BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 112 of 206

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.

Thanksgiving Musings 2018

Some musings on this Thanksgiving, 2018. To be honest, like so many others, I find it much easier to be thankful when I have a lot to be thankful for. I suppose being a truly thankful person would entail being thankful even when most of life was very hard and difficult. I’ve had times like that in my life, and at least as I recall, even then I found things to be thankful for – a loving family and the possibility, at least, of a good future at least. But lots and lots of people don’t have even those. Maybe thankfulness isn’t for everyone. On the other hand, there are lots and lots of people (I know a number of them, and I know *about* far more) who have masses and masses of good things, unbelievably good things, who aren’t thankful at all. They are simply greedy. No matter how much they have, it is never enough. Instead of being grateful for their good fortune, they relentlessly reflect on how they want more and more, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:57-04:00November 22nd, 2018|Reflections and Ruminations|

Deciding on Which Books Should Be in the New Testament

I am in the midst of a thread in which I explain why it is puzzling that the Apocalypse of Peter did not make it into the New Testament, when the book of 2 Peter did. So far I have talked about both books, as well as the Gospel of Peter, another Petrine book that did not "make it." Now I need to explain how church fathers decided which books would be accepted as official scripture and which not. I've dealt with the issue on the blog several times over the years, the first time being in response to a question on the matter I received some six years ago. What I said then is what I would still say now! Here it is: QUESTION: I just read Jesus, Interrupted … and have now seen that you have written quite a few books and articles. I am particularly interested in how the books of the New Testament were chosen and why/how the others were not. Can you recommend a good read for this? RESPONSE: [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:57-04:00November 21st, 2018|Fourth-Century Christianity, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Question: How Do I Read Books?

Here is a question I get asked regularly, and I"ve just now seen I answered it on the blog many years ago. Worth answering it again! How do I read books? This is what I said in 2012 and it's still true in 2018! ***************************************************************************** QUESTION: How do you go about reading books? Which methods do you use in order to read as much as possibile? How do make plans how much to read? Do you highlight things in books? Do you you’re your own comments? Summaries? Any other tips? RESPONSE: Ah, this is an interesting question. As it turns out, there’s not an easy answer. That’s because there are many different ways I read books, depending on what kind of book it is. I realize we’re talking about books dealing with scholarship – not Victorian novels! But I read different books differently depending on what it is, what it’s about, and what I want/need to get out of it. When I was in graduate school I had a friend who insisted that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:57-04:00November 19th, 2018|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Early Debates about the Gospel of Peter

This is the second of my two posts on the Gospel of Peter, and in some ways it is the more important one. Here I talk about what we knew about the Gospel, before it was discovered, from the writings of the ancient church fathers. One of these discussions in particular will provide us with the information I’m heading for, of why the Gospel was not accepted into the canon of the New Testament. (It shows only a single instance of a debate about it, but the terms of the debate are instructive.) These comments come from the “Introduction” to the Gospel that I wrote for the new translation and edition of the early apocryphal Gospels, that I produced with my colleague Zlatko Plese. ************************************************************** The third-century Origen is the first patristic author to mention a Gospel allegedly written by Jesus’ disciple Simon Peter. Origen indicates that the book may have spoken of Jesus’ “brothers” as sons of Joseph from a previous marriage (Commentary on Matthew 10.17). It is not clear that Origen had actually [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:57-04:00November 18th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Fourth-Century Christianity|

Now, The Gospel of Peter

I am devoting this thread to understanding why the Apocalypse of Peter did not make it into the New Testament, when other Petrine books, especially 2 Peter, did make it in. I’ve summarized what happens in both these books, but to contextualize my remarks further, I have to provide information on yet another Petrine book that did not make it in, the “Gospel of Peter.” I’ve talked about this Gospel several times on the blog before, but since it is important to the train of thought here, I need to devote a couple of posts to it again. Here is what I say about the discovery of the manuscript (the manuscript that also contained the Apocalypse of Peter) and its contents. This discussion is taken from my book The Other Gospels, co-authored and edited with my colleague Zlatko Plese. ************************************************************ What we now call the Gospel of Peter was found in one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries of Christian texts in the nineteenth century. In the winter season of 1886-87 a French archaeological team [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 16th, 2018|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

Interested in Taking a Trip With Me to Greece and Turkey?

I have just finalized the deal. I will be giving lectures on an amazing trip to Greece and Turkey this coming June, 2019, with a company called Thalassa Journeys. The theme is centered around the journeys of the apostle Paul, and is called "St. Paul in the World of Late Antiquity: Civilizations and Faiths in Transition." For the trip we go to some of the key places in Paul's missionary work: Thessaloniki, Philippi, Ephesus (staying on the Isle of Samos!), Patmos (connected of course with John the author of Revelation, rather than Paul: but it's in the area and is an important site!), Athens, and Corinth. On the trip I'll be lecturing on various aspects of Paul's travels and teachings, and will be hanging out, of course, with other travellers the whole time. The itinerary and planning all look truly great. You interested? If so, CLICK HERE to download the brochure. I think you'll agree, it looks terrific. Anyone connected with the blog (or anyone else who sees this who can claim to be a [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 14th, 2018|Public Forum|

Introducing the Book of 2 Peter

To make sense of the difficulty I’ve been having in figuring out what they Apocalypse of Peter did not make it into the NT, but the book of 2 Peter did, I need to say a bit about the latter – and probably about *other* Petrine books that did or did not make It (which also claim to be written by Peter even though the author was someone else). Here is a brief introduction to the book of 2 Peter, taken from my textbook on the New Testament. ******************************************************************* 2 PETER For a variety of reasons, there is less debate about the authorship of 2 Peter than any other pseudepigraphon in the New Testament. The vast majority of critical scholars agree that whoever wrote the book, it was not Jesus’ disciple Simon Peter. As was the case with 1 Peter, this author is a relatively sophisticated and literate Greek-speaking Christian, not an Aramaic-speaking Jewish peasant. At the same time, the writing style of the book is so radically different from that of 1 Peter that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 13th, 2018|Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity|

Introducing the Apocalypse of Peter

As I said in my last post, I have been putting a lot of time into reading the scholarship on the Apocalypse of Peter, an early-second-century text that describes the torments of the damned in some graphic detail, and that almost came to be accepted as part of the New Testament canon. I’m puzzling long and hard over why, in the end, it did not make it in. It’s not an easy question to answer, given our scant discussions of it the matter antiquity, and given the fact that, well, there are no obvious disqualifying features. But I’ll get to all that later. First it’s important to summarize what the text is, so we’re all on the same page. Here is how I introduce it in my textbook on the New Testament. ****************************************************** The last Christian apocalypse for us to consider claims to be a firsthand account of the tortures of hell and the ecstasies of heaven written in the name of Jesus’ disciple Peter. As we have seen, there are a large number of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 12th, 2018|Afterlife, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

A Very Perplexing Question

As many of you know I am on sabbatical this year at the National Humanities. This gives me a year off from teaching duties in order to focus on my research for my next book. I am not working on a trade book for a general audience, but a scholarly monograph meant for academics in the field of Early Christian studies. I’ve talked about the book before on the blog, but want to say a few more things about it now that I’ve been doing research on it. I have no idea what it will be called, but I know what I want it to be about. It is related to my trade book (which itself is virtually finished – I still need to put the final touches on it before sending it in to my editor), whose tentative title (the trade book) is “Heaven, Hell, and the Invention of the Afterlife” (again, who knows what it will finally be called; that has to be worked out between the publisher, my agent, and me). The [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 11th, 2018|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Reflections and Ruminations|

Thanksgiving and the Blog

If you are like me, you stand amazed at the even-more-increasing commercialization of Christmas. How could it get *more*?!? But it is. Remember the good old days when commercials hit the day after Thanksgiving? Instead of, well, before Halloween? Sigh…. I’m impressed and thankful, though, that Thanksgiving hasn’t gotten that crazy yet. It’s a bit strange that it hasn’t, almost as if there’s a sacred aura about it that keeps it from being capitalized. Unlike one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar??? Go figure. For me, for a long time, Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday. A simple and crystal clear message with deep resonances. Many of us have so much to be thankful for. And we devote a day to it. If we are lucky, we can spend it with family and friends, cooking, eating, talking, and doing other things we like. How good can it get? Like all holidays, it’s very hard on other people. Obviously the homeless and hungry. The disenfranchised. Those driven out of their homes or countries. The [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 9th, 2018|Reflections and Ruminations|

Old and Ongoing Criticisms!

I was browsing through old posts from the blog and came across this one from almost exactly six years ago, about criticisms people make of my work. They still make the same wretched criticisms! But here I try to answer two of the most common ones I hear, based on a perceptive (and non-antagonistic) question about them. I think the same thing today, as I'm demonstrably older and allegedly wiser. QUESTION: I want to ask your thoughts on something quickly because I think it points out one of the concerns I have with what you write and say. It seems that you have a willingness to take different positions (or maybe emphasize different positions is the right way to say it) depending on where you are and what you're advocating. In your interview with the Infidel Guy and other places, you talk about how ancient writings were dictated all the time. On the Infidel Guy show, for example, you said the following: "Every person who wrote epistles in the ancient world dictated them to scribes". [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 7th, 2018|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

The De-apocalypticized Jesus of the Gospel of John

An important request I received recently! QUESTION At some point, I would like to hear more about the Gospel of John not having an apocalyptic view of Jesus. RESPONSE This question relates closely to the work I’ve been doing on the views of the afterlife in the early Christian tradition. As I’ve pointed out on the blog many times before, John was the last canonical Gospel written, probably 60-65 years after Jesus’ death. One of the most striking things about John’s account of Jesus message, at this far a remove from Jesus’ life, is that his message has become seriously de-apocalypticized. In John, Jesus no longer speaks of the coming intervention of God to bring in his glorious kingdom. Instead, he principally talks about heaven above, and how people can go there by believing in him. That is not to say ... To see the rest of this post you will need to belong to the blog. If you don't belong, join before it is too late! The end is near! [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 6th, 2018|Afterlife, Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

How Christianity Grew and Grew

This will be the final post on the new boxes in my Introduction to the New Testament; both of these are on a related topic, tied to my book The Triumph of Christianity, so I will include them both there. One has to do with how miracles allegedly led to conversions of pagans to the new faith; the other charts the rate of growth that it appears the Christian church experienced in the early years. ********************************************************** Another Glimpse Into the Past Box 26.4 Legendary Confrontations with Pagans As the Christian gospel spread throughout the Roman world, a number of legendary accounts appeared portraying the confrontations between Christian missionaries and their pagan opponents (see Box 9.6). In these accounts, the Christians’ miracles trump the power of the pagan Gods. One involves the apostle John in an apocryphal book called “The Acts of John.” John arrives at the magnificent temple of the great goddess of the Ephesians, Artemis, and confronts a large crowd of pagans celebrating the goddess’s birthday, challenging them to a kind of spiritual [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 5th, 2018|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Spread of Christianity|

Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise?

Here is an interesting question I have received closely connected with the work I’ve been doing on the different views about the afterlife – what happens to us when we die? – in the early Christian tradition. It has to do with a key verse that has been much debated over the years, a verse found only in Luke’s Gospel, in which Jesus assures the “robber” being crucified with him, that he will that day awaken in paradise. Or *is* that what Jesus says? QUESTION Now that you mention about the differences in translations I would like to ask about how the Jehovah’s witnesses in their New World Translation bible Luke 23:43: And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.” They have inserted a comma after today because their bias is that the paradise is in the future not the day Jesus died. Besides their bias do you see any other indication that that rendition would be probable? RESPONSE: In my book I try [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:56-04:00November 4th, 2018|Afterlife, Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Miraculous Conversions in the Book of Acts

This new box in my New Testament Introduction deals with one of the fascinating and best documented phenomena from early Christianity -- that the earliest followers of Jesus were believed to be able to do great miracles, leading to the conversion of outsiders to the new faith. This notion is recorded already in our earliest sources. Here is what I say about it from the book of Acts, our first account of the spread of Christianity. ************************************************************************ Another Glimpse Into the Past Box. 17.6 Miraculous Conversions in Acts We have seen that the earliest Christians spread their faith by telling tales of the great miracles done by both Jesus and his apostles (see Box xxx). We find such miracle stories in our earliest account of the first conversions to the Christian faith, in the book of Acts. The first episode occurs already in chapter 2, where the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles on the Day of Pentecost, less than two months after Jesus’ death. When the Jewish crowds hear the Spirit-filled apostles preach in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:55-04:00November 2nd, 2018|Acts of the Apostles, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s Churches

Another one of the new boxes in my textbook on the New Testament ********************************************************* Another Glimpse into the Past Box 21.2. Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s Churches The earliest Christians, immediately after Jesus’ resurrection, were obviously Jews: eleven of the apostles (minus Judas Iscariot) and a handful of women, including Mary Magdalene. Once these followers came to believe, they converted others they came into contact with – all of them, at first, Jews. But the Jewish Christian church was never a huge success. Later sources occasionally mention smallish Jewish groups of Christians, but apart from the church in Jerusalem, these never played a huge role in the ongoing life of the church in the early centuries. Jewish Christianity was almost always on the margins. It was probably heading to the margins by ... To see the rest of this post you'll need to belong to the blog. It takes little effort and not much money to join. And you'll be so loaded up with important knowledge you won't know what to do with yourself. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:44-04:00November 2nd, 2018|Paul and His Letters|

Jesus and Hell

The second of my two boxes today from the new edition of my textbook. This one of even more pressing importance: what did Jesus think of hell? ************************************************************* Another Glimpse Into the Past Box 15.8 Hell in the Teaching of Jesus Jesus sometimes indicates that on the Day of Judgment sinners will be cast, unburied, into the most unholy, repulsive, God-forsaken place that anyone in Israel could imagine, the valley known as “Gehenna.” He says, for example that it is better to gouge out your eye that sins or amputate your hand and enter the kingdom maimed than to be tossed into Gehenna with eye and hand intact (Matthew 5:29, 30) Gehenna is obviously serious. But what is it? The word is often mistranslated in English Bibles as “hell” (e.g., in the NIV and the NRSV; see Matthew 5:22, 29, 30). But, Gehenna is not “hell” in the modern sense of a place (inside the earth) where sinners are tormented forever. Then what is it? To find out, you will need to belong to the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:44-04:00October 31st, 2018|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

The Value of Eyewitness Testimony

The first of today's two-short-posts from new "Boxes" in my New Testament textbook, on a matter of vital importance to anyone interested in knowing about the historical Jesus. ********************************************************************** What Do You Think? Box 13.3 The Value of Eyewitness Testimony If you want to know about something that happened in the past – whether in a criminal trial or just among your family and friends – you almost always prefer to learn what an eyewitness saw or heard. And so most of us unreflectively think an eyewitness report is highly reliable. But is that the case? Eyewitness testimony has been studied by legal experts and psychologists since the early twentieth century. The first important case study occurred in 1902. In a law school in Berlin, a well-known criminologist named von Liszt was delivering a lecture when an argument broke out. One student stood up and shouted that he wanted to show how the topic was related to Christian ethics. Another got up and yelled that he would not put up with that. The first [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:44-04:00October 31st, 2018|Historical Jesus, Memory Studies|

Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library and Some Crucial Missing Parts!

I have been making two-posts-a-day, giving the new “boxes” that I've written for the seventh edition of my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Today, as it turns out, the two boxes I was going to post are both about the Nag Hammadi Library (the so-called “Gnostic Gospels”). So I’ll simply include both of them in this one post. Happy reading! *********************************************************** Another Glimpse Into the Past 11.6 The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library The chance discovery of a cache of ancient Christian documents in a remote part of Upper Egypt -- the Nag Hammadi library -- is a story of serendipity, ineptitude, secrecy, ignorance, scholarly brilliance, murder, and blood revenge. Even now, after scholars have spent years trying to piece it all together, details of the find remain sketchy. We do know that it occurred around ... To see the rest of this post you will need to belong to the blog. It doesn't cost much to join, you get tons for your money, and every nickle [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:44-04:00October 30th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

The Difference Between Eschatology and Apocalypticism

QUESTION I have recently been reading John Meier's books and he almost always calls Jesus (and John the Baptist), eschatological prophets (once stating Jesus having a "tinge of apocalypticism" or something to that effect). And you always refer to Jesus as an "apocalyptic prophet". Do you make any distinction in the terms "eschatological" and "apocalyptic"? RESPONSE Ah, it’s a good question. These terms are an endless source of confusion for people – even scholars sometimes. I think the problem is that different scholars work with different definitions and often they have not thought through carefully the implications of their terminology. So let me explain how I work it all out, by defining/describing a set of terms that are all closely related but distinct (in my head): eschatology (and eschatological); apocalypticism; apocalyptic; and apocalypse. Eschatology. This is a broad term that simply means ... To see the rest of this post, you will need to belong to the blog. If you haven't joined yet, what are you waiting for? Remember, the END IS NEAR!! Join [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:42:44-04:00October 29th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

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