Jesus Before the Gospels: Distorted Memory and the Historical Jesus

A Distinguished Scholar Seminar featuring Bart Ehrman

April 22-23, 2016

How did people “remember” Jesus in early Christianity, before there were any Gospels or other written sources of information? Did the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life sometimes forget what he said and did? Did they misremember? And when they told stories about him, did the people who heard the stories – and the people to whom those people told the stories – alter the memories? Did they sometimes, or often, invent false memories? This seminar with renowned and popular religious studies scholar, Bart Ehrman, will consider these questions through a careful examination of what we know about both memory and our earliest Gospels, the writings that embody early Christian recollections of Jesus.

Topics

The Invention of Memories

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

Distorted Memory and the Death of Jesus

Distorted Memory and the Life of Jesus

Speaker

Bart D. Ehrman, James A. Gray Professor of Religious Studies and author or editor of over twenty books, has published extensively in the fields of the New Testament and Early Christianity.

Time & Cost

4:30 p.m. Friday, April 22 through 12:00 p.m. Saturday, April 23, 2016. The tuition is $125 ($110 by February 2). Tuition for teachers is $62.50 ($55 by February 2). Teachers can also receive a $75 stipend after attending (click here for more information) and 10 contact hours for 1 unit of renewal credit. The optional dinner is $20.00.

For information about lodging click here.

Co-Sponsored by the General Alumni Association.

For information about GAA discounts and other scholarships available to Humanities Program participants, click here.

Register for this seminar.