Loading...In earlier posts I provided discussions of both 1 and 2 Corinthians: their major emphases and themes, what we know about their context, when they were written, and why. Check them out here:
- 1 Corinthians in a Nutshell
- 1 Corinthians: Who, When, and Why?
- 2 Corinthians in a Nutshell
- 2 Corinthians: Who Wrote It, When, and Why?
Below is a concise summary of both discussions (each book “At a Glance”), taken from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction (Oxford University Press) and some questions for reflection to help you think through some of the issues that the books (and scholarship on them) raise.
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Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
You said that the reason people would have made up a women in the tomb story is because it is historicly plausable but if it was made up then the whole tomb story was made up but it was not historicly plausable for Romans to give decent burials. So is there a flaw in the reasoning?
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
Do most critical scholars think that all Jesus deciples did not come to belive?
1) Paul writes 1 Corinthians
Deals with sin, division, resurrection, lawsuits, sex—you name it.
2) Paul visits Corinth again (“painful visit”)
He’s humiliated publicly—maybe by a rival or even a member of the church (2 Cor 2:1, 13:2).
3) Paul writes a severe, tearful letter (possibly in 2 Cor 10–13)
It’s fierce. He’s defending his apostleship like a lion.
4) Titus brings good news: The church responded well.
Paul is relieved and writes the reconciliatory part of 2 Corinthians (chaps 1–9).
5) Paul visits again (later)—this time it’s peaceful.
I think that through faith and the Spirit of Christ, people can be experiencing the benefits and enlightenment of living in eternity, or the inbreaking of eternity. Is this the same as experiencing the benefits of the resurrection? Perhaps?
Is this an excuse for sleeping with your father’s wife, or going to houses of ill repute, or some other things that are traditionally frowned upon?
If one is in the true Spirit of Christ and God, wouldn’t a person intrinsically know that certain things are not okay, or intrinsically not have them come to heart or to mind?
If one is in the Spirit of Christ and God, one experiences a true sense of freedom.
What is Freedom?
Freedom doesn’t mean we can run every stop sign and red light in town. In fact, this is anti-freedom. It makes things hazardous and unsafe and curtails everyone’s freedom to get around and do what needs to be done, including one’s own.
Likewise, certain things that might look like freedom really are not freedom. Some things cause a mental and psychological trap and twistedness for the people who do them. It can also cause extreme problems for the children who are conceived in unhealthy, dysfunctional unions.
I noticed from your website that your books have been translated into 27 languages. Can you tell us what they are?
I’m curious about what might be the most unexpected language, etc.
Why does the professor agree that Paul did not expel men who had sex with prostitutes? 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, especially 13, seems to indicate that anyone who is sexually immoral should be expelled. However, in 6:15-20, Paul’s tone towards men who engage in sexual intercourse with prostitutes is only a moral criticism. I think it’s better to say that these men didn’t commit adultery than to say that Paul tolerated them. The key is that they didn’t judge those who committed adultery. The reason why they were unable to proceed with the trial was that they were not aware that their bodies had not yet been resurrected.
However, Paul’s motivation for demanding their judgment seems to be more inclined not to be gossiped about by the Gentiles.
Hi Bart.
In an interview where you talked about your view about Lazarus and the rich man. You said that you believe this story was put on Jesus lips and one of the reasons was that Luke was one of the later books. I’m a novice so would you kindly clarify what you mean when you said Luke was one of the later books? Thanks.
Hi Bart.
In another interview you said that The Lazarus and rich man story was not in the books Matthew Mark or John which was telling. I used this (your) same argument when speaking to a eternal torment believer trying to show Jesus didn’t tell this parable and their response to me was “you could say the same about John”
What do you think of that? Thanks.
1 Corinthians at a Glance
2. Paul had established the church by converting former pagans to faith in Jesus.
When Paul converted former pagans to faith in Jesus, was it his mission to persuade them to honor Jesus as though he were a god, or to persuade them to worship Jesus’s God, the Jewish God?
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Romans 1:8
I just saw a book called From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith by L. Michael White.
What do you think of it? Thanks.
I think this is a reprint of his book from 20 years ago? Michael White is a very fine scholar (Yale PhD) who taught at UTexas for many years; this book is written at a lay person’s level, and deals with the early accounts of jesus from a historical perspective.
If anyone else is interested, this is available as an ebook for $1.99.
Hello, Bart.
I saw an interview with a rabbi claiming that the story of the women going to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus with spices and perfumes makes no sense and contradicted Jewish customs/teaching. He thought this proved the story is clearly false, never happened. He claimed no where in Judaism is anyone instructed to uncover a dead body, anoint it, and then rebury it a second time. Also, that there is no record of anyone in Judaism ever doing so. This was not an accepted Jewish custom.
What are your thoughts on this, please? Thank you!
I wasn’t sure about it, so I asked my colleague Jodi Magness about it; as you probably know, she’s an archaeologist of ancient Israel and is an expert on burial practices in the second temple period. Her main comment was that it’s important to remember that Jesus was not “buried” in the sense of being put in the ground, then uncovered, anointed, and put back into the ground. In the Gospel accounts he was interred in a rock-cut tomb. Big difference (especially when it comes to dealing with the corpse later!) She also says that there were no biblical laws against it, or any Jewish legal rulings from the time.
She herself is inclined to think the account is historical. I don’t. We’ve had some, uh, interesting discussions about it. 🙂 But like her I don’t think there were any rules (or laws) against it. disabledupes{8d9f2db66f3bc46701f75265a167641f}disabledupes
What are your thoughts on the idea that the ‘love poem’ in 1 Corinthians 13 may be pre-Pauline and stylistically similar to 1 Clement (chapter 49), possibly suggesting that the author of 1 Clement was actually the one who composed it?
The argument would be something like this:
Both passages present love (ἀγάπη) as the supreme Christian virtue, using parallel structures—“bears all things, endures all things”—and idealized language. However, in 1 Corinthians, the “love poem” interrupts a tightly reasoned argument about spiritual gifts, while in 1 Clement, the reflection on love flows organically from preceding exhortations on humility and unity. The style of chapter 49 is consistent with Clement’s broader rhetorical approach, whereas 1 Corinthians 13 stands apart from Paul’s typical prose. This raises the possibility that Paul was drawing on a pre-existing composition, possibly authored by the author of 1 Clement.
I don’t think it’s at all stylistically similar to 1 Clement as a whole; but the author of 1 Clement definitely had read 1 Corinthians, and so knew the chapter. (I don’t think 1 Clement can be dated before 95 or so; I give the reasons in the Introduction to my translation of it in Volume 1 of The Apostolic Fathers (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univesity Press). As to whether the chapter is pre-Pauline, it’s a good and important questoin, and is certainlyl possible; but given the intimate connections of the chapter with 1 Cor. 12 before it and 1 Cor. 14 after, I think it wsa Paul’s composition for the occasion.
When Paul converted former pagans to faith in Jesus, was it his mission to persuade them to honor Jesus as though he were a god, or to persuade them to worship Jesus’s God, the Jewish God?
Dr. Ehrman, is there a scholarly consensus as to how the seven undisputed letters of Paul survived — since their copies would be in at least six different places (Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Phillipi, and Thessaloniki)? Paul would have to have written many other letters and there would also have been many other Pauline forgeries beyond those six that survive in the New Testament. It seems to me that there would have to have been an effort in those places to continually create copies of those letters in order for them to survive. But why would they make such copies? For gospel accounts, the idea of making copies makes sense for reasons you have enumerated: somebody would want a copy, and they would make copies for their friends, and so on. That makes obvious sense for gospel stories, but it seems to make less sense for letters about things such as a runaway Christian (Philemon), scandals in various churches, and so on.
Nope! I’m going to be putting a lot more thought into the issues for my next book on the formatoin of the canon, and will no doubt be posting on it eventually.