Just picked this up Veeky Forums, What am i in for?

Thanks

I will check out the first one when I have read the Bible

itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/historical-jesus/id384233911?mt=10

Great free course with lots of book recommendations.

Not to keep beating the Ehrman drum (he certainly isnt perfect and is made biased by his personal experience with faith), but this is the primer used for bible reading by Yale Divinity.

Neat, thanks

I saw one about Early Christendom a while back and got lots of nice book recommendations out of that one, I'm sure I will enjoy this

>he certainly isnt perfect and is made biased by his personal experience with faith
This is an important point for all popular history books. Those written by experts are the best, but they'll always be a particular expert's view. There's always disagreement when it comes to history.

Thanks for the warning, will look after other things.

I regret wasting 46 bucks on this now....

The guy ate brains with some Aghori sadhus, pretty funny.

>46 bucks
I hope those are Canadian dollars

I have no problem with Reza Aslan's beliefs about Islam and his mission to try to portray it in a good light, or any criticisms he has of Christianity. However, if you listen to his Mark Maron interview that was done recently, or watch a few episodes of his show on CNN, he's a huckster. He's a Hollywood Religious Studies course. I think it's a bit strange that he claims to have been "really good" (he constantly says, "I'm REALLY GOOD at studying religion") in this field but some of his most base assumptions require generalizations to the point of nihilism or outright wrongs. If this book is anything like how he talks and what he preaches on television, you'll come out with a knowledge of religion like people who watch the history channel come out with a knowledge of history, maybe even lower than that.

Sorry, he's a Hollywood huckster.

I was going to read , but I had no idea the author was some TV person

Is there some book on Islam that's superior?
Should I even bother? I think it's interesting but heck

Sadly not...

Misquoting Muhammad is meant to be very good. The author is a professor of islamic studies.

It's pretty shite. If you want the same argument made better read 'How Jesus became God' by Bart Ehrman, and I say this as a Christian that rejects Barts claims.

can echo the ehrman suggestions for a strong presentation of the 'historical jesus' approach from a responsible and comprehensive scholar

as a balancing factor, though, consider that this perspective is, despite its 'scientific' clothing, only slightly different from those in biblical times who thought, 'hmmm, all this is too good to be true, jesus must just be a pretty cool teacher but not god.' that the gospels are not entirely sound from a historical standpoint, or that christ's words may not have survived verbatim, does not undermine the central claims of the christian faith -- even in the gospels themselves, the disciples don't realize who christ is.

all that said, the ehrman line of thought is interesting, and there's much to learn from him

For a provocative lecture from this standpoint:
youtu.be/Gy-gCEWh5-4

(Ignore comments, as usual for YouTube. Orthodox fundamentalists are almost as obnoxious and proddies.)

Reza Aslan is living proof that eating human brains doesn't make you smarter

It's pretty unhealthy actually.

What made Erhman so recognised in his way of thought?

Wow, you sound like a bigot.

>and it became popular because he had a spat on fox news about how muslim academics should not be able to write books on christianity.
yeah

In fact, he lied about his position. He said to be a professor of religion, but in fact he teaches creative writing.

I do agree with him in most of his arguments against anti-muslism prejudices.

He's just a good scholar, verified, and makes a good laymens book while still telling you lots of backdrop. How Jesus became God he managed condense the backdrop [telling us ancient Roman mindset] for his argument in less than 50 pages which is pretty impressive.

Did Jesus Exist is also good.

See
He is like a muslim version of Dawkins even as someone who does not beleive christianty I would not reccommend it

He manages to write about things like textual critcism and the history of Christianity in a manner that is interesting to the pleb as to the scholar. Getting plebs to give two fucks about an hour of textual criticism is no easy task, but it is something evangelicals who happen to be non-KJV-only-ists can do, though.

Ultimately this has to have something to do with his evangelical background and the overcoming thereof. He studied the Bible inside out as a believer, and kept being an apologist of the discrepancies therein until historical criticism ensued. I underwent a somewhat similar path (minus all the ancient languages studies...), so I can relate. You get the best of both worlds. and your fedora looks better.