March 2016 - Page 2 of 2 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

The Triumphal Entry as a Distorted Memory

In my previous post I provided an excerpt from Jesus Before the Gospels where I summarized the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry.” Here is the second part of that two-part post, another excerpt, where I call this tradition into question, arguing that it cannot be right historically and that it must, therefore, represent a distorted memory. It is important to recall that “memory” is not simply a recollection of what we ourselves experienced (what you had for dinner last night; the name of your first-grade teacher; etc.). Memory involves anything that you “call back to mind” (the literal meaning of “remembering”). It can be factual information (what is the capital of France?), even of something you haven’t experienced (e.g., if you have never been to Paris); it can be a shared understanding of a person from the past (Einstein; Karl Marx), even if you never met them. And it can be a recollection of a past event even if you were not involved. Such as the Triumphal Entry, to pick one example out [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:47:54-04:00March 7th, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies, Public Forum|

The Memory of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry

Two chapters of my book Jesus Before the Gospels involve discussions of “distorted memories” – that is, recollections of events from Jesus life that appear not to represent what actually happened. One of the chapters deals with events leading up to Jesus’ death (the most remembered part of his life), the other with his public ministry. Just to give a taste of how I proceed in these chapters, I will excerpt here my discussion of the Triumphal Entry. The discussion is a little long for a single post, so I will divide it into two. Today’s post explains what the memory is (one many people still have today!); the next one will try to show why it is best seen as not being a “true” memory. The Triumphal Entry There seems to be no reason to doubt that Jesus spent the last week of his life in Jerusalem looking ahead to the celebration of the Passover feast. Passover was by far the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem, when the city would swell [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:48:10-04:00March 5th, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: March 4, 2016

Time for the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag. This week I will be dealing with three questions that have come in about my books and writing habits. If you have any questions you would like me to address in this format, go ahead and ask! *************************************************************** QUESTION: Which of your books didn’t do well? I’ve often guessed that your least-selling trade book would be either RESPONSE: The reader who asked this question was referring to my comment that I’ve now written seven books with my publisher HarperOne and that of the six previous ones, five sold extremely well. The questioner wants to know which one did not. So I have been very fortunate with my Harper books. The first one I did was Misquoting Jesus. To everyone’s enormous surprise, it became a bestseller. The reason everyone was surprised was, at least in part, because of the topic: it was about the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Who in the world wants to read about that? It turns out that the answer is: lots of people. [...]

BDEhrman2017-11-15T20:29:14-05:00March 4th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

My First Interview on Jesus Before the Gospels

Here is the first interview I have done for Jesus Before the Gospels, for the American Freethought Podcast, hosted by John C. Snider & David Driscoll (on March 1st, 2016). American Freethought is meant to serve freethinkers of every stripe: atheists, agnostics, skeptics, secular humanists, brights, rationalists, or whatever. In the interview we talk about what research on memory–how it’s formed, how it’s recalled, how it can change when transmitted from person to person, and how it can be remolded based on historical perspective and current events. Studies of memory, of course, can help us understand the oral traditions of Jesus before the written accounts of the Gospels were produced. Jesus Before the Gospels is available in hardcover, audiobook and for Kindle. Please adjust gear icon for high-definition.

BDEhrman2017-11-15T20:29:45-05:00March 3rd, 2016|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Video Media|

Jesus Before the Gospels in Relation to My Other Books

Jesus Before the Gospels is now the seventh book I’ve published with HarperOne; two of the others have also involved issues related to historical problems posed by the New Testament Gospels. And so I have been asked recently a very fair question: how does this book differ from the others I’ve written? The short answer is that it is dealing with a completely different topic. But to explain that at greater length, I should explain what the others focused on. First, I should say that four of my Harper books were on other things. Did Jesus Exist was an attempt to show why scholars in the fields of New Testament, early Christian studies, and antiquity in general are convinced, and do not even question, that Jesus actually lived as a real human being. There I try to mount the arguments that almost no one has ever bothered to mount because they are so obvious to most people working in the field Forged was dealing not with the contents of the New Testament writings so much [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:50:03-04:00March 2nd, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

My New Book! (In Context of My Others)

. O frabjous day! Callooh, callay! I’m chortling in my joy. My new book came out today: Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented their Stories of the Savior. It is available now, as we speak! Many, many thanks to everyone on the blog who has commented on various posts that I’ve done related to the book, and especially to those blog members who actually read the book in advance and made comments on it. I acknowledge you in the Acknowledgments, and I thank you here! The publication date of a book is always an ecstatic and anxious time for an author. Will people buy the book? Will they like it? Will they hate it? One never knows! This is the seventh book that I have published with HarperOne. It has been a very good run. I started out publishing my trade books (that is, books written for a general audience – the kinds of thing you would find in Barnes and Noble) with Oxford Press. I published with them [...]

BDEhrman2017-11-15T20:30:28-05:00March 1st, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

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The Triumphal Entry as a Distorted Memory

The Memory of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry

Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: March 4, 2016

My First Interview on Jesus Before the Gospels

Jesus Before the Gospels in Relation to My Other Books

My New Book! (In Context of My Others)