Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 346

My Third Scholarly and Trade Book Combination, Told Tangentally

The third time I produced both a scholarly and a trade book on the same topic was a completely different situation from the other two I have described. One thing that was similar was that in this instance yet again I had no idea, initially, of producing a trade version, but planned simply to publish a work of scholarship. Only later did I realize that a trade version could be very useful.

This scholarly book – trade book combination involved an edition of the apocryphal Gospels. To explain how...

My Scholarly and Trade Books on Forgery

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the books that I anticipate writing in the future. I like to plan my life in advance. I like to plan my week in advance. I like to plan my day in advance. I like to plan. For my current ten-year publishing plan, the two immediate goals are not so immediate, as they will take three or four years, I should think. The next book, I hope, will be the trade book for popular audiences on the oral traditions of Jesus in the years before the Gospels were written; that...

Trade Books and Scholarly Books

I indicated in my previous post that I would say a few things about each of the books that I am planning – today at least – to try to write over the next ten years or so. The very next book will be trade book on Jesus Before the Gospels, a study of what happened to the stories about Jesus as they were altered, and invented, by Christians circulating them word of mouth before the writing of the Gospels. The next book after that will be a scholarly treatment of the same thing. Or that’s the pla...

Freedom From Religion Foundation Lecture

On May 3 of this year I gave a lecture at a meeting of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Raleigh NC. The lecture is about what it is like to be an agnostic who writes about religion. That’s an irony that I am constantly aware of and most of the lecture is about my experience as a non-religious person who is an expert in something he doesn’t believe in.

I also used the lecture to stress that being “free from religion” is not the same thing as “attacking religion.” I absolutely agree with...

My Future Books

I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve been in London for the summer, spending almost all my time reading books. I should clarify that I’m not *only* reading books while I’m here! Among other things,once a week I’ve been taking my daily walk (I normally walk an hour a day around Wimbledon, where our flat is) to the large park nearby, and sit on a bench, listening to music with my earphones, watching people play football (a.k.a. soccer) or cricket with their kids, and smoking a very big cig...

Clarification!

I need to clarify something that I said in my earlier post today about my next project, since I have elicited several demurrals in response, and it was because I didn’t express myself very clearly. What I said was this:

Scholars have long held that Mark was the first of our Gospels to be written, and that it probably appeared sometime around the year 70 CE. Some scholars think it might have been a bit before that (I used to think that); more scholars think that it might have been a bit after....

My Next Project

I’ve had several people ask what I’m working on, now that How Jesus Became God has come and gone from. The answer is: the very next thing! And it’s something that I’ve gotten really excited about, as excited as I was about How Jesus Became God. For some reason, when I was doing that book over the past couple of years, I thought that it was going to be the climax of my trade book publishing career, and that everything would be downhill from there. I was completely wrong about that. I’m now jus...

My Apostolic Fathers Seminar/Syllabus

I am preparing for classes, now as we speak. In the Fall term, which begins (moan and groan) in next week, I’ll be teaching two classes, my “first-year seminar” called “Jesus in Scholarship and Film,” and my PhD seminar on “The Apostolic Fathers.” My Jesus course will be pretty much like last year’s, with a few tweaks (including a full showing of the Life of Brian!); if you’re interested in the basic layout, I posted my syllabus from last year on August 24, 2013.

The Apostolic Fathers is a cou...

Suggestions for Improving the Blog (Its Content)

In my previous post I discussed some of the ideas that had been put forth for increasing the amount of money that the blog takes in – which is my ultimate goal, as I’ve repeatedly said. I realize that for most of you (all of you?), that’s *not* the ultimate goal. Most of you are interested in what the blog can provide by way of substance and content. So, on that topic….

I have tried to vary my posts since this endeavor started over two years ago now, and looking at the categories in which the...

National Cathedral Lecture – Misquoting Jesus

Here is a version of my lecture “Misquoting Jesus.” Some of you have seen a different version of the lecture (I’m sure I’ve posted one!); I’m particularly fond of this particular one, both because of its setting in the Washington National Cathedral and because, well, I just think I was on better form than usual. The lecture was given on Feb. 6, 2007.