The Bible Unearthed - Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Isreal and the Origin of Sacred Texts

It is often said, even by critical scholars whoshould know better, that “writing in the nameof another” was widely accepted in antiquity.But New York Times bestselling author Bart D.Ehrman dares to call it what it was: literaryforgery, a practice that was as scandalous then as itis today. In Forged, Ehrman’s fresh and originalresearch takes readers back to the ancient world,where forgeries were used as weapons by unknownauthors to fend off attacks to their faith andestablish their church. So, if many of the books inthe Bible were not in fact written by Jesus’s innercircle—but by writers living decades later, withdiffering agendas in rival communities—whatdoes that do to the authority of Scripture?

Ehrman investigates ancient sources to:

• Reveal which New Testament books wereoutright forgeries.
• Explain how widely forgery was practiced byearly Christian writers—and how strongly it wascondemned in the ancient world as fraudulentand illicit.

• Expose the deception in the history of theChristian religion.

Ehrman’s fascinating story of fraud and deceit isessential reading for anyone interested in the truthabout the Bible and the dubious origins ofChristianity’s sacred texts.

Picking up where Bible expert Bart Ehrman's New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teaches—and it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:

• The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works
• The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later
• Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions
• Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians

These are not idiosyncratic perspectives of just one modern scholar. As Ehrman skillfully demonstrates, they have been the standard and widespread views of critical scholars across a full spectrum of denominations and traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things? This is the book that pastors, educators, and anyone interested in the Bible have been waiting for—a clear and compelling account of the central challenges we face when attempting to reconstruct the life and message of Jesus.

David and his son Solomon are famous in the Bible for their warrior prowess, legendary loves, wisdom, poetry, conquests, and ambitious building programmes. Yet thanks to archaeology's astonishing finds, we now know that most of these stories are myths. Finkelstein and Silberman show us that the historical David was a bandit leader in a tiny back-water called Jerusalem, and how -- through wars, conquests and epic tragedies like the exile of the Jews in the centuries before Christ and the later Roman conquest -- David and his successor were reshaped into mighty kings and even messiahs, symbols of hope to Jews and Christians alike in times of strife and despair and models for the great kings of Europe. A landmark work of research and lucid scholarship by two brilliant luminaries, David and Solomon recasts the very genesis of western history in a whole new light.

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own.

For years Bart Ehrman has been routinely bombarded with one question: Did Jesus Exist? As a leading Bible expert, fans and critics alike have sent letters, emails, posted blogs, and questioned Ehrman during interviews wanting his opinion about this nagging question that has become a conspiracy theorist cottage industry the world over. The idea that the character of Jesus was an invention of the early church—and later a tool of control employed by the Roman Catholic Church—is a widely held belief and Ehrman has decided it’s time to put the issue to rest. Yes, the historical Jesus of Nazareth did exist.

Known as a master explainer with deep knowledge of the field, Ehrman methodically demolishes both the scholarly and popular “mythicist” arguments against the existence of Jesus. Marshaling evidence from within the Bible and the wider historical record of the ancient world, Ehrman tackles the key issues that surround the popular mythologies associated with Jesus and the early Christian movement. Throughout Did Jesus Exist? Ehrman establishes the criterion for any genuine historical investigation and provides a robust defense of the methods required to discover the Jesus of history.

Those committed to the “non-existence” theory will need to read this formidable scholar’s counter argument while the more traditionally minded will enthusiastically support Ehrman’s definitive answer to the question. Perfect for the vigorous online debating community, this eBook original will be a must read for anyone interested in Jesus, the Bible, and the birth of Christianity.

When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible.

Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible.

Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible.

Presents conclusive evidence that ancient Egypt was originally the remnant of an earlier, highly sophisticated civilization

• Supports earlier speculations based on myth and esoteric sources with scientific proof from the fields of genetics, engineering, and geology

• Provides further proof of the connection between the Mayans and ancient Egyptians

• Links the mystery of Cro-Magnon man to the rise and fall of this ancient civilization

In the late nineteenth century, French explorer Augustus Le Plongeon, after years of research in Mexico’s YucatᮠPeninsula, concluded that the Mayan and Egyptian civilizations were related--as remnants of a once greater and highly sophisticated culture. The discoveries of modern researchers over the last two decades now support this once derided speculation with evidence revealing that the Sphinx is thousands of years older than Egyptologists have claimed, that the pyramids were not tombs but geomechanical power plants, and that the megaliths of the Nabta Playa reveal complex astronomical star maps that existed 4,000 years before conventional historians deemed such knowledge possible.

Much of the past support for prehistoric civilization has relied on esoteric traditions and mythic narrative. Using hard scientific evidence from the fields of archaeology, genetics, engineering, and geology, as well as sacred and religious texts, Malkowski shows that these mythic narratives are based on actual events and that a highly sophisticated civilization did once exist prior to those of Egypt and Sumer. Tying its cataclysmic fall to the mysterious disappearance of Cro-Magnon culture, Before the Pharaohs offers a compelling new view of humanity’s past.