The New Testament

By: Bart D. Ehrman, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Bart D. Ehrman

Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Whether taken as a book of faith or a cultural artifact, the New Testament is among the most significant writings the world has ever known, its web of meaning relied upon by virtually every major writer in the last 2,000 years. Yet the New Testament is not only one of Western civilization’s most believed books, but also one of its most widely disputed, often maligned, and least clearly understood, with a vast number of people unaware of how it was written and transmitted.

But now a distinguished religious scholar is available to help you gain a carefully reasoned understanding of not only the New Testament itself, but of the individuals and communities who created its texts.

Drawing on modern biblical scholarship, recent archaeological discoveries, and careful literary analysis - and approaching his subject purely as a historian, with belief or disbelief suspended - Professor Ehrman has crafted a series of 24 fascinating lectures that trace the history of the New Testament and the early Christian faith community. He discusses not only the 27 books included in the New Testament, but also many of the significant texts that were excluded as he addresses key historical questions around the issues of authorship, circumstance, audience, content, meaning, and historical accuracy.

"Our ultimate goal," he notes, "is to come to a fuller appreciation and understanding of these books that have made such an enormous impact on the history of Western civilization and that continue to play such an important role for people today."

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2000 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2000 The Great Courses

Very interesting!

The narrator does a fantastic job of addressing a controversial subject with care. Keep in mind that this is a historical discussion of the New Testament, not a theological discussion.

Grotesque and disrespectful.

The professor could be an atheist and also respectful. Unfortunately, he is not. He is not worried about sharing different points of view, but only apparent mistakes of the Gospels. It is fanatic and disrespectful atheistic preaching.

insightful and educational

For me this was a very challenging read. In the end I find the sovereignty of God in the middle of it all.

Very thorough and unbiased

An interesting look into history and how the NT may have been created and changed over the centuries. A good book for a rounded view of the NT.

Eye opening!

I absolutely love Bart Ehrman! He has totally changed the way I see the Bible.

good stuff

excellent and informative lecture from one of the foremost new testament scholars. easy to listen to and digestible for people who aren't academics.

Objective Review

Very happy with authors effort to state facts about historical information. Only a few instances of bias favoring or opposing Christian faith. Main focus is a historical perspective & critical analysis of New Testament.

great overview of new testament

Keeping in mind that the author is agnostic, the arguments are always consequencial and well exposed. Many common sense ideas about new testament are dissected, still a good completion that is missing would be a recap of the teachings of Jesus that are supposed to be filologically reliable.

PRICELESS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE NEW TESTAMENT

I really appreciate the historical knowledge and analysis of the New Testament that Bart Ehrman makes available to us through this course (and through other great courses he presented).

It is a very objective and down to earth look at the New Testament. I don't find his approach and attitude at all offensive as other reviewers have said, he just points out some historical realities about the writings of the New Testament that it happens to tear down some very rooted beliefs about its books and about Jesus.

How can be the truth offensive? It is as if some people tried to convince other people for hundrens of years that the sky is red and then later somebody that is interested in how things truly are in this world naturally observed that the sky is actually blue and then told other people of his discovery in order to help them see the world as it is.

I think people like Bart Ehrman have to be appreciated by all of us - believers and non-believers alike - because i believe that those who have the courage to seek and see the truth and then help other people see and discover the truth ,be it an unpleasant one for some us, are truly the ones that are have an awakened spirit - as probably Jesus was before other people started to write non-sense about him.

Yes i know that he says about himself that he is an atheist but I also understand why he had come to believe that God and our spiritual nature doesn't exist - because religions didn't convince him and because religions and people that represents them aren't convincing at all.

I don't think God wants us to be ignorant and naive - on the contrary.

Fascinating

I became interested in the historical view of the Bible after reading Reza Aslan's excellent Zealot. This is just as fascinating and provides a close reading of the New Testament in view of what it meant at the time. It was phenomenally interesting to see the differences in the various writings (the Bible is most definitely an anthology), which sometimes seem to constitute separate religions altogether (did Paul even know what Jesus taught?). This method also allows for tracing of how the religion evolved from the apocalyptic Judaism of Jesus to a religion based on belief in Jesus's death and resurrection of Paul to a structured hierarchy that excluded women and no longer thought the end was imminent of the later Church.

Overall, this is highly recommended for literally everyone. Western culture is saturated with Christian imagery, and seeing where those images came from is well worth the time.