Ye gads.

First? For you Bart Ehrman geeks out there? Just stop reading him and stop geeking on him. Period. He's forfeited the right to even be grokked by anybody with a serious interest in biblical criticism, per his latest book. (I didn't even know he had one, and now I don't care, and I also wonder how much of this is "him" and how much is grad students doing the ground level work.)

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End by Bart D. Ehrman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Per a review I just read (so sue me for not reading this book yet, and likely not at all), this sounds almost as bad as his previous "Jehovah's Witnesses" book and as bad as his book before that on early Christian origins, which had whopper-level untruths/misframings/oversights in both history and comparative religion.

This one, per that review and another 1-star reviewer here? The New Testament "god of love" vs Tanakh "god of wrath"?

1. At worst, comes off as anti-Judaism, and leaving the door open to larger anti-Semitism.
2. At second-worst, given Bart's academic background, comes off as Marcionite.
3. At third-worst, ignores plenty of NT "god of wrath" pericopes. You know, like the Matthew 25 that Bart tried to explain away in his JW book.

(That said, contra to a 2-star reviewer and what I'm inferring Bart says about the Beast, while Nero was not the Antichrist, he in all likelihood WAS the Beast, especially if the core of Revelation has a pre-Christian origin. See here for more. Oh, while I'm here? There was NO persecution of Christians by Nero after the Great Fire. See here and here for more.

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