I’m brand new here and was unable to access the forum rules. I hope that this post does not break any rules. I just want to express my thoughts about the subject and hopefully not offend anyone by doing so. This is in regard to the Teaching Company Great Courses Historical Jesus. I have viewed a few other of Dr. Ehrman’s Great Courses and they along with Dr. James Hall’s superb Philosophy of Religion course have been very helpful in coming to terms with twelve years of Catholic education. My grade school experience took place from the mid ’50s to mid ’60s. It was a frightening experience. I’ll be seventy-one next month and have been a “fallen” Catholic (and an agnostic) for several decades. The nightmares still persist though.

Apocalypticists believed that God would establish His personal kingdom on Earth after a proper cleansing. Earth’s civilization is most likely one of several millions or even billions of other civilizations that must surely populate a 13.7 billion year old universe consisting of two billion known galaxies. Some could be thousands or millions of years further advanced than ours. That would make them infinitely more interesting to a being that is reckoned to be all knowing and all powerful.

If I were one tenth as intelligent as such a being, wasting my time with a species that is generally known to be comprised of greedy, warmongering simpletons who despoil their own beautiful environment, would definitely not be an option. I would instead spend my time in the company of those who were far more intelligent, advanced and interesting. Of course those early apocalypticists were not cognizant of what our vast universe might encompass, but what an egotistical idea their beliefs were regardless of what was written somewhere.