Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 343

Placing the New Testament in Its Own Historical Context

In my previous post I began to discuss how I chose, back in the mid 1990s, to conceptualize my New Testament textbook, not as a theological/interpretive introduction to the NT, or as a literary introduction, but as a rigorously historical introduction. Among other things, that meant treating the books of the New Testament as *some* of the early Christian wriitngs, which needed to be discussed in relation to other early Christian writings produced at about the same time. In this post I’ll talk...

A Historical Approach to the New Testament

In my previous posts I talked about how I came to be convinced to write my textbook on the New Testament, back in the early to mid 1990s. Once I agreed to do it, the first step was to decide exactly what *kind* of Introduction to the New Testament I wanted it to be. This was a problem, because I was pretty sure that the kind of introduction that I would like to write would not be the kind of introduction that college professors would like to use.

There were already lots of textbooks on the New...

Agreeing to Do the Textbook

In my previous post I indicated that I was not at all inclined to write a textbook on the New Testament. In fact, before the editor at Oxford University Press asked me to do it, I had never given it a moment’s thought – except for that moment when I thought (some years before), that whatever I did with my publishing career, I did *not* want to write such a thing. Looking back on it, I’m not sure why I was so dead set against it. I suppose it was because my plan was to write scholarship for sc...

My New Testament Textbook

I thought I would take a few posts to talk about what I’m working on these days – for the past month or so, with another month or so to go. As many of you know, I spent almost the entire summer doing nothing but reading books and articles about “memory” and related topics (such as the telling of stories in oral cultures) from a variety of perspectives: cognitive psychology, neurology (very low level!), anthropology (oral cultures and how they pass along their traditions), sociology (communal...

Yale Shaffer Lectures 3 of 3 – Christ Against the Jews

Here is the third of my Shaffer Lectures delivered almost exactly ten years ago. This final one has to do with textual variants and apocryphal texts that show evidence of Christian anti-Judaism. I call this one: Christ Against the Jews. It is a topic that I continue to be interested in, and on which I plan to write a book for a general audience, at some time in the next few years (not about textual variants, but about the rise of Christian opposition to Jews and Judaism.)

Please adjust gear...

Letter from Urban Ministries of Durham

As most of you know, there are four charities that the Bart Ehrman Blog supports. Two of them are international: CARE and Doctors Without Borders. Two of them are local to me: The Food Bank of North Carolina and the Urban Ministries of Durham. I very much wish we could support all of them more and more — they are all superb organizations.

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But I have a special soft spot for the Urban Ministries of Durham. Despite its name, it is not a religious organization....

Why We Need Tenure

I’ve been discussing what a university professor does with his or her time, and have devoted a couple of posts to the question of what it takes to receive tenure. In doing so I have indicated that tenure is a guarantee of life-long employment by the academic institution, barring such extraordinary circumstances as moral turpitude on the part of the professor (it happens!) and financial exigency of the institution (it too, alas, happens).

I should say as well, though, that once one receives ten...

What Counts for Tenure?

I have one more post to make on this thread, which has taken me off onto a tangent, away from early Christianity per se and onto what it means to be a university professor at a research institution such as UNC. That other post – hopefully tomorrow – will be about why tenure is absolutely essential for this kind of job, even if it is highly unusual anywhere else (unheard of, of course, in the business world). But before then, I want to say one other thing about the tenure process, something th...

The Academic Tenure Situation

In my previous post I discussed what a professor at a research university does with his or her time. I did not go into detail about a lot of the really time consuming obligations, which I may at some point devote a post to. For now I want to deal with one other thing that I mentioned in yesterday’s post: the question of tenure. Most people in the rest of the working world have trouble getting their mind around what university tenure is all about. You mean they guarantee you a job for life? Th...

A Day In the Life of a Research Professor

I sometimes get asked what it is that professors in universities actually do. The question is usually raised when someone realizes that at a major research university, most professors teach two classes a semester. Classes tend to involve three hours of class time per week. But that means a professor is in the classroom only six hours a week. Is this a full time job? Are you serious?? And on top of that you have tenure so that you can, for all practical purposes, never get fired? Hey how can *...