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Another Jewish Miracle Worker

One more post dealing with my memory book before moving on to other things.   I thought readers of the blog might be interested in the following passage, where I talk about a famous Jewish teacher who was known, on the basis of eyewitness reports, to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead.  No, I’m not talking about Jesus.  I’m talking about the an 18th century holy man, who founded Hasidic Judaism.  Here is what I have to say, in the course of my chapter 3.  (The following is a relatively unedited draft: it is not polished yet for style or typos, so don’t worry about those….  The discussion occurs in the middle of a chapter on the value of eyewitness testimony; I include the preceding paragraph to give some context) *************************************************************** To sum up the situation, consider the words of one of the world’s leading experts on distorted memory, Daniel Schacter, “Numerous experiments have demonstrated ways in which imagining events can lead to the development of false memories for those events.”[1] But [...]

2020-04-03T13:45:48-04:00May 6th, 2015|Book Discussions|

Steps Toward Publishing the (a) Book

I am now nearly done with the draft of my book Jesus Before the Gospels (whatever it will eventually will be called), and want to say sundry things about the actual writing of the book here near the end.   (Before I do:  if any of you has any questions about the topic I’m covering or anything relevant you would like me to post on, let me know:  if I don’t have issues to address involving memory, the historical Jesus, oral tradition, and so on, I’ll move on to other things on the blog.) First, in an earlier post I gave members of the blog an option of reading the book in manuscript form in advance.   In case you missed it, here is the offer, which is still open and will be for another three days only.   I am using this opportunity as a way of raising money for the blog (well, for the Bart Ehrman Foundation, which, as you know, gives all the money raised by the blog to charities dealing with hunger and homelessness). [...]

2020-04-03T13:46:03-04:00May 4th, 2015|Book Discussions|

Misquoting Jesus Interview on WPSU

On March 15, 2007, I had an interview with Patty Satalia for a Pennsylvania State University on Demand Program called "Pennsylvania Inside Out," on my book "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" . In the interview I discuss how the modern Bible was shaped by mistakes and intentional alterations that were made by early scribes who copied the texts. I also explain how realizing this led me to shift my way of thinking about the Bible. We also get into the question -- then very pressing still -- about Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.  It seems so long ago now that everyone was talking about it! Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:

York Symposium on Early Christian Apocrypha

  I thought some of you might be interested to know about a symposium focusing on early Christian apocrypha that will be taking place in the fall.  The schedule for the event has just been sent.  If any of you is near there, you should think about going!  It looks terrific.   It is being organized principally by Tony Burke, along with Brent Landau; they are two very active scholars in the field of apocrypha studies.   Here’s what the lineup looks like. ***************************************************************   Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha The 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium will take place September 24-26 at Vanier College, York University. The specific objectives for the 2015 Symposium are: 1. to examine the possible motivations behind the production of Christian Apocrypha from antiquity until the present day, 2. to integrate medieval and modern apocrypha (composed in the 19th to 21st centuries) into the wider study of apocryphal literature, and 3. to reflect on what the reactions to the recently-publishedGospel of Jesus’ Wife can tell us about [...]

My Final Exam for NT

So, classes are officially over here at UNC, and we are in the Final Exam period.  Today I gave my final for the Introduction to the New Testament class.   As some of you may recall, back in January 2014 I posted on the blog the pop quiz I give the first day of class for this course.  It is here, in case you're interested:  https://ehrmanblog.org/new-testament-pop-quiz/   When I give this quiz on the first day, I tell the students that even if they bomb it (which most of them do), it's nothing compared to what they're going to be learning in the class over the course of the semester.   Looking at the Final Exam in comparison with this introductory pop quiz pretty much shows it.   Anyway, comparisons or not, I thought you might be interested in the exam, to see how you would do.   And so I give it below in its entirety For the i.d.s, anything they've read or heard during the semester is fair game.  I don't give them [...]

2017-12-09T08:25:40-05:00May 1st, 2015|Teaching Christianity|
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