I am happy to report that I have now, finally, finished my manuscript on the ethics of Jesus and have sent it in to my editor for her to peruse and suggest edits.  Phew!!  This one seems to have been a “Slow Train Coming.”  Huge relief. I’ve changed the title I’ve been giving it for the past couple of years.  I very much liked what I had: “The Origins of Altruism: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West,” but my editors in the end weren’t thrilled with it.  They liked the subtitle, but didn’t think the title was catchy enough.  I disagreed, but eventually (kicking and screaming) came to see their point.  I’d always felt like I’d have to defend it anyway – since the book is emphatic that Jesus did NOT invent altruism!!  But that was part of the catch, I thought.  In any event, even though a lot of people liked it, others were ambivalent. So I’ve changed it.  So far the editors like the new title, but [...]

These "In a Nutshell" posts on the books of the New Testament are obviously meant to provide quick, concise, and accurate information about each of the books of the New Testament.  Many of you may be interested in longer expositions.  To that end, you may be interested in the far more extensive discussions that I give in the various lecture courses that I've done on some of them for the venture I started a couple of years ago, Paths in Biblical Studies (unconnected with the blog). I particularly enjoyed the eight-lecture one I did  on the Gospel of Mark  (50 minute lectures; two Q&A's; and additional materials provided).  You can find it here:  Unknown Jesus. Blog members get a discount with the code Blog5. Whether you want to get the course or not, I thought it would be valuable to explain what I cover there, lecture by lecture.  And so here is a summary, along with questions for reflection that some should be able to answer if they've listened to the lecture. Lecture [...]

I'm going on a cruise this summer and it looks like a complete winner.  I've made a video explaining it and inviting people to consider coming, including where to call/email to get more info.  Hope some of you can consider it! https://vimeo.com/1060335268/95523b1f33?share=copy

Register: https://unc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9Oxg0DBJQ_2WiyHKO7Elsw Donate: https://give.unc.edu/donate?f=105550&p=aasf https://vimeo.com/1063322255/1f0e8c4faa?share=copy Will I See Fido in Heaven? The Afterlife of Animals in Buddhism and Christianity Do our pets go to heaven? Do they have souls? Can we talk about the salvation of a pet? What about reincarnation, can our pets come back as other animals, or even as people? This new webinar from UNC Chapel Hill explores these questions by bringing together experts on Christianity and Buddhism to compare how these religions view animals. Please join us for a conversation about the religious lives of the most beloved members of our households, our pets (and other animals, too)! This engaging webinar will feature Barbara R. Ambros, an internationally recognized expert on Buddhism and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, and Bart Ehrman, a leading scholar of early Christianity and James A. Gray Professor of Religious Studies. Together, they will explore, compare, and discuss the fascinating perspectives these two distinct religious traditions offer on animals and the beyond. The suggested donation is $10. 100% of your gift goes the Robert Miller Graduate [...]

Now that I’ve devoted two posts to the major sine qua non of the book of Acts – one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why, I can provide some suggestions for further reading, important works written by scholars for non-scholars.   I have given brief annotations for each book to give you a sense of what it’s about and so help you decide which, if any, might be worth your while. I have divided the list into three sections: Books that provide important discussion of Luke in general or with respect to a particularly key topic Commentaries that give lengthy introductions to all matters of importance about the book of Acts and then go passage by passage to provide more detailed interpretation (that’s where you can dig more deeply into “what does this particular word actually mean?”; “what is the real point of this passage”; how does this passage relate to what Luke says elsewhere in his two-volume work or [...]

I don’t think you can disprove the existence of God.  And I don’t think you can prove it.  There are some things that by their very nature are not susceptible of proof, at least at this stage of our knowledge, including some things that theoretically exist or not.  If you want to insist that one of the universes within the multiverse is an exact replica of ours down to the very molecule – so that my cosmic double is typing these very words the moment I am – I have no way of proving it or disproving it. (some will argue it's likely, esp. if there is an infinite number of universes – in which case in another one of them my cosmic virtual double is typing these words but changing one of them; and in another….) Even so, that kind of thing could in theory be proven or disproven if human knowledge expands geometrically in the future, since we would (probably) be talking about a physical entity that exists.  But when it comes to [...]

I've begun blogging on the "Synoptic Problem," the problem of why Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar in so many ways (many of the exact same stories, often told in the same sequence, and even in the very same words), and yet so different (often in wording, sometimes in sequence, etc.).  The solution virtually everyone accepts is that there is some kind of copying going on. The first step is to see if one of them was copied in part by the others, and based on long examinations of all the evidence, the vast majority of scholars have come to agree Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark that they copied as the basis for their accounts.  They each changed it in places, moving a story to another place, rewording sentences either a little, or a lot, etc..  But Mark was first and the others copied most of it. I should point out that Matthew and Luke almost certainly didn't have the same *copy* of Mark.  And the copies they each had may [...]

A while back blog member Kevin Grant and I did a recorded interview on the teachings of Jesus about the coming apocalypse.  Did he really mean it?  Are we supposed to take it literally?  How can readers understand the dire predictions?   Here is the video! Kevin is the author of What the Hell is Hell?  A Non-religious Look at the Facts and the Love that Shows You How to Soar, available  on Amazon.com.

Now that I’ve devoted two posts to the major sine qua non of the Gospel of Mark – one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why, I can provide a bibliography of important works, written by scholars for non-scholars. You may find one or more of these useful if you choose to dig more deeply into the the Gospel. For each of the books in this this list I provide brief annotations to give you a sense of what it’s about and so help you decide which, if any, might be worth your while. I have divided the list into three sections: Books that provide important discussion of Mark in general or with respect to a particularly key topic Commentaries that give lengthy introductions to all matters of importance about the Gospel and then go passage by passage to provide more detailed interpretation (that’s where you can dig more deeply into “what does this particular word actually mean?”; “what is the real point [...]

Who actually wrote the Gospel of Mark?  When?  And Why? In my previous post I laid out the major themes and emphases of Mark’s Gospel, and now I want to turn to some of the key historical issues about it.  I begin with the author. The two most important things to note are (1) every surviving manuscript that preserves a title ascribes the book to Mark, either calling it “The Gospel according to Mark” or “The Holy Gospel according to Mark,” or just “According to Mark” and (2) these manuscripts were produced over three centuries after the book was placed in circulation. Our oldest two manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, for you fellow Bible nerds) come from toward the end of the fourth century (around 375 CE), and they have the titles (“According to Mark”).  What about manuscripts before then?  We just have no information (since these are our two earliest).  But it does mean that some 300 years after Mark had been circulating, scribes copying it were entitling it that.  And how much earlier than [...]

How could Jesus be the messiah?  Wasn’t the messiah to be a powerful figure sent from God to overthrow the enemies of the Jews and establish a new kingdom on earth?  How could a person publicly humiliated and tortured to death by his enemies be considered the Mighty One to Come?  That is the question Mark sets out to address in his narrative, the first of our surviving Gospels. My goal in this entire thread on the books of the New Testament is to provide four major posts on each of the books, one summarizing its major themes; another dealing with the historical questions of who wrote it, when, and why; another providing an annotated bibliography of other work written by scholars for a non-scholarly audience – studies, commentaries, and online resources; and a final one dealing with one of its key, interesting aspects. I have done that for Matthew, and now I do it for Mark. This post is on its overarching and distinctive themes. As I did with Matthew, here I begin by [...]