Loading...There is one other general principle that I tried to follow when writing my NT textbook in the 1990s. In my experience, most textbooks – not just in biblical studies, but in all fields – suffer from one ubiquitous problem. They are BORING. A guiding principle for me was to try my best to keep from boring readers to death.
I’ve always been amazed over the years how otherwise intelligent human beings can take really fascinating material and make it dull, uninteresting, soporific, and general snooze-worthy. Take the Hebrew Bible – the Christian Old Testament – for example. It’s an amazing book, filled with incredibly interesting stories, and beautiful poetry, and gut-wrenching reflections on life and the disasters that happen within it. How can you make the boring? Simple! Ask someone to write a textbook on it.
The New Testament too is a really interesting book – even apart from being the most important book in the history of Western civilization. Any textbook written for undergraduates will be, for many of them, their first (and often only) introduction to these fascinating and important books, and to the scholarship that has been devoted to them over the past 300 years. This is an opportunity to bring to life some of the truly crucial literature of our culture. Authors who bore students with this information have earned a place in Dante’s Inferno.
And yet most books about the NT are boring. I didn’t want mine to be. And so I developed several mechanisms to try to make the book interesting.
First, I decided that I would try to write the book…
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Yup, your textbook is precisely that: conversational, beautifully illustrated, entertaining, absolutely engaging and brilliant. The “boxes” are like coffee break. You certainly do not belong to the realm of boring – ever!
I agree with you on both layout and interest level. My department uses a common textbook for our general education world history offerings, and a couple of years ago I was on the committee to narrow the selections down to a few finalists for full departmental consideration. You wouldn’t believe how incredibly dry some people can make history texts. The thing about the boxes, though, is that often they go unread. I personally deal with this by deliberately assigning those special features I intend to use in class, but when I don’t, most students who actually read still just read the main textual narrative and ignore the “World History in Today’s World” or whatever the boxed feature is.
I think showing students how scholars work is critical, and that books that don’t do this will start losing market share. Part of the “Common Core” is about bringing this way of approaching education even to the high school level. Other disciplines now have analogues to the labs done in the hard sciences.
By the way, I was at a party Saturday night, and a few of us started talking about your trade books. We agreed one of their most useful features is that you are so clear where there is a scholarly consensus, where there is more debate, and when you are all alone on Ehrman Road. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
I found the textbook “Economics” , the May 29, 2012 edition by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells to be extremely well formatted to maintain interest and have excellent readability. It sounds like your format would be similar. I’d be willing to bet there is a copy in the university library you could get your hands on to look at as it is a bit expensive. All textbooks are rather an investment, but I consider you textbooks and trade books worthy investments! Thanks.
Yes, I love Krugman’s editorials in the NYT.
Where can the latest edition of your NT text book be obtained? It sounds fascinating and well worth reading as an all-purpose reference guide.
You can always get it on Amazon.
I am interested in the way translators of the New Testament pick the appropriate words in the contemporary languages (in this case, English) to use to express what they think is the best meaning from the Greek.
Recently I’ve been interested in the historical obsession with heaven and hell, especially in evangelical circles…that is, “We believe in Jesus so we will go to heaven when we die rather than hell,” ignoring what seems to be the essential message of Jesus: the coming of God’s kingdom and an ethic of love and compassion here-and-now.
So, I am trying to understand the meaning of hell from the Greek as translated in the New Testament. It seems that translators of the New Testament (even very modern and literal editions) insist on referring to hell as “hell” in spite of the fact that hell is most often referred to by Jesus as *gehenna* in Greek…gehenna being a garbage dump outside of the walls of Jerusalem and seems to be used as a metaphor for an undesirable place to be.
Hell, as we imagine it now days, seems to be derived bfom Dante’s Inferno and has little to do with what is referred to in the Bible…whether in the Hebrew or Christian scripture….Mt. 5:22, Mt. 10:28, Jas. 3:6…for example.
Then there is the reference to Hades which to totally Greek mythology.
Why do you think the translators do this? It seems to perpetuate a myth….(My example of hell is not the only example I could give).
I think sometimes translators are loathe to change familiar translations of key terms; it’s hard to know how to translate the term — maybe it’s best just to call it Gehenna.
The boxes are terrific and the textbook is engaging.
I do, however, find the Bible, outside the Gospels, to be boring even when I listened to the entire King James Version read by James Earl Jones with his booming voice. I think part of the problem is that it contains too many different stories that are usually quite short and often not well connected to one another. Then, there is Isaiah and Jeremiah and finally the Book of Revelation which all are quite difficult to follow and, hence, boring. Sorry about that.
How does your NT textbook differ from the NT portion of your textbook on the entire Bible?
Is the organization the same, but the sections longer with more information?
Thanks
It’s probably three times as long with a *lot* more information, analysis, summary, introductoin of key problems, and scholarly solutions, and so on.
I think I was 39 when I got it, and it was an older edition (the reddish brown soft cover.) I have to say it did a good job of bridging the gap between scholarly and trade. It was definitely better than most of the textbooks we had when I got my BS (double entendrè completely intentional.) If only you had been an economist or mathematician instead of a textual critic, I may have been able to master the materials of a much more lucrative career. 😉
Hi, Professor Ehrman!
How about some really interesting posts? Maybe invite Craig Evans to respond to your critique. He would surely need to concede some points, but also might have something interesting to contribute to the discussion. Or debate your neighbor Mark Goodacre on the existence of Q or independent attestation, seeing as he also does not agree with the gospel of Thomas or John being independent of the synoptic gospels.
Just a thought.
Good ideas. I’ve asked maybe 40 scholars if they would be interested in posting on my blog, and so far only two have expressed an interest! Go figure. I guess scholars are very busy people….
Marc Lynch has long been a proponent of using the internet to bring research about the modern Middle East to a wider audience using the internet, but his first major attempt, a self-started blog named Qahwa Sada (Black Coffee), hosted only one book discussion, and so was a complete flop. Later, he was far more successful starting up the “Middle East Channel,” a blog of guest-authored posts at Foreign Policy magazine, and has since moved operations to the Washington Post with frequent Middle East content at The Monkey Cage (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/)
Moving to a set web magazine is probably not an option for you, unless they pay you as much or more than you can make just from memberships. However, perhaps there are two side options. One is to target finishing Ph.D. students, for whom a guest posting opportunity from you could have real resume value. The other would be to ask scholars who have a book coming out, and might therefore see this as a way to publicize it.
I purchased your textbook, “After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity” and several other books to supplement your videos on “The Great Courses” e.g. “Lost Christianities”, “How Jesus Became God” (I have the book as well) etc. Watching the videos while at the same time referencing your books, the Bible and other recommended books such as Walter Bauer’s book, “Orthodoxy and Heresy…” works well together. One question I have is why your textbook, “After the New Testament….” doesn’t have an index. I realize the TOC is fairly extensive but I was surprised that a textbook would not have an index. BTW…great job on the videos, textbooks, trade books and what I presume is a scholarly work i.e.. “Orthodox Corruption of Scripture” among others. Thanks.
Dave
I think they chose not to index it since it is mainly an anthology of ancient texts.
Hello, Bart, I have a question. I’m working independently through your textbook “A brief introduction to the new testament” second edition. And saw that you have another textbook called “ the new testament a historical introduction to the early Christian writings” third edition. I was wondering are they both the same or should I study them separately?
The NT: A Historical Introduction…. is longer and more comprehensive (it’s in it’s seventh edition now). The information isn’t *different* there’s just more of it. I wrote the Brief Intro. second, as an abbreviation.