My former professor, Bart Ehrman, was on today’s Fresh Air. I thought his discussion with Terry Gross was better than some he’s done in the past, or maybe I am just getting more tolerant of Dr. Ehrman. I listen to FA almost every day, so it made me laugh that Dr. Ehrman is someone Terry Gross just gushes over, like Neil Young or something!
It’s probably funniest to me because I have always thought Ehrman wanted to be a celebrity. I remember going to his informal office hours at the Armadillo Grill with Meadow (which he always seems to mention to interviewers so he can seem like a laid back, “cool” professor) and he talked for at least forty-five minutes about how he was translating the new Loeb edition of the Apostolic Fathers. He showed us the French parallel to the Loeb, etc. It felt like he desperately wanted us to be really impressed. We were his undergraduate students. He had nothing to prove to us.
90% of his New Testament class when I took it were evangelical Christians who knew EXACTLY what they were getting into, but still did absolutely baffling things like getting someone to donate 300 copies of More than a Carpenter and placing them on every seat in the classroom. As a religious studies major, I was more than a little embarrassed. Still, it was one of my least favorite classes in the department, and out of the thirteen classes I took in Religion at Carolina, I never took another with Ehrman.
I took Greek with one of the grad students in his harem (all of his students were female for the majority of my Carolina years) and she assumed that I would want to take a graduate level Greek reading class with him and talked to him about it, but I declined the invite. I just disliked his NT class that much. I hated how he lectured straight out of his own book (one of my pet peeves) and how the TAs expected everything he said and wrote to be regurgitated point by point into blue books. It made me feel like I was in high school again. He also bragged endlessly. I found his personal approach to his discipline to be one of the least attractive in the department. He does the whole “I went to Moody and then Wheaton and then I lost my faith while studying the New Testament…” bit a little too much. I prefer the academic honesty and humility of someone like David Halperin, who would respectfully say “This is what traditional Judaism teaches, this is what secular scholars say, and this is what I think.” Then, at least you could evaluate with his biases in view.
All this to say, I wish Dr. Ehrman the best. His love of celebrity and the culture’s interest in his field have coincided nicely. I do pray for him, that God’s word would not return void in his life and hope that Campus Crusade-type apologists leave him alone, because I am quite confident that classical apologetics has done Dr. Ehrman more harm than good in the past ten or fifteen years.
I’m cracking up here, woman, because I’m going on an inordinately late mini shopping spree on Amazon.com with my moonlighting money…and anyway during some of my searches I’m seeing in the corner of my eye “be an emergent Christian: a guide by Kristen Stewart, a twentysomething Christian.” Of course I had to check it out! It made me hunt for a St. Augustine’s Prayer Book, which I’ve been kinda keeping my eyes peeled for, but to no (desirable) avail. Good stuff, Kristen.
And I agree, it’s disgustingly arrogant when teachers use and refer to their own books shamelessly.
I wrote that almost five years ago… but people are still finding it!
Have you read Augustine’s Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love?
Have not…I’ve been slowly making my way through the Confessions for a while, though.
The Enchiridion is an easy and edifying read (as compared to Augustine’s other works.)
That is really funny. I was going to post on that Fresh Air, too! I’m never in the car early enough to hear it, but I was yesterday because a meeting was cancelled.
The first part that I heard wasn’t so bad– he was discussing how early Christians believed in a heaven coming to earth, bodily ressurection, as opposed to the “take my soul up into heaven” idea. But then he kept using the term “Christian” derrogitorally (sp?) and began discussing the DaVinci code and how he’s been talking about nothing else for the last few years. And his excitement for the gospel of Judas made me want to hurl!
But then, all was happy when I heard clips from that new Bruce Springsteen project…reminds me of Buddy Miller. It might actually be good.
Thanks for the laugh Kristen– I could tell that Ehrman was full of himself from only hearing about a 5 minute excerpt, but your stories are really funny. I knew an art professor like that–all his students were female, too.
I was in Ramshead last weekend during the rain delay of the baseball game. I had 2 hours to kill so I was trying to soak in all of the “UNC” books I could (you know, all the ones written by professors and alum who sell the most copies of their book at the campus bookstore). I stopped at Ehrman’s little cove and I was thinking a lot of the same things you commented on. He really was full of it, and has apperantly made a lot of money on his repsonse to the davinci code amoung other things. You know, he is a world wide expert on the New Testament…. haha
um, the year i took the class everyone wore the “do you argree with marty t-shirts” i guess nothing tops the year one of the classes brought in josh mcdowell himself to debate him :)
Kristen, this was so fascinating to read. I had to read Misquoting Jesus and Lost Scriptures for my Origins of Christianity class this semester. My professor pretty much worships Ehrman, so everything I’d heard nothing but praise. And actually, at this very moment, I’m using Misquoting Jesus as a source for a Linguistics paper. Very interesting to hear a real account of such a legendary, celebrious man (of course, I say that rolling my eyes, as I did all semester whenever his name came up in class, which was almost daily).
Kristen,
I was linked to this blog by a friend and colleague who apparently didn’t know you and I were in the same class together. It wasn’t until after I had read and clicked on the “about kristen” that I realized it was you!
Ah the Armadillo Grill, I remember it being awkward. Actually I remember so many things about that class being awkward. I agree that Yaakov Ariel and David Halperin were a much better education. Like you, that was my last Ehrman class.
I like that you are blogging; you are a good writer.
It is interesting (though not surprising) what you tell us about Ehrman.
I had a similar professor at UCSD in Old Testament (Richard Friedman).
Do you know anything else about his personal life (like his divorce from the first wife and remarriage)?
I am not asking for dishing dirt on him. I am asking because SIN affects life and knowledge negatively. I can tell you about other professors (usually in Archaeology) who were ‘fundamentalists’ and went to excavate in Israel who turned liberal. Of course – in the process they met some girl that they started to live with (or they found a younger and more attractive woman than their wife) and gradually drifted toward liberalism.
I am fully convinced that living a sinful life and changing camps are closely related. That is why I am asking the question about his personal life. Do you know anything?
I am just curious. I wonder what his former wife has to say about Ehrman’s changes of heart…?