain where I am just now – a very good place indeed – on my book on the origins of the Christian understandings of the afterlife. In my previous posts I talked about how I go about doing my reading for a book, and what I said there certainly applies here. I’ve read hundreds of books and articles on the afterlife, starting with works that I knew would be broad-based and foundational, such as Alan Bernstein, The Invention of Hell; Jan Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife; Alan F. Segal, Life After Death: A history of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West; and, well, lots of others. From these (and other places) I made lists of primary texts and scholarly works that I needed to master and read all of them, and from them made fuller lists of books and articles to read, and read [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 14th, 2018|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

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