sfletcher26's review against another edition
3.0
Sadly Disappointing.
I have been a fan of Ehrman's work ever since reading his New Testament primers as an undergraduate theology student. I have always found his books to be well written and we'll argued. This though is not one of his better books and the middle section is an absolute grind.
I have been a fan of Ehrman's work ever since reading his New Testament primers as an undergraduate theology student. I have always found his books to be well written and we'll argued. This though is not one of his better books and the middle section is an absolute grind.
sarahesmaewolfe's review
4.0
Awkward timing to read this so close to Easter...
One star docked off because I think too much time was spent on mythicist theories.
Bravo, Mr. Ehrman, as always.
One star docked off because I think too much time was spent on mythicist theories.
Bravo, Mr. Ehrman, as always.
iggymcmuffin's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent excellent book. Just about everything Ehrman says makes perfect sense. The only problems are minor typos and editorial errors of that type, and they are all very minor.
Spoiler: Yes Jesus did exist. No, the Modern Christian Version(s) of Jesus did not exist.
Spoiler: Yes Jesus did exist. No, the Modern Christian Version(s) of Jesus did not exist.
fastfinge's review against another edition
2.0
This book is packed with interesting and useful information. Unfortunately, the Arrogance and unnecessarily confrontational style of the author really get in the way. Perhaps he has spent too much time in online debates on this subject; read as a collection of forum posts in an online discussion, it would be fine. As an informative nonfiction book, however, this style of writing is much less to my taste.
whofalls's review against another edition
1.0
Bart really bummed me out with this one. I don't have issue with his view that Jesus existed as a Jewish apocalyptic preacher, but the way he went about proving it was unprofessional to say the least. From the Ad hominem attacks that started the book to argumentum ad populum that follows every point, suffice it to say, Bart has done better.
steveinadelaide's review against another edition
challenging
informative
fast-paced
5.0
I thoroughly enjoyed Bart Ehrman's book on the question of Jesus's existence. It's very readable and provides some excellent arguments for believing that Jesus existed as a human (Ehrman doesn't argue for the typical Christian supernatural wonder working Jesus). He also discusses what we can, historically, know about the human Jesus. Of course, as Ehrman points out, history is primarily about assessing the probability of something based on the evidence we have. And, for Ehrman, the probability is in favour of Jesus' existence.
DID JESUS EXIST? is written in a polemic style because it grew out of Ehrman's frustration with Mythicists who have become increasingly vocal in defending the view that Jesus never existed. His polemical approach could have been toned down a bit but does make for interesting reading. But it is when Ehrman provides his arguments and evidence that the book is most interesting.
I have previously found some of the Mythicist writings somewhat persuasive, but Ehrman's book has given me pause, showing how the Mythicist perspective doesn't fit the evidence of Jesus' existence we have available, and which is the basis for an almost universal scholarly consensus that he did.
For anyone interested in whether Jesus did exist -- that is, the human Jesus -- then Ehrman's book is a must read.
DID JESUS EXIST? is written in a polemic style because it grew out of Ehrman's frustration with Mythicists who have become increasingly vocal in defending the view that Jesus never existed. His polemical approach could have been toned down a bit but does make for interesting reading. But it is when Ehrman provides his arguments and evidence that the book is most interesting.
I have previously found some of the Mythicist writings somewhat persuasive, but Ehrman's book has given me pause, showing how the Mythicist perspective doesn't fit the evidence of Jesus' existence we have available, and which is the basis for an almost universal scholarly consensus that he did.
For anyone interested in whether Jesus did exist -- that is, the human Jesus -- then Ehrman's book is a must read.
dean_issov's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
1.0
7/11/22 Update:
I moved it from 2 stars to 1 star, I simply cannot believe how many misinformation and incompetent scholarly research this one book has, I am even more now disappointed in Ehrman (and that's coming from someone who already read 10 of his books at the time of writing this). To see a more thorough review of this book, see:
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/1026
Original Review:
Being already a big fan of Bart Ehrman's work, I was quite excited to read this book because its title alone made me interested. Before I read it I was already on Ehrman's side, believing that Jesus is a real person in the 1st century AD, but if I'm being honest I didn't really enjoy Ehrman's delivery in this one.
This book had the same amount of, if not more, pettiness as Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show On Earth" when it comes to handling opponents. While Dawkins' arrogance toward young earth creationists is a bit annoying, it's atleast not as irritating as Ehrman's arrogance toward mythicists in this one. It felt so embarrassing to read 2/3rds of this book, it's basically filled with ad hominems and strawmans that I was shocked to see it from a biblical scholar who I thought was pretty unbiased until now. I don't know much about mythicists and their claims but even I could detect that Ehrman wasn't taking them as seriously as they should, just from the introductions that Ehrman gave of each individual mythicist are just complete ad hominems.
That's not even the worst part, as soon as Ehrman gave all the evidence for Jesus' existence, I immediately felt skeptical. Only Josephus mentions Jesus in the first century AD, outside of biblical sources? Can we really trust any of Paul's claims? Why should I trust the independent biblical sources (Q, M, L; which are all hypothetical btw) when it still originated from people we have no information on? It's common for authors to write their heroes from humble beginnings, so why is it unusual for Jesus to be born in Nazareth instead of Bethlehem? Those are all questions I just thought from the top of my head, there are probably more if I took my time but that just goes to show how Ehrman didn't do a good job of convincing me, and I'm already a fan of his books! Imagine what actual mythicists felt while reading this book, I highly doubt that they finished this book feeling defeated. After reading this book, I went from believing in a historical Jesus to now being just agnostic about it. Thanks Ehrman!
Overall, I'm disappointed with this book more than any of the other books that I read by Ehrman. My next book in my religion list is actually "On The Historicity of Jesus" by Richard Carrier, which Ehrman did a not-so-good job of introducing him so I'm quite interested in hearing what he has to say for a change.
I moved it from 2 stars to 1 star, I simply cannot believe how many misinformation and incompetent scholarly research this one book has, I am even more now disappointed in Ehrman (and that's coming from someone who already read 10 of his books at the time of writing this). To see a more thorough review of this book, see:
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/1026
Original Review:
Being already a big fan of Bart Ehrman's work, I was quite excited to read this book because its title alone made me interested. Before I read it I was already on Ehrman's side, believing that Jesus is a real person in the 1st century AD, but if I'm being honest I didn't really enjoy Ehrman's delivery in this one.
This book had the same amount of, if not more, pettiness as Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show On Earth" when it comes to handling opponents. While Dawkins' arrogance toward young earth creationists is a bit annoying, it's atleast not as irritating as Ehrman's arrogance toward mythicists in this one. It felt so embarrassing to read 2/3rds of this book, it's basically filled with ad hominems and strawmans that I was shocked to see it from a biblical scholar who I thought was pretty unbiased until now. I don't know much about mythicists and their claims but even I could detect that Ehrman wasn't taking them as seriously as they should, just from the introductions that Ehrman gave of each individual mythicist are just complete ad hominems.
That's not even the worst part, as soon as Ehrman gave all the evidence for Jesus' existence, I immediately felt skeptical. Only Josephus mentions Jesus in the first century AD, outside of biblical sources? Can we really trust any of Paul's claims? Why should I trust the independent biblical sources (Q, M, L; which are all hypothetical btw) when it still originated from people we have no information on? It's common for authors to write their heroes from humble beginnings, so why is it unusual for Jesus to be born in Nazareth instead of Bethlehem? Those are all questions I just thought from the top of my head, there are probably more if I took my time but that just goes to show how Ehrman didn't do a good job of convincing me, and I'm already a fan of his books! Imagine what actual mythicists felt while reading this book, I highly doubt that they finished this book feeling defeated. After reading this book, I went from believing in a historical Jesus to now being just agnostic about it. Thanks Ehrman!
Overall, I'm disappointed with this book more than any of the other books that I read by Ehrman. My next book in my religion list is actually "On The Historicity of Jesus" by Richard Carrier, which Ehrman did a not-so-good job of introducing him so I'm quite interested in hearing what he has to say for a change.
imitira's review against another edition
3.0
I'm about halfway through this, and not sure I'll make it to the end. The author expects that this book will be poorly received by everybody, since his position is perhaps at odds with what his readers expect, but I have no trouble from that side, and find the evidence he presents entirely convincing. The sections where he assembles his positive arguments are great reading, in his usual style. It's the sections where he meticulously details counter-arguments and refutes them that are rather less so, and often wind up being quite heavy going. Good material, but not as readable as his earlier books.