Pre-order your Heaven and Hell!  So to speak. Despite the current crisis, my new book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife will still be available on March 31 -- less than two weeks! Want a great deal on it?  Have more time on your hands than you anticipated?  If you pre-order the book you can (still) get an unusually substantial discount on any of my courses from The Great Courses. This would be a very good time indeed for all of us to stock up on Great Courses courses.  As you may know, I have done eight courses with them over the past 20 years (starting back when they were called The Teaching Company!).   If you pre-order the book (or have already done so), you can receive an 80% discount on any of them.   That's a pretty rippin' serious discount. Just click on this address. https://simonandschusterpublishing.com/heavenandhell The Great Courses I've done over the years. The New Testament The Historical Jesus Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication From Jesus to Constantine: [...]

Many thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out with the transition to the new blog site.  The response was overwhelming.   I now have more than I need and have contacted them about further instructions.  But there will almost certainly be more needs down the line, as we try to grow this thing and develop more outreach.  When that happens, I will let you know about other opportunities to help out. Speaking of outreach: if you know anyone who is interested in the sorts of things the blog has to offer, do let them know about it!    We grow mainly by word of mouth -- or, luckily in these problematic days of actual contact, by word of texting, email, twitter, and other social media.   But do let family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and complete strangers know about the blog, so we can reach all who might be interested.

As some/many/all? of you know, we are getting ready to relaunch the blog with a completely new rebuild that Steven Ray, my able and talented assistant for all these years, has designed -- after he had come up with the original one eight years ago.  He has been keeping the old one going with bailing wire and duct tape.  The new one looks *great*.  We hope to roll it out soon.   And I'll explain it all to you even sooner, before it happens.  I think you're going to agree, it is terrific. Before we can do it, I have to have some of my old posts reclassified into a few of the new categories that I have devised (to supplement the old ones).   I need a volunteer to do it.  It will take some hours.  No clue how many.  If I have several volunteers, even better.  I won't go into all the details here: simple story, it will involve looking at an old post, seeing what it's about (you wouldn't need to read the entire [...]

Those of you who were planning to go have probably been notified, but in any event: The Smithsonian lectures on Heaven and Hell scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday March 14) have now been cancelled. Keep safe!

I hope all of you are well and staying away from viruses.  As it turns out, just now I’m reading On the Beach, a fantastic 1957 novel set in 1963 about what happens “after the war,” when the northern hemisphere has destroyed itself with a massive nuclear exchange, and the people of Melbourne are waiting as the radiation cloud is slowly heading their way over the course of months, with nothing to stop it.  (I’m reading novels like this, and watching comparable films, as I’m thinking about my next book Expecting Armageddon.)    Suddenly this morning I realized (duh!) how timely it is, mutatis mutandis.  Maybe I’ll blog on such things. But for now!  Our new companion Corona has disrupted many of our lives and is certain to disrupt virtually all of them.  Please accept my hopeful thoughts that the disruptions you experience are merely inconvenient and not debilitating, either physically, financially, socially, or emotionally. Some of my immediate trips and lectures have been cancelled (well, postponed for a year or so!), and I wanted [...]

On March 13, I will be holding a fund-raising dinner for the blog in Washington DC from 7:00 - 9:00 pm..  It will be at a nice restaurant to be named later (either the Bistro Bis at the Kimpton Hotel George or somewhere near by).  We will have a maximum of seven places at the table (along with me, making eight). For the fund-raising:  the event is $200 per plate, the money to be donated directly to the blog.    Each person will also pay for his or her own meal. There will be no set agenda for the dinner.  It will be a chance to get to meet each other and talk about matters of mutual interest and importance, especially as they relate to the blog –anything connected, even remotely, with the New Testament and early Christianity.  The basic idea is that you will be able to pick my brain at will, and I may pick yours.  We did a similar event in December in Durham, and a good time was had by all.  Or [...]

Are you interested in pre-ordering my new book: Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife?   Here's a fantastic deal.  As you may know, I have done eight courses over the years with the Great Courses (starting back when they were called The Teaching Company!).   If you pre-order the book (or have already done so), you can receive an 80% discount on any of them.   That's a pretty rippin' serious discount. Just click on this address. https://simonandschusterpublishing.com/heavenandhell The Great Courses I've done over the years. The New Testament The Historical Jesus Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity The History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers The Greatest Controversies in Early Christianity How Jesus Became God For full descriptions of each of these courses, go here: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/bart-d-ehrman/?pid=150 Are you familiar with the Great Courses?  They really are great -- not mine necessarily, but in general.  I've watched a ton of them, on [...]

Several people have asked me about my scheduled lecture in Sacramento at the Slavic Pastors apologetics conference.  I'm sorry to say that the sponsors of the event have cancelled my talk (without, well, notifying me!).  They assure me that it is not because of my views, but because of their financial restraints.   I'm not hugely sorry, as it would have been a bit of a lark and not my normal kind of thing: it was a long trip over three days to tell a group of conservative evangelical pastors that Jesus really did exist.  (!)

I am pleased to announce that the raffle for galleys of my book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife has been concluded.  We have three winners of the autographed copies, and I have notified them.  If you participated and I did not notify you, I'm so sorry. But be of good cheer!  The book will be available on March 31. Many thanks to all who participated!

OK, this will not be a high demand item.   But I have five copies of my book Triumph of Christianity in Korean translation.  I don't read Korean.  Does any of you? Want one?  I'm happy to mail one to you, but only if you're willing to help cover the cost of mailing by making a donation to the blog.  Make the donation as large as you'd like!  Hey, what are we worth?   But for domestic mailing, let's say a minimum of $10; international, $25. If you're interested, don't reply here, but zap me a message at [email protected].  If you don't read Korean, there's no time like the present!

I don’t think I’ve made any kind of official announcement that we are doing a massive rehaul of the blog, a complete rebuild.   But I am now. Official announcement:  WE ARE DOING A MASSIVE REHAUL OF THE BLOG, A COMPLETE REBUILD. Well, technically “we” are not.  Steven Ray, my assistant from the beginning and mastermind of all-things-blog-related is.  He’s been working on it for many months.  It’s a major undertaking.  For some years now he’s been keeping the current version running on duct tape and bailing wire, having started it over eight years ago when technology and life as we know it was different.  Things have changed.  Now we’ll change better with them. We are using the new blog structure to implement lots of other changes that we think will make the blog much better for blog users and to attain the goals of the blog itself better.  There have always been two goals:  To disseminate scholarly knowledge about the New Testament and the Beginnings of Christianity as broadly as we can, in simple terms [...]

I have written emails to everyone who has participated in the auction and put in a bid to have a look at my new book before it appears.   I *believe* I have managed to contact everyone.  If you did put in a bid but did *not* received (today) an email about it, and about what happens in the auction now, please send me an email at [email protected]    Many thanks! I will announce the amount raised at the end of the week.

As you may know, my next book Heaven and hell: A History of the Afterlife will be published on March 31.  That’s nearly three months off.  Would you like to read it *now*?     I have three copies of the galley proofs that I am willing to auction off -- as a fund-raiser for the blog -- to be sent directly to the highest bidders. A “galley proof” is the book as it is sent out to reviewers and journals and editors and book stores well in advance – some months ago now – so they can decide whether to advertise and / or stock the book and at what quantities.  They are never for sale.  They are in paperback with the same kind of cover that will be on the book itself, but at a cheaper production level since they are not for display in bookstores.   The book itself – the content -- is as it will be published, *except* for minor stylistic things (typos here and there etc.) that had not yet been cleared [...]