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A couple of months ago I was contacted by a Ukrainian scholar, Mikhail Abakumov. Mikhail had been forced to flee Donetsk because of the Russian invasion. He is now in Poland continuing his theological studies (a thesis on Dietrich Bonhoeffer), doing charity in a work with Ukrainian refugees, and running a podcast.
Mikhail had heard about my book Armageddon and wanted to do an interview with me about it. In the course of the interview he gave some information about how the book is understood among many Christians in the Ukrainian community, and it ain’t at all like it’s understood among Americans!
The interview was so interesting that I asked Mikhail to return the favor, and I’ve interviewed him for my Misquoting Jesus podcast; in that one I get to ask the questions and hear the unusually interesting answers. That one will post in a few weeks. But for now, here is the one Mikhail hosted and has now published on his turf.
I had always thought that the Eastern Orthodox Church was free of fundamentalist “End Times” speculation until I was corrected by a friend raised in the Russian church who sent me a copy of a book entitled ORTHODOXY AND THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE by Fr Seraphim Rose originally published in the 70s. The book has actually been described as the Orthodox LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH! The parallels are not exact but it does share many concerns of the faithful in the 1970s – cults, the occult, New Age religion, UFOs (demons of course) and warns of apostasy and the coming of the Antichrist.
Fr Rose’s book has gone through nine editions and apparently is still extremely popular among the Orthodox faithful in Russia.
After watching this video I think that you are probably the most Christian atheist I know….
That’s very kind of you. I think I’m the *only* Christian atheist *I* know. 🙂
Be informed that you at best second! Frank Schaeffer– the son of Francis Schaeffer of L’Abri, Switzerland– hax been using the term for, perhaps 5 or more years now.
If he’s the first, then I’ll let you be 2nd. (It’s not important to me!)
More importantly, I did nit adopt the term for myself. Until YOU explained why you use the term!
You are not the ONLY scholar that I follow in New Testament scholar, BUT you do have the talent that Bishop Chrisostom is said to have had, a “golden mouth,” so mellifluous were his homilies.
YOUR words are the most memorable to me, especially of complex subjects.
Carry on!
Ah, I was using it long before 5 years ago. I don’t know Frank but he’s a very interesting guy. His father’s books were extremely important to me when I was a fundamentalist — before I realized he didn’t know what he was talking about when he dealt with philosophy/philosophers.
Hi Professor! I just caught your latest YouTube episode on Mary Magdalene—great stuff. Thanks for teaching this old dog some new tricks. (I’m looking forward to your interview with Dr Abakumov.)
Excellent interview, Dr. B. I really liked they guy and am looking forward to the followup.
Hi Bart,
# I don’t think you are suggesting that Revelation was compiled at the time on Nero, specially that Nero didn’t actually oppressed the Christians, he just used few of them as scapegoats.
I assume that the oppression of Christianity started from Trajan (or maybe just before him). So, can the name “Trajan” be represented by 616/666 using Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic characters?
# You have mentioned that John of Revelation made numerous grammatical mistakes. Does this imply that John wasn’t a Greek native speaker, or was he a native speaker but wasn’t highly educated?
If the second option turned to be right, then I can assume that Revelation is a valuable linguistic literature as it can differentiate between the classic Greek and the dialog Greek in the first century.
1. I think Rev was written in the 90s. Nero was famous among Christians for rounding them up in Rome and subjectint them to horrible forms of execution; you can read about it in Tacitus, Annals, 15. 2. In my book I consider the options but argue he just couldn’t write well. Like most literate people!
Dr Ehrman,
(1) Regarding your comment that “turn the other cheek” and “love thine enemy” would be impractical policy for governments, wouldn’t it nonetheless be very good advice to the people of a once independent state now under the thrall of an overwhelming powerful Rome? It would have, if not heroic value, survival value. (2) Is there precedence in earlier Judaic writings for those particular sayings?
Thanks,
Daniel
There isn’t anything quite like it prior to Jesus. The fullest account of the idea in other religoius and philosophical traditoins, I think, is John Piper, Love Your Enemies.
Thanks! Will look it up.