Loading...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 classical music (several!); ancient history; psychology; neuroscience; and, well, and other things! They are available both audio and video (my Greatest Controversies is audio only; they tried that for a while and decided most people like the video option as well). The production levels are superb. You should check them out.
And get an 80% discount! Just click the site above, fill in the form, and go for it!
For those new to the blog, Dr. Ehrman’s Great Courses are all really “great.” I have listened to all eight of them and highly recommend them, especially if one can get them at a discount price. They could each function as the basis for a class.
I’ve enjoyed all of Prof Ehrman’s courses for The Teaching Company — and recommend them highly –, but I’d all so like to put in a plug for tTC in general.
As Prof Ehrman notes they are truly excellent. A couple points:
First, unlike many “on-line lectures” (which are often little more than a simple video-recording of a regular lecture) the lectures here are clearly designed (and expertly produced) to be watched in a video — and, where appropriate, audio — format.
Second, in addition to the excellent quality of the instructors, the courses are accompanied by a great deal of auxiliary material, primarily in the form of the “guidebooks” which, in addition to providing detailed notes for each lecture, also contain extensive bibliographies for the courses (it’s a rare course that hasn’t pointed me to at least one or two additional books to read).
Probably the feature I find most appealing is the broad range of topics. My background is primarily technical (physics/astronomy, computers), but I’ve found tGC to be an invaluable resource for “filling in the gaps” in my education (in my case, in addition to courses in Religion, this has especially involved courses in Linguistics, Ancient and Medieval History, Art History, Music and other sciences I’ve always been interested in but never found time to study in detail).
Finally, I’d also like to mention GreatCoursesPlus which is their streaming service. For a fixed monthly/annual fee you have unlimited access to a huge selection of their courses. It’s a very rare day I don’t watch (at least) a couple lectures.
Yours in opsimathy, Nichael
I love The Great Courses – can listen to them when I go out for my exercise walk/jog.
It should read:
For full descriptions of each of these courses – they’re awesome!
I am a member of TheGreatCoursesPlus.com (their subscription streaming service) and the courses are excellent. The religion, ancient history, and neuroscience ones are my favorites.
For those who have not experienced one of these Ehrman great courses, I can testify, having owned and watched all of them, that they are not only very enjoyable, but have an additional benefit. They enable you to see Dr. Ehrman’s personality and oral teaching skills. Then reading his books, I see and hear him speaking. Enjoyment enhanced!
Do you have a favourite Great Courses that you’ve done? Not necessarily the content meaning more to you, but how it came together or the overall finished product really clicked for you?
Actually, I’ve never listened to any of them! The one that gets the highest ratings is Lost Christianities.
You should check them out sometime. They are awesome! 🙂
Bart
Your advance discount with Simon and Schuster regarding your new book requires a receipt number? Please advise… thank you.
Paul
When you purchase the book online you get a receipt. I assume that receipt has a number on it.
I have enjoyed several of Bart’s Great Courses, and would highly recommend any of them. Bart is a great writer, but I think he is even better as a lecturer or debater.
Wish I were better as a golfer. (OK, I gave it up, but still….)
Maybe not the focus of this blog but I’d be curious to know why you would give up golf?
I realized it was taking up too much of my life. Just don’t have the time to knock off five hours for eighteen. Let alone four or five times a week, which I needed to do in order to keep half-way decent….
If it makes you feel any better, I predict that in 1000 years people will still read your books and watch your lectures, but they won’t give a damn about your golf game. And this just made me wonder…not to be morbid… but when you die can you make all your books, audiobooks, and videos available digitally for free online?
Bart, is this deal only for blog members in the U.S. or is it available to members worldwide?
Hmmm. Don’t know. If it doesn’t say in the ad I attached, then I guess world wide!
Dr. Ehrman,
I meant for this question to go with the recent post on the exalted Christology in Philippians, but got around to posting a couple days late. There´s an interesting line in John that seems to contradict the idea that Jesus himself is God incarnate (or claims to be as much), as we find in some (most?) readings of John. In John 5:30, he says: “I can do nothing of Myself but it is the Father that does His own works Which is in Me.” which seems, whether or not it is written in the context of later theology, more consistent with a self-identity as a prophet or healer, the same guy we read about in Mark´s gospel; the ¨I” he is talking about here is nothing more than a vessel, not a God-level divine manifestation, although he may be given a divinely-bestowed role. Even when he says ¨the father and I are one¨, can´t we take this to mean not self-identification/revealing his divine nature, but rather ´one´ as standing in agreement? Also, in he doesn´t apparently single himself out as essentially separate from the scribes who´ve accused him of blasphemy; the ¨ye are gods” line. And what of this oddly non-monotheistic line its classical Jewish old-testament source, if Jesus is using it to defend his claims? Otherwise, those two ideas don´t seem to line up. So what are we to make of John´s internal consistency here?
Yes, John has a paradoxical Christology. He is “one” with God but God appears to be superior to him. And yet he himself is called God. My sense is that at the end of the day, for this Gospel, Jesus really is God, teh one through whom teh Father created the world. But he is subordinate to the father.
That almost sounds like Christ is the Jewish incarnation of Plato´s demiurge! Inescapable is the sense that John´s gospel has significant Greek theological/cosmological influence, whether the author was Greek or Hellenized Jew – the Logos idea seams to go back at least to Philo, a Jewish student of Greek philosophy in Alexandria, where it would´ve been prevalent. Is it feasible that John´s gospel was written there too?
In teh Xn tradition, God the father is usually thought of as the Demiurge; and yes, John has been influence by Greek thought. I’d argue all the NT authors were.
Just purchased Lost Christianities. Appreciate the discount!