(19 votes, average: 4.84 out of 5)
Loading...I am now virtually finished with all my research for my book on the afterlife, and after mopping up a few loose ends, I should be able to start writing next week. It’s been a two-year adventure so far.
I always find it amazing how much you can learn in two years of intense research on a topic that you already know (or think you know) a good deal about. The way I can check on how much I’ve progressed is by looking at my early notes on the topic. Almost always, when I decide I’m going to write a book, I jot down all my initial ideas of what I want the book to contain, what kinds of insights I want to discuss in it, what direction I want it to go, how I’m viewing the topic at the time. Then, at the end (now!) I look back at what I wrote at the beginning, and I think – this happens every time – Oh my God! I was *so* ignorant and unaware!!
That’s kind of scary in its way, since the reason I wanted to write the book in the first place was …
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“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
This quote has been attributed variously, in various forms, but seems the earliest known version is the above, from Blaise Pascal. Some say it’s Mark Twain. Care to make a wager? 😉
I’ve heard Franklin.
“The AfterLife”
It can be an interesting book.
What does “after-life” mean? Before anyone can understand “after-life” they better have a pretty clear meaning of the word “life”. If you take for granted every instance and everyone used the word “life” in the exact same sense today, in Greek world, in first century Judea, and earlier biblical times, I’m afraid you may be prone to creating some big misunderstandings.
There was a tree known as the “Tree of Life” in one of the first chapters of the bible What does that mean? Does it refer to the tree’s “life”, to a human physical “life”, or something else.
You may also find it instructive and helpful to look at how “death” the opposite of the word “life” is used. Is it used only in the bible to refer to the end of physical life when people “sleep with their ancestors”, are assumed up to heaven like Enoch, or put in a grave? No, Jesus advised that the “dead should bury the dead”, If you understand how he used the first referent “dead” it will help us understand the word “life”
If can recognize how the words “life” and “death” are use, then you may recognize what “resurrection” means. Because “resurrection” is certainly referring to transitioning from “death” to “life”
You have written on the blog about Ezekiel’s story of “dead” bones “resurrecting” becoming “alive”. In that story you do recognize the terms “dead”, “alive”, “resurrection” are not literal.That is the allegory of a people distant from God (i.e “dead”) transitioning (i.e. “resurrecting”) to being close and loved by God (i.e. “alive”) .
And yet the entire bible is a description of a people attempting to get “close to God”. it is not a book merely about physical “life” much less about a hope for some kind of immortal life on this planet.
So please consider explaining in the book in depth the meaning of the words “life” “death” and “resurrection”, at some point rather than just taking for granted a literal meaning of the word “afterlife”.
been waiting for this book since you briefly mentioned it on your last fresh air appearance. i find the topic very intriguing and the opportunity to understand it better is quite compelling. I had no idea you were so close. looking forward to learn a lot again. and enjoy the reading of course. I greatly appreciate all your work. thank you
“If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament”
Did Metzger expect to wake up in heaven? Could something as wonderful and as important as human life simply die and not exist any longer? What does a person lose if he believes in an after life, as promised in the N.T. for example, follows its instructions on what to do to attain it, if he ends up being wrong? Can mankind really know anything about an afterlife? Has anyone, reliable that is, ventured into the realm of the afterlife and returned to inform the world what she learned? Is that even a conceivable experience?
What is the purpose of this life, if any, and does the answer itself reflect what we should expect of the next life? What is life itself? We do wonder about what’s next when we leave this world of 4 dimensions. Throughout the history of modern civilization, we have an established record of seeking answers for what’s to come when we die. Animals don’t wonder about such things, yet they are unquestionably alive. Why do we?
What if hell exists? What if it really is? Why do we consider such a possibility in the first place? Who would choose to go there? What can we discern about such a place, if indeed it is a “place?? What if our consciousness never dies, the true essence of who we are? Why do we care? What is it that makes us be concerned about life after death? Shouldn’t we remind ourselves with total indifference that soon we will no longer exist, and neither will our loved ones? That’s all there is to it. Who cares? Just accept it and be content! Why do so many of us run away from thinking about what it will be like in 30 years when we are not in existence?
Are you ever interested in interacting with the historical content of any of these posts? That might be more interesting for you.
”I’m inclined to think that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple (just as people today are predicting the collapse of the economy: it doesn’t make them a Son of God!)”
No one promises to rebuild a collapsed modern economy in 3 days, though. Also, He understood that He was in fact the Temple of the living God, even as we, His followers, would also become the place wherein God dwells. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
“Bart July 26, 2018
Are you ever interested in interacting with the historical content of any of these posts? That might be more interesting for you.”
The historical content is my life’s focus and has been for many decades. Unfortunately, your definition omits the miraculous and deprives you of so much valuable information, it is a tragedy. I can prove His miracles took place in part because they still do. You believe your born from above experience was something a lot of people have? Many folks experience various kinds of wonderful, “spiritual” sensations at different times in their lives. It was great that you found Jesus but it had nothing to do with the resurrection of the Son of God, if I am paraphrasing you correctly.
Since you don’t believe in God any more, you could not experience the Presence of God again. God cannot make Himself real to you because now you know better; you have thought through the issues about the possibility that God exists and He just isn’t there.
So, even if He could reveal Himself to you, personally, (which He cannot do of course), you wouldn’t believe in Him because He simply isn’t. End of story, period.
You are a scientist of sorts, doing tons of research, examining evidence and trends and comparing theories. Experiment with Him, as a researcher! And I will guarantee you, without hesitation, that He can and will reveal Himself to you. Test Him. Bart, if you said, “I don’t believe you are real, but if you are show me. I’m open minded. Show me in a convincing way, please, I really want to know one way or another for sure.” He will make sure you know. I’m discussing history here bro. This is a way to examine the validity of the historian’s approach.
Prestonp wrote “So, even if He could reveal Himself to you, personally, (which He cannot do of course), you wouldn’t believe in Him because He simply isn’t. End of story, period.”
If God is all powerful why couldn’t he reveal himself to me personally? By definition God should be able to do anything because he’s….well … God. I think you just proved Dr. Ehrman’s case that God is not historical.
What I was trying to say is this: I understand that Bart doesn’t believe in God. He says at one time he did believe in God, that Jesus, God’s Son had manifest His presence to him and that that experience was very powerful. Despite that, (people have all kinds of experiences like his, so it wasn’t really real or substantive or however he wants to dismiss it as being a genuine conversion to Christ) he absolutely believes that God does not exist anymore. I get it. I got it.
However, what I know beyond a shadow of doubt is Jesus is the same today as He was when Bart was 15, 18, 21, and 25 and that He would gladly, happily, delightedly, eagerly, gratefully engage in a new relationship with him. There’s no question about it. That’s the business God is in. He wants to have fellowship/friendship/intimacy with us so strongly that He did everything He could to make it possible.
It doesn’t matter if Bart stopped believing in God. God loves him deeply. He believes in Bart. The only barrier is Bart’s lack of belief/desire in and for Him. But, God can be just as convincing now or even more so than when he was a young man–and He’s died for that very purpose. He can prove to him He is God with one touch, in less than an instant. We are commanded to love Him. How can we love Him if we don’t know Him and can’t experience the love that He is and has for us individually? Godspell said “faith” isn’t something found on a page of a book. She’s right. Neither is love just a line or two written down. He is love and we can know Him.
I am not a prophet nor a miracle worker or a healer. I have been given the gift of discernment. All I can say is Bart is going to renew his relationship with Jesus. He is going to lead the greatest, the most widespread, the most massive, impressive revival in the history of the world.
Mr. Ehrman, the historical content you are observing as an historian is about people asking and speaking of those questions… why would it be more interesting to interact about the observance of the asking than to be asking those questions?… Do you think it is more interesting to write the history of hockey than to be on the ice playing hockey?
I imagine that at some point hockey players mingled with the historians of hockey, and I’m pretty shure both got their fare share out of the mingelling! 😉
Good question! No, actually, I don’t think it’s more interesting. But if a magazine is devoted to the history of hockey, it wouldn’t make sense for letters to the editor to insist that he stop writing about the history and get out on the ice! He’s interested in the history, and that’s what the magazine is about!
I agree, I would not for shure ask the historian or the magazine to stop writing about history. That would make no sens.
But the history of hockey magazine needs to be aware that it is also catching the intereset of the hockey players, and the hockey players need to respect the fact that the historians like to talk about history.
Can they both talk about their related interest (but from a different perspective) in the same magazine, I think so, in the respect of the magazine’s mission: basically dont try to make something out of something that it is not.
”I’m inclined to think that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple (just as people today are predicting the collapse of the economy: it doesn’t make them a Son of God!)” B
Aren’t you interpreting history? You say that Christ predicting the destruction of the temple compares to people predicting the collapse of an economy. It doesn’t make them divine. That would be the end of the discussion except for one thing. He said He would rebuild the temple in three days. If He could do that He would be God’s Son?
Are you talking about the historical Jesus? I don’t think he said that. It doesn’t pass any of our criteria for historicity. (It’s only in John; it is not “dissimilar” or “contextually credible” etc.)
There were Jews in Jesus’s time who believed the Second Temple would be replaced by a new third Temple, possibly the Temple in heaven that came down to earth, during the Messianic Age. And for that third Temple to take its place, the Second Temple would obviously need to be destroyed. So Jesus “predicting” the destruction of the Second Temple wasn’t really that exceptional. In fact, when the Zealots had control of the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem (during the Jewish rebellion against Rome), they basically treated it like it was a temporary Temple, a placeholder until God’s final, unsullied Temple was put in its place. Their reasons for believing this are many. They believed the current Temple was tainted by Herod’s hands and by the hands of a corrupt priesthood, and, especially, by the presence of the Romans and other “Kittim” within and around it. So, in a way, Jesus was simply echoing a sentiment that many apocalyptic Jews of his day were already expecting.
Why didn’t Peter aim at Judas instead of the innocent Malchus?
Presumably he was trying to get Jesus away from the people who had come to arrest him.
I’m guessing publishers don’t like very short books, based on the number of books from many different genres (photography, social and political commentary etc) I’ve read that were much longer than they needed to be. Some would have been better as a long essay, some better at 80 pages than the 200 they had. Some feel like the author is just repeating and adding fluff. Did the publisher tell him the book is too short and they couldn’t charge enough so make it longer so they can charge more?
Some very short books do *extremely* well. But they are hard to write well.
So excited for this book!!
Based on your previous books I’d say you have a pretty good feel for the right amount of information. And I don’t see how an author can ever satisfy both those who want a quick read and those who want all the gritty details.
“I always find it amazing how much you can learn in two years of intense research on a topic that you already know (or think you know) a good deal about.”
Have your views changed in any way in your research for this popular audience book? If I remember correctly, you are also continuing to work on a scholarly book on the same topic. What if your more scholarly research (which I presume you are still continuing to do) prompts you to change your mind in the course of writing the scholarly book? To what extent could one research and then write both books simultaneously? If that is not possible, did you consider completing the more intensive scholarly research and writing first so that the general audience could benefit from your increased expertise in this area? Or are the popular audience books just too simplistic for the continuing, more scholarly research to have much of any real effect?
Yes indeed. I no longer think that Sheol was usually imagined as a “place,” e.g.; and I now don’t think Jesus believed in eternal torment for the wicked, but their absolute annihilation (as two rather important points!). But my scholarly book will have nothing to do with either topic, or with the general topic of the trade book. The trade book is about where the ideas of heaven and hell came from. The scholarly book will be on the cultural and religious functions of ancient katabasis traditions.
You’ve piqued my curiosity, Dr. Ehrman. Since you’re putting place in quotes, I’m hoping you’re not going down the road of “Sheol is just a state of mind” or something like that. From what I can tell from reading the TaNaKh, Sheol is absolutely a “place” of some kind. Whether that place is the archetypal chthonic realm of the dead (e.g. Hades, Tartarus, Hel, Duat, etc.) or simply the grave, Sheol is certainly talked about as if it’s a location to which a person goes after they have died. If you have evidence to the contrary, I’m certainly interested to read it.
And as for Jesus’s preaching about Gehenna and the afterlife that awaits the wicked, well, what you’re saying seems to me half correct. I feel pretty confident in saying that Jesus’s ideas about the fate of the wicked were far more nuanced and elaborate than most people seem to think. That is to say, I don’t think Jesus was preaching a completely binary soteriology: all the saved spend an eternity in paradise and all the rest are tormented for an eternity in hell. The sense I get is that Jesus preached certain levels or gradations of salvation and damnation — in a similar vain to, but not nearly as complex as, Dante’s concept. The gospel writers themselves regularly show such nuance in the teachings they attribute to Jesus. For example, in the parable of the sower, where Jesus outright says there well be six levels of judgment: three bad to worse, and three good to better. (Cf. also, the metaphor of the tower in the Shepard of Hermes, which also conveys a multi-tiered afterlife.)
In fact, the sense I get from not just Jesus, but most apocalypticists of that time and place (including Paul and other Jews), was that there were essentially four possibilities. 1) For the more righteous than flawed, there will be a paradise on earth. 2) For the holy righteous (i.e. the Saints), an eternity with God (in “heaven”). 3) For the wicked but redeemable, a limited tenure in Gehenna, where their sins are “burned away” (similar to how the impurities are “burned away” when assaying gold), after which they go to number one (Cf. purgatory). And 4) the unredeemable wicked who are, as you say, annihilated. No chance of salvation.
Anyway, how close are my thoughts to your thoughts on this, Dr. Ehrman?
My view is that for most authors “Sheol” simply means “the grave” — i.e. the place where the lifeless corpse is placed.
“My view is that for most authors ‘Sheol’ simply means ‘the grave’ — i.e. the place where the lifeless corpse is placed.”
Fair enough, but still, it’s tough to say how much the use of Sheol by the ancient Israelites was literal and how much was metaphorical. They could have meant both a grave into which the dead body was interred and the realm of the dead into which their shade descended. Sheol also seemed to function like a synecdoche, meaning that it refered to death in general.
Compare, for example, 2 Samuel 22:6
חֶבְלֵי שְׁאוֹל, סַבֻּנִי
קִדְּמֻנִי, מֹקְשֵׁי-מָוֶת
“Sheol’s ropes are around me. Before me are death’s snares.”
Clearly, this is a characteristic chiastic parallelism one finds in the TaNaKh. “Sheol’s ropes” is A. “Death’s snares” is A prime. “Around me” is B, and “before me” is B prime. That would mean the author is equating Sheol with death in general. It looks like Sheol is a synecdoche for death itself. So, in that sense, you are right that — at least in this passage — Sheol is not a “place,” but it gets tricky when we start taking figurative language as literal. The author could still think that Sheol is a literal place, even while using the word figuratively, which is, in fact, the whole point of a synecdoche.
Yes, I think the synonymous parallelisms with “pit” “grave” and “death” are all significant.
Since what you now think about Sheol’s not being a place and Jesus’ not believing in eternal torment is actually what I agree with and would write myself….Rats! I had vowed never to read another one of your books. But I’m probably going to have to buy this afterlife one– if for no other reason than that I can get mad at you all over again.
I hate for you to break your vow but … well, not really.
How often (if ever) does the preparation you do for your trade books lead to a scholarly work as well? (Is that what happened with Forgery and Counterforgery?)
It’s happened twice before now, with textual criticism (Misquoting Jesus based on research for a number of my earlier books, including Orthodox Corruptio nof Scripture) and forgery (Forged based on research done for Forgery and Counterforgery). The current two-book project will be the third instance, assuming both books get written!
I appreciate your willingness to write for those who are NOT steeped.
Amazing! I think it says something good about you that your views and your books change as you learn and study more stuff. No Dunning-Kruger Effect here.
One has to fight against it!!
Really looking forward to this one! Archaeology gives us evidence that ideas about an afterlife extend far back into prehistory, even to other human species like the Neanderthals. I know you’re not going this far back with it, but will be excited to see the finished product!
Will there be scholarly articles or books that come out of your research on the afterlife?
You make the point that you are preparing a trade book, rather than a book for scholars; and yet you are also attaining new insights through your preparation from the source material. Are some of these insights important for scholars as well?
Yes, I’ll be spending the next year or so working on a scholarly book about ancient texts that describe visits to the realms of the afterlife, related to my tradebook on where the ideas of heaven and hell came from.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you know if there will be an audio book format available for this new book? This is my preferred method since I can listen on my hour commute to work. I have most of you books on CD, but I can’t find Misquoting Jesus nor Jesus Interrupted. Are these two available on CD to your knowledge? If so, do you know where I can get them?
I know I’ve asked several questions…sorry.
Thanks a million!
Yes, I believe there will be. And yes, I believe there are audio versions of both other books. They should be easy to find online with a search.
Speaking of audio books, I wish all of your titles were read by you (as was the case with “Truth and Fiction in The DaVinci Code”). Nothing against the narrators I’ve listened to, but it’s just not the same hearing your words in someone else’s voice. Any chance of you doing the narration again for one of your audio books?
Not really. I did it once for my book on the Da Vinci Code, and it was hard and boring! Hour after hour of slowly reading my own prose. Ugh. Decided that that’s probably not going to happen again…
Isn’t it potentially misleading to extrapolate from Homer’s Odyssey the religious beliefs of the classical Greeks? There are a lot of question marks over whether the Greeks read the classical stories of the gods as literary entertainment. For example, it would be misleading to infer from Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” that himself or Elizabethian populace especially the religious authorities literally believed in fairies with magical powers.
Yes, that would be highly misleading. All you can talk about is a “Homeric” view.
Can we even say the Odyssey tells us anything about Homer’s understanding of the afterlife, any more than “Midsummer Night’s Dream” tells us about Shakespeare’s religious worldview or the Chronicles of Narnia tell us about C.S.Lewis’ religious beliefs? It is erroneous to think Lewis believed in talking animals, magical wardrobe as portal to another world, there are real witches with magical powers. As it turns out, the Narnia novels do carry hidden Christian messages e.g. Aslan the Lion is a Christ figure, the lion’s sacrifice on the altar in exchange for Edmund’s life is symbolic of Christ’s atoning death. But contemporary readers can unravel the hidden Christian themes only because we already know a lot about Lewis’ Christian worldview from his apologetical works, and we can thereby tease out the Christian themes embedded in the literary devices. In contrast, we lack the background knowledge of Homer and limited knowledge of the religious worldview of his classical contemporary. Hence we can’t distinguish literary fiction from authentic religious views.
Yes, I think Narnia *does* give clear indications of Lewis’s beliefs, absolutely. But it has to be read correctly to show what these beliefs are. (the symbolism is not particularly hidden, I think; it’s pretty obvious what’s going on with the sacrifice of Aslan, e.g.)
On the other hand, Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech (Hamlet, 3.1) and Claudio’s “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where” speech (Measure for Measure, 3.1) clearly deal with afterlife questions that were shared with Shakespeare’s audience.
I’m reading Rowan Greer and Margaret Mitchell’s The “Belly-Myther” of Endor, about controversies of interpretation of I Samuel 28 in the early Church, focusing on the divergent views held by Origen and Eustathius. I find the discussion as to whether or not “Samuel” was “real” or whether or not he was a demon, and the implications this had for the different views of the status of the pre-Christian dead completely absorbing. (I Sam 28 is one of my favorite episodes in the OT.)
I was just wondering how far down the line you were going to go with your new book? Are you going to get into post New Testament views/controversies or focus strictly on the NT?
Thanks!
I won’t be dealing with the history of exegesis of key passages, but the book will go from Gilgamesh up to the Apocalypse of Paul (i.e., paganism, Judaism, and Christianity up to the fourth century CE)
Personally I like the more scholarly approach but I understand that you have to gear your work to a more generalized audience. I also think this that the question of there being life after death is a question everyone ponders, and it impacts us all, so I do this book will have mass appeal. My question is, because of of the potential wide appeal of the topic, do you fear that there may be more backlash than normal if you suggest the afterlife is a human invention?
I’m also curious to what the final title will be!
I’ve never yet been afraid of backlash. If I were, I would simply be writing to tell people what they already know or think. There’s almost no point in writing such a book.
Jesus’ statements of glorification and exaltation include: you will see the Son of Man at the right hand of Power and at John 12: 23 The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Mark 14: 41 and Matthew 26: 45 also have Jesus claiming he is the Son of Man, being betrayed into the hands of sinners. And at Mark 14: 62 Jesus admits he is the son of the Blessed One, the Hebrew God.
I have heard of spirits rising to higher and higher levels of holiness and godliness where at the final stage they lose their identity at the final stage of going into God. If this is a principle, the Trinity betrays this principle because there are three identities in the Trinity. Cabala gets around loss of identity via manifestations.
In your book, How Jesus Became God, it is not enough to to be the son of God or to sit next to God. Jesus is God, not just a person sucked into a God blob or a God Black Hole but once sucked in he becomes all the blob is, all the black hole is, retaining his identity.
Do you see a principle violation in that?
How do we know the Holy Spirit of the Pentecost isn’t a comforting angel like a protective St. Michael or Raphael who has a comforting prayer card for loneliness? Why is a God-triplet being created when an archangel can do?
The question, as I repeatedly stress in the book, is what it *means* to say Jesus is God. It meant very different things to different Christians in antiquity. Your view is one of the options. There were many others.
Mr. Ehrman, as I felt incline to write a comment recently about my findings of who I was in an other lifetime the topic of your post cought my attention. I’m happy that you chose this kind of subject for your next book.
Reading your post some things came up to my mind:
When you talk about what your first intentions where at the beginning of the adventure and what you realize it will be when you get to the end, it made me think of the circular way the Torah is studied. When a Paracha is read each year, even though it’s the same Paracha that was read the year before, and the year before, and the century before, there is always something new, it is new!
On how to make the book interesting, it made me think of what the Rav I’m styding the teaching with is alway saying . He always says that studying the Torah only for knowledge is worhtless… If you dont teach it and study it in order to apply it to your day to day life, your just putting stuff in your head… so the thing it make me thinks is: what your writting, how can It have a meaning in my life now, how can I apply it in my life now so that it helps me to be alive and thriving now?
On feeling stupid at the end of taking the notes and realizing what you had intended at the beginning… and speaking of afterlife… I will tell you something I have lived in the past year… I ordered a book on amazon that I have, it seems, written in an other life… I dont know if you can imagine the fealing of going to the post office to pick up the book… but I really felt like two worlds, and lifetimes where being connected… .and then at some point at home I opened the book, and then I thought exacty what you sead: O my God, I was so ignorant and unaware!!! :S oh well! 🙂
Sharing these thoughts as I’m looking forward to your next book! 🙂
On a side note of how what you are writting can help us in our life… I know that this would not be a historical book (or maby it can also be) …. but then again authors can vary their fields of writtings (i.e: addaptations to childrend’s book) … and I know that you will be aware of what i’m talking about… but as an afterlife (as in after that life psychotherapist) I feel the push of bringing this up for maybe a next book: THE GRIEF OF FONDAMENTAL BELIEFS.
I know you went through it, I’m going trough it, and I’m shure many of your students and readers are too…
Just saying! 🙂
Professor Ehrman:
I have read nearly all of your books and I like the fact that they are not overly academic. I find the footnotes valuable if I want to explore a point further. I have read the first two volumes of *A Marginal Jew* and L. Michael White’s *From Jesus to Christianity* (among other very good yet academically dense books) and I’ve always felt like you and Crossan have an unrivaled ability to make difficult topics easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Keep doing what you are doing!
On another note…I have always wondered—and I thought this post presented a good opportunity to ask—whether you use refrence management software to create bibliographies and capture notes from the sources you read? Or do you take handwritten notes?
Bradley
Currently Reading: The Triumph of Christianity
Neither. I take notes on books simply on a word processor. I’ve found more sophisticated software simply intrusive and too much of a bother.
“Then, at the end (now!) I look back at what I wrote at the beginning, and I think – this happens every time – Oh my God! I was *so* ignorant and unaware!!”
Forgive me if it is not appropriate for me to say so but I find it strange, nay sad and a tad unnecessary, to see you say “Oh my God”. As the master of language which I hold you to be, I’m sure there are other expressions you could use.
I’m sorry you found it offensive.
Your introduction to The Triumph of Christianity is one of the best I’ve read. You told a story about your own realization that the age of faith had come and gone. That made me all the more curious to know how it reached it’s zenith in the Christian West.
How important was the city of rome itself to the Roman empire’s economy
Very.
In case you didn’t have enough on your mind, here’s another. Please for the love of all that is holy, narrate the audiobook yourself! I purchased the audio version of Forgery and Counterforgery and sorry to say but the narrator was horrendous. It’s ashame because I was really looking forward to listening to it. I have purchased your other works, especially the ones from the teaching company and enjoy your narration tremendously. The narrator from the Truimph of Christianity was mediocre, but the content was superb. I know you’re tremendously busy but trust me your listeners will thank you, especially me!!! Good luck with the work in progress and Godspeed!
Sorry, but it ain’t gonna happen. I did it with one of my books (on the Da Vinci Code, I think), and I hated it. It’s SO VERY BORING to read your own book, out loud, slowly, hour after hour after hour!
One of my favorite parts of road trips is listening to a good book. The narrators are truly trained professionals in their craft and have that innate ability to make the characters and ideas jump off the page.
Fine, fine, I get it. But if possible try to screen the next narrator, sort of a quality control. *plus remember more and more people are using audiobooks, so it may be to your advantage numbers wise, just saying… Anyway keep up the great work and looking forward to your new book! Thanks.
I”m afraid I have no say in the matter. They usually don’t even tell me if they *are* doing an audio book!
I must beg to differ. I thought The narrator for “Triumph” was great, as was Mr. Jason Culp for his narration of “Interrupted.” (I’ve listened to it over a dozen times) Though I agree, a talented narrator can really make or break an audio book.
I agree; sadly, the narration of “Forgery and Counterforgery” is shockingly amateurish. I found it unlistenable.
I think Homer’s tragic view of the afterlife is best characterized by his thoughts on Achilles when he says: “Life-giving earth has buried them” and details how Achilles, a great hero of the Iliad, would rather “live working as a wage-labourer for hire by some other man, one who had no land and not much in the way of livelihood, than lord it over all the wasted dead” (Homer, Odyssey,11.380, 624-28). As historian Jacob Burckhardt once observed, the Greeks were more unhappy than most people realize. I personally don’t believe in the afterlife. Just as ants, trout, chickens. etc. don’t go on to an afterlife, we probably don’t either. Most of what people call the soul/self is not eternal, but can be destroyed by such things as traumatic brain injury, while leaving the person alive in a “vegetable state,” which suggests that the brain is all there is, and there is no “soul” over and above that..
Yup, those are key passages! What a great story in Odyssey 11!
You have mastered making whatever you write interesting. “How Textual Criticism Became Relevant” posted August 22, 2015 proves it!
“Jesus’ teachings of love, and mercy and forgiveness, I think, really should dominate our lives,” he says. “On the personal level, I agree with many of the ethical teachings of Jesus and I try to model my life on them…” Erhman
Ain’t it grand? Even as a non-god, (nothing divine about the guy, all the claims otherwise excluded, everyone of them), Bart believes Christ should be the dominant influence in all of our lives! Ladies and gents, that is one big accomplishment. You understand that, right?
“On the personal level, I agree with many of the ethical teachings of Jesus and I try to model my life on them…” Erhman
Help me out folks. What is left of Jesus after everything about His divinity is dismissed? What ethical teachings? Apart from His miracles and everything He said and did related to His miracles and about His Oneness with and as God, when did He become a paragon of forgiveness, mercy and love? How do you distinguish between his humanity and everything else?
I think the subject deserves a full, well documented, thorough, scholarly treatment. I don’t recall reading anything that Bart has written that supports this position and as someone who admires Jesus, to say the least, and in light of the estimated hundreds of thousands of variations in the N.T., the abundance of errors some intentional, some not, the alterations, all the people involved in the writing, from various places and with their different motives, the different languages used and the many translations produced over 1,500 to 1,600 hundred years, it would be quite a challenge and it certainly would be justified.
Even as Bart has invested his very life into discovering the very truth about the New Testament and Jesus Christ, which ultimately led to his authorship of a number of very fine, very well written and received books, why not devote a small measure of the same resolute dedication to develop for the public at large the exact nature of his true personhood, the real Jesus? Inform the public what we can know about this one whose life should become a dominant influence in all our lives. Bart has convinced multitudes who he is not. As the one who should be the ruling force in our lives, tell us with specificity who he really was.
You might be interested in my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, or possibly even more germane, Jesus Before the Gospels
However, in “Did Jesus Exist?” Ehrman presents a host of biblical and extra-biblical sources to make the case Jesus lived. He writes, “Together all of these sources combine to make a powerful argument that Jesus was not simply invented but that he existed as a historical person in Palestine.”
In the book, Ehrman contends:
Scholars are “almost universally agreed” that Jesus lived in first century Palestine and was crucified by a prefect of Judea.
Independent accounts are needed for corroboration and counts 7 independent narratives within a hundred years of Jesus’ death: the four canonical Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter and the Papyrus Egerton 2.
Other independent “witnesses” Ehrman points to are Paul’s letters; the speeches in Acts containing material that predates Paul’s writings; Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation, all books by different authors; and the writings of three early church fathers.
Each written record relies on earlier written records or oral traditions that circulated among Christian communities. Ehrman stresses that certain Aramaic phrases in the Gospels dates the information to early first century Palestine, soon after the crucifixion, and corroborates aspects of the Gospel traditions. He notes that Paul’s knowledge of Jesus appears to go back also to the early 30s.
These biblical or Christian sources are one part of the evidence supporting historians’ conclusion that Jesus is an historical figure, Ehrman concludes.
Moreover, in that 2012 interview, he said those who claim Jesus is a myth miss an important point: if someone invented Jesus, they would not have created a messiah who was so easily overcome. “The Messiah was supposed to overthrow the enemies – and so if you’re going to make up a messiah, you’d make up a powerful messiah,” he says. “You wouldn’t make up somebody who was humiliated, tortured and then killed by the enemies.”
Ehrman emphasized his only relationship with Jesus is as a “historical” subject of research. Still, he said Jesus teaches valuable lessons.
“Jesus’ teachings of love, and mercy and forgiveness, I think, really should dominate our lives,” he said. “On the personal level, I agree with many of the ethical teachings of Jesus and I try to model my life on them, even though I don’t agree with the apocalyptic framework in which they were put.”
Marilyn Stewart , Correspondent | 03 April, 2015
Christian Examiner
Bart, have you ever thought about such a book?
Yes, I’ve contemplated — and proposed ot publishers — a book called Life After Faith, where I would talk about my personal relationship to the Christian tradition.
“He first points out that his Jesus book is written for lay people who are interested in a broad, interesting, and very important question. Did Jesus really exist? I was not arguing the case for scholars, because scholars already know the answer to that question.
This strikes me, in the context where he is arguing the point, a bit of special pleading. He can’t use that “scholars already know the answer to that question” as an excuse for writing a book that does not present the scholarly evidence, for that is what is in dispute by those who disagree with him, and to claim that this is something that scholars already know, without saying precisely what it is they think they know, is worryingly misleading. Eric MacDonald (Who, BTW, has distanced himself from the new atheism).
I did present the scholarly evidence. You apparently didn’t read the book?
I was originally under the impression that this was going to be a scholarly book, like Forgery and Counterforgery. Is that not the case? If you do 2 years of intense research for a trade book, what goes into a scholarly book?? (perhaps I was conflating this book with the one you’re going to write with the fellowships? What’s that one going to be on?)
No, this will be a trade book like Forged. I will then be working on a scholarly book on one slim aspect of the bigger issue, a monograph that considers the cultural and religious functions of the various katabasis traditions from antiquity (that is, the traditions that narrate a personal tour/visit to the realms of the dead)
I agree with mainstream scholarship on the historical Jesus (e.g., E.P. Sanders, Geza Vermes, Bart Ehrman, Dale Allison, Paula Fredriksen, et al.) that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. Such a hypothesis, if true, would be a simple one that would make sense of a wide range of data, including the following:
“John the Baptist preached a message of repentance to escape the imminent judgment of the eschaton. Jesus was his baptized disciple, and thus accepted his message — and in fact preached basically the same message.” “ex-apologist”
Now that is funny. Among his proofs that Jesus was a failed apocalypticist, “EA” says that Christ submitted to John’s message. He even preached the same basic message as John.
Let’s look closer at that. “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'” Perfecto mundo
John gets it. Jesus is the Lamb of God and His mission was to remove the sin of the world. (Remember, that’s why He died.) How does EA rationalize those opposing facts?)
I’ve repeated this a number of times and it is appropriate to do it here. The bizarro world theories that deniers contrive are much more difficult to fathom.
“Jesus had his disciples leave everything and follow him around. This makes sense if Jesus believed that he and they were to be God’s final messengers before the eschaton.” EA
That sort of proves He wasn’t God?
“Jesus gathered twelve disciples, which is the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. He also said they were to sit on twelve thrones and serve as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel. This reflects the common expectation that at the end of days, all twelve tribes would return to the land. The twelve are a symbolic representation of restored Israel.” EA
He wouldn’t do that as the Messiah?
“There is a clear pattern of a successive watering down of Jesus’ prediction of the eschaton within the generation of his disciples, starting with Mark…” EA
No watering down. It is absolutely fascinating to observe deniers create doctrine out of pure creativity. Why didn’t they alter the gospels further for more consistency?
I think the writers of the N.T. reviewed the work of their scribes to ensure they got it right. And, no one knows what a “Christian agenda” is, or they can’t define it. Seems to be a term that covers pro-Christian propaganda.
Bart November 9, 2015
Some time ask them what *evidence* they have for how the followers of Jesus died…Paul converted to be a follower of Jesus in possibly 32-33 CE
Saul observed Steve’s martyrdom, left for Damascus, got hit on the head by God’s light, and became a believer, which means that Steve was put to death for his unshakable faith soon after the crucifixion. He was preaching to the Sanhedrin and got those boys pretty rattled and they just couldn’t help themselves. They smashed his body to smithereens even as he shown like a light and forgave them.
That’s historical by golly. And the other boys were being whipped and threatened with execution. If it hadn’t been for Gamaliel, Pete was a goner. Yet, even coming that close to losing his life, he kept on keeping on, preaching Christ is risen everywhere he went. Why would he do that? He was as frightened as could be just a few days earlier. “I don’t know the guy! Are you kiddin? Never seen him.” At least he wept bitterly. The next thing you know, the gang wants to obliterate any sign he’s ever lived, and he’s sticks his chest out and remains steadfast. He ain’t going nowhere. (The thing is, God had just been there, passing through, and Pete was reminded that he had no reason to fear. He wasn’t going to make one thin dime off all this running around like a nut, either.)
Two years of research, my goodness .I’m thoroughly impressed by the scholarship and discipline you have devoted to this subject. Dr. Ehrman, did your PhD dissertation take less time from start to finish 🙂
Is there a tentative publication date , this one sounds like a particularity good read . ( maybe for Christmas Holiday’s )
Yes, my dissertation took about two years. But for the beginning phase of it, I didn’t have a day job — was doing nothing day and night but working on it. (Well, I did sleep and talk to my family; but no other work obligations; unlike my past two years which have been filled with lots of other things)
A quick follow up : Is this trade book number thirty one ( or maybe thirty two ) you are now writing for publication ? And could you name a few of your favorite books , not necessarily regarding Ancient Christianity , that you would take with you on a long. long vacation ? ……thank you
Yes, this is book 32, counting all the ones I’ve written and edited. On a long vacation I typically take fictions, usually including some 19th century novel or other. This last one was unusual, I took Wolf Hall and the tragedies of Euripides.
Thank you again, I’ll let you get back to your writing. I’m looking forward to reading it when it finally completes its two year journey to my local Barnes & Noble .
Euripides in the original Greek or an English translation? If the latter, which one? I would have taken a Loeb edition for easy access to both. Wolf Hall is a great read, btw.
English translation. I wasn’t reading it for *work*! I brought a couple of translations, including the edition produced by Peter Burian.
After reading your “Why Should Faith and the Afterlife Matter? Readers’ Mailbag April 15, 2018”
It gives me a better idea of what to expect. I found it fascinating that in the Old Testament, Jews believed the dead would go to Sheol, a place where both the just and unjust would reside in the afterlife. And when the prophets condemned Jews for making sacrifices to other Gods or for sinning, it was because Yahweh would turn his back on Israel and it had nothing to do with consequences a sinner would face in the afterlife. And every time the Jewish people faced tribulations especially at the hands of the the Babylonians, Greeks, etc…its because they were bring punished by Yahweh for making sacrifices to other Gods or for sinning.
I suspect the idea of resurrection and people returning to God in Heaven was probably from Jews being exposed to other cultures and incorporating their belief systems.
Will you cover how these Jewish sects transitioned their Old Testament beliefs to those of other cultures and religions? And what was the sentiment?
I’m not sure if in the New Testament if the Jews were portrayed accurately. From what Paul writes in the Pauline Epistles, there might be some truth to the behavior of Jews towards other sects, but was it more nuanced or was it that cut and dry?
Dr Ehrman, I note your references to primary texts (Ancient Near Eastern, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources). I then googled [homer afterlife] to get a clearer sense of what you are looking for. Why do you omit Eastern sources such as Buddhism and Hinduism? The conventional depictions of heaven and hell (Homer, Christian, etc) are anthropocentric, and couched in a subjective, human-historic context. But the Eastern perspective makes room for a scientific narrative that incorporates much of what we know about quantum mechanics, cosmology and culture (and Eastern religions’ references to karma).
The universe is a big place, currently, conservatively, guesstimated to number about 2 trillion galaxies (averaging 200 billion stars per galaxy). This suggests that there are a great many karmas (heavens and hells and everything-in-between) to be reincarnated into. Of course there are a number of assumptions to explore (nonlocality of self, QM, cosmology, the connection between personality and culture, semiotics, ontology, phenomenology, etc). I’m not sure that Judeo-Christian-Muslim foundations are equipped to address that.
The semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce provided a compelling framework from which to examine Christianity. If you haven’t done so already, Peirce is definitely worth looking into. I personally regard him as the “Isaac Newton” of mind science.
Bottom line: I have a problem with the notion of God as sky-daddy, who passes judgement on matters of good and evil. Eastern religions are much less inclined to take the sky-daddy route. The question of reincarnation relates to the question… if I, along with millions of other people, entered into THIS culture not knowing anything and then having to learn my culture, does it not follow that exactly the same thing will happen with my rebirth? We re-enter our next lives with the same innocence with which we entered into this one. By contrast, the Homerian/Judeo-Christian notion of heaven and hell as places of reward or punishment are contrary to this notion of innocence in rebirth, and I find that to be problematic.
I won’t be dealing with other traditions of teh afterlife (e.g. in Eastern religions, or even in Egypt) because my interest is with where the views of Christians today, the majority of people in the West, come from. If I were to do an exhaustive analysis of *all* the religions, it would need to be a multi-volume book!
Professor Ehrman, if you can reveal this, I’m wondering how your research on the afterlife has led you to assess the work of the late Alan F. Segal on the afterlife. What I’ve read of Segal so far seems quite good.
It is terrific, the definitive work on the issue.
I like the way you share your feelings and emotions and everyday life events in your posts and your books. It’s like taking the reader along in your adventures and discoveries. You once wrote that you felt cheated out of a “normal” life when you were younger attending Moody and Wheaton. Yet how many of us envy the road you traveled but were unable to for various reasons. With you sharing your experiences and knowledge we can sort of live vicariously through you and still gain a little of the knowledge you have learned. Life changing knowledge….maybe unbeknownst to you, the God you don’t believe in is still using you.
I suppose miracles happen!
Dr. Ehrman, as someone who has been writing professionally for years now , do you sometimes suffer from writer’s block ? As an editor and professor you have probably looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of student’s term papers. Is there any advice you could offer inspiring authors or people just wanting to improve their skills ? For example, is over writing a common problem , where less is better .
I’m so lucky that I never have had writers block. On the contrary, the words flow as fast as my fingers can move, and it’s been that way for 20 years or so. My best advice to learn how to write well is to study carefully the writing of authors that you think are especially good, trying to see “how they did it” — even at the sentence level. How is this sentence — and the ones that follow to make up a paragraph — written and structured? And how can *I* do that? Then start trying.
thank you…..
That is such a wonderful gift, to have the words flow as freely as yours do. And to think, I sometimes get writers block just trying to compose a reply to one of your blog posts. 😉
Yup, I feel very lucky indeed.
Dr. Ehrman, like yourself, I live deep in the southern bible belt. One common belief ,at least in my neck of the woods, is that life exists only on earth. That if life were to exist elsewhere in the universe , it would break God’s unique covenant with man. I’m guessing that springs from The Book of Genesis.
Have you encountered that same belief ?. Do you know if that idea is more restricted to conservative Christians or does it also spread out and reach into mainstream Christianity.
as always…..thank you
Dr, Ehrman, just to follow up on that thought .Christians 2,000 years ago obviously didn’t have the same knowledge we do today about the universe , especially regarding its vast size and complexity. But they still believed in beings who weren’t human and did exist in different realms. Before God created the universe. the earth and eventually mankind they must have existed somewhere . Could one say, and I know I’m stretching credulity here, that they were not of this earth. ( almost sounds like the name of a science fiction movie 🙂
Yes indeed, angels and archangels before there was a physical world for them to inhabit!
Actually, Genesis never says anything of the sort. And for another view by a conservative Christian, see C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra. Terrrific.
Wow, thank you for that reference !