Loading...Reminder! This Saturday, September 18, I will be giving a lecture with Q&A on the book of Revelation; I’m calling it “Expecting Armageddon: What the Book of Revelation Reveals.” Wanna come?
The event is a fundraiser (not for the blog, but) for my Department of Religious Studies, which is trying very hard to sustain its work in training graduate students. My own students are becoming experts in the kinds of things I do, engaging in serious research in the study of the New Testament and the history of early Christianity, teaching important aspects of the field to undergraduate students, and communicating broadly this kind of knowledge to broader audiences in the population at large.
It is very important work, not just for the graduate students themselves but for the people they do and will teach and reach, as we try to keep the public educated in what we actually know based on scholarship on these issues of broad importance. But we are having trouble providing students with the funds they need to complete their training.
And so we will be asking, but not requiring, donations for participation in the lecture. If you believe in the kind of things I do, donations will help other bright, interesting, and devoted students become qualified to do them as well.
So if you can come, come! If you can donate, donate! Learn what experts in the book of Revelation say about this most mysterious and most misunderstood book of the entire Bible!
Here is the link to click for information about how to join us:
https://go.unc.edu/EhrmanWebinar
Inside this link will be instructions about how do make your donation. I hope you can join us!
Thanks Bart, I look forward to your webinar. I have registered and I made a donation to this worthy cause.
That is only an hour before the book club is supposed to meet.
Are you keeping it strictly to an hour or will there be an overlap?
Ah, sorry ’bout that. Two different and completely unconnected groups were making the schedule. My own talk in the webinar will take about 40 minutes. Unless the End comes before that….
What did Jesus think would happen to the Gentiles with respect to the Kingdom that he would rule over with his twelve disciples each ruling over a tribe? If this Kingdom wasn’t open to any Gentiles, would they live in some other kingdom or not be resurrected at all? Or perhaps Jesus simply didn’t think or say anything about this issue?
Several of his sayings that are almost certainly authentic talk about righteous gentiles coming into the kingdom whereas many Jews wold be left out. See, e.g., Luke 13:29 and the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46.
Thanks. So, can we infer that those righteous gentiles would each be admitted to one of the tribes? Or that the other nations would remain separate, ruled directly by Jesus? Or we have scant or no information about how Jesus imagined that was going to work?
Good question. The text doesn’t indicate either way.
Matrix 4 Resurrections – A must watch for all Bart Blog Members! LOL 😂
https://youtu.be/4cPTYy0tOy4
I actually just saw that before coming here to catch up on the week haha! Neo originally named Thomas makes more sense now
Dear Prof Ehrman, I have a request re this event & any other similar events in future. Given that I expect you have a healthy international following (including me in Melbourne) could you please remind all when stating an event time that EDT is UTC – 4hr (or EST is UTC – 5hr outside your summer) so we can all quickly work out what ungodly hour we would need to wake up to join in? (4am for me in this case – UTC + 10hr) 🙂
Sorry, sorry. Yes, it’s Eastern Time.
That it’s Eastern Time (& still EDT on 18th Sep) is clearly pointed out in the info. My request is that since very few of us have memorised all the world time zones please add that the time of this lecture will be at UTC – 4hr. No big problem. I’ve registered, donated & look forward to it (with a pre-sunrise coffee or two)!
Do your textbook on The New Testament: A Historical Approach talk about the details for authorship of the books (for example: number of infinitives in Colossians) or partition theories (Philippians or 2 Corinthians)?
Yup. I take it easy on most of the grammatical stuff, but I mention it, and I explain at some length about partition theoriesin Phil and 2 Cor.
I am from New York. Can you please remind me the time?
Thanks!
Eastern time would include New York. 2:00 pm.
Thank you for the great presentation today, Dr. Ehrman! It was brilliant how you were able to use the historical context to show what these visions in Revelations were actually about.
I also wanted to know, regarding the marks of the beast, was there anything in that time that people marked themselves with to show they were a part of the Roman empire?
Slaves were tatooed or branded, and it may have been a reference to that. You are a slave to whom you serve: Christ or Rome.
Wow. This is brilliant! Thank you for your reply!
Well, your lecture was excellent – thankyou! 🙂
Given that history seems to bear out the human propensity for fixating on prediction of the future (maybe arising from ignorance or fear or greed or some combination) could you speculate, or import more blog expertise if needed, on the psychology behind this? I was interested that you mentioned the role of cognitive dissonance and, in previous posts, the psychological tricks the human mind can play say in relation to sightings of a (much desired?) resurrection? I do think basic human psychology is a field everybody ought to get at least some introductory grounding in. We & all people in all times have been subjects to it & nobody has ever been objectively outside it.
The lecture including Q & A is already available on YouTube.
Now that the lecture is available on your Youtube channel, I have watched it. The bit about the Mark of the Beast was particularly interesting, as it is something I have wondered about. A number of passing references confused me, but they are probably things that could fill another lecture to properly explain (e.g. a background on first century euphemisms).
So, to summarise a major theme, the author of Revelation thinks that salvation requires completely removing yourself from the Roman economic system, which implies being dependent on an underground counter culture, which implies being a member of the Church. And yet his use of violent imagery, such as the glorification of iron rods (against who exactly: all the “bad” people are dead), shows that his problem with the Romans is not a moral one as we would understand it.
Perhaps some upcoming blog posts will explore these topics further.
I am a HUGE fan of yours and listen to you EVERY day! I grew up a fundamentalist and even earned a religious degree at Bob Jones (ever heard of it?;-) ). I had never read the Bible from start to finish before going to college. Being forced to do so is when my faith started faltering. Ironically, going to Bob Jones turned me agnostic. However, up until recently I still had some fear of hell. Hearing you discuss the historicity of hell has finally put my mind at ease, and for that I am grateful!
I am a very private person, and my fundamentalist family does not know I am agnostic. I do not even know how to “come out.” I do not know if I even should or not. I do not know how to do so without potentially making some people waiver in their faith. I do not want to change anyone’s beliefs.
With all that said, it would be great if you had some resources specifically geared towards people like me. Something to guide people on how to deal with conservative religious family members.
Thank you for all the good you are doing in this world!
I’ve talked about it in my comments before, but maybe I should post on it. There are lots of others like you here on teh blog, and maybe they can give some sense of their experiences….
Formerfundie:
As a exvangelical, I have so far decided that discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to my spouse, who is still a true believer, and when it comes to those who attend services at our little Baptist church. Relationships matter more to me than expressing my opinion and alienating family and friends. Other exvangelicals make a different decision.