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About BDEhrman

Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has served as the director of graduate studies and chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

Was Mark Really Written First? The Arguments for “Markan Priority”

I've begun blogging on the "Synoptic Problem," the problem of why Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar in so many ways (many of the exact same stories, often told in the same sequence, and even in the very same words), and yet so different (often in wording, sometimes in sequence, etc.).  The solution virtually everyone accepts is that there is some kind of copying going on. The first step is to see if one of them was copied in part by the others, and based on long examinations of all the evidence, the vast majority of scholars have come to agree Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark that they copied as the basis for their accounts.  They each changed it in places, moving a story to another place, rewording sentences either a little, or a lot, etc..  But Mark was first and the others copied most of it. I should point out that Matthew and Luke almost certainly didn't have the same *copy* of Mark.  And the copies they each had may [...]

2025-02-03T11:40:17-05:00February 9th, 2025|Public Forum|

Gospel Problems: Does Matthew Ever “Correct” Mark?

In my previous post I indicated that one of the reasons for thinking that Matthew copied Mark instead of the other way around is that there are passages in Mark that can be read in ways (or maybe even were meant in ways) that could be seen as problematic -- they might be worded in an awkward way, for example, or they might say something that cold be seen as confusing or just wrong -- but that in Matthew are worded differently so that there is no longer a problem. That would make sense if Matthew was copying Mark and just reworded something to "correct" it or at least to get rid of the problem.  It would be harder to explain why Mark would create a problem that wasn't in the story he was copying.  If that's right, it would suggest Mark is the source of Matthew. Here's one example to consider out of many.  I choose this one because, well, it's one of my favorites! It comes in the opening of the story [...]

2025-02-03T11:29:45-05:00February 8th, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

Why Assume the Synoptic Gospels Were COPYING One Another (and Other Sources)?

Why couldn't Matthew, Mark, and Luke just have the same stories?  Why do we have to assume someone was copying someone else's? In yesterday’s post,  I simply stated that copying must have been going on to explain the literary relationship among Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Synoptic Gospels, since they have so many similarities: they tell many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes – lots of times – in the very same words.  That is to say, someone must be copying someone else, or they are all using the same written sources. But some of my students have trouble seeing that if two documents are word-for-word the same, one must be copying the other (or they both are copying a third source).  Many older adults don’t seem to have any problem seeing that, right off the bat.  But younger adults need to be convinced.  And so I do a little experiment with them that more or less proves it.  I do this every year in my New Testament class, which [...]

2025-02-03T11:21:01-05:00February 6th, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

The Synoptic Problem: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Who’s Zoomin Who?

Why are Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar to each other and yet have so many differences, lots of them minor but some of them significant? In my previous posts I’ve given “Nutshell” explanations of each of these Gospels.  Before moving on to John – which is remarkably different in many ways from these three, both individually and as  group – I want to devote a series of posts to their relationship to one another. How could they be so alike – often word for word the same – without some copying going on?  And how do we account for the (sometimes serious) differences? This has long been known as the “Synoptic Problem.”  It is not a problem connected with John because the features that create the problem for Mathew, Mark, and Luke (their extensive similarities often in extensive verbatim agreements) do not apply to John. I have just reread my explanation of the problem in my textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings 7th ed. (Oxford University Press) [...]

2025-02-03T11:15:20-05:00February 5th, 2025|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Is the Gospel of Luke Anti-Jewish?

If Luke is the most "gentile" Gospel, is it also "anti-Jewish"? In my earlier post on "The Gospel of Luke in a Nutshell," I argued that Luke, more than the other Gospels, went out of its way to portray Jesus as a great prophet (like Samuel, like Elijah, etc.).  In part, in Luke’s understanding, that is why Jesus had to die.  The Jewish people, in his view, always reject their own prophets sent from God.  Jesus was the last of the great prophets.  He too had to be rejected and killed at the hands of the Jewish people (see Luke 13:33-35). Some scholars have argued that because of this denigration of the Jewish people for always rejecting the prophets and Jesus, Luke is probably to be seen as an “anti-Jewish” Gospel.  In my judgment there is a lot to be said for this view.  The only Jews that the Gospel appears to approve of are the ones who recognize Jesus as a great prophet and son of God (his mother, Symeon and Anna, John the [...]

2025-01-25T22:01:42-05:00February 2nd, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

The Gospel of Luke: For Further Reading

Now that I’ve devoted two posts to the major sine qua non of Luke's Gospel – one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why, I can provide some suggestions for further reading, important works written by scholars for non-scholars.   I have given brief annotations for each book a mention, to give you a sense of what it’s about and so help you decide which, if any, might be worth your while. I have divided the list into three sections: Books that provide important discussion of Luke in general or with respect to a particularly key topic Commentaries that give lengthy introductions to all matters of importance about the Gospel and then go passage by passage to provide more detailed interpretation (that’s where you can dig more deeply into “what does this particular word actually mean?”; “what is the real point of this passage”; how does this passage relate to what Luke says elsewhere in his Gospel or to what we can find in [...]

2025-01-25T21:52:40-05:00February 1st, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

The Gospel of Luke: Who Wrote It? When? And Why?

Everyone says that the Gospel of Luke was written by … Luke!  Do we know if that’s true?  Whether Luke or not, do we know when he wrote it?  And why did he want/need to do so?  Now that I’ve summarized the major themes and emphases of the Gospel we can delve into these equally interesting and important historical questions. For as long as anyone has named an author of this Gospel, it has been Luke, a gentile traveling companion of Paul thought to be a medical doctor.  I’ll continue calling him “Luke” for the sake of convenience, even though I don’t think we can know who he was. Years ago on the blog (in January 2020) I devoted a series of posts to the question:  Was Luke Luke (so to say)?  There are a lot of issues to consider, including seemingly unrelated things, such as whether Paul actually wrote Colossians (!).  The series ended with my wrap-up overview posted on January 19: So: Was Luke Luke?, in case you’re interested in digging deeper. I [...]

2025-01-25T21:47:53-05:00January 30th, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

The Gospel of Luke in a Nutshell

If you already have Matthew and Mark, why would you need Luke?  Aren't they all the same? Nope. Next question:  do you know these Gospels very well?  If not, AOK:  Keep reading!  If so – see if you can summarize the themes and emphases of Luke in one sentence (say, 50 words) in a way that both highlights what it’s about and shows what is distinctive about its portrayal of Jesus. How’d that go for you? Here’s what I would come up with as a first go (I’ve never tried this before!) The Gospel of Luke portrays Jesus both as a Greco-Roman “divine man” – shown by his supernatural birth, astounding miracles, death, and exaltation – and as the final prophet sent by God to the Jewish people, who rejected him, fulfilling God’s plan for salvation to go to all the peoples of earth. It would take volumes to fill out this brief summary (many such volumes have been written!  I’ll give suggestions for reading in a future post on Luke).  Here I will try [...]

2025-01-25T21:34:54-05:00January 29th, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

Mark’s Messianic Secret

In my previous posts I have pointed out that the Gospel of Mark  (unlike the other Gospels) portrays Jesus as trying to keep his messiahship a secret.  He doesn’t allow the demons to identify him when he casts them out; when he heals people he strictly instructs them not to tell anyone; he teaches his disciples the “secret of the Kingdom” privately when no one else is around; he teaches the crowds only using parables precisely (Mark indicates) so no one can understand what he means.  And he never publicly teaches about his own identity. This last point should be emphasized. Unlike other Gospels (see John 4:25-26!) Jesus never tells anyone publicly that he is the messiah.  When he is acknowledged as the messiah by Peter in a private conversation with the disciples in Mark 8:29-30, Jesus orders them not to let anyone know.  And then he starts teaching that as the messiah he has to be rejected and executed.  That seems to be a complete contradiction of terms for Peter, who has just made [...]

2025-02-01T13:49:00-05:00January 28th, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

The Flukes of Life: How I Almost Never Became a Professor

This is now my 40th year of teaching at a university, 36 of the years at UNC Chapel Hill and 4 before that at Rutgers as a 28 year old.  It very nearly didn't happen at all.  Life is so strange. I was on the job market while I was writing my dissertation.. And even though there were job openings, I couldn’t get an interview to save my soul. Part of the problem was that my PhD was from a theological seminary, and a lot of the jobs were at secular institutions – state universities, private colleges, and the like. Most places simply don’t want to take a chance on someone who has been trained in a theological environment. Especially someone like me at the time. I had never set foot in a secular setting since high school! Starting when I was 17, I was at Moody Bible Institute (3 years), (Christian evangelical) Wheaton College (2 years), and then (Presbyterian ministerial training ground) Princeton Theological Seminary (7 years). Yikes! Even theological schools and Christian colleges [...]

2025-01-22T07:13:03-05:00January 22nd, 2025|Reflections and Ruminations|

Was (the author of ) Matthew Really a Jew?

My previous posts were dealing with the themes and historical context of the Gospel of Matthew, along  with a list of suggested readings for those who want to go deeper. I would like to go deeper myself by returning at greater length to one of the most puzzling features of Matthew, its relationship to Judaism.  To begin with, I suggested in my post "Who, When, and Why" that the author himself was Jewish.  I want to explore that at some greater depth here. The first thing to say is that not all New Testament scholars have thought so.  Au contraire. One of the premier scholars of the NT and the historical Jesus is John Meier.   Before he began his massive multi-volume study of the historical Jesus, called A Marginal Jew, he was principally known as an expert on the Gospel of Matthew.  Meier’s view was that Matthew was not actually Jewish.  One of his pieces of evidence is very interesting and has always struck me as rather amusing. It is this.  In Matthew 21 we [...]

2025-01-21T11:22:02-05:00January 21st, 2025|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

The Gospel of Matthew: Who, When, and Why?

In my previous post we took the first step in understanding the Gospel of Matthew, grasping its major themes and emphases.  It is also important to situate the book in its own historical context.  For that we need to know something about the author, the approximate time he was writing it, and why he appears to have taken on the task.  In short:  Who, When, and Why? We start with the “who.” Our oldest full manuscripts of the Gospel call it “According to Matthew.”  These manuscripts date from around 375 CE, and so were created about three hundred years after the book was in circulation.  We wish we had earlier manuscripts to help us gauge when it was first called this.  This designation (“according to Matthew”) is obviously not the original title.  When I write a book, I don’t title it “According to Bart.”  I give it a title.  Whoever wrote this book either gave it a title that is lost (that seems unlikely), or simply published it anonymously (which happened a good deal in [...]

2025-01-21T11:40:26-05:00January 18th, 2025|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

The Gospel of Matthew in a Nutshell

Are you familiar with the Gospel of Matthew?  If not, read on! If so, try to summarize its distinctive portrayal of Jesus in one sentence. (of say, 50 words or so max).  If you really can’t, then again, read on!  If you give it a try, check to see that you have both described it accurately and shown how it is distinctive among the other Gospels. Here’s a sentence that I might try if I were given the assignment: Matthew portrays Jesus as the miracle-working messiah who fulfilled the predictions of Scripture, taught the correct understanding of the Law of Moses, insisted his followers keep it by living lives of love, came to be rejected by his own people, but died for others before being raised from the dead. Hey, that’s exactly 50 words!   Now let me expound a bit by discussing the most important aspects of Matthew’s Gospel.  Matthew is often considered the “most Jewish” of the Gospels because of its repeated emphasis that Jesus is the Jewish messiah, sent from [...]

2025-01-17T09:43:52-05:00January 16th, 2025|Canonical Gospels|

Rambling Meditations on What It Means to Exist…. What Do You Think?

I sometimes feel like a pestiferous terrier who goes after someone’s ankles and just won’t stop. There are some issues (among the “Big Questions”) that I repeatedly come back to and just can’t let drop.  I suppose that’s because they seem both really important and completely incapable of being figured out.  Hence my occasional return to them on the blog. I’ve mentioned before that I have a daily meditation practice, which does wonders for my stress levels and mental/emotional/psychological well-being, though it does sometimes leave me puzzled..  This morning I did one of those “go deep into your mind” sessions where you just dig deep into your conscience and try to understand who/what you are as a living being. As often happens when I do that, I once more again came up against the issue of what “I” can possibly be. I feel like “I” am somehow located in my brain.  And I don’t think that “I” will exist once my brain (along with the rest of my body) dies, since it’s quite [...]

2025-01-08T14:27:00-05:00January 15th, 2025|Reflections and Ruminations|

The New Testament Gospels in a Nutshell

Before I can talk about the Gospels individually, I need to say something about them as a group. How would YOU summarize the most important things to say about the Gospels in a single sentence?  Try it.  See how you do.   There are roughly 34 million ways to put it.  Here’s one of them. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Gospels of the New Testament, are our earliest surviving accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God sent for the salvation of the world. And now to unpack that in a single post: The term “Gospel” translates a Greek word (EUANGELION; from which we get the word “evangelist”) that literally means “Good News.”  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are Gospels because they narrate Jesus’ life not only to provide information about what he said and did, but also to proclaim the authors’ faith that he was the messiah sent from God to bring salvation to those who accept his message.  Scholars have long realized these books are not [...]

2025-01-08T14:58:32-05:00January 14th, 2025|Public Forum|

What Is The New Testament? Can You Actually Say?

What exactly is the New Testament? If someone standing behind you in a long line in the grocery store should lean over and out of the blue ask:  “Hey, can you tell me what the New Testament is”, what would you say? (This happens to you every day, right?)  This person wants it in one sentence.  Well – come up with something.  What would you say?  (Try to formulate something before reading any further.) I’m not sure what I would say, but I would have a ton of options in my head, depending on what I thought she wanted really to know and on what kind of mood I was in (probably a foul one, if I’m in a long line).   But among the options, here would be a relatively decent one: “The New Testament is the collection of twenty-seven books thought to be written by the apostles of Jesus that came to be considered Christian Scripture.” If she wants either clarification or more information, I or you could go from there. [...]

2025-01-03T23:19:14-05:00January 12th, 2025|Public Forum|

Seats Still Available! Blog Dinner in Tampa this Friday (January 17)

In case you didn't see the announcement the first time!  There are still some seats that can be filled for my blog dinner this week in Tampa, if you're interested.  Here is the original post:   I will be in Tampa next week and would like to do a Blog Dinner on Friday, January 17, with any blog members who happen to be around or can, well, get around.  Probably around 6:30 or so for drinks to start (for whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger), and location TBD. You interested?  I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7.   For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest.  Whatever you exgest is free. If you're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment.  Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!    

2025-01-11T12:13:37-05:00January 11th, 2025|Public Forum|

Do You Understand the Entire New Testament? Announcing My New Blog Thread

Most readers of the blog are interested – either passionately, intently, deeply, moderately, or somewhat – in, well, the New Testament.  But many do not actually know much about it as a whole.  You may well be the exception!  But hey, all of you are exceptional. My view is that anyone who claims to be a New Testament aficionado should be familiar with the basic contents of each book and know the essential facts about it – both its major themes / emphases and its basic historical context – when it was written, by whom, and for what reason. On the most basic level, that would mean being able to state what any of the 27 books is about in ONE SENTENCE.  How many of you can summarize the major themes and emphases of the Gospel of Luke in one sentence?  Or, well, 2 Thessalonians?  1 Peter?   Ephesians?  My guess is: very few indeed.  Or how many can explain what we know about the author of any of these books (without looking it up!)? Exactly. [...]

2025-01-03T23:08:29-05:00January 11th, 2025|Public Forum|

Other Critical Approaches to the New Testament (by Prof. Shaily Patel)

Most of my textbook approaches the New Testament from a historical and traditional literary point of view.  But there are many other approaches that one can take to the Bible or any other writing.  In recent decades other theoretical forms of analysis have developed and fruitfully employed by scholars. I decided to say something about these theoretical approaches in my book so students would be informed about them, even though I do not employ them in the book itself.  Since critical theory is not my long suit, I asked my then graduate student and now Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Tech, Shaily Patel (who is deeply familiar with various kinds of theoretical discourse) to write up a short summary for me. Here is the Excursus she produced, now in the textbook. ******************************   Methods of Ideological Criticism By Shaily Patel So far in this book, we have examined a number of different critical methods for studying the writings of the New Testament, all of them firmly committed to a traditional [...]

2025-01-03T22:59:30-05:00January 9th, 2025|Public Forum|

Getting the Bible Digitally (by Jeffrey Siker)

In my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (now in the 8th ed., co-authored with Hugo Mendez), another feature I rather like are several "excursuses" on key issues I chose not to deal with in the text itself.  A couple of these were written by other scholars in the field, including this important one on Digital Bibles by my friend and occasional blog-contributor Jeff Siker. Jeff is on the blog, and will be willing to answer any questions you have. ****************************** The changing technology of writing and reading has always played a major role in the transmission and interpretation of the New Testament; from papyrus rolls to parchment codices to Gutenberg’s printing press; and, finally, to our modern digital age. We are still learning how a digital screen, rather than a printed book, affects the way we read and understand. This applies to the Bible more than any other book, since no other has held (and continues to hold) the special place of the Bible within Christian tradition and Western [...]

2025-01-06T13:03:55-05:00January 8th, 2025|Public Forum|
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