Loading...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 Great Music; Shakespeare; and on and on). They cover an enormous range of topics, and they are all done by real experts who are skilled lecturers. It is a very tough screening process to get to be able to do one of these courses. The numbers of professors who want to do them who are not, well, invited are staggering. I had the *unbelievable* good fortune of getting connected to them many years ago, long before it was so tough to get on board. My point is that if you want to learn about something, this is one of the bona fide very best ways to do it – the professors are highly knowledgeable experts who are unusually skilled lecturers.
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hi Professor Ehrman,
I have all your Great Courses and have gotten much from them!
Have you considered doing a course for Coursera? (www.coursera.org)
I like the courses they offer because they’re interactive, combining video lectures, readings, online discussion groups and even meet-ups. It opens up the discussions to thousands of people from all over the globe. I would be very interested in any of your classes being offered in that way.
thanks … new to your blog and really enjoying it.
No, I’m pretty much committed to the Great Courses!
Dr Ehrman:
I have purchased all of your courses from The Great Courses. I am very pleased to hear you are doing another on how Jesus became God. I highly recommend these courses to everyone. Just an hour or so per day and within a few weeks you complete the course. You become an expert just like you (LOL). I listen to them over and over. You be surprised how much you miss the first time through. Keep up the good work and I hope there are many more courses to come.
I quickly guessed that some students were going to give low ratings if they were offended.
When I lectured to Duke medical students, I used to get odd ratings as well. For example, I was the only teacher I knew who got perfect ratings from all students for a lecture. The only problem was that I forgot to show up for that lecture and missed giving it. Go figure that one out.
I have taken all seven of your Teaching Company courses as well as a bunch of the other Teaching Company courses. What makes you lectures much better than those of other teachers is that your lectures are very, very clear.
I knew nothing about the Ebionites, the Marcionites, or the Gnostics before taking your “Losf Christianities” course and learned a heck of a lot from the course. I reviewed what I had learned at a church meeting and although the idea that there were many early Christianities was very interesting to me, the idea offended many who were present.
I just finished reading Rubenstein’s “When Jesus Became God” which deals mostly with fourth century history and whether Jesus was God or subordinate to God, like the Unitarians see Him. It is an interesting intellectual argument, but it is hard to imagine that people killed each other over this issue. Maybe, they were just looking for a reason to kill each other?
I discovered your work through Teaching Company many years ago. My favorite course was Lost Christianities. No one talks about early Christianity. That’s why I loved it. I’ve probably listened to that course three times over the past few years. I’m glad the classes are now available on Audible and iTunes, too. I’m dyslexic and these audio / video formats make learning so much easier for me. Thank you for doing it. Your work has really enriched my life.
The great courses are how I became aware of you, Professor Bart Ehrman. Every one is rigorous, tight, and intellectually stimulating. These courses have helped me understand why I am who I am. I am not offended by their confrontation of faith with history. You always make it clear to the reader they are not the same thing. I now understand that you cannot prove one with the other. In fact keeping the two separate has counter intuitively helped me in my faith life, thank you.
Ooooh! I can’t wait! I have most of your Great Courses sets. Awesome stuff!
I’m listening to your new Course now. I am about halfway through and love them. They are very clear, precise, and to the point. Are there any other Great Courses on the New or Old Testament that you would recommend? Thanks.
Amy Jill Levine is very good — on the OT and a couple, I think, on the NT; if you want a very different perspective from an excellent scholar (with whom I disagree on many many things!) try the courses by Luke Timothy Johnson
Great to learn you’re going to be doing a course on this. Video, I hope? I’ll definitely buy it and look at it, even knowing it will cover the same points as your book.
I’ve resumed buying some of their other courses, too – I’m interested in science now. Finished a course on “Life in the Universe” (and so wished I had access to *that* professor!). Now that I’ve learned what he thinks our descendants should be doing a billion or so years from now, I settled down last night with another course – and learned why “ramapithecus” doesn’t belong on our family tree!
Yup, video and audio.
Bart Ehrman:
But there will always be students who simply don’t like it because they find it religiously offputting and offensive.
Steefen:
The Church (“the establishment”) does not shepherd congregations towards a critical approach to the New Testament. It does not want closer proximities to truth. For example, Paul’s notion of the resurrection body is a big “F”ail but the Church does not care about the hypocrisy of claiming to be the place to go for securing a heavenly life after death but failing on a viable concept of what happens after death.
People are afraid of the Humpty Dumpty probability: red ink the New Testament with alterations and criticisms and no one can put it back together and publish a new draft of it.
When the Gospel of Mark was written by Hellenist Jews (most likely the Therapeut of the Hellenized Jews along the vine of St. Stephen and other leading figures in the Hellenized Synagogues), it was written with the Homeric Epics in mind. (See The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark by Dennis MacDonald – Yale University Press).
When Paul’s Letter to the Roman’s was written, it was written not only with Virgil’s Aenid in written form in mind but also the cultural impact of it still fresh and strong as a recent classic. The Aenid also makes references to? The Homeric epics.
If all the New Testament criticism, my own Post-Rosetta Stone Hebrew Bible criticism (and those in Egyptology who can do it better than I can), and Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, Jewish War, and The Life (autobiography) had a historical accuracy reconciliation with both halves of the Bible, we could get a dispassionate narrative much better than the icon of sacred scripture used in courtrooms and churches. Could we get the world literature gloss of Homer and Virgil? Could we capture the myth elements correctly at a time after the assassinations of Gandi, MLK, Jr., the Armenian Christian genocide, the Jewish and Gentile genocides of WWII, after the Inquisitions and the Protestant Revolution?
Besides, you’re no longer within Christianity. You’re an agnostic. You cannot lead the sanctity of this “new Bible.” So, of course, some students find it offensive and offputting. If they could just learn how to take constructive criticism with a high level of appreciation, Christianity would be much better.
A few years ago (maybe as many as five or six) I joined my wife in Sunday School at the Methodist church just around the corner from where we lived. Whenever I showed up, the people (mostly elderly folks) were very friendly. They gave every indication of being open to new ideas and not the least bit judgmental about their beliefs, or mine. Discussions were wide-ranging and fun. At some point I must have mentioned Misquoting Jesus, and when they seemed eager to hear more about you I bought/donated your NT course, plus the equipment needed to watch the series. To my surprise, however, it didn’t take them long to abandon you for more traditional Catholic scholars who spouted anachronistic things I remember hearing as a child..
Moral of the story: Young or old, Bible *Worship* is a very hard thing to overcome.
The Great Courses are awesome. This is how I became familiar with your work…finding out about the infancy gospels is what started me on this quest for knowledge on christianity.
Looking forward to this course!
Curious if there is an estimate of when it will be available??
Summer? Just a guess. It was held off because of Covid.
Sweet. Looking very much forward to it. Are they bringing back the green walls and podium yet? 😉
They gave that one up, thank the gods.