Book Discussions Archives - Page 16 of 31 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

The New Book: The Triumph of Christianity

When my agent Roger and I decided that we might want to explore the possibility of going with a different publisher, the first step was to come up with a book proposal to shop around. For ten years or so I had been wanting to write a particular book, but had always put it off because it had seemed like such a MAJOR undertaking. I came to think that this was the perfect time to pursue it, to propose doing a new book on a completely new topic with a new publisher as a new beginning. The book was/is to be about how Christianity spread throughout the Roman world, until, less than 400 years after it started, it had taken over and the Roman Empire had officially become Christian. In my mind I was thinking about a title like “The Triumph of Christianity: How Faith in Jesus Destroyed the Religions of Rome.” It would be unlike anything I had ever done. The strategy was for me to write a 15-20 page prospectus in which I [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:07-04:00April 19th, 2016|Book Discussions, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum, Spread of Christianity|

Getting a Literary Agent

I am now ready to talk about how I switched trade publishers, so that now I have a two-book contract with Simon & Schuster, after being with Harper for some thirteen years. As I mentioned in a previous note, I had a particularly close and productive relationship with my editor at Harper, Roger. A couple of years ago, when I was just starting to work on the book that just came out (Jesus Before the Gospels), Roger called me and left a message that he had some bad news and needed to talk with me. I thought that it was either a serious health issue or a career change. Luckily it was the latter. But I didn’t feel lucky! He had been my editor!! He had decided to leave Harper, stop editing books, and become a literary agent. Big bummer for me. I had never used a literary agent before, and was not really interested in doing so now (at the time he didn’t ask me to). My reasons were pretty straightforward. Agents typically charge [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 18th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

New Archaeological Discoveries and the Bible! Readers Mailbag April 16, 2016

Today I address two interesting questions on the weekly mailbag, one about the new archaeological discovery in Israel and the other on whether in my last book I violated my own advice about requiring only experts to write for popular audiences. If you have a question you would like me to address, let me know! QUESTION: Does the latest information on the discovery of written texts from before the removal of the Israelite’s to Babylon indicating a wider level of literacy in 7th century BCE change your mind in any way about the illiteracy of the followers of Jesus? RESPONSE: I’m not sure if everyone saw this intriguing news item in the NY Times (or elsewhere), but here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/world/middleeast/new-evidence-onwhen-bible-was-written-ancient-shopping-lists.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0 Let me say emphatically that I have no inside information about the find – I know only what I read in the papers, and it is fascinating indeed. They have discovered a number of ostraca (pottery sherds) that have written on them, in ink, grocery/supply requests; they originate from Israel about the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 16th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Religion in the News|

Getting a First Book Published

I regularly get emails from people who want to break into publishing for the first time, who ask me “How can I get my book published?” As I indicated in my previous posts, almost always what they have in mind is not a work of scholarship for scholars but a trade book for a general audience. And so here is a weird fact about me: even though I have been publishing trade books for eighteen years, I’m not completely sure of the answer. But I know some things, and in this post I’ll indicate what those things are. I absolutely know how one gets his or her first scholarly book published. I help my graduate students, and other scholars just starting their careers, do that all the time. There I’m an expert. But a first trade book? That’s a trickier proposition. The reason is one I’ve intimated before. Most scholars who publish a trade book do so after they have already published serious scholarship and so are to some extent a “known quantity.” In my [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 14th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Who Should Write Trade Books?

Most people who contact me about a book they would like to write – or that they have written – are not talking about a work of scholarship (though some are); they are talking about a book that they would like to publish that “reaches the masses.” They have some ideas about early Christianity, the historical Jesus, the life and writings of Paul, the Gospels, the entire Bible, or some related topic, and they would like to publish a book to make their views known. I never encourage them. This will probably be the most intellectually snobbish post I’ve ever made on this blog, but I think maybe I should just tell it like it is. In my view, no one should write a book if they lack the necessary expertise. And expertise doesn’t come from wanting to have it or wishing to have it. It comes from years of hard work – in this case, intellectual work – after being trained sufficiently to be able even to *do* the work. I may really, deeply [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 13th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Being Qualified to Write a Scholarly Book

The goal of this thread is to talk about the book that I’m working on now, which I hope to have written (gods willing) by the end of this calendar year. We’ll see. To get to that I felt like I needed to talk about how I had changed publishers, and now that I’m talking about that, it occurs to me that I should talk about how one goes about getting a book published. One of the emails I get *all* the time is from authors who have written a book, or hope to write a book, who want to know how they can get a publisher to take a look at it. The short answer: it ain’t easy. So first let me do this autobiographically, how I myself got into the publishing business. The first thing to stress: I had a leg up. I had a PhD at a reputable school (Princeton Theological Seminary) and a teaching job at another one (Rutgers University). The reality is that publishers of scholarly books look for authors [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 12th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Why I Have Moved to a New Publisher

In my previous post I began to talk about how I have now changed publishers. This past book Jesus Before the Gospels, was my last with HarperOne, and now I have a two-book contract, for the next two books (obviously), with Simon and Schuster. A couple of readers have inferred that I have left Harper because I did not like the way they had handled my most recent book. That’s not the case at all. I made the decision before they even *started* handling the book. And let me stress, I have had a wonderful experience with Harper. They really are one of the truly great publishing houses in the world. Absolutely. How could I possibly complain? Since 2005 I have done seven books with them. One of those seven was a a book that none of us -- not me, not my editor, not my publicist, not anyone in the Harper hierarchy, not anyone on the planet – thought was going to be a big selling book. This was Did Jesus Exist? We originally [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 11th, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

The New Edition of My Textbook: Reader’s Mailbag April 10, 2016

Here is this week’s Reader’s Mailbag (well, last week’s; I took yesterday off from work) (and it was glorious!). This time around I will be dealing with just one question, about the new edition of my New Testament textbook QUESTION: You say you first published your textbook on the New Testament about 20 years ago. I see that it is in its 5th edition (or more?). You’ve studied a lot, published a lot, no doubt learned a lot RESPONSE: Actually, as it turns out, this past year I published the sixth edition of the book. Who would-a thought? To explain what is different about the new book, I need to say a few things about how I imagined the book when I first wrote it, back in the mid 1990s. And then I can talk about what I changed for this new edition. Let me say before detailing all that that even though the book is meant for college and university students, it could be useful for anyone interested n the study of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 10th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Publishing with HarperOne

Now that I’m in the deep throes of research for my next book, I thought it would be a good time to devote a thread to it. It’s what I’ve been thinking about day and night -- and reading voraciously on – since this past August! To explain it all, I need to provide a bit of personal background. The point of this post: I have decided to change publishers. The book that just came out last month, Jesus Before the Gospels, is my seventh book with HarperOne, which is an Imprint of HarperCollins, one of the five largest publishing houses in the world. It has been an absolutely terrific run with Harper’s, an absolute career-changer. But I’ve decided now – after working with them for twelve years – to move on to something else. My next two books will be with Simon and Schuster, another one of the “big five,” which is located in New York (HarperOne is in San Francisco). Why I changed is a long story. First maybe I should say something [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 8th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

HNN News Story on Jesus Before the Gospels
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HNN News Story on Jesus Before the Gospels

Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum

HNN News Story on Jesus Before the Gospels

Below is an article that I published for the History News Network, based on my recent book Jesus Before the Gospels. Enjoy!! ******************************************************************************** Historians/History article featured on HNN (History News Network) posted 3-18-16: Are the Stories in the Bible About the Last Days and Hours of Jesus True? by Bart D. Ehrman The season of Lent has come upon us, the time when Christians focus their devotional attention on the last days and hours of Jesus. Even though we devote more social (and media) space to Jesus’ birth, historically the Christian church has paid far more attention to his death. That is certainly the case with the New Testament itself. The Gospel of John, the perennial favorite of believers, after spending eleven chapters on the three years of Jesus’ public ministry, devotes fully ten chapters to his final week and its aftermath. It says not a word about his birth. The stories of Jesus’ last days – his Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the temple, his last supper, his betrayal by Judas Iscariot, his [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:36-04:00April 3rd, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

My Book Sales and the “Relatives” of Paul: Weekly Reader’s Mailbag March 25, 2016

For this week’s Readers Mailbag I have two questions, one about the sales of my new book and one about the apostle Paul (the meaning of a particularly important verse). If you have a question you would like me to address, simply ask it here! ********************************************************* QUESTION: Are you pleased with how Jesus Before the Gospels is selling? The reviews are great. I'm enjoying reading it, myself. RESPONSE: Thanks for asking! Yes, there are some reviewers who seem to “get” what the book is, and who appreciate it. I’m always grateful for that! Am I happy with the sales so far? Unfortunately, the answer is “not really”! I have to admit I’m a bit spoiled on the book sales front. This is the seventh book I’ve published with HarperOne. Of the other six, one was a book that none of us thought would be a huge sales success, Did Jesus Exist? (In fact, our original idea was to publish it simply as an e-book, because we knew it had such a limited market. At [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:50-04:00March 25th, 2016|Book Discussions, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: March 12, 2016

In this week’s Reader’s Mailbag I will be addressing two questions about me personally, and my work. The first has to do with my controversies with fundamentalists, and the second with which of my scholarly books would be accessible to a non-scholar. If you have questions you would like me to address in this format, let me know! QUESTION: Professor Ehrman, did you anticipate such vitriolic attacks on your character from fundamentalists when you set out on your publishing career years ago? RESPONSE: I have to admit, I’m always surprised when I hear what a persona non grata I am in some Christian circles. Just yesterday I was doing a podcast interview for my new book Jesus Before the Gospels, the interviewer, a former pastor, told me that when he was in his conservative Christian seminary, as a student, he had been warned never to read any of my books, because I was trying to lead people astray. As always, I thought: How strange! I’ve never had as my purpose to lead anyone [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:36-04:00March 12th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Buy New Book & Get Any Previous HarperOne Book for 50% OFF

In my latest book, Jesus Before the Gospels, I examine the oral tradition and its role in shaping the New Testament stories about Jesus—and ultimately our understanding of Christianity. For a limited time, if you purchase Jesus Before the Gospels, you can get any of my other HarperOne bestselling books for 50% OFF plus FREE shipping. Offer expires 3/15/2016... Yes, you have only ONE WEEK to take advantage of this exclusive offer. Offer valid only in the United States. LEARN MORE: https://wp.me/P54A3a-Mq

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 9th, 2016|Book Discussions, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum|

Irritating Amazon Reviews

OK, to start off with, I have to admit that my skin is not as thick as I would like it to be. And because of that, I really should not read reviews of my books on Amazon. It is, to say the least, highly aggravating. As on the Internet generally, people can say what they want and there is no mechanism (well, no effective mechanism) for making sure they say things that are true, right, or responsible. So why do I read these things? I suppose in hope (idle hope, most of the time) that the person will have read the book, understood it, and “gotten” the point. It doesn’t always happen. It often doesn’t happen. OK, actually, it usually doesn’t happen. Here is a sample of the kind of thing I mean. The writer of this review is not simply wrong about things, he is downright scandalous, leveling a charge that he does not substantiate (for a good reason: he is unable to substantiate it, since it is flat-out false). But why does [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 8th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

The Triumphal Entry as a Distorted Memory

In my previous post I provided an excerpt from Jesus Before the Gospels where I summarized the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry.” Here is the second part of that two-part post, another excerpt, where I call this tradition into question, arguing that it cannot be right historically and that it must, therefore, represent a distorted memory. It is important to recall that “memory” is not simply a recollection of what we ourselves experienced (what you had for dinner last night; the name of your first-grade teacher; etc.). Memory involves anything that you “call back to mind” (the literal meaning of “remembering”). It can be factual information (what is the capital of France?), even of something you haven’t experienced (e.g., if you have never been to Paris); it can be a shared understanding of a person from the past (Einstein; Karl Marx), even if you never met them. And it can be a recollection of a past event even if you were not involved. Such as the Triumphal Entry, to pick one example out [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 8th, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies, Public Forum|

The Memory of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry

Two chapters of my book Jesus Before the Gospels involve discussions of “distorted memories” – that is, recollections of events from Jesus life that appear not to represent what actually happened. One of the chapters deals with events leading up to Jesus’ death (the most remembered part of his life), the other with his public ministry. Just to give a taste of how I proceed in these chapters, I will excerpt here my discussion of the Triumphal Entry. The discussion is a little long for a single post, so I will divide it into two. Today’s post explains what the memory is (one many people still have today!); the next one will try to show why it is best seen as not being a “true” memory. The Triumphal Entry There seems to be no reason to doubt that Jesus spent the last week of his life in Jerusalem looking ahead to the celebration of the Passover feast. Passover was by far the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem, when the city would swell [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 5th, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: March 4, 2016

Time for the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag. This week I will be dealing with three questions that have come in about my books and writing habits. If you have any questions you would like me to address in this format, go ahead and ask! *************************************************************** QUESTION: Which of your books didn’t do well? I’ve often guessed that your least-selling trade book would be either RESPONSE: The reader who asked this question was referring to my comment that I’ve now written seven books with my publisher HarperOne and that of the six previous ones, five sold extremely well. The questioner wants to know which one did not. So I have been very fortunate with my Harper books. The first one I did was Misquoting Jesus. To everyone’s enormous surprise, it became a bestseller. The reason everyone was surprised was, at least in part, because of the topic: it was about the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Who in the world wants to read about that? It turns out that the answer is: lots of people. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 4th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

My First Interview on Jesus Before the Gospels

Here is the first interview I have done for Jesus Before the Gospels, for the American Freethought Podcast, hosted by John C. Snider & David Driscoll (on March 1st, 2016). American Freethought is meant to serve freethinkers of every stripe: atheists, agnostics, skeptics, secular humanists, brights, rationalists, or whatever. In the interview we talk about what research on memory–how it’s formed, how it’s recalled, how it can change when transmitted from person to person, and how it can be remolded based on historical perspective and current events. Studies of memory, of course, can help us understand the oral traditions of Jesus before the written accounts of the Gospels were produced. Jesus Before the Gospels is available in hardcover, audiobook and for Kindle. Please adjust gear icon for high-definition.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 3rd, 2016|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Video Media|

Jesus Before the Gospels in Relation to My Other Books

Jesus Before the Gospels is now the seventh book I’ve published with HarperOne; two of the others have also involved issues related to historical problems posed by the New Testament Gospels. And so I have been asked recently a very fair question: how does this book differ from the others I’ve written? The short answer is that it is dealing with a completely different topic. But to explain that at greater length, I should explain what the others focused on. First, I should say that four of my Harper books were on other things. Did Jesus Exist was an attempt to show why scholars in the fields of New Testament, early Christian studies, and antiquity in general are convinced, and do not even question, that Jesus actually lived as a real human being. There I try to mount the arguments that almost no one has ever bothered to mount because they are so obvious to most people working in the field Forged was dealing not with the contents of the New Testament writings so much [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 2nd, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

My New Book! (In Context of My Others)

. O frabjous day! Callooh, callay! I’m chortling in my joy. My new book came out today: Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented their Stories of the Savior. It is available now, as we speak! Many, many thanks to everyone on the blog who has commented on various posts that I’ve done related to the book, and especially to those blog members who actually read the book in advance and made comments on it. I acknowledge you in the Acknowledgments, and I thank you here! The publication date of a book is always an ecstatic and anxious time for an author. Will people buy the book? Will they like it? Will they hate it? One never knows! This is the seventh book that I have published with HarperOne. It has been a very good run. I started out publishing my trade books (that is, books written for a general audience – the kinds of thing you would find in Barnes and Noble) with Oxford Press. I published with them [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:20-04:00March 1st, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

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