BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 190 of 207

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.

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 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:24-04:00May 19th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Catholic Epistles, Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Geza Vermes

Now that I have been posting on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the historical Jesus, I would be remiss not to mention that one of the absolutely great scholars of modern times, one of the world experts on both the Scrolls and Jesus, died several days ago. Geza Vermes was a formidable scholar. Of the three major English translations of the Scrolls, it is his that I typically use and prefer. In the 1970s he began publishing a series of books on Jesus that did more than almost anything to push for the idea that if Jesus is to be understood, he must be understood as a first century Jew. This was something of a novel idea at the time. It has become the standard view that virtually every Jesus scholar on the planet shares. Vermes was a scholar’s scholar. Professor at Oxford, he was an incredible linguist, intimately familiar with every ancient historical source of relevance, a creative thinker. He wrote books for scholars but also books that were accessible to the educated layperson. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:24-04:00May 19th, 2013|History of Biblical Scholarship, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations, Religion in the News|

Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Yesterday I talked about the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for understanding Jesus and the milieu out of which earliest Christianity grew. My basic point is that if Jesus was a Jew, then to understand him, you have to understand Jews in his world. And the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us valuable information to that end. I am not saying that the Dead Sea Scrolls are representative of what all or even most Jews thought at the time. They clearly are not. If the “Essene hypothesis” is right – and it is the view held by the vast majority of the experts (among whom I do not number myself) (and among whom they do not number me either! ) – then the Scrolls were produced by a Jewish sect that had very distinctive views of its own that were not, in many respects, shared by outsiders. In particular, this was a group of Jews who insisted that the coming apocalyptic judgment, soon to arrive, would bring destruction not only to the hated Romans and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:24-04:00May 16th, 2013|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity

As we used to say back when I was a committed Christian, with respect to prayer: Be careful what you ask for! So I asked for questions that you would like me to address, and I have been receiving them in droves. Some of them I will be able to answer very quickly as a response to the comment itself, some I will handle in a post – or more, depending on how complicated the matter is. (If I intend to answer them in a post, I won’t reply to the comment, just to save some time; but I’ll post the comment/question itself). In any event, I have plenty to keep me busy now for a while! I’ll probably address them in the order in which I received them. For today: Question: Can you write a post on how the Qumran Scrolls advance our understanding of the birth of Christianity? Response: This is a question that can be answered in one sentence, or in a very long and dense book or … anything [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:24-04:00May 15th, 2013|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Back in the Saddle. Sort of….

My plan had been to return to the blog in full force when I got back to the States but, well, I’m a little slow on the uptake. We got back late Saturday night, and I decided to blow Sunday off. Actually, I watched the golf tournament all afternoon. Half way through I started feeling odd. By the end I wasn’t good at all. Stomach virus, probably. Brought it back with me from Israel. As did several other guys on the trip – four men, and none of their wives (including mine) affected. Very strange. Anyway, I’m feeling a bit better now but not quite 70% yet. And I’m finding that I have little mental, as well as physical, energy. SO, what I would propose is that this would be a very good time indeed for some of you to raise some questions for me to address on the blog, about anything having to do with the New Testament, the historical Jesus, the history of early Christianity, or anything else of relevance. I imagine [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:24-04:00May 14th, 2013|Public Forum|

Qumran and Masada

As I anticipated, my last day in Israel was the real climax. We did three things of note (and several other things not of note): the ruins of Qumran, Masada, and the Dead Sea itself. I was disappointed with how our tour dealt with Qumran. At the visitors’ center they now have a rather ridiculous little film to introduce the site, but it consists almost entirely of a dramatization, in which an imaginary member of the Essene community describes his experience in the community; much of the description involves a “human interest” element, suggesting that John the Baptist may have been connected with the sect. There is little in the film about the ancient evidence for the Essenes, and almost nothing about the modern discovery of the scrolls themselves, what they contain, why they’re significant, or the substantial debates surrounding the character of the ruins of Qumran (is it the Essenes’ community? A Roman villa? A fort? What are the arguments?) and surrounding the relationship of the scrolls to it (what ties them to the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00May 12th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reflections and Ruminations|

More in Jerusalem

This has been a great trip. One of the things I’ve liked about it is that it has been focused on Israel in a number of historical periods as well as in the present; it has not been entirely about Christian and Jewish Holy Sites. And so, for example, today we did the City of David (that I’ll talk about below), had a grand overview of the Temple Mount (with the Dome of the Rock), walked through good chunks of the Jewish Quarter, had a very nice lunch outside the old city walls, went to the Jerusalem Market (outdoors, lots of food and spice merchants, etc.), and so on. It wasn’t just one holy site after the other, but there was plenty of holy site time as well. The City of David is in some sense the “original” Jerusalem, the place that King David allegedly conquered from the Jebusites and where he then set up his kingdom. It is outside the “old” city walls, which in fact are (only!) from the 16th century, built when [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00May 9th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

Touring Jerusalem

We are in that part of our tour of Israel – getting near the end – when everything more or less melds together and you can’t remember what you did when or where. These trips involve some serious sensory overload. Today we did some amazing things. First we went to the Western Wall, probably the most sacred spot for Jews in Israel. Years ago people referred to it as the Wailing Wall, but no longer. It is what remains of the wall surrounding the Temple compound back in the days of Jesus, the wall constructed at the time of King Herod. It is most sacred because it is the spot that remains that is closest to what was at the time the Holy of Holies within the temple itself (i.e., it is not a wall of the temple, but of the temple complex). The Temple complex was enormous – large enough to fit 25 (American) football fields (which, among other things, makes it very hard indeed to think that Jesus actually shut down the entire [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00May 8th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Constantine, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations|

On to Jerusalem

Just a quick post because of time constraints. We just got into Jerusalem and I am off to give a lecture in half an hour. We left Tiberias (and the Sea of Galilee) this morning and traveled down to Jerusalem. En route we went to one of the traditional sites of Jesus’ baptism, in the Jordan River; it can’t be the actual site, since it’s way up north and it is clear in our earliest account, Mark’s, that John was baptizing somewhere in walking distance of Jerusalem. But it’s a gorgeous setting, and there are always groups of people getting baptized there – as today. From there we went to Beth Shean, one of the major archaeological sites of (Greek and) Roman ruins in Israel, with terrific colonnaded walk ways, a very nicely preserved theater that seats 8000 (in the Greek style – that is, built into the natural slope of a hill, rather than the Roman style which tended to be “free standing”), some terrific public baths, temples, and lots of other things. We [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00May 6th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reflections and Ruminations|

Capernaum and the “Jesus Boat”

I am typing just now on the third floor of the Scots Hotel in Tiberias, in a room with a glorious view of the Sea of Galilee. In the distance, across are the sea, are clearly visible the Golan Heights, where we spent a day or so, having lunch yesterday just 40 miles from Damascus. All may not be quiet on the Western Front (well, in this case, the Eastern Front) but we are safe and sound, and feel more secure than typically we do even in New York City (!). Yesterday there were two highlights to our trip, for me. Capernaum has always been one of my favorite spots in Israel. It is one of those few places where the archaeological record is interesting and the literary texts are important at one and the same time. In terms of literary texts: according to the Gospels, this is the home town of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, the first disciples of Jesus; and it is the place that Jesus used more or less as his [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00May 5th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations|

Caesarea Maritima

Many apologies to any- and everyone who has grown accustomed to me posting virtually every day on the blog. I left NC for Israel on Tuesday, flew overnight to Tel Aviv, and have been on the run ever since with scarcely a free minute to call my own. Today is … Saturday (I think), so it must be Tiberias…. I am hoping that from now on I’ll be able to squeeze in some time to do a daily post – but I can make no promises. I am on a tour group with for the UNC General Alumni Association. There are 25 of us; I’m giving a few lectures; and we are hitting some of the real highlights of Israel. We spent a couple of nights in Tel Aviv; spent last night on a kibbutz on the Golan Heights, within view of Lebanon and Syria, and now are in Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee for two nights. It would take a long time indeed to talk about the highlights of the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00May 4th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Reflections and Ruminations|

Off to Israel

I'm off to Israel first thing tomorrow morning, and will be gone for ten days. I’ll be on email most days; I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to blog, but I’ll do my best. So this is an alumni tour for UNC, just over 20 people going (they limited it to that size), along with Sarah and me. It’s a great deal for me. On these things the university will send a faculty member who gives a few lectures, hangs out with the people, answers questions, engages in conversation – and gets a free trip out of it! Things could be worse…. This will be my fourth time in Israel. The first time I went was in 1993, and I remember quite vividly thinking before that that it was not a place I much wanted to visit. That seems weird – and seemed weird to me even at the time – since obviously a good deal of my research has to do with Israel 2000 years ago. But I think that I had [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00April 29th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

The God Christ and the Jews

I should probably at some point provide a sketch of how my book How Jesus Became God will be structured and organized (I don’t *think* I’ve done that yet; I need to look). In any event, in the second to last chapter I show how by the fourth century there was a broad consensus that Jesus was God in a very concrete sense: he was co-eternal with God the Father (there never was a time before which he did not exist) and was “of the same substance” with the Father, and therefore was actually equal with the Father. In the final chapter, I go into the ramifications of this view for various polemical relationships Christians were in: with pagans (whose emperor used to be a competitor-divine-man with Jesus), with one another (as more Christological controversies erupted), and with Jews. Here’s a part of my section on what the effect of the claim that Jesus was God had on the relations of Christians and Jews. ****************************************************************************** To discuss the rise of Christian anti-Judaism in antiquity would [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:11-04:00April 27th, 2013|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Proto-Orthodox Writers|

Sorry!

OK, apologies to all 29,475 of you who noticed that I said "astrology" instead of "astronomy" yesterday, and that I dated the earth -- not the universe --at 13.8 billion years old. Mistakes noted! It was a long day: ten hours of writing and editing, and then the blog. Yuk! But, well, at least I know that lots of you were paying attention. I won't post your comments if they simply were making corrections this time around..... I am nearing the finish line with the draft of the book. I've written all ten chapters and the Preface, and edited it all once. Now I'm working on the second time through, editing, adding footnotes, improving style, polishing, and so on. On Monday I'll be sending it to four very sharp colleagues in the field: they've agreed to read it and make comments on everything from substance to style. I HATE this part of it, because I always want anything I write to be perfect, and it never is, and people notice, and I have a thin [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 26th, 2013|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

On Scholarly Consensus

A question about scholarly consensus from a reader and an answer from me. This is something a little different, in response to an issue raised regarding my post yesterday: A Comment From a Reader About Scholarly Consensus: I have a minor suggestion. I hope you don’t mind me bringing it up. If you have heard it before, feel free to disregard it. If you haven’t heard it before and you disagree with it, feel free to disregard it. However, if you haven’t heard this before and you do find it helpful, then that’s cool! As to the charge of elitism/air of superiority that you said is thrown at you from time to time, I think a good way to avoid that charge would be to always focus on the information/facts/evidence that is the reason why the scholarly consensus is the scholarly consensus on an issue. I think this is a better way to go than emphasizing scholarly credentials as the reason why a scholar’s views should be listened to. Now don’t get me wrong. I [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 25th, 2013|Reader’s Questions, Teaching Christianity|

Back to School: Graduate Studies

Another couple of posts on teaching. As I indicated, I teach one undergraduate and one graduate course a semester. Teaching undergraduates is a passion of mine. I love doing it. These are nineteen year olds who are inquisitive, interested, and interesting. I enjoy lecturing to a crowd like that, figuring out what can make complicated material intriguing and compelling, keeping them attentive, helping them understand such important topics Some of my colleagues find teaching undergraduates a real chore; others find it very difficult. I find it to be a pleasure and it comes naturally to me. So I’m very lucky about that. What is really HARD, though I enjoy it intensely too, is teaching graduate students. The graduate student seminar is a very focused experience. A seminar usually last three hours (meeting once a week) and it involves an intense pouring over texts in the original ancient languages (Greek, for my classes), discussion of heavy-hitting scholarship, critique of students’ work, and so on. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 24th, 2013|Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Growth Rate of Early Christianity

Time to answer a readers' question, as a change of pace, unrelated to anything else I've been posting on: QUESTION: The question on my mind is almost certainly NOT knowable, but I will ask it anyway. 1 – can anyone estimate how many Christians (all variations included) were abroad on Planet Earth at any given time in the 100s or 200s? 2 – when Constantine chose to back Christianity and make it the “official” religion — in the early piece of the 300s — how many actual Christians were there? Or, to make it easier: Taking the whole “Roman” empire as 100%, what pct of the peeps were Christians? 3 – A few generations later (380?) — Theodosius I said that the Roman Empire officially believed what the Bishop of Rome believed. How many (or what percentage of the people) were Christians in 379? I don’t expect precise answers. Any pointers you could provide to where answers might be found (or guesstimates, even) by researchers/experts/theologians/atheists or even hockey players would be appreciated. RESPONSE: This is [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 23rd, 2013|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions, Spread of Christianity|

Different Kinds of Colleges and Universities

So I started this short thread on teaching by saying that I wanted to reflect on the different kinds of institutions of higher learning there are in this country. What prompted the thread (I thought it would take all of one post, but this is #4 and some more may be coming) was my experience at two very fine liberal arts colleges over the past ten days, Colorado College in Colorado Springs and Centre College in Danville KY. These two schools are very different from one another in fundamental ways, but they are both small colleges (I forget the numbers; I think Colorado College is maybe around 2000 students and Centre around 1200) that focus on the liberal arts. I teach at a state research university with about 29,000 students. It’s a big difference. And I’m struck by it whenever I give a lecture at a small liberal arts college. Let me say yet again, I absolutely love teaching at UNC and don’t want to trade it for anything else. But there are pluses and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 22nd, 2013|Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

My Start in Teaching

I’ve mentioned briefly what it’s like to teach at a major research university, with large undergraduate classes. I’ll have more to say about that soon. For now, I should get to the point of why I raised it in the first place. But it’ll take a couple of posts; my starting and ending point for these posts was / will be to contrast my teaching situation with others that I could have found myself in, but didn’t. And to get to that I need to provide more background. When I was doing my PhD at Princeton Theological Seminary, my one and only goal was to teach (and, of course, do research). I had three kinds of schools in mind that I might want to teach at, in this order: a Christian seminary, a Christian college, a secular school. I had been trained my entire academic career (all twelve years of it after high school! Five years in college; three in a Masters of Divinity program; and four in my PhD) in Christian schools: Moody Bible [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 21st, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Teaching Religion in the South

So, as I was saying in the previous post, I love teaching undergraduate students at Carolina. My “bread-and-butter” course is an Introduction to the New Testament. I teach it every spring semester. Usually the enrollment is around 300; I’ve had it as large as 420, and as small as 180. As I indicated yesterday, the size depends on the number of graduate student teaching assistants available to co-teach it with me by running the weekly recitations sections. One reason I like teaching such large classes is simply that I enjoy being in front of a large crowd of people talking about important things. Another reason is related – with a big class it is possible to reach more people – and what can be more important for people in our culture than understanding the roots of our civilization and the history and literature lying behind the most important book in the Western world? (OK, there are probably things more important: but this is pretty important). If I had classes of, say, 25 students, then over [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:10-04:00April 19th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

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