The bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus, one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today examines oral tradition and its role in shaping the stories about Jesus we encounter in the New Testament—and ultimately in our understanding of Christianity.
Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally—including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply researched work, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman investigates the role oral history has played in the New Testament—how the telling of these stories not only spread Jesus’ message but helped shape it.
A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman draws on a range of disciplines, including psychology and anthropology, to examine the role of memory in the creation of the Gospels. Explaining how oral tradition evolves based on the latest scientific research, he demonstrates how the act of telling and retelling impacts the story, the storyteller, and the listener—crucial insights that challenge our typical historical understanding of the silent period between when Jesus lived and died and when his stories began to be written down.
As he did in his previous books on religious scholarship, debates on New Testament authorship, and the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, Ehrman combines his deep knowledge and meticulous scholarship in a compelling and eye-opening narrative that will change the way we read and think about these sacred texts
An Interview With Author Bart D. Ehrman
Q: What is it that drives your fascination with how Jesus has been "remembered" and "misremembered"?
A: When most people today read the Gospels of the New Testament, they nearly always assume that these accounts were written soon after Jesus' death by people who knew him and his disciples: these are transcripts of the things Jesus said and did, down to the minute detail. What people tend not to realize is that these accounts were written 40–60 years after Jesus had died, by people who did not know him, who did not live in his same country, who did not speak his same language.
So how did these authors (who are all four anonymous) acquire their stories about Jesus? The answer scholars have given for a very long time is that these authors had heard stories about Jesus that had been in circulation for year after year, decade after decade, after his life. I've long been intrigued by this phenomenon, and several years ago realized that it is closely related to a field of study pursued by psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, all of whom are interested in how human memory works. Is memory always reliable? Can eyewitnesses be trusted always to give an accurate account of what happened? Do stories ever change when they are told? Do they ever not change? What happens to stories told and retold over decades? In short, how does our knowledge of human memory help us understand what was happening to the accounts of Jesus' words and deeds as they were circulating in the decades before any of our Gospel authors wrote them down?
Q: How have scholars traditionally explained the gap of time between when Jesus was alive and when the Gospels were written, and why is that problematic?
A: Many scholars have somewhat unreflectively maintained that the Gospels ultimately go back to eyewitness testimonies to Jesus' life and that they are therefore reliable; or that oral cultures preserve their traditions with a high degree of accuracy. I realized several years ago that these views can be tested by what we actually know, based on modern detailed studies, about eyewitness testimony (psychologists and legal scholars have studied the subject rigorously), about the reliability of memory (psychologists have delved into this question assiduously since the 1930s), and about the ways traditions are preserved in oral cultures (as we now know based on anthropological studies since the 1920s). As it turns out, what many New Testament scholars have assumed about such matters, in many cases, is simply not right. Many of their assumptions are not only unsupported, they have been shown to be highly problematic in study after study.
Q: What is the message you ultimately want people to take away from reading Jesus Before the Gospels?
The Gospels we have are not stenographic accounts of the things Jesus said and did. They contain stories that had been passed along by word of mouth decades before anyone wrote them down. If we understand what psychologists have told us about memory and false memory, and about how we sometimes actually invent stories in our heads about the past; if we understand what sociologists have told us about collective memory and how our social groups affect and mold the ways we preserve our recollections of past events; and if we understand what anthropologists have learned about how oral cultures not just cherish and preserve but also alter, transform, and even invent their traditions, we will have a much clearer sense of what the Gospels are and of how we should understand the stories they tell about the historical Jesus.
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Editorial Reviews
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“Ehrman provides an intriguing overview of memory studies and introduces readers to a variety of important pioneers and studies. . . . Ehrman concludes that ‘the historical Jesus did not make history; the remembered Jesus did.’ An intriguing new angle on the well-worn field of ‘historical Jesus’ studies.” (Kirkus Review)
“An intriguing and entertaining take on the formation of the Gospels.” (Library Journal)
“With his typical humor, passion, and vivacity, Ehrman explores the ways that memory shapes, distorts, changes, and preserves the stories of Jesus passed along by the Christian community. Ehrman’s provocative book raises engaging questions that drive readers back to the sources of our information about Jesus.” (Publishers Weekly)
“One can see why Ehrman is so widely known and respected by so many people. Here Ehrman takes a completely different approach from his previous books. This book is a new approach to the study of the beginnings of Christianity.” (Association for Mormon Letters)
”Jesus Before the Gospels is a scholarly yet readable study of Jesus and the Gospels. Ehrman’s scholarship remains unmatched. Ehrman unveils several unexplored aspects of the life of Jesus and the Gospels. Everybody with an interest in Christianity and religion in general will find this fascinating book useful.” (Washington Book Review)
“With Jesus Before the Gospels, Bart D. Ehrman has written a thought-provoking book prompted by his interest as a historian in the various traditions about Jesus. Enjoyable to read ” (America Magazine)
“Our secular culture continues to be profoundly impacted by biblical influences - including fundamentalist biblical influences - and this controversial book raises some important questions.” (State of Belief Radio)
“Why buy this book if you’ve already got lots of volumes about Jesus? This book is something new. You’ll discover people in this book that you would never encounter in other religious books. There’s nothing like this 300-page exploration of our earliest human memories of Jesus.” (Read The Spirit)
“Ehrman is one of the foremost voices in the historical Jesus debates. In this, the latest of a long list of influential books, he combines his ideas about Jesus with cutting-edge research from cognitive psychology, cultural anthropology, and sociology. He more than succeeds in achieving his goal. Highly recommended.” (Spirit Connection NY)
“Author Bart Ehrman tackles a central question for scholars of the New Testament-- the accuracy of the text.” (NPR's Interfaith Voices) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
From the Back Cover
The bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus, one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today examines oral tradition and its role in shaping the stories about Jesus we encounter in the New Testament—and ultimately in our understanding of Christianity.
Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally—including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply researched work, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Erhman investigates the role oral history has played in the New Testament—how the telling of these stories not only spread Jesus’ message but helped shape it.
A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman draws on a range of disciplines, including psychology and anthropology, to examine the role of memory in the creation of the Gospels. Explaining how oral tradition evolves based on the latest scientific research, he demonstrates how the act of telling and retelling impacts the story, the storyteller, and the listener—crucial insights that challenge our typical historical understanding of the silent period between when Jesus lived and died and when his stories began to be written down.
As he did in his previous books on religious scholarship, debates on New Testament authorship, and the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, Ehrman combines his deep knowledge and meticulous scholarship in a compelling and eye-opening narrative that will change the way we read and think about these sacred texts.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
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Product details
ASIN : B00Z71VJJS
Publisher : HarperOne; Reprint edition (March 1, 2016)
Publication date : March 1, 2016
Language : English
File size : 849 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 321 pages
Lending : Not Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #72,308 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
#7 in Christian New Testament Commentaries
#20 in Jesus, the Gospels & Acts (Kindle Store)
#21 in Christology (Kindle Store)
Customer Reviews: 4.5 out of 5 stars 405 ratings
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Biography
Bart D. Ehrman is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestselling Misquoting Jesus and God's Problem. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the Bible and the life of Jesus. He has been featured in Time and has appeared on Dateline NBC, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, the History Channel, major NPR shows, and other top media outlets. He lives in Durham, N.C.
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new testament bart ehrman oral tradition historical jesus gospels were written second century gospel of thomas years later memoirs of the apostles eyewitness testimony jesus before the gospels distorted memories became god jesus death stories about jesus jesus life early christian oral cultures historically accurate social groups
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C. M Mills
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4.0 out of 5 stars New Testament agnostic scholar Dr. Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina explores how the stories of Jesus spread
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2018
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I am a veteran Presbyterian minister who was trained in liberal theology at the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary many decades ago. Since then I have read thousands of books on the Bible and theology. Among the most intriguing of those books are the tomes of Dr. Bart D. Ehrman.He attended Wheaton College. He later studied at Princeton Seminary and took advanced degrees. He is fluent in koine Greek in which the New Testament was written and has published several books on the Bible, its manuscript and how Jesus the Nazarene carpenter was deemed to be God at the Council of Nicea in 325. This new book takes a new twist as the author examines how people remember events and life experiences. He shows how distorted memories of Jesus became part of the Christian tradition and were included in the four gospel accounts in the New Testament. Ehrman is a brilliant scholar and his insights on the role of memories of Jesus in the early church are fascinating. I especially enjoyed his discussion of Apostolic fathers such as Tertullian, Papias and how they remembered Jesus. His discussions of the death and resurrection of Jesus are riveting. He writes in an understandable style and conveys information based on the latest in scholarship. Whether you agree with his views or not anyone seriously interested in intelligent historical examination of the biblical record will fine gold to mine in this scholar's fertile book!
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rev.ian.m
2.0 out of 5 stars It’s a repetitive, but well researched thesis that is typical of Ehrman’s theology and scholarship.
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2020
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I do not like to write book reviews simply because we all interpret or read a book differently. But with this one I was torn between giving it one star or five. Both for the same reason. This is by far the easiest book to skim read. By that I mean Ehrman is a great scholar who loves to hear himself talk. This entire book is just one repeated thesis, told over and over. While the content of his research is interesting and his argument sound, it could be reduced to a single chapter. But instead it goes on repeating itself. So it’s very easy to skim. That’s why I’d give it five stars. Because I had to buy it and waste my time rereading what I just read knowing he’s going to repeat himself next...I’d give it one star. Both have merit so I gave it two stars hoping you will read this review and choose something else to spend your money on.
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Slick
5.0 out of 5 stars Bart Ehrman is my favorite Biblical Scholar writer
Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2016
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Bart Ehrman is my favorite Biblical Scholar writer, and I've rated everything I've read from him at 5 stars. IMHO, Ehrman is the top, go - to guy in this area of historical Biblical writing. This book is the first one I've read on the subject of how Jesus was remembered, which is basically all we know about Jesus. How different people in different places at different times in different languages with different circumstances, etc. changed and shaped what what eventually was written is thoroughly explored. There is much emphasis about how memory is recalled, or rather constructed and how it can be miss - remembered or changed during the oral tradition over several generations. These differences and contradictions in all existing Gospels can be better understood. I found this book probably a bit more interesting to me personally for my understanding how the Bible Gospels were chosen and interpreted in different ways throughout history.
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Kaceyok
5.0 out of 5 stars Really good book on the history and cultures of the Gospels
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2017
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Well written and thoughtfully conceived, Jesus Before the Gospels gives much needed insight into how the Gospels (and the Bible itself) came into existence and how cultures influenced the version we have today. I have never been one to believe the Bible should be read as a literal guide to Christianity, but rather that God intends it to be a guide for his people, written largely in parables and analogies. I did not realize until reading this book that the Gospels were written so many years after Jesus lived on earth. The writer presented many evidentiary descriptions about the culture of story-telling and how we come to have the stories in the Bible today. I enjoyed the book, found it easy to understand and very enlightening.
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Harald Groven
4.0 out of 5 stars Social science inspired view of the bible
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2016
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"Jesus Before the Gospels" may not be Bart Ehrman's best book so far, but it is certainly his most original. In his earlier works, he explained contradictions between - and within - 27 books of the New Testament by careful analysis of the textual sources from antiquity. In "Jesus Before the Gospels" Ehrman steps outside the 200 year old academic discipline of source criticism in which he perfected, and interpret Christianity's based on insights and research from psychology, ethnology, social anthropology and cultural history.
Ehrman explains why the gospels are far from modern biographies which should not be taken as face value:
"the disciples of Jesus did not actually write the Gospels. The disciples were lower-class, illiterate peasants who spoke Aramaic, Jesus’s own language. The Gospels, on the other hand, were written by highly educated Greek-speaking Christians forty to sixty-five years later. The stories had been in circulation for decades, not simply among disciples who allegedly memorized Jesus’s words and deeds, but also among all sorts of people, most of whom had never laid eyes on an eyewitness or even on anyone else who had. And so, just as there is no evidence that Jesus’s followers memorized his teachings, the idea that everyone throughout Christendom telling stories about Jesus had memorized them is beyond belief"
But how can our modern knowledge on how stories change when they are retold for decades?
"We know in fact that they were changed, because we can compare different accounts of the same words or activities of Jesus and find discrepancies. Yet other accounts are historically implausible, and so appear to have been created in the years of transmission as people recounted what they had heard about the life of their Savior." Ehrman cites many interesting interdisciplinary examples as well as classic studies from a broad range of fields in support for his view. Ehrman also tries to explain how social groups remember, as opposed to how individuals remember stories:
"From that point on, as more members of a group recount this distorted memory, the other members of the group—even if they either distinctly think that the memory is wrong or don’t remember it — feel considerable social pressure to agree with everyone else."
The early Christians "... told stories that remembered Jesus’s past in light of the community’s present. These may have been “distorted” memories in the sense that—for the form critics—they involved words and deeds that did not actually go back to the historical Jesus. But they were valuable memories nonetheless, and no less real to the people who held and shared them than recollections that actually were rooted in the life of the historical Jesus"
When writing about a subject like New Testamant history, repetitions are unavoidable. If you have read Ehrman's earlier works, you will recognize more than half of the repeated from earlier works. (This is the reason I give it 4 not 5 stars). There may be decades between each time new and important written source may be discovered. Finding support from social science for writing about history gives new perspectives. Other fields of history has gained significantly from methods from social history, ever since historians of the "annales-school" started this movement of memory history more than fifty years ago.
Of Ehrman's books my favouries are "How Jesus became god" and " The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings ". The newest book " How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee " is great, but not as excellent as these.
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Neo
5.0 out of 5 stars A deep anaylsis of how memory works - in relation to the Gospels.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2018
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The author has, in my opinion, done a first class job of explaining the many problems of memory and the remembrance of events, in relation to the New Testament. He shows how impossible it is to be sure that the Greek writers who wrote the four gospels some 40 to 70 years after Jesus died, could be sure that what they were writing was what actually happened. The very fact that he says 'Jesus never left Palestine', shows how even modern memory can be faulty, since Jesus is alleged to have fled into Egypt and not returned until the death of Herod - but this oddity does not detract from the overall content of a powerful piece of analysis - well worth reading.
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