September 2024 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

New Insights Into Paul! Conference this Weekend! Wanna Come??

I’ve been excited about this coming weekend’s conference (New Insights into the New Testament) for eight months now. If you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance. You can sign up here: https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insights-into-the-new-testament-conference-2024/ This annual conference is not directly connected with the blog per se, except to the extent that I do both and both are focused on spreading biblical scholarship to a wider non-scholarly audience. We mean to do that in a big way at the conference. The topic: Paul and His Letters 10 of the best New Testament scholars in the world Each giving a 50 minute lecture with 10-15 minutes live Q&A Over the course of two days (Sat Sept. 21 and Sun Sept. 22) We will transform it into a video course with additional materials for all who come. And for all who purchase a ticket but choose not to come to the live lectures. And additional features for all: An Attendee Mixer for all who want to come, remotely, to see and talk with presenters (in break out rooms; you [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-16T10:45:34-04:00September 16th, 2024|Public Forum|

Major Contradictions (and Other Problems) in the Old Testament

In my previous posts I've dealt with some of the critical problems with the New Testament that many students have to grapple with (often for the first time) when they take seminary courses on biblical studies during their ministerial training. One of the big questions I address in my book Jesus Interrupted (HarperOne, 2009) is why pastors who learn such things in seminary don't say anything about them in their churches after graduation, not even in adult education classes. Isn't one of the objectives of education to get educated? In this post I continue with an excerpt from the book dealing with comparable problems in the Old Testament. **************************** These kinds of problems turn out to be even more common in the Old Testament, starting at its very beginning. Some people go to great lengths to smooth over all these differences, but when you look at them closely, they are very difficult indeed to reconcile. And why should they be reconciled? Maybe they are simply differences. The creation account in Genesis 1 is very different from [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-07T11:44:30-04:00September 15th, 2024|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Critical Problems With the Bible, in a Nutshell

What's it like for a devoted seminary student to be confronted with critical problems of the Bible for the first time? Here I continue the discussion with an excerpt from my book Jesus Interrupted (HarperOne, 2009). ****************************** For students who come into seminary with a view that the Bible is completely, absolutely, one hundred percent without error, the realization that most critical scholars have a very different view can come as a real shock to their systems. And once these students open the floodgates by admitting there might be mistakes in the Bible, their understanding of Scripture takes a radical turn. The more they read the text carefully and intensely, the more mistakes they find, and they begin to see that in fact the Bible makes better sense if you acknowledge its inconsistencies instead of staunchly insisting that there aren’t any, even when they are staring you in the face. To be sure, many beginning students are expert at reconciling differences among the Gospels. For example, the Gospel of Mark indicates that it was [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-05T11:20:20-04:00September 14th, 2024|Book Discussions|

What Seminarians Learn About the Bible (Often to Their Surprise)

In this post I explain how prospective pastors and teachers beginning work in seminaries and divinity schools start learning things about the Bible they never would have imagined – or if they did imagine it was only to reject out of hand. As with the previous post, this is an excerpt from the first chapter of my book Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them), (HarperOne, 2009). ****************************** The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “historical-critical” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church. The devotional approach to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act? About social responsibilities? How can [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-05T11:22:54-04:00September 12th, 2024|Book Discussions|

Jesus Interrupted: My Most Thorough Explanation of Critical Scholarship on the New Testament

What do professional scholars know about the Bible, what do religious professionals (ministers, e.g.) learn about it in seminary/divinity school, and why don't they (usually/normally/ever) tell their congregations about it? That is the topic of my book Jesus Interrupted (Harper One, 2009). I consider it my most thorough overview of the range of problems found in critical scholarship on the Christian scriptures. In this thread of posts I've been explaining the topics/contents/ideas of my various books in case anyone wants to read/reread them. In many ways I consider this one the most important: it deals with contradictions, divergences, forgery, problems of using the Gospels to know about the historical Jesus, how/why we got this canon of Scripture, the later theological creations of Christian thinkers that most readers wrngly assume are in the New Testament, and ultimately the question of whether it is possible to know all this material and yet still be a believer. I've decided to excerpt the opening chapter of the book to give a good sense of what it's about -- this will take [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-03T13:42:07-04:00September 11th, 2024|Book Discussions|

How Many of Those Early Christians Could Read?

How many Christians by near the end of the New Testament period – say, 100 CE – could read and write? In his intriguing article “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Roman historian Keith Hopkins tries to come up with some ballpark figures. As you may recall, he is assuming that there were Christian churches in about 100 communities in the world at the time (we have references to about 50 in our surviving texts, and he is supposing that maybe there were twice as many as we have any evidence for); and he agrees that if Christianity started out with about 1000 believers in the year 40 then with a growth rate of 3.4% per year, by the year 100 there would be just over 7000 Christians in the world. That would mean the 100 churches would have an average of 70 believers. (Some of course would be larger – think, Rome – others would be much smaller; we’re talking averages here. And if Rome did have, say 120 believers, they would be meeting [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-05T11:26:51-04:00September 10th, 2024|History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Special Gold Members Event: A Live AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Hey Gold Members, I much regret that we did not get a July Gold Q&A out (there were scheduling and sundry other issues), and I want to make up the loss by doing a special event on the evening of Monday September 16, at 8:00-9:00, Eastern Time, a Live GOLD-ONLY Q&A. You ask the questions, I answer them. Do NOT send questions here in a comment to the post. (Any that do come in that way will immediately be sent up into stratospheric oblivion.) The way it will work is instead this: If you have a question (just one please) send it into [email protected] Keep it concise and directly relevant in some way to anything we deal with on the blog. We will choose a selection of them to represent a range of interests and topics. If yours is chosen, we will contact you a day or so in advance to ask you to ask it live at the time of the event, so it will be direct "you-ask-I-answer" event. The DEADLINE for submitting your question [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-09T14:49:58-04:00September 9th, 2024|Public Forum|

The Quest for the Historical Paul: Sorting Through Our Sources (Part 2) by Dr. James Tabor

Here we have Part 2 of James Tabor's explanation of how and what we can know about the life and letters of Paul, in anticipation of the upcoming conference, designed for folks like you, non-scholars interested in what lifelong experts in the study of the New Testament say about it. James will be one of the ten presenters at the conference. If you haven't already, check it out: New Insights into the New Testament 2024. ****************************** The book of Acts provides the following independent biographical information not found in the seven genuine letters: Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul and he was born in Tarsus, a city in the Roman province of Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor or present-day Turkey (Acts 9:11, 30; 11:25; 21:39; 22:3) He came from a family of Pharisees and was educated in Jerusalem under the most famous Rabbi of the time, Gamaliel. He also had a sister and a nephew that lived in Jerusalem in the 60s A.D. (Acts 22:3; 23:16) He was born a Roman citizen, which means his father [...]

Diane2024-09-05T10:55:24-04:00September 8th, 2024|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

The Quest for the Historical Paul: Sorting Through Our Sources (Part 1). Guest Post by James Tabor

As you know, I hope, I will be sponsoring an upcoming conference for non-scholars, on the Apostle Paul soon, Sept. 21-22 (see https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insights-into-the-new-testament-conference-2024 ). We will have ten high-level Pauline scholars each give a 50-minute lecture with Q&A, dealing with various issues connected with Pauline studies. This is gonna be a good'un. In preparation for it, I've asked James Tabor, one of the ten presenters at the conference, to give us a couple of preliminary posts here on the blog, dealing with some of the fundamental issues that scholars deal with, all centered on "how can we know" about what Paul really said and did? Turns out, it's not simple. ****************************** What can we reliably know about Paul and how can we know it? As is the case with Jesus this is not an easy question. Historians have been involved in what has been called the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” for the past one hundred and seventy-five years, evaluating and sifting through our sources, trying to determine what we can reliably say about him.[1] As [...]

Diane2024-09-05T10:53:26-04:00September 7th, 2024|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

The Next Ten Commandments Platinum Guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

Here's another guest post by Platinum member Doug Wadeson, who once again brings out some startling issue just from what the Bible says that most people don't see, or at least blithely ignore. What do you think? If you like Doug's work (I do!), he has started a new blog, that he describes as providing "off-beat articles about the Bible." Interested? Check it out: TheBibleUndressed.blog – A doctor dissects the Holy Book at https://thebibleundressed.blog For now, let's get to Doug's reflections on the heart of the Bible: the Ten Commandments! (And remember: you too can post on most anything you'd like connected to the blog, as a Platinum member for other Platinum members) ************************* There is a controversy these days about Louisiana requiring that the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, (King James version no less) be posted in public schools. I wager that few people who support this can list the ten laws. I will also wager that even fewer people have ever turned the page to study the next set of commandments. After all, the [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-06T16:26:06-04:00September 6th, 2024|Public Forum|

How Strikingly Few Early Churches Were There? How Amazingly Many Christian Letters?

In his important and stimulating article, “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Roman historian Keith Hopkins next begins to think about the implications about the size of the Christian church at different periods. One point to emphasize is that there was not simply one church. There were lots of churches in lots of places, and it is a myth to think that they were all one big cohesive bunch. On the contrary, they were often (as we see in our records) often at odds with each other. But even more than that, even within one city – if it was large enough (think Rome or Antioch for example) there would have been more than one church. And why? Because there would have been too many people to meet in one place. The first time we have any evidence of a church “building” – that is, what we today normally think of as a church (the Baptist church on the corner; the Methodist church up the street) – is not until the middle of the third Christian [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-30T17:27:28-04:00September 5th, 2024|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations, Spread of Christianity|

Were Christians Statistically Insignificant in the First 200 years?

I return now to Roman historian Keith Hopkins’s fascinating and influential article “Christian Number and Its Implications.” As I pointed out, for the sake of his article, and after checking it out for plausibility, Hopkins accepts the calculations of Rodney Stark that if Christianity started with 1000 believers in the year 40 CE, and ended up being 10% of the empire (6 million believers) by the time of the Emperor Constantine, you would need a growth rate of about 40% per decade, or, as Hopkins prefers putting it 3.4%). ****************************** Obviously, as I’ve stated, but need to stress again, we cannot be and are not really thinking that there was a steady rate of growth, that every year there was the same percentage of increase. We’re talking big numbers over a long range of time, so the *average* rate of growth is just that, an average. Some years there may have been a loss of numbers, other years a huge spike. So take that as given. But if we *were* talking about [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-04T17:16:39-04:00September 4th, 2024|Spread of Christianity|

Exaggerating the Numbers of Early Christians

I have started discussing the fascinating article by Keith Hopkins, “Christian Number and Its Implications” (see my last post). After discussing some of the problems with knowing how to “count” Christians (i.e., who counts as a Christian), he reflects for a bit on the problems presented to us by our sources of information. The basic problem is that our sources don’t *give* us much information! No one from the early Christian church was a statistician and no one kept records of how many people were being converted. And the comments we find that are of any relevance turn out to be so broad, generalized, and suspicious as to be of no use to us at all. Sometimes, a source will give numbers, but they clearly cannot be trusted. Take the book of Acts. This is our first account of early Christianity, and, of course, became the “canonical” account. According to Acts 2 (this and the following are examples that *I’m* giving; they are not found in Hopkins), just 50 days after Jesus’ death, on the [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-30T17:17:48-04:00September 3rd, 2024|Spread of Christianity|

New Insights into the New Testament 2024: A Conference you DON’T Want to Miss!!

In case you haven't heard, there is a very excieting event coming up that surely *anyone* connected to the blog will be deeply interested in: a two-day remote Bible conference for non-scholars, called “New Insights into the New Testament,” consisting of ten lectures (each with a live Q&A), on the Life and Letters of Paul, delivered by some of the most highly qualified New Testament scholars in the known universe, in terms accessible to layfolk. It will be Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 21-22; anyone who comes will get the conference as a recording for life-time use; anyone who wants the recording and can't come can do that too! We are nothing if not flexible. This will be our second annual New Insights Conference. We had well over 2000 come to the inaugural event last year, and heading into it we weren't sure how it would be received. Oh boy was it received well. The presentations were crisp, clear, and informative, by world-renowned scholars, all of whom know how to communicate serious advances in scholarship in [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-01T17:15:59-04:00September 2nd, 2024|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

If You’re Counting Christians, Who Counts as a Christian?

When I first started thinking about the the rise and spread of Christianity, I was particularly struck by an article written by a prominent and deservedly acclaimed British historian, Keith Hopkins, a long-time professor at Cambridge University. It was called “Christian Number and Its Implication,” and it appeared in the Journal of Early Christian Studies in 1998. ****************************** Hopkins begins his article by reflecting on the fact that it’s very difficult to know even what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the numerical growth of Christianity. For one thing, what are we going to count as Christianity and whom are we going to count as Christians? Do we count only those who hold to the views that later came to be the dominant understanding of Christianity, for example, that there is only one God, or that Christ was both human and divine at one and the same time, or that the material world is the creation of this God, and so on? What about other forms of Christianity? What about those people [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-04T17:17:43-04:00September 1st, 2024|Public Forum, Spread of Christianity|