How Jesus Became God (Transcript)

By Bart D. Ehrman

How Jesus Became God is the companion book to the audio/video series of the same name. It contains a full transcript of the series as well as the complete course guidebook which includes lecture notes, bibliography, and more.

About this series:

Great art is among the most sublime, meaningful, and redeeming creations of all civilization. Few endeavors can equal the power of great artwork to capture aesthetic beauty, to move and inspire, to change your perceptions, and to communicate the nature of human experience. Great art is also complex, mysterious, and
challenging. Filled with symbolism, cultural and historical references, and often visionary imagery, great artworks oblige us—defy us, even—to reckon with their many meanings.

What does it take to truly know what you're seeing when you look at art? What technical skills and knowledge are needed to comprehend the full richness of artworks, to unpack the hidden significance of master paintings, sculptures, prints, and more?

Award-winning Professor Sharon Latchaw Hirsh of Rosemont College speaks to these and other compelling questions in How to Look at and Understand Great Art. Unlike a traditional survey of art, these 36 richly illustrated lectures take you on an in-depth exploration of the practical skill of viewing art through the lenses of line, light, perspective, composition, and other crucial elements of craft and technique. Using timeless masterpieces of Western painting, sculpture, and graphic art, as well as hands-on studio demonstrations, Professor Hirsh gives you the specific visual and interpretive knowledge you need to approach great artworks, find their deeper meanings, and reach startling new levels of appreciation.

Discovering the Artist's Visual Language

In building your viewing skills, the opening lectures give you practice with the core technical tools for understanding visual art:

Color: You study the essential principles of color and color schemes in painting and graphic art and the distinctive use of color in different epochs, all of which are deeply integral to an artist's work.
Line: You investigate the artist's use of line (the basis of art) as it describes reality, conveys expressive meaning, and gives larger structural impact to an artwork.
Composition: You learn how the artist constructs a work's overall composition in painting, graphic art, and sculpture. You discover compositional features such as symmetry/asymmetry, balance, and the visual framing of images, as keys to an artwork's comprehensive impact.
Signs and symbols: You learn how to recognize symbolism and signifiers in religious paintings, "vanitas" still lifes, canvases of royalty, and seminal works by Gauguin and Dali.

Rich and Varied Genres of Art

Traveling deeply into the artist's world, you investigate the major genres of drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and painting. You apply your technical knowledge to major works in each genre, exploring the various purposes and types of drawings, the vast spectrum of sculpture and three-dimensional art, and the important traditions within painting and printmaking, with particular attention to how works of art are made.

Here, Professor Hirsh takes you out of the classroom and into the studio, in a series of hands-on demonstrations you rarely find in an academic art course. In the lectures on painting, for example, you study the techniques of fresco and panel painting, and you see oil painting demonstrated, including the mixing of colors, the application of opaque oils and translucent glazes, and the texturing techniques of impasto and scumbling used so memorably by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and the Expressionists.

In the complex genre of printmaking, you watch a contemporary artist create original prints, showing you the methods of woodcut, copper plate engraving, etching, lithograph, and silkscreen prints. Your understanding of the techniques of printmaking helps you identify the type of print you're looking at—often tricky even for experien

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Great Courses
• Release date: Jul 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781598034042

Bart D. Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman is one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestsellers How Jesus Became God; Misquoting Jesus; God’s Problem; Jesus, Interrupted; and Forged. He has appeared on Dateline NBC, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, History, and top NPR programs, as well as been featured in TIME, the New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and other publications. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. Visit the author online at www.bartdehrman.com.

Book preview

Reviews for How Jesus Became God (Transcript)

[parthurbook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first Yalom book, and it's clear that he writes with great insight from many years of experience. The advice in here - a series of letters and notes to Clients and therapists alike - are rooted in a profound understanding of the relationship between two people in a room, one of whom is seeking 'answers', the other seeking to help. Practical and engaging.

[marialondon_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the latest book by Irvin Yalom, whose books I've been following over the years. From the very first page of the introduction, Yalom's writing is gripping & right to the point. He mentions turning 70 years old, which has made him feel a need to "pass on" his knowledge & some of his experience to younger generations of therapists & patients. This is what he tries to do in this substantial book, a book of tips, long on technique & short on theory (as Yalom himself says).Each "tip" that Yalom gives comes from years of experience & in most cases, makes perfect sense. Something that should be noted is that his book is not written, I think, for the non-psychologically trained reader. It's aimed towards psychotherapists, & tries to steer them in the direction of good choices & good therapeutic work with clients / patients. Most tips may seem like common sense to most psychologists / psychotherapists, but if you think a little bit more about them, most of them are not used as often as they should be. Also, apart from the more obvious tips, Yalom offers a whole range of extremely innovative (& maybe some times controversial) pieces of advice. These chapters alone are, in my opinion, well worth the price of the book, since they make you sit down & think.All in all, a great reference book for psychotherapists which comes alive through wonderful, clear writing, & lots of lively clinical examples.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting in places and humourous in places, Yalom manages to impart his wisdom with an easy writing style.

[f.lee-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting perspective on therapy. Critical of CBT, a defense of Freud, and a guide for practitioners seeking to develop a meaningful human connection with their patients, while also plugging in his own method of existential therapy. With formal training as a cognitive scientist and as a sociologist, part of me rankles at the lack of any systemic basis for his method of therapy (because without that how do you know when you can do better?), but it's a remarkably charming read, nonetheless.

[csweder · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book, in it's 260 pages has over 80 chapters (none of which are too long). This helped to move the speed along of reading this book, but also allowed Yalom to have very specific chapters.

This book is full of personal experiences and examples from his many years of therapy, and in general is good for a counselor-to-be to read. It is an open letter to incoming counselors, and was recommended by my professors as a 'Must Read' for counseling students.

I will say, however, that the more I read about counseling, the less mystical it seems to me. Professors who I used to believe were sooo intelligent and profound...I now know think similiarly as many of the 'great' therapists. This was hard for me at first...but gives me the confidence that perhaps some day I too will have that great of understanding in these topics. :)

[nicholas eger · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Bart Ehrman falls short in this ludicrous logical fallacy work of half baked view of Jesus. I’d love to see this guy debate all the regular theologians. He has a hard time answering questions about Jesus with any logical train of thought. After reading his rants on Christ it’s clear to see his view is more propelled by emotion rather than logical argument and thought. I’d give it no stars if I could.

[QO · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book makes a compelling case that Jesus never claimed to be God.

[datrappert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As usual, Ehrman skillfully points out all the contradictions in the Bible, in this case, the changing nature of Christians' conception of Jesus after his death. At first, a man who became divine when he (supposedly) ascended into heaven. Later, a man who god adopted as his son at Jesus' baptism. Then divine at his birth to a virgin mother. Eventually, always existing and always divine, but that took almost 400 years. This loses one half star because it is a bit repetitive, but that is Ehrman's habit in his books. In any case, when he is done, you won't have any doubt what he said. As a lecturer, he is a bit too strident. He starts out every lecture in a normal voice, but just gets more and more excited as he goes along. I streamed this on the excellent Kanopy service. If you're not familiar with it, see if your library provides access to Kanopy, Hoopla, and Libby. You won't have to pay for audiobooks or streaming video channels again!