I’m off to the airport in three hours, to spend the rest of the summer in London. As I think I mentioned before, Sarah is a Brit – grew up in London – and her family is all there. We have a flat in Wimbledon, and usually spend six weeks or so there during the summer, and sundry other times throughout the year. Sarah this year is teaching the “Duke in London” summer program, which is all theater: they study a play in class during the day, then go see it performed that evening. Really interesting and invigorating, but a *lot* of work (for Sarah). She’s been there for the past two weeks already.
I have finished the eight chapters of my Bible Intro that deal with the Hebrew Bible; after this the book will include be a transitional chapter into the New Testament (dealing with Greco-Roman world, Judaism in the period, and so on), then five chapters on the NT, and a final chapter on the canon and text of both testaments. I hope to be able to write up the rest of it during my time in Wimbledon, as I’ll have nothing else really to do with my days but play around London if I feel so moved. I usually try to take one day off a week to do something other than work when I’m there. And I’ll be able to catch some theater at night.
Anyway, this is the time of year that I typically look back on the year past to see what I’ve done in terms of my scholarship, research, and publication, and to plan out what I hope to have done next year at this time. Here are my self-ramblings about the former.
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Prof. Ehrman, the current book you’re writing, why don’t you include a chapter (or two) on the Deutero-Canonical Books (OT Apocrypha)?
I deal with all of them in my forgery book, due out in Novemeber (I also deal with them in my tradebook for general audiences, Forged, which came out in the Spring.)
How much have you reworked the “Orthodox Corruption of Scripture”? I have the first edition and would like to know if it is worthwhile getting the second.
The bulk of the text is virtually the same. For that part of it, I just corrected mistakes that I or others caught, some of them real howlers! What’d different is that I added an extended essay at the end that deals with all the work that has been done since the first editoin that is relevant to the topics I deal with — including discussions of the alleged “original text” (which I treated as non-problematic in the early 90s!).
Sounds like a very successful year. I am quite familiar with what we know about how the New Testament canon came to be, but would like to learn what we know about the adoption of the Old Testament canon. Maybe, you could write a blog on that subject.
Yes, I’ll be dealing with that in the book. In some ways the story is a lot less clear….
I always wondered if you ever considered branching out into historical fiction. An imaginary account of the creation of a gospel that never was in an early Christian community or the division of a family along Christian/Jew lines as the Temple burns or something. You have the ability to engage the reader, that’s for sure, and the material suggests itself. Ever had the itch?
I’ve thought about it, but in my experience, every biblical scholar who has tried it has shown that it’s better to stick to biblical scholarship. 🙂
Is the second edition of “Orthodox corruption” a thoroughly revised edition, or one with a new foreword/afterward? I see a 2011 edition of the book on amazon, but it doesn’t say 2nd edition.
A new afterward, fairly extensive.
congrats to your accomplishments. thanks for being influential in bringing wide spread popular interest in the new testament…