Teaching Christianity Archives - Page 5 of 7 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

My Apostolic Fathers Seminar/Syllabus

I am preparing for classes, now as we speak. In the Fall term, which begins (moan and groan) in next week, I’ll be teaching two classes, my “first-year seminar” called “Jesus in Scholarship and Film,” and my PhD seminar on “The Apostolic Fathers.” My Jesus course will be pretty much like last year’s, with a few tweaks (including a full showing of the Life of Brian!); if you’re interested in the basic layout, I posted my syllabus from last year on August 24, 2013. The Apostolic Fathers is a course I have not taught for about three years. The term “Apostolic Fathers” is a technical one, referring to specific corpus of ten proto-orthodox authors writing just after the New Testament period (actually, a couple of the books were probably written before the final books of the NT). If you’re wondering who these authors were, refer back to posts I made starting November 19, 17, etc. in 2012. I’ve been interested in the Apostolic Fathers for years; it’s been one of my regular PhD offerings since [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:26:08-04:00August 12th, 2014|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Teaching Christianity|

Hiatus: A New Teaching Company Course

Another brief hiatus as we near the end of my thread on the burial traditions of Jesus, occasioned by the inquiries of several members of the blog, and others not on the blog, about my new course for the Teaching Company (the company is also called The Great Courses). A couple of days ago my new course on “How Jesus Became God” came out. It is obviously based (roughly) on the book of the same title. The Course consists of twenty-four lectures, each thirty minutes in length, and as with all the Great Courses, it is available in numerous formats: on CD for audio only, or DVD for video, or as a download, and so on. For a quick link: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6522 You’ll see that it is right now being offered at a serious discount. One hint about the Teaching Company courses: ALWAYS buy them at discount! (They all get discounted on and off.) These are the titles of each of the lectures: 1 Jesus—The Man Who Became God 2 Greco-Roman Gods Who Became Human 3 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:26:06-04:00July 26th, 2014|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Teaching Christianity|

Being Consistently Critical (in the good sense)

I know that by now I’m supposed to be citing Craig Evans’s best arguments that Jesus was probably given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea, rather than being left hanging on the cross for a few days in accordance with standard Roman practice. But I’ve realized that before I get to the first of these arguments, I have to say something about how historians need to use their ancient sources. The short answer to that question is that they need to use them … gingerly. And consistently gingerly. This perspective will not come as a surprise to anyone who has read this blog for a long while and seen how I think we need, consistently, to use the books of the New Testament itself as sources for what actually happened in the past – whether we are considering the Gospels for knowing about what Jesus really said and did, or considering the book of Acts for knowing about the life and teachings of Paul, or considering the letters [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:10:12-04:00July 22nd, 2014|Bart's Critics, Historical Jesus, Teaching Christianity|

How To Study the Gospels

I’ve been speaking about the importance of the differences of the Gospels. So far I’ve argued that these show that each Gospel has to be read for the message that *it* is trying to convey; no one should assume that the message of one Gospel is the message of another, that the portraits of Jesus are the same among all the Gospels, that none of the differences matter for much of anything because they can all be reconciled. That is to miss out on a real opportunity of determining the message of each of these authors. I think that’s important. These are important books. Whether you’re a Christian or not, no one can much doubt that the New Testament is the most important book, historically and culturally, in the history of Western Civilization. Knowing what it’s authors have to say really matters. And if you wear blinders when trying to interpret these books, you’ll simply see what you’re programed to see. And that’s not good. In my last post I argued that one of the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:14-04:00February 15th, 2014|Canonical Gospels, Teaching Christianity|

Similarities and Differences: The Synoptic Problem

In yesterday’s post I mentioned my New Testament class, and that one of the main lessons I’m trying to convey in it is that each of the Gospels has to be read for what *it* has to say. This requires the reader to bracket information that is conveyed in some other Gospel (or that they’ve heard before elsewhere), to see what the meaning of this particular text is. That shouldn’t be such a hard idea to grasp. If I write a book about Jesus, I don’t expect or want my readers to read my book in light of what some other author said (say, Reza Aslan or Bill O’Reilly), interpreting my views in light of the other person’s views, as if my views, as I state them, are not enough or sufficient. And yet people regularly read the Gospels as if Mark must mean the same thing that John does, or that this passage in Matthew makes best sense in light of that other passage in Luke, and so on. We don’t do that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:14-04:00February 12th, 2014|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum, Teaching Christianity|

Discrepancies in the Resurrection Narratives

I’ve been having a great time with my undergraduate course this semester, “Introduction to the New Testament.” It has 240 students in it. I lecture twice a week, for 50 minutes at a shot; then for their third class period each student has to meet in a recitation group of 20 students, each one led in discussion by one of my graduate teachings assistants (four TA’s altogether; each one has three recitations). I meet with TA’s for an hour each week to talk about what we want to have happen in the recitations that Friday. The students taking the class, as I’ve pointed out before, have to do a two-page “position paper” each time in preparation for recitation. So far I think *most* (not all!) students are enjoying the course. A lot of them are finding it challenging – not so much because of its inherent difficulty as because of the perspectives being put forth in the readings and the lectures. We have spent a *lot* of time on the differences among the Gospels, and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:14-04:00February 11th, 2014|Canonical Gospels, Teaching Christianity|

Final Bit of The Introduction to After the New Testament

I have been providing the “Introduction” to my book After the New Testament. Here is the end of it. In this version, I include two additional paragraphs on chapters not found in my first edition (chapter 10 and chapter 14). I’ll explain why I added these chapters (and the reading s in them) along with the other changes that I have made in the book, in a subsequent post. In reading through the new edition of the book – I’m virtually finished and ready to send it in to the publisher – I have been struck by just how significant these early texts that I anthologize are. Second and third century Christianity was a highly intriguing phenomenon, and there was a lot “to it.” As soon as I’m done with all my current writing projects (and the gods know when *that* will be) I am planning on writing a college-level textbook on the period, going from after the period right after the New Testament , around 100 CE, up through the Council of Nicea in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:56-04:00January 15th, 2014|Book Discussions, Teaching Christianity|

More on After the New Testament

The following is the continuation of my Introduction (chapter 1) of my book After the New Testament. In it I start to explain each of the chapters of the book, all of which deal with a variety of aspects of Christianity in the second and third centuries. I will give the remainder of the Introduction in my next post, since I don’t want to make these too long to be manageable. After that I will talk about what I’m doing new in the second edition that I’m producing now. ************************************************************************ It might be useful to say a word about the nature of the rubrics under which the chapters of the book are organized, and the logic of their sequencing. This need not entail a lengthy discussion: each chapter begins with a sketch of the important historical aspects of the topic, and each individual text is introduced with brief comments concerning its historical context and significance. One of the first things to consider about early Christianity is how it spread so far and wide in its [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:56-04:00January 14th, 2014|Book Discussions, Spread of Christianity, Teaching Christianity|

Followup on the NT Quiz

So, about my quiz on the New Testament. Most of you who sent me answers failed miserably. I think you should buy *me* dinner…. I did this already with my other quiz, but I’ll do it again here – explaining what I try to accomplish by the various questions. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for membership options. If you don't belong yet, JOIN NOW, OR YOU MAY NEVER KNOW!! 27 books in the NT (when you think NT, you should think God; then think trinity; and what is 27? 3x3x3) (It’s a miracle). I ask this question not only because it’s basic information, but also because I want them to start thinking about why we have these books and not others – the subject of my first lecture on Monday. Written in Greek. I want them to know the importance of Alexander the Great’s conquest and the Hellenization of the Mediterranean for early Christianity – and that Jesus’ teachings in Aramaic come to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:56-04:00January 11th, 2014|Teaching Christianity|

My New Testament Pop Quiz

Last semester I posted here on the blog the pop quiz I gave on the first day of the semester to my class on Jesus in Scholarship and Film. As you may have noticed in my post yesterday, I also give a quiz to begin my New Testament class, which I started teaching yesterday. If you were on the blog five months ago, and have a very good memory, the quiz will look very familiar. About half the questions are the same. I give a quiz on the first day – before I’ve taught the students anything – both in order to break the ice while having some fun together and in order to teach a few things, as I give the answers after they have taken a stab at them. I’ll say a few things about what I try to accomplish with that in my next post. I told the students yesterday that if anyone got at least nine of the eleven answers correct, I would buy them dinner at the Armadillo Grill. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:55-04:00January 10th, 2014|Public Forum, Teaching Christianity|

My New Testament Syllabus

The new semester started today. Here I am, 58 years old, and still organizing my life around semesters…. In any event, I’m teaching my regular two-course load this semester. My undergraduate class is the Introduction to the New Testament that I teach every Spring, with 240 students; my graduate seminar is a graduate level course basically about the same thing, covering (at a graduate level) the major issues in New Testament studies and the history of the discipline, all with an eye toward pedagogy (i.e., how to teach this material to undergraduates). It will have about ten students. I’ll have more to say about each course anon. For now, here is my syllabus for the undergraduate class, for your amusement and reading pleasure. INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT Reli 104 Spring, 2014 Instructor: Dr. Bart D. Ehrman Teaching Assistants: Candace Buckner, Brian Coussens, Shaily Patel, Nathan Schradle Course Description This course is designed to help you (a) learn about the New Testament writings and the history of earliest Christianity and (b) develop [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:55-04:00January 9th, 2014|Public Forum, Teaching Christianity|

My New Teaching Company Course

This weekend I am heading back up to the Washington D.C. area to do some consulting for my Teaching Company (also known as the Great Courses) course on “How Jesus Became God,” a course more or less based on my book of the same name due to be released at the end of March. I will be taping the course in February, over the course of six days spread over two long weekends. My normal procedure for doing these courses has been to record six lectures a day. That’s a killer, but on the upside, it’s over much faster! This time we couldn’t book the studio for that amount of time each day, so I’ll be doing four lectures a day, over six days. This will be my eighth course for the Teaching Company. Of the other seven, six have been, like this one, twenty-four lectures (each 30 minutes) in length. The other was twelve. By my math, that means I’ve done 156 lectures for them so far; by the end of this course it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:27-04:00December 12th, 2013|Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Jesus Final Exam

I have just finished grading my final exams for my undergraduate first-year seminar, Reli 070, “Jesus in Scholarship and Film.” I don’t ever recall teaching an undergraduate class that I enjoyed more. This was an amazingly bright and engaged group of twenty-one first-year students. The exams were superb – the best bunch I’ve ever seen. Some of them were stunningly good. (A few of the students are on the blog: you done good!) For the exam, I gave the students the following questions two weeks in advance, and told them I would choose two of them for the final. They would not know which two I would choose. They had three hours to write their essays. This year I rolled the dice, and chose questions #2 and #6. So –- how would *you* do? :-) FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for membership options. If you don't belong yet, GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!! ***************************************************************************************** Reli 070 Potential Final Exam Questions For your final exam you [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:27-04:00December 10th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Jesus and Film, Teaching Christianity|

Jesus’ Brothers?!? And the Proto-Gospel of James

One more post on the Proto-Gospel of James. As it turns out, this Gospel was very popular in Eastern, Greek-speaking Christianity throughout the Ages, down to modern times; and a version of it was produced – with serious additions and changes – in Latin, that was even more influential in Western Christianity (a book now known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew). In some times and places, these books were the main source of “information” that people had for knowing about Jesus’ birth and family – more so than the NT Gospels. The idea that Joseph was an old man and Mary was a young girl? Comes from the Proto-Gospel (not the NT!). The view that Jesus was born in a cave? Proto-Gospel. The notion that at the nativity there was an ox and a donkey? Pseudo-Matthew. And there were lots of other stories familiar to Christians in the Middle Ages not so familiar to people today, all from these books – for example, a spectacular account (in Pseudo-Matthew) of Jesus as an infant, en [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 23rd, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Podcast on My New Course

Here is a link to a podcast that just came out from The Great Courses that deals with my (relatively) new course “The Greatest Controversies of Early Christianity.” http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/Courses/PodcastEpisode.aspx?eid=4&id=-50645312&ai=87987&sa=MH57&cm_mmc=email-_-Podcast104ActCT20130927-_-body-_-listen&cmp=email It has the virtue as well of including conversations (after mine) with two other professors and their courses as well. In any event, if anyone has wondered a bit what my course is actually about, this is a fairly painless way to find out.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 15th, 2013|Public Forum, Teaching Christianity|

My New Course for the Great Courses

Among other things, this semester I’m working on a new course for The Teaching Company (also known as The Great Courses). This will be my eighth course with them. The other seven have all (with one exception) been 24-lecture courses, with each lecture at 30 minutes. So too will this one. Doing these courses is a great privilege and a terrific experience. What I especially appreciate about them is that they reach many thousands of people who may not otherwise have expert-level access to the material covered in them. And I think that when it comes to issues related to religion – and Christianity in particular – that’s really important. We have enough ignorance in the world as it is, and anything that we can do to combat it is all to the good. If you aren’t familiar with the Great Courses, you would do yourself a great service to look them up. http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/search/search.aspx?searchphrase=erhman I myself have watched a number of courses in other fields (e.g. The History of Rome, How to Understand and Appreciate [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:58-04:00October 8th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Jesus Position Papers

Several readers have asked me about the weekly papers that I assign for my undergraduate seminar on “Jesus in Scholarship and Film.” I call these “position” papers because the students are required to stake out a position on a controversial topic. There are no (absolutely) right or wrong answers. The point of the papers is to get the students to think about a topic before we have a discussion about it in class, so that when we do talk about it, we’re not simply pooling our ignorance.. For that reason I don’t actually grade the papers, at least in any regular way. Instead. if the student has clearly thought about the question, answered it clearly, and shown that they have invested some time reflecting on it, I give the paper an S (= Satisfactory); if they have not, I mark it a U (= unsatisfactory). All the papers are to be two pages, double-spaced. Here are the instructions for this term’s papers. (The students write other papers as well: they are writing a book review [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:43-04:00October 1st, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions, Teaching Christianity|

But Did It Really Happen?

During my recent posts on the story of Jesus and the leper in Mark 1:40-44, I got a number of comments from readers that made me realize that I wasn’t being at all clear about what I was talking about. For a professional communicator, that is, well, an unsettling thought! These comments came from people who appear to have understood that I was talking about what really happened (historically) in the episode. Did Jesus really get angry or did he really feel compassion? Some of these readers stressed that what really mattered was not his emotion but the fact that he did what he did; some others wanted me to know that it didn’t matter to them which emotion was ascribed to Jesus, because in their opinion the whole thing never actually happened at all. Both of these views (they’re obviously at the opposite ends of the spectrum) thought I was discussing historical realities. But that’s not what I was talking about. I too don’t believe the episode “actually” happened (i.e., that it’s a historical [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:43-04:00September 26th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions, Teaching Christianity|

My Bible Introduction!

O frabjous day! Callouh, Callay! I’m chortling in my joy. Today my textbook on the entire Bible – Genesis to Revelation – gets published: The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction. This was a long time in the making, and it is a huge relief to see it finally out. I think Oxford did an amazing job on it – as they usually do. I love the cover, the layout, the whole production. You can buy it on Amazon or most anywhere else. It is priced a little higher than most of my books this size, but that’s because it’s a textbook, and that’s just what happens with textbooks. Even so, it is priced lower than the competition. And in my humble and completely unbiased opinion, you get a lot more bang for your buck. I had agreed to do a textbook on the entire Bible many years ago, when my friend and editor at OUP (who lives in Chapel Hill now, even though he works out of the New York office; thank the gods [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:42-04:00September 16th, 2013|Book Discussions, Teaching Christianity|

Apologies, Questions, and Excuses

My sincere apologies to any- and every-one who has asked me a direct question that I have said I would devote a post or more to. The list of questions that I need to address is as long as my arm, and in many cases I suppose people forgot that they even asked! But if you asked and are waiting – apologies. I still have the questions and I will get to them, slowly. But I find that once I start answering a question, to cover the issues thoroughly ends up taking several posts and I get sent down some byways. But that’s OK, in my opinion; I tend to think that makes the blog a bit more interesting. Moreover, I constantly have things I want to talk about – for example, things I’ve been doing in my courses, such as the thread on the Gospel of the Ebionites this past week: I didn’t even *get* to the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazareans, or the Gospel of the Egyptians; and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:42-04:00September 15th, 2013|Reader’s Questions, Teaching Christianity|

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