BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 161 of 179

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.

Historical Problems with the Hebrew Bible: The Conquest of Canaan

This will be my final post, for now, on the problems with the Hebrew Bible. I couldn’t resist one last set of comments on the historicity of the accounts narrated there, this time with respect to the stories in the book of Joshua about the Conquest of the Promised Land (Jericho and so on). Here too I am citing what I lay out in my forthcoming textbook on the Bible ***************************************************************************** When considering the historicity of the narratives of Joshua, the first thing to re-emphasize is that these are not accounts written by eyewitnesses or by anyone who knew an eyewitness. They were written some 600 years later, and were based on oral traditions that had been in circulation among people in Israel during all those intervening centuries. Moreover, they are clearly molded according to theological assumptions and perspectives. Biblical scholars have long noted that there is almost nothing in the accounts that suggest that the author is trying to be purely descriptive of things that really happened. He is writing an account that appears [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-31T21:53:46-05:00June 10th, 2013|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

Historical Problems with the Hebrew Bible: The Exodus Narrative

In response to a question about the problems posed to critical scholars by the Hebrew Bible I have so far provided two posts, one involving the surviving manuscripts (do we know what the authors originally said?) and the other with apparent discrepancies (where accounts appear to be at odds with one another). I will now provide a couple of posts dealing with the equally big problem that the Hebrew Bible narrates events that probably did not take place, at least as described. Today I will provide a chunk from my forthcoming book on the Bible about the exodus event under Moses, in which Moses led the children of Israel out from their slavery in Egypt and a great miracle transpired at the parting of the Sea of Reeds (traditionally called the Red Sea), where the children of Israel were allowed to cross on dry land before the waters rushed back destroying Pharaoh's entire army (as narrated in Exodus 14). It's an absolutely amazing, terrific story. But it does not appear to be historical. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:28:10-04:00June 9th, 2013|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reader’s Questions|

Inconsistencies in the Hebrew Bible

Yesterday I started answering a question about whether the problems in the Hebrew Bible were as significant as those in the New Testament, and my response was: Yes! Even more so! In yesterday’s post I talked about the problem with the manuscripts. In this post I’ll talk about internal discrepancies and contradictions. Rather than write the whole thing out, though, I’ve decided just to include a chunk that deals with the issue from my Introduction to the Bible, which is due out in the Fall. Here I am talking about what 19th and 20th century critical scholars discovered with respect to discrepancies within the Pentateuch, leading to the theory that the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture actually derived from four major sources, written at different times, that have been spliced together, creating internal problems. ****************************************************************************************************************** The internal tensions came to be seen as particularly significant. Nowhere were these tensions more evident than in the opening accounts of the very first book of the Pentateuch, in the creation stories of Genesis chapters 1 and [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:28:19-04:00June 8th, 2013|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reader’s Questions|

Problems with the Hebrew Bible Manuscripts

QUESTION: Bart, these issues you've found in the New Testament, have you studied and found similar issues in the Old Testament?" RESPONSE: Yes indeed! Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) was my secondary field in my PhD program, and I taught Introduction to Hebrew Bible at both Rutgers and UNC. A few years ago when I decided to write my Introduction to the Bible I decided that to do it right I had to re-tool in Hebrew Bible. I’m by no means an expert, but I have caught up on a good deal of scholarship and re-learned Hebrew (I hadn’t read it in years). I try to read some Hebrew Bible every morning; I’m not great at it, but I can slog through with a dictionary….. So, I think it’s fair to say that the problems that I have talked about in my publications about the New Testament are even more pronounced for the Hebrew Bible. I think I will take three of the big issues (I’m happy to address others if there are any [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:28:28-04:00June 7th, 2013|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus’ Inflammatory Words

QUESTION: Were the claims Jesus made about himself, or the comments he made about other sects or leaders within Judaism, likely to have produced an angry or violent response from devout Jews in Jerusalem during Passover? Were his comments any more "out of the ordinary" than others would have been making about, say, the Temple authorities or whomever? RESPONSE: A full answer to this very good question would take a full book. In fact, scholars *have* written entire books on it! So here let me just lay out my views on the matter – none of which is particularly controversial among critical scholars. (i.e., this is fairly standard stuff). First: I don’t think Jesus made any comments about his identity that would have aroused opposition among Jewish leaders or regular Jews when he arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover feast, a week before his death (or any time during that week). In no small measure that’s because I do not think Jesus’ proclamation – either during that week or at any time during his ministry [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:28:36-04:00June 6th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Mark and the Resurrection

QUESTION: I heard a scholar (I think it was JD Crossan) saying that the absence of a resurrected Jesus in Mark's original gospel reflects the confusion and anxiety that forlorn Jews would have felt after the destruction of the Temple? Do you think this is the case? If so, how does it fit in with the belief (widespread among scholars, I believe) that the accounts of a visibly resurrected Jesus were in circulation long before 70 AD and probably came from Peter, Paul , and Mary M? RESPONSE: I don’t recall ever hearing this view before – so I’m not sure where you may have read it. I would have to read a fuller exposition of the view to make better sense of it, but off hand, I don’t think it’s plausible, for several reasons. First, a lot hinges on what is meant by “the absence of the resurrected Jesus” in Mark. People often get Mark’s account wrong by saying that there is no resurrection in Mark. That’s absolutely not true. In Mark, Jesus is [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:28:48-04:00June 4th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Reader’s Questions|

More on Mark and Peter

In answering the question about why it appears that Mark did not serve as the scribe/secretary for Peter, writing down Peter’s (Aramaic) recollections of his time with Jesus and putting them in narrative form in Greek, I already discussed the slender record of that being the origin of Mark’s Gospel, based on the discussion in Papias. Now in this post I want to discuss the direct evidence that suggests that this is not how Mark’s Gospel came into being. Here I will make three points. First – this will not seem overly convincing to some readers, but then again it’s not really my main point – there is in fact nothing in Mark’s Gospel to make anyone think that it is Peter’s version, any more, than, say the Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of John. There is no first-person narrative, no recollection about what “Jesus said to me” and so on. Peter is one of the main figures – yes indeed. But the Gospel is not told from his perspective. FOR THE REST [...]

BDEhrman2021-01-20T01:01:21-05:00June 3rd, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Mark as Peter’s Scribe

QUESTION: Why are scholars almost certain that Peter did not give the general details of Jesus' life and ministry to his companion Mark, who faithfully recorded the details in Greek, in the style found in his gospel? I know you've said that someone such as Peter, aside from not knowing Greek, almost certainly wouldn't have had the ability to build the relatively sophisticated structure of Mark's gospel, but why couldn't Mark have "put form" on Peter's prosaic verbal account ? RESPONSE: This is a very good question, and as it turns out it is a bit complicated. The first thing to say is that one has to look for *evidence* if one wants to think, for example, that Mark is recording the traditions given to the author by Peter. The idea that he does so ultimately goes back to Papias. To begin answering the question, in this post I thought I’d talk about Papias and the tradition of the Gospels. And rather than write it all out from scratch, I’ve decided simply to reproduce [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:29:07-04:00June 1st, 2013|Canonical Gospels, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Proto-Orthodox Writers, Reader’s Questions|

Future Books

QUESTION: I'm curious to know of future projects you have in mind after you complete your commentary on 2nd century gospels. RESPONSE: As I’ve indicated on this blog before, I try to alternate the kinds of books I write. Most scholars don’t do it that way. I have friends – my closest friends in the field, in fact – who want only to do scholarship and nothing else, and so they write scholarly monograph after scholarly monograph. This is an enormous service to the academic community, as it is only through work like that that we are able to advance knowledge. I know of other people who want only to write for popular audiences. And it is easy to see how someone can get “bit by the bug” and want to do nothing else. Some popular authors make a lot of money from their books, they get asked to give lectures in front of large audiences, they get their names in the media, and it’s all very seductive. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:29:15-04:00May 31st, 2013|Book Discussions, Reader’s Questions|

Agnostic or Atheist?

I apparently threw a few people for a loop yesterday when I referred to myself as an atheist. Several readers responded, wanting to know if I had changed my views, since I have publicly stated that I am an agnostic. I posted on this issue a while back – possibly a long while back – but since I don’t expect everyone to read everything I’ve ever written on this blog (!), I thought maybe I should explain my views again. So – apologies to those of you who have heard this before. When I became an agnostic – 17 or 18 years ago? I’m not even sure any more – I thought that “agnosticism” and “atheism” were two *degrees* of basically the same thing. My sense is that this is what most people think. According to this idea, an agnostic is someone who says that s/he does not *know* whether God exists, and an atheist is someone who makes a definitive statement that God does *not* exist. Agnostics don’t know and atheists are sure. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:29:24-04:00May 30th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Historical Jesus Scholarship and Christians

QUESTION: If historical Jesus scholars believes that Jesus' main message was the imminent apocalypse, and that didn't happen, how can anyone who believe that remain a Christian, given that Jesus was wrong on the main focus of his life? RESPONSE: It’s a great question. Let me say several things briefly in response. First, there are a number of historical Jesus scholars who do not see Jesus in this way (most prominently, members of the Jesus Seminar, such as Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan). Their views are not in the majority among critical scholars, but it is worth noting that they see Jesus as thoroughly *non*-apocalyptic. My sense is that the majority of scholars, however, continue to see Jesus as apocalyptic in his preaching – including such noteworthies as E. P. Sanders, Dale Allison, Paula Fredriksen, Geza Vermes, and – well, it’s a long list. Most New Testament scholars – and, of course, that subset: Historical Jesus scholars – are Christian. For obvious reasons. The people most likely to be interested in early Christianity and [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:29:33-04:00May 29th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Exciting Discovery of a Hebrew Bible Scroll

An exciting discovery has been made of the oldest scroll containing the Pentateuch (it is not as old as the Leningrad *codex* from around the year 1000; but it is the oldest *scroll* with the entire text – 12th century or 13th). My thanks to my colleage Evyatar Marienburg, knowledgeable about all scholarship Jewish, for informing me about this. For the fuller account, see https://www.facebook.com/groups/375003239611/permalink/10151699916354612/ PRESS RELEASE THE MOST ANCIENT EXISTING SCROLL OF THE HEBREW PENTATEUCH, DISCOVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF BOLOGNA The document, located and identified by a professor of the University of Bologna contains the entire text of the Torah, dates back to a period between the second half of the 12th century and the beginning of 13th (1155-1225) and is kept at the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna (BUB). Bologna, 28 May 2013. The University Library of Bologna has kept from times immemorial, and without knowing, the world’s oldest scroll of the Hebrew Pentateuch. The document, labeled as "Roll 2", is of soft sheep leather (36 meters long and 64 cm high), [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-31T22:09:03-05:00May 28th, 2013|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum, Religion in the News|

More on Jews, Christians, and the Battle for Scripture

In yesterday’s post I indicated that my next trade book, to be written in a couple of years, would deal with the question of Jews and Christians, centered on the question of why Christians kept the Old Testament and how doing so led to controversies with Jews. The following is how I set up the issue that I will be addressing. The second-century Christian theologian Marcion maintained that the Old Testament was the Scripture of the Jews. Christians, however, were not Jews; they were followers of Jesus. Moreover, the loving God of Jesus was not the wrathful God of the Jews. For Marcion, Jews and Christians had nothing in common except in a negative sense: the Jews represented everything the Christians rejected, including the inferior, legalistic God who chose the Jewish people and gave them their Scriptures. Christians have their own beneficent and salvation-bringing God, and their own Scriptures. For Marcion, the Old Testament is not part of the Christian Bible. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:29:41-04:00May 27th, 2013|Book Discussions, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions|

The Next Trade Book: Jews and Christians

QUESTION: I was wondering if someday you will write a book on the rise of anti-Judaism in early Christian circles ? If you were to write such a book, what would the title and the subtitle be ? RESPONSE: As it turns out, that is indeed to be the topic of my next trade book, which I plan to write in a couple of years. As I have said on this blog before, I try to alternate the kinds of books I write: trade books for a general audience, textbooks for college students, and scholarly books for the six people in the world who really care. Now that I am putting the finishing touches on my trade book How Jesus Became God, I am getting ready to work on my next scholarly book. This will be a heavy-hitting scholarly commentary on the early Christian Greek Gospel fragments from the early second century, including most notably the Gospel of Peter, Papyrus Egerton 2, the Jewish Christian Gospels (Gospel according to the Hebrews; Gospel of the Nazareans; [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:29:49-04:00May 26th, 2013|Book Discussions, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions|

What Judas Betrayed

In my last post I indicated that I would write, next, on what it was, in my opinion, that Judas betrayed. It is commonly thought, based on the NT evidence, that he indicated to the authorities where Jesus could be found apart from the crowds. Maybe that’s right, even though, as I indicated, I do have some doubts about it. Even if it is right, there may be more to it than that. I think the following data are worth bearing in mind, leading to the resolution of the question that I prefer. (At first these data may not seem relevant: but hang in there for a minute!) There is nothing to indicate that Jesus publically proclaimed himself the messiah or, more specifically, that he ever publicly announced that he was the King of the Jews during his lifetime. You find Jesus accepting the title messiah in the later Gospels, but the first time it becomes a public issue, in our earliest account, Mark, is at Jesus’ trial in 14:61-62. And never is the King [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:30:11-04:00May 25th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

More on Judas

Several people misunderstood what I was trying to say in my post yesterday about Paul’s knowledge of Judas Iscariot. It was probably my fault for not being clear enough. I was *not*, decidedly *not*, trying to argue that the tradition that Judas betrayed Jesus was unhistorical. Quite the contrary, for reasons I’ll explain in a second, I think this is a completely historical tradition. I was simply asking whether Paul himself knew about it. He may well have known about it. But he gives no indication in his surviving writings that he did – either because he was in fact ignorant about it, or because he assumed his readers already knew all they needed to know about it, or because he had no occasion to bring it up in his surviving letters, or for some other reason. But I do indeed think that – whatever Paul did or did not know about the matter – that Jesus was betrayed by one of his own, Judas Iscariot. In my judgment, this tradition passes all of our [...]

BDEhrman2020-05-22T09:46:35-04:00May 24th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Paul on Judas

Several people have asked me to comment on whether Paul shows any evidence of knowing about the tradition that Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. As a first step, it’s necessary to point out that Paul says very little indeed – surprisingly little – about the historical Jesus -- that is, about what Jesus said, did, and experienced between the time of his birth and his death. (Paul obviously says a *lot* about Jesus’ death and resurrection, just not much about his life.) The following are about the only things he tells us: Jesus was born of a woman (Gal 4:4) He was born a Jew (Gal 4:4) He had brothers (1 Cor. 9:5); one of whom was James (Gal 1-2) He ministered to Jews (Rom 15:8) He had twelve disciples (1 Cor. 15:6) He held a last supper the last night of his life (1 Cor. 11:22-24) Paul indicates what Jesus said at that meal. Paul indicates two other teachings of Jesus: that Christian ministers should be paid for their work and that Christians [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:30:32-04:00May 23rd, 2013|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus’ Appearance to the 500

QUESTION on 1 Corinthians 15:3-5: "3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters[c] at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. " Where do you think he got his information from especially on the 500? Many say it could only have come from Peter or James or else he made it up, which would be odd. RESPONSE: It’s a great question, and as with many great questions, I don’t think there’s a great answer. There are several things we can say. Paul [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:30:47-04:00May 21st, 2013|Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus’ Rejection in Nazareth

OK, several readers have asked me why I don’t think the story of Jesus’ violent rejection in Nazareth, according to Luke 4:16-30, is historically reliable. The short version is that Luke has taken a story from Mark and expanded it significantly in light of his own literary and theological interests so that the account of the attempted assassination is not multiply attested and it does not pass the criterion of dissimilarity. It looks instead to be a story that Luke has come up with to make a point, a very important point, for his larger narrative. First thing to note (this is frequently noted!): Luke has changed the placement of the story. Mark, Luke’s source, places it almost exactly halfway through Jesus’ public ministry in chapter 6 (the ministry is chs. 1-10 of Mark). For Mark it is all part of the “misunderstanding” motif: Jesus’ family misunderstands who he is (they think he’s crazy), so do the Jewish Leaders (they think he’s possessed by Beelzebub), so do his townsfolk (they think he’s simply the local [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T18:31:12-04:00May 20th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Persecutions for Calling Jesus God

QUESTION: If the pre-'resurrection' Jesus and, later on, his earliest (Jewish) followers had declared Jesus to actually BE God then wouldn't they have been kicked out of the synagogues from the start because of blasphemy? But since that did not happen (Jesus preached in synagogues and his disciples continued to go to synagogues after his 'resurrection' for a while) doesn't that indicate that the earliest Christian belief did NOT contain the claim that Jesus actually was God? RESPONSE: This is a very interesting question and it has made me think for a bit. As I look over all the material that we have, it appears to me that the early Christians *were* regularly kicked out of the synagogues for their claims about Jesus, but that Jesus himself never was. First let me give the evidence for all that, and then deal with an important and related second issue about what those claims were exactly (this is where I’m still feeling my way a bit). FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. If [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-17T14:27:47-04:00May 19th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Catholic Epistles, Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

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