Historical Jesus is one of the Teaching Company's wonderful recorded college-level lecture series. Prof Ehrman, the lecturer, is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor
at the Univ. of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of a number of books and articles on this subject.
Prof. Ehrman is particularly good because although he argues for a particular interpretation of the historical evidence, he is at pains to point out many of the alternate and conflicting interpretations and academic debates. Well worth listening to, as are his two companion Teaching Company courses From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity and Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication
Christianity, founded on the teachings of a first-century itinerant Jewish rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth, has had a profound impact over the past
two centuries on the civilizations of the world. And of course an enormous amount of
theological material has been written about him, and in his name. But what really do we know about Jesus? No contemporary Roman or Jewish records of
him have been found. The first extant written record mentioning him is the gospel of
Mark, apparently written by an anonymous author in Greek some 30-40 years after
his death based on oral traditions. And we don't even have the original of that document, but only copies that have passed through the hands of an indeterminate number of copiests who may have introduced errors and/or "clarifications" of their own.
And
we know that the scriptures have been tinkered with extensively over the
centuries, especially in the 4th and 5th centuries and in medieval times, to make them conform to political or
religious dogmas that were important at the time (like the divine right of
kings). So what can a true academic historian (as
opposed to a committed believer) tease out as likely to be accurate
characteristics and sayings of Jesus? I
found the historical approach he describes and uses to be fascinating, and the
results to be interesting.
Prof. Ehrman is particularly good because although he argues for a particular interpretation of the historical evidence, he is at pains to point out many of the alternate and conflicting interpretations and academic debates. Well worth listening to, as are his two companion Teaching Company courses From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity and Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication
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