
Why the Bible Began
An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins
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Narrated by:
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Jim Denison
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By:
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Jacob L. Wright
About this listen
Why did no other ancient society produce something like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community could have created a literary corpus so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable.
For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Forged after Babylon's devastation of Jerusalem, it makes not victory but total humiliation the foundation of a new idea of belonging. Lamenting the destruction of their homeland, scribes who composed the Bible imagined a promise-filled past while reflecting deeply on abject failure. More than just religious scripture, the Bible began as a trailblazing blueprint for a new form of political community. Its response to catastrophe offers a powerful message of hope and restoration that is unique in the Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds.
Wright's Bible is thus a social, political, and even economic roadmap—one that enabled a small and obscure community located on the periphery of leading civilizations and empires not just to come back from the brink, but ultimately to shape the world's destiny. The Bible speaks ultimately of being a united yet diverse people, and its pages present a manual of pragmatic survival strategies for communities confronting societal collapse.
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Overall
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For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture have credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. But hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of enslaved coauthors and collaborators.
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I just selected the wrong book
- By N. Thompson on 02-02-25
By: Candida Moss
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God
- An Anatomy
- By: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
- Narrated by: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
- Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.
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GREAT READ!!
- By Chester Johnson on 04-27-23
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Jesus Before the Gospels
- How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally - including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply researched work, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Erhman investigates the role oral history has played in the New Testament - how the telling of these stories not only spread Jesus' message but helped shape it.
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Insightful, but with limited depth
- By Jacobus on 05-28-16
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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Armageddon
- What the Bible Really Says About the End
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, Bart D. Ehrman
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In Armageddon, acclaimed New Testament authority Bart D. Ehrman delves into the most misunderstood—and possibly the most dangerous—book of the Bible, exploring the horrifying social and political consequences of expecting an imminent apocalypse and offering a fascinating tour through three millennia of Judeo-Christian thinking about how our world will end. By turns hilarious, moving, troubling, and provocative, Armageddon presents inspiring insights into how to live our lives in the face of an uncertain future.
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The best explanation I have heard in my 70 years on Revelations
- By Ian Huntington on 05-19-23
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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Ancient Christianities
- The First Five Hundred Years
- By: Paula Fredriksen
- Narrated by: Rachel Perry
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.
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Among the best
- By Jacob Kilgore on 04-17-25
By: Paula Fredriksen
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The Exodus
- By: Richard Elliott Friedman
- Narrated by: Richard Elliott Friedman
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, anthropologists, and filmmakers are drawn to the mystery of the exodus. Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history. Others oppose this conclusion, defending the biblical account.
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It started well......
- By kboy2008 on 04-21-20
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The Bible Says So
- What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues
- By: Dan McClellan
- Narrated by: Dan McClellan
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bible is the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public spaces, people try to cut debate short by claiming that "the Bible says so!" However, they commonly disagree about what it actually does and doesn't say, particularly when it comes to socially significant issues. For instance, does the Bible say we should be on the lookout for an antichrist associated with the number 666? Does it say women shouldn’t wear revealing clothing? Does it say it’s okay to hit your kids?
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Must read!
- By Lisa on 05-26-25
By: Dan McClellan
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The Making of the Bible
- From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture
- By: Konrad Schmid, Jens Schröter, Peter Lewis - translator
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bible as we know it today is best understood as a process, one that begins in the tenth century BCE. In this revelatory account, a world-renowned scholar of Hebrew scripture joins a foremost authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Christian scriptural histories, as well as the underappreciated contest between them, from which the Bible arose. The Making of the Bible is the most comprehensive history yet told of the world's best-known literature, revealing its buried lessons and secrets.
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Blathering away....
- By C.Maddy on 05-24-23
By: Konrad Schmid, and others
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How Jesus Became God
- The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In a book that took eight years to research and write, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things. Ehrman sketches Jesus's transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus's followers had visions of him after his death - alive again - did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God.
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Wishing for a bit more meat on the bones
- By Darwin8u on 04-09-14
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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The Origin of Satan
- How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories.
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Must read for all practicing Christians
- By Venusian Incognito on 09-06-19
By: Elaine Pagels
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Heaven and Hell
- A History of the Afterlife
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd, Bart D. Ehrman - preface
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In this “eloquent understanding of how death is viewed through many spiritual traditions” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Bart Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. He discusses ancient guided tours of heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of hell for those who are damned.
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It may not be what you expect
- By Library Bob on 05-25-20
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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Miracles and Wonder
- The Historical Mystery of Jesus
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
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I had high hopes for this title
- By Christine on 04-02-25
By: Elaine Pagels