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In order to get a fundamental understanding of the history of Christianity one must first get familiar with writings of antiquity.

This is a partial list of writings that MUST be read.

Philo, Plutarch, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Lucian, Cassius Dio, Jullian the Emperor, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras of Athens, Minucius Felix, Arnobius, Lactantius, the Canonised NT, Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Augustine of Hippo, Optatus, Rufinus and others.

Tommy

Ehrman is a wizard of a man, if indeed he may be called a man.

Very good youtube lectures on the NT.

DCHindley

The once popular reconstruction of Robert Eisler applied to the now popular Ehrman.

Now about this time arose (an occasion for new disturbances) a certain Ehrman, a wizard of a man, if indeed he may be called a man (who was the most monstrous of all men, whom his disciples call a son of gun, as having made men wonder what no man hath ever yet wondered). . . . He was in fact a Professer of astonishing tricks to such men as accept the abnormal with delight. And he seduced many Jews and many also of the Western world, and (was regarded by them as) the Messiah [advocate]. And when, on the indictment of the principal men among us, Mythicists had sentenced him to the cross, still those who before had admired him did not cease (to rave). For it seemed to them that having [once believed] Jesus been dead for three days, as the divinely-inspired prophets had foretold — these and ten thousand other wonderful things — concerning him, [Ehrman] had [re-]appeared to them alive again [as an agnostic]. Yet even now the race of those who are called 'Christians' is not extinct [on account of] him.

DCH

outhouse

Ive enjoyed his work.

I find no real fault other then the over attributation of some historical elements.


I find this in most scholars work so its not perosnal to his alone.

Adam

Don't trust Ehrman for honest statements on video debates. To argue against Christians like Dan Wallace and Craig Evans, he's willing to sound like a Mythicist. In contrast in promoting his recent Did Jesus Exist he goes over to the other extreme of acknowledging written sources in the 30's, within a decade of Jesus. By the latter his position seemed almost like mine in Gospel Eyewitnesses in which I present seven written eyewitness records to Jesus, but more likely he is referring to the very early dating from James Crossley and Maurice Casey.
So he knows very well that there is very strong evidence of the historicity of Jesus, but to make debate points he'll deny things he knows to be true.

Minimalist

He knows textual criticism backwards and forwards and his trashing of the various components of the NT is a tremendous advance for rationality.

When he starts on the faith crap, he is no more credible than anyone else.

NobleSavage

I'm have no interest in reading all that. I not looking to become a biblical scholar. I just want to know a little more than nothing. If it piques my interest I'll read more.

stephan huller

Well, once you've given in to the logic of Pete Brown it is hard to find anything else that compares.

Solo

AFAICT, Ehrman is completely innocent of the intellectual history of Europe in the age of Enlightment and after. He has no clue where and how the idea that Jesus did not exist arose, how and by whom it was propagated, and how far it penetrated the popular consciousness. In most of Western Europe (perhaps outside of Britain), as far as I can tell, the "mythicist" numbers would be far greater and better articulated than in North America. Ehrman just simply does not grasp essential points. He puts too much emphasis on his personal experiences with the mental horizons of his undergraduate audience and their grasp of the subject. He extrapolates from that and finds the "mythical" theory arises from a need to spread uninformed propaganda. It is interesting to observe his essentially "fundamentalist" view of Paul meeting James, the brother of the Lord, and believing that the title meant Paul interacted with Jesus blood relative.

After additional reading on the late second-temple Jewish worship I find it even harder to imagine that James was anything but a "strict monotheist" (in the sense that Larry Hurtado uses the term) who could accept a title that had "Lord" in it with that refered to a worship figure other than Yahweh. It's strange that Ehrman would have missed something like that, given that Origen [CC 1:47] apparently did not.

Best,
Jiri

ApostateAbe

He has written a lot of great books, and I have read a handful of them. The book I recommend most is The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (or via: amazon.co.uk), which is his textbook for his introductory undergraduate course on the New Testament. It provides the background knowledge necessary for beginning to evaluate the very many arguments and positions of the subject. Almost all of the arguments and positions are absurd, but you may not know it without the sort of knowledge commonly known among scholars and students in the field (not that you should simply trust Ehrman). His book on mythicism is not his best. However, it is the best book with a focus on the criticism of the vast quantity of mythicist literature, and the objections to the book by mythicists are largely overblown.