Book Discussions Archives - Page 6 of 31 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

A Rare Opportunity! Want to Read My Book on Revelation (before it’s published)?

Here’s an opportunity. Interested in reading the draft of my book on the Apocalypse of John (tentatively titled: Expecting Armageddon)? I'm giving people the chance to do it as a fundraising effort for the blog. As most of you probably know, I’m now finishing up the book. I've been working on it for about three years and as of yesterday have all the chapters drafted. The first half of the book deals with how the book of Revelation is typically read. Most people don't read it, of course: too weird or scary! Those who do read it almost always suppose that it is talking about what will happen soon in our own future. I will be arguing that this view is absolutely wrong and sometimes (literally) disastrous. The second half of the book will be dealing with what Revelation actually does reveal (if not our future). It has a distinctive image of God, of humans, and of the world that many people find disturbing, and it's easy to see why. In particular I will be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:08-04:00November 23rd, 2021|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

Why Cynics Thought Being Poor Was Ironically Better

Isn’t it better to have no possessions at all than to have millions of them and then lose them? According to ancient Cynic philosophy: Absolutely Yes! I’ve been discussing how this view comes to be embodied in Lucian’ of Samosata’s humorous dialogue Downward Journey, about a rich tyrant who abused his power and wealth and then ended up completely miserable in the afterlife. I begin here with the paragraph that ended the last post, to provide a bit of context for the humorous passage that follows. (All this is taken from my book Journeys to Heaven and Hell, with Yale University Press, due out in April) ****************************** The dialogue shifts then to another of the deceased, an impoverished cobbler, Micyllus. He too is upset, but not for being removed from the world of the living but for being delayed from crossing the Styx. He cannot get to the underworld fast enough, and is perturbed that Charon’s boat has filled up without him and he has to wait on shore. Clotho is surprised that Micyllus does [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:54-04:00November 23rd, 2021|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

A Humorous Take on Wealth From a Great Satire of Antiquity

In my previous post I discussed the radical views of Cynic philosophy – to be happy you must give up everything that can be lost, including all your possessions and your attachments to them. That was a set-up for what I really wanted to discuss, a “Journey to the Afterlife” (technical term: Katabasis) found in the writings of Lucian of Samosata, one of the great writers of Satire in the Roman world, writing in the second century CE. Here I introduce Lucian and begin to talk about his very funny dialogue, The Downward Journey. (Again, this is taken from a draft of my book Journeys to Heaven and Hell, to come out from Yale University Press in April) ****************************** Born in Samosata on the Euphrates, outside the centers of intellectual power and not known for its cultural icons, Lucian originally would have spoken Aramaic but he came to be trained in Greek rhetoric. He eventually abandoned law for a literary career. Some eighty of his prose pieces survive, many of them attacks on charlatans and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:54-04:00November 21st, 2021|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

Should You Give Up All Your Possessions to Be Happy? The Ancient Cynic View

In my forthcoming book Journeys to Heaven and Hell (Yale University Press; due out in April) I will be devoting a chapter to discussing how tours of the afterlife functioned sometimes in order to promote certain ethical views. If you know what life after death is really like, it can be incentive for how you live now. One of the sections of this chapter deals with ancient “Cynic” philosophy – a radical stand on the importance of giving up everything, all one’s possessions, in order to attain to true happiness. That is not easy to do, as Jesus’ followers discovered later, even though they stood in an entirely different ideological tradition (apocalyptic Judaism). The Cynic view is embodied in a very humorous fictional “Journey” to Hades by one of my favorite writers from antiquity, Lucian of Samosata. Here is how I will be describing Cynicism in my book – to be followed in the next two posts with a discussion of Lucian’s account. ****************************** It is not a simple task to summarize ancient Cynicism: the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:54-04:00November 20th, 2021|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

Jesus the First-Century Tea Partier

This is the final post I made years ago on Bill O'Reilly's bestselling book (listed as nonfiction) about Jesus. ****************************** I have decided not to provide a full and detailed review of O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus. It doesn’t really deserve it, and it mainly contains more of what I have indicated before – on which see my previous posts. I will say that the book is extremely well written and easy on the eyes. It is entertaining. A lot of human-interest material, which is both its strength and its very great weakness, as almost all of this, as I’ve mentioned before, is simply MADE UP, even though it is presented as if were historical fact. There is page after page after page of that kind of thing. This is not a research book written by a scholar and his writing buddy -- with, for example, footnotes indicating where they got their information from. It can’t be that, since almost all of the details didn’t come from ancient sources but from their own fertile imaginations. And since [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:54-04:00November 17th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Really Riled By O’Reilly

Here I continue my rather, uh, aggressive critique of Bill O'Reilly's Killing Jesus. ****************************** OK, I know I promised to read and review Killing Jesus. But I’m not sure I can do it. It’s just so aggravating. Pointing out its flaws is like shooting fish in a barrel. I’ll make one general comment in this post and in the next one mention one of the leading themes of the book to show why its so problematic and then, unless I have a complete change of heart or people ask me pointed questions, I think I’ll just let it go. For now, a general comment. I was one of the 4893 people who wrote a book *about* the Da Vinci Code (Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine, 2004). The other 4892 people, so far as I know, were religious – usually religious scholars – who were afraid that Dan Brown might lead the faithful astray by his wild claims, and for religious [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:54-04:00November 16th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Bill O’Reilly, Expert on the Historical Jesus!

Since I posted a bit on my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, several people have asked me if I've ever written an evaluation of Bill O’Reilly’s blockbuster hit, Killing Jesus. It turns out, I did so, here on the blog, right after it came out in 2013. I call it a blockbuster because it was: it rose to become the #1 book (in the world!) on Amazon, and had a long run at the top of the New York Times bestseller list -- staying on the list for a full 52 weeks! I've looked over my posts back then, and think they are still useful. Here is the first of my posts. I wrote it before I had actually starting reading the book. As you'll see, it's horribly elitist while explaining why it's not elitist. I used to write posts about that on the blog. It was one of my endearing qualities that I seem to have tempered a bit. Still, I get a laugh out of thinking about my knee jerking the whole [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:53-04:00November 11th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

God’s Mercy and Justice: The Opening of a Chapter in Journeys to Heaven and Hell

Do the early Christians think God is more just and determined to punish or more merciful and determined to forgive? I deal with the matter in one of the chapters in my next scholarly book, Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition, coming out in April with Yale University Press. The book has been done for months now, and I am right now reading through the final page proofs sent to me by the press – making final corrections of typos before it heads into production. (It’s a very long process: usually a book doesn’t get published for about a year after the author has finished writing it and sent it to the publisher. This always reminds me of the famous poem of John Donne, “Hymn to God the Father,” with its celebrated refrain (about God forgiving sin): “When thou has done, thou hast not done, for I have more.”). The book is written for scholars, but with a few helps non-scholars will be able to get the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:53-04:00November 10th, 2021|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha|

Time Magazine Cover Story on Lost Christianities. Kind Of….

When I wrote a post about Lost Christianities yesterday, a funny anecdote occurred to me and I wondered if I had ever written a post on it. Yup, in 2012! It's worth repeating. It has to do with Time Magazine (though it starts with Newsweek). This was back when people used to actually get these things in the mail, in the Pleistocene Age, and they were therefore a bit of a bigger deal. Here's the post, from nine years ago. ****************************** Yesterday I learned that a story I wrote for Newsweek on the birth of Jesus was made the cover story this week. It’s kind of a goofy cover, but hey, I had nothing to do with that! The issue is now available. Get ‘em while they’re hot. I want to reflect for a second on the cover story of a news magazine. I never realized it before getting involved with that (very strange) world, although it makes good sense once you think about it, but they really can’t decide on what goes on the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:53-04:00November 9th, 2021|Book Discussions, Religion in the News|

The Massive Diversity of Early Christianity. My Book: Lost Christianities

In my previous post I mentioned my second trade book, Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press, 2003). I just now looked at the beginning of the book; I hadn’t read it in years. It made me want to read it again! I do know there are things I would change if I did the book now: my understanding of Gnosticism and the Gospel of Thomas are different, for example. But on the whole, I still rather like it. But books are like that. They’re like your children. Each one is near and dear to your heart. Here is how Lost Christianities starts. Chapter One Recouping Our Losses It may be difficult to imagine a religious phenomenon more diverse than modern-day Christianity. There are Roman Catholic missionaries in developing countries, who devote themselves to voluntary poverty for the sake of others, and evangelical televangelists with twelve-step programs to assure financial success and prosperity. There are New England Presbyterians and Appalachian snake handlers. There are Greek orthodox priests committed to the liturgical service of God, replete with set prayers, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:53-04:00November 6th, 2021|Book Discussions, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

How I’ve Changed My Approach To Writing

In a previous email I mentioned that I had started writing my trade book on Revelation, tentatively titled Expecting Armaggedon. Over the past couple of months I have been reflecting on how my approach to writing books like this has changed over time. I talked about my basic procedure a few years ago on the blog: https://ehrmanblog.org/how-i-write-the-crucial-phase/ The basic line is that I typically spend a couple of years doing the research and making very detailed outlines of the book, chapter by chapter, and then a short amount of time writing it. The process I described there still holds for the most part (it’s a process that I’ve tried to convince every single graduate student I’ve ever had to follow, and every single one of them has decided not to!) (to their advantage, often...) But I've changed my approach to the writing itself. As I recently mentioned, my first trade book was Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Once that was finished, I decided (again) to move back to hard-core scholarly writing. But a [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:53-04:00November 4th, 2021|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Change the Context, Change the Meaning: The Apocalypse!

I've been writing my book on the Revelation of John. Among other things, I'll be insisting that if you refuse to understand how its genre ("apocalypse") works, you will misunderstand the book. Here is how I begin that particular discussion (this is just a first draft, not rethought or polished) ****************************** While in office President Ronald Reagan made weekly radio addresses to the nation. One of the most memorable occurred on August 11, 1984. Before the official text of the address began, Reagan announced: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." You might think that Armageddon was about to begin, but no, Reagan was simply joking with the recording engineers, think the mic was dead. Bad mistake. The comment was not broadcast, but it was recorded by rebroadcasters around the world. Word soon got out and the Soviets took it to show that the Reagan administration’s was completely insincere over efforts to improve relations. Still, it was [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:39-04:00October 28th, 2021|Book Discussions, Revelation of John|

How I Opened My Book on Jesus

I mentioned in my previous post that I had recently looked back over my first trade book, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. I don't think I had read the preface in 20 years, and I wasn't frankly, expecting to like it much when I decided to read it again. But as it turns out, I rather like it. I've known other people like this, who rather appreciate the things they've written. (!) But in any event, there are a few points here that I don't recall making ever again, especially about how "evidence" should play a role when discussing the historical Jesus (or the historical *anything*, from antiquity to most recent times; name your topic, and feel free to bring in both politics and religion!). Here is what I say there: ****************************** Scholars have written hundreds of books about Jesus (not to mention the thousands of books written by non-scholars). A good number of these, mainly the lesser known ones, are written by scholars for scholars to promote scholarship; others are written by [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:38-04:00October 23rd, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

A New Three-Week Book Club!

Last month we had our first Blog Book Club (the BBC) and it was a smashing success. The feedback has been tremendous. There were three sessions, the first two to discuss two different books (one by me, one by someone who did not like the one by me!) and then the third a Q&A with me to address the issue. So we're gonna do it again! The format will be slightly different. This time for the first meeting, participants will read the first book about Jesus EVER to become the #1 Bestseller on the New York Times Bestseller list, Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. The second meeting (two weeks later to give you time to read) participants will read my book about Jesus, which advances a very different, contrary understanding, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Neither book is responding to the other. I wrote mine before Reza wrote his. They simply have different understandings of who the historical Jesus was, in rather striking and important ways. The [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:53-04:00October 21st, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Starting My New Trade Book on Revelation

I started writing my book on the Apocalypse of John a couple of weeks ago and have been using the occasion to reflect on my how my approach to writing has changed over the past few years. My first trade book – that is, a book for a general audience -- was Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. That came out in 1999 so I suppose I started working on it in 1997. Up to that point I had published three scholarly books – (Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels; The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen; and The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture) and most recently my New Testament textbook (The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings). The first two of these written for were for a very small group of ancient New Testament manuscript nerds (like me) in the world; the third for a wider range of scholars; and fourth for 18- to 20-year-olds who knew nothing about the New Testament. The [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:38-04:00October 21st, 2021|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

My New View of the Book of Revelation
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My New View of the Book of Revelation

Book Discussions, Revelation of John

My New View of the Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation. The Apocalypse of John is a book many people revere, many dread, and few actually read. Most who do read it approach it like every other book of the Bible – they’ll read a few verses here or there when someone says something about them but do not read the whole thing from beginning to end. I do find this a bit irritating as a rule, at least among people who insist that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and our guide for all belief and practice, who virtually worship the Bible but have no clue what is actually in it. What’s *that* all about??? The Book of Revelation - Have You Read It? Having just typed that reminds me of the spiritual leader I had as a teenager, the man who “led me to Christ” (away from the Episcopal church where I faithfully attended every week, saying the prayers, confessing my sins, taking communion – where I was the head altar boy!). He repeatedly said with complete conviction [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:37-04:00August 5th, 2021|Book Discussions, Revelation of John|

An Interview about Heaven and Hell: American Freethought Podcast

Here is an interview I did about a year ago on the American Freethought Podcast, hosted by John C. Snider. The focus was on my book on heaven and hell. Among other things it deals with key questions such as whether the Bible clearly teaches that humans have eternal souls (hey, what else could be goin' on inside me otherwise?) and that heaven and hell are literal realities.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:50:46-04:00July 21st, 2021|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Video Media|

How I Take Notes When Doing Research for a Book

A couple of weeks ago when I first talking about my work on the next book dealing with Revelation, I was asked how I actually go about doing the research -- in particular, how I take notes on what I read. It's a big deal for any author: how does one keep track of the research? I discussed the issues a few years ago right after I had finished drafting my book Heaven and Hell, and thought it might be worth reposting now. Here 'tis: ****************************** 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 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:20-04:00July 8th, 2021|Book Discussions, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Other Gods Who Died and Rose from the Dead?

Here I continue with the Q&A I had years ago with evangelical New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, focused on my book Did Jesus Exist. I think I can say with relative confidence that this is the ONE book of mine that evangelicals on the whole were (mainly) pleased with. A nice change! And why do they like it? Because I argue there must have been a man Jesus. OK, then! Doesn't seem like a lot to be grateful for, but I'll take what I can get. Ben's questions were more astute than that, dealing with some of the key issues at a scholarly level. Here are two more of them, and my responses. Q. It appears that mythicists have not read Jonathan Z. Smith, and do not realize that there is no unambiguous evidence for the historical argument that ancients believed in dying and rising gods before the time of Jesus, and that therefore the story of Jesus is just a historicized version of that myth. Why do you think this theory of dying and rising [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:19-04:00June 30th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Fiction and Fact, Legend and History. Is it Either / Or?

This now is the 7th of 10 parts of my interview with Ben Witherington on my book Did Jesus Exist. Here there are two interesting questions, both focusing on the relationship of legend and history in ancient stories about Jesus. Part of the question is whether the Gospel writers were simply riffing on (or, more cynically, ripping off) earlier stories of other amazing figures when talking about Jesus; the other is whether that has a significant bearing on how we understand what he said and and did -- or on whether we think he even existed. Q. Robert Price's argument that the stories of Jesus are a giant midrash on OT stories about Moses and others, and so are completely fiction seems to ignore the fact that midrash is a hermeneutical technique used for contemporizing pre-existing stories. Talk briefly about the difference between how stories are shaped in the Gospels and whether they have any historical substance or core or not. (N.B. It appears that Crossan has recently made the same kind of category mistake arguing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:19-04:00June 26th, 2021|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

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