Bart Ehrman and Michael Shermer: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

On Sunday, February 18, 2018, Professor Bart D. Ehrman and Dr. Michael B. Shermer connect via home-office computers to discuss Bart's book: The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. This interview is part of the Science Salon series, number eighteen. Dialogues are hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society, in California.

In Bart's book, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, Dr. Ehrman explores how a tiny sect of just 20 people at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion in 30 CE became 25 to 35 million Christians by 400 CE. Imagine if the couple of dozen Branch Davidians living near Waco, Texas in early 1990s, instead of being incinerated by Federal agents in a botched stand-off, went on to convert two billion people around the world to their religion. That is what early Christians did. How did they do that?

Shermer and Ehrman also discuss the modern atheism movement, how Jesus became a Republican in the second half of the 20th century, the intractable (for Christians) problem of evil, the problem of identity for Jesus (how could he be both man and God?), what pre-Christian pagans believed about the gods, what early Christians had to offer pagans that other religions didn’t, how religions invented the afterlife and what people believed before the rise of Christianity about what happens after you die, and other fascinating topics.

Program discussed on Bart Ehrman's Foundation Blog: http://ehrmanblog.org/?p=14930

The book may be examined more here, along with provided purchase links: http://www.bartdehrman.com/the-triumph-of-christianity/

Audiobook excerpt link: https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/the-triumph-of-christianity

Learn more about Science Salon: https://www.skeptic.com/lectures/science-salon/

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude.

Dr. Michael B. Shermer holds a master's degree in experimental psychology at the California State University, Fullerton. He is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. Shermer engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism.

Copyright © Bart D. Ehrman and Michael Shermer. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use, re-posting and/or duplication of this media without express and written permission from Bart D. Ehrman or Michael Shermer is strictly prohibited.

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