BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 2 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.

Were Peter and Cephas the Same Person?

In Galatians 2 Paul describes a serious blow up that he had with "Cephas" over the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in the church. Major conflict. Possibly never resolved. Throughout history this event has usually been cited to show that Paul and Peter had very different views of things. But what if the Cephas Paul attacked was not Peter but someone else? A couple of weeks ago I gave a webinar on “Cephas and Peter” for members of the Biblical Studies Academy (my for-profit business that produces on-line courses, etc., not connected with the blog). I had written an academic article with that title many years ago, some time back in the Pleistocene age, arguing that contrary to what everyone thinks and says, they may not have been the same person. That there were two people with that name, not just one (despite what John 1:42 explicitly states). It was a rather, uh, controversial issue and I had to look up the details of a number of the arguments I used; in doing so I [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-13T22:53:12-04:00August 13th, 2026|Paul and His Letters|

Problems of Suffering and Why Gospels Started Being Written: Questions from Readers

Here are some excellent questions I've received from readers of the blog that I'd like to share with y'all, along with my attempts at responding.... QUESTION: Do you think that the presence of mass suffering is not necessarily an argument against the existence of God, but rather an argument against the existence of a loving God? If so, what would a loving God be expected to do regarding suffering? Or at what point does the amount of suffering become incompatible with the existence of a loving God? I’m curious how you would define divine love in this context and what implications that definition would have for the problem of suffering/evil. RESPONSE: I think the problem of suffering becomes a serious objection to “God” when the suffering is so intense, so widespread, so gratuitous, so random, and so horrible (as it has been from the beginning of human existence) that one can no longer believe a God is in charge. And so I'd say it's an argument against a God who is both [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-06T16:04:05-04:00August 12th, 2026|Reader’s Questions|

What Did Jesus’s Violent Action in the Temple Actually Mean?
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What Did Jesus’s Violent Action in the Temple Actually Mean?

Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus

What Did Jesus’s Violent Action in the Temple Actually Mean?

Several aspects of Jesus’s actions in the temple – the so-called “Cleansing of the Temple” – have long puzzled scholars. As I indicated in the previous post, in all four Gospels – with some important differences among them – Jesus enters the temple compound, is angered by what he sees, overturns the tables of those who are changing Roman currency for temple currency to allow people to purchase sacrificial animals, drives out those who are selling (and even buying) the animals, prevents (in one account) anyone from carrying anything needed for the sacrifices though the temple, and forcefully declares that the temple is to be “a house of prayer for all the nations” but that “you have made it a den of robbers” (quoting Isaiah 56:7). Most critical scholars agree that this cannot be construed as an attack on Judaism per se, since Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and stood in the line of Hebrew prophets who opposed the activities of the temple. But that’s where the puzzlement begins to arise. The temple was built on [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-09T21:28:30-04:00August 11th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Blog Dinner in NYC, September 1. Interested?

I will be in NYC on Tuesday, Sept. 1, for an extremely important academic engagement (aka, the U.S. Open....). I'll be hosting a blog dinner for any blog members who would be interested. Yup up for it? I’ll probably start around 6:00 pm for drinks with whomever wants both to quench thirst and cha, and then head over to dinner (with both quenchers and non-quenchers) at 7:00 or so. Location TBD -- but somewhere relatively interesting and easy to get to. My plan (subject to whimsical change) is to limit the table to 10. 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’d like to join me and a group of other blog members for an evening of interesting discussion of areas of mutual interest, simply send along an email at [email protected]. (NB: Please do NOT reply here as a comment). Hope you can come!

BDEhrman2026-08-10T13:42:46-04:00August 10th, 2026|Public Forum|

Prophetic Condemnations of Jews Within Judaism Before Jesus

Over the past few decades scholars have become loathe to label Jesus’s actions in the Temple (Mark 11:14-17; also in the other three Gospels) with the traditional phrase “The Cleansing of the Temple.” One reason is the hateful afterlife of this phrasing, because it makes it sound as if Judaism at its very heart was foul, dirty, unclean, and vile, and Jesus is the one who purified it. In other words, this phrase can be/has been taken to mean that God hates Jews and their religion and sent Jesus in order to show the true path of holiness. The social and political implications of that view are stunning. They stand at the root of horrible acts of violence over the centuries leading to the Holocaust. The problem, however, cannot be solved simply by insisting that Jesus was a Jew and was not at all opposed to the worship of the Jewish God. That is completely true, of course. He was Jewish in every way conceivable, as were his followers. But that does not [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-06T20:53:07-04:00August 9th, 2026|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus|

Gist and Exaggeration: Jesus and the Cleansing of the Temple

It is virtually impossible to disentangle religion and politics when studying ancient sources:, they were not separate entities but tightly interwoven aspects of the same entity, involving questions of authority, who wields it, how they should wield it, and how these “authorities” are “authorized.” Kings could be gods, and vice versa. Priests were governmental officials and vice versa. Laws were divinely sanctioned. Opposition to the state meant opposition to the gods who supported it and opposition to the state gods meant opposition to the state. That’s why Jesus’s “religious” views that God was soon to bring in a new kingdom and appoint him its ruler was seen as a “political” offense leading to his execution for insurrection. It is also why his so-called “Cleansing of the Temple” was not only a religious statement but also a threat to the established order. The event is recounted in all four of our Gospels, again with important differences in detail (particularly in John), but with the same gist. Mark provides our earliest account (Mark 11:15-17). The day [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-06T21:41:48-04:00August 8th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Render Unto Caesar: Jesus’s Indifference to Human Governments and Economies

In this thread have been arguing that Jesus was decidedly a revolutionary: he despised the current system (government) (both Roman and Jewish) and hoped for/anticipated its complete overthrow. But he was not in support of rebellion. That seems a bit odd, since most revolutionaries are precisely trying to incite either a violent or peaceful coup for a new system to be put in place. Jesus was different precisely because of his apocalyptic views: governments were necessarily human institutions, the humans in power were part of a cosmic-wide network of evil and corruption, and the powers ultimately in control (above their human minions) could not be dismantled by human effort. Only an intervention of God would resolve the world’s plight, and he would do so not through human initiative but in an act of divine judgment, to be brought by a cosmic figure, the Son of Man. What mattered for Jesus was not one government or another; one governmental policy or that, this corrupt official or that, a particular systemic problem or another – [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-02T16:25:32-04:00August 6th, 2026|Public Forum|

Was Jesus’s Crucifixion One Big Mistake?

In my previous post I indicated that, looked at in one way, the crucifixion of Jesus was one big mistake. The ruling authorities knew that he considered himself the future ruler of Israel, the messiah, and so they condemned him for insurrection. But Jesus wasn’t in favor of insurrection. He was predicting something much bigger, a cosmic intervention by God. He personally posed no threat to Roman rule. Once I wrote that, it occurred to me – in a rather tangential and possibly irrelevant way – that there actually were early Christians who taught that Jesus crucifixion was One Big Mistake but in a different, unconnected, way. Or rather different ways. So in this post I move us onto a tangent before returning to my thread in the post that follows. Here are two of the most intriguing attempts to explain that the rulers made a BIG mistake when they crucified Jesus. Or when they thought they did. ****************************** Basilides is one of the early Gnostic figures mentioned by the late-second century [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-02T16:16:13-04:00August 5th, 2026|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Heresy and Orthodoxy, Historical Jesus|

The Triumphal Entry and Jesus’s Mistaken Identity
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The Triumphal Entry and Jesus’s Mistaken Identity

Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus

The Triumphal Entry and Jesus’s Mistaken Identity

Even though the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem almost certainly could not have happened as described (see previous post), they clearly contain some elements of historical truth. This is often the case with the Gospels and with other historical narratives that have come down to us from antiquity. The task of the historian is to determine what is invention, what exaggeration, and what is (more or less) historical. With respect to the historical elements, the following seem reasonably secure (even some of these, of course, can be debated, but in my judgment the evidence for them is overwhelming): Jesus did come from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate a Passover Feast, sometime around 30-33 CE (the year is much debated); While there he preached his message to anyone who would listen (it seems unlikely it was “the masses” but it could well have been small crowds); He offended the local Jewish authorities; At the end of the week they arranged to have him arrested; He was turned over to the governor Pontius Pilate; [...]

BDEhrman2026-08-02T14:39:06-04:00August 4th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

The Implausibility of the Triumphal Entry

It is precisely the intricate and complete intertwining of (what we would call) “religion” and “politics” in the ancient world (see my previous post) that explains why Jesus’ forthright views about God and understanding of himself as God’s spokesperson let to his arrest and execution, as well as, ironically, his indifference to the governmental and cultic status quo. His revolutionary views and yet indifference can be illustrated by his two incendiary actions near the end of his life and, oddly, his two discussions of taxation. I will deal with the first of his two actions, typically designated the “Triumphal Entry,” in two posts. The Triumphal Entry refers to Jesus’s coming into Jerusalem on the occasion of the Passover Feast riding on a colt (according to Mark and Luke) or a small donkey (according to John) or both a colt and a donkey (at the same time! According to Matthew), to the acclamation of the crowd of Jewish pilgrims, who welcomed him as the one who was bringing in the Kingdom to Israel (Matthew 21:1-9; Mark [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-31T10:22:53-04:00August 2nd, 2026|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Religion, Politics, and Resistance in Jesus’ Day

To condemn, oppose, and defy the current order is not necessarily the same as, or even a stage toward, urging its reformation. Jesus certainly condemned, opposed, and defied the ruling authorities of his day. But he did not propose (or support) an agenda to reform the system. He believed God would destroy both the system and those who ran and supported it. He would then set up a new order. He didn’t need either urging or assistance. Roughly speaking there were two sets of ruling authorities in Jesus’s time and place, what we today would differentiate as “political” and “religious.” The differentiation would have made little sense to Jesus or to anyone else in the Roman world. Romans, Jews, and everyone else saw these two realms (that since the Enlightenment have been differentiated) as closely intertwined and interdependent. There were not even words in Greek, Latin, or Aramaic that clearly designated what we today call “politics” and/or “religion.” That is because everyone (who supported the status quo) understood the ruling authorities and their [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-30T22:20:29-04:00July 30th, 2026|Public Forum|

Thoughts on Jesus and Activism. What Do You Think?

Here are some random thoughts I’ve been … thinking, while contemplating Jesus’s views of political and economic systems. They are not definitive thoughts, but explorations. What do you think? I would welcome your comments (on this post I probably won’t be answering questions, just observing responses). Normally when someone opposes a political or economic situation, they want it to be reformed. We should move to a state-supported health care system; we should get rid of the electoral college; we should abolish the House of Lords; we should close the borders; we should … whatever, ad infinitum. It has long been interesting to me that (some) people who propose a radical transformation of current systems nonetheless (sometimes) fully participate in them to their own benefit. For many years one of my close friends was an avowed, deeply committed Marxist who kept true to his principles by refusing to contribute to the Christmas fund for the office staff (since that would involve clandestinely acknowledging and supporting the system that accepted the reality of the proletariat). [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-28T12:14:51-04:00July 29th, 2026|Public Forum|

Jesus the Pacifist
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Jesus the Pacifist

Historical Jesus

Jesus the Pacifist

I was raised thinking Jesus was completely relevant for our own current affairs, that his teachings were directly relevant for governmental policies and social agendas, that he had preferred methods of political rules, definite ideas about competing economic systems, and strong opinions about governmental priorities. To no great surprise, growing up in Kansas in the 1960s and early 1970s, I simply assumed his teachings provided divine support for Capitalist Democracy. I don’t think so any longer. It’s not that I think he preferred Marxist Socialism, as has been sometimes argued by academics and their eager followers, or … well, any other modern political-economic system. My view is somewhat (though in a different way) more radical. I don’t think he cared. It will take a while to explain this. But I want to argue, as intimated in my previous post on Jesus’ “Indifference” that Jesus’s concerns were not strictly speaking political (in the ways we think of politics) or economic. His priorities lay elsewhere. This will take several posts. To begin with, I need to start [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-21T08:50:22-04:00July 28th, 2026|Historical Jesus|

The Indifference of Jesus

How concerned was Jesus about the social, economic, cultural, and political issues that are so vitally important to us and occupy so much of our mental space? The answer is surprising. First some (probably unexpected) background. As a Jewish peasant in early first-century rural Aramaic-speaking Galilee, Jesus would not have known about Greek Stoics or their philosophical views. He nonetheless appears to have shared a perspective with them, one that is a bit unexpected. Like them, he was completely indifferent to a number of issues most people find deeply relevant and important, including fundamental questions connected with governmental policies and religious practices. Stoics insisted that a person’s happiness depended on maintaining an internal state of peace and calm, undisturbed by external events and circumstances. There are only so many things that a person can control in their life. Those are the things they should focus on. Anyone who worries about things over which they have no control creates unnecessary stress and anxiety. So it is best to distance yourself, simply not to be [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-22T06:14:20-04:00July 25th, 2026|Historical Jesus|

The Sadness of Beginning to Doubt

A friend of mine from 50 years ago got in touch with me recently. We were roommates at Moody Bible Institute, and became youth pastors together at Trinity Covenant Church in Oak Lawn, Illinois. I've been reminiscing about those days, and have been thinking about an event connected with the church that I talked about in my book How Jesus Became God (HarperOne, 2014). It involves a sad moment when my doubts about the Christian faith were starting to take hold. Here what I said there. ****************************** When I attended Moody Bible Institute in the mid 1970s, every student was required, every semester, to do some kind of Christian ministry work. Like all of my fellow students I was completely untrained and unqualified to do the things I did, but I think Moody believed in on-the-job training. And so every student had to have one semester where, for maybe 2-3 hours one afternoon a week, they would engage in “door-to-door evangelism.” That involved being transported to some neighborhood in Chicago, knocking on doors, [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-17T10:34:04-04:00July 23rd, 2026|Bart’s Biography|

Was Moses Called God?

In my last couple of posts I've talked about how the King of Israel could, oddly enough, be called "God." That seems contrary to what we think of ancient Judaism, where only God can be God. But it helps explain why later Christians could call Jesus God. There was precedent for a human to be called that, even within Judaism, Possibly yet more unexpectedly, within the Jewish tradition even Moses was sometimes considered a divine being, and called God. Here's how I explain it in my book How Jesus Became God (HarperOne, 2014) ****************************** It is interesting to note that not only the king of Israel, human as he was, is lauded with divine status and even the term “God,” but so too in ancient Jewish texts was that great savior and lawgiver of the people, Moses. The root of this tradition is in the Torah itself, from an intriguing passage in Exodus 4. God is commissioning Moses to go to the Egyptian Pharaoh and demand that he set free the children of [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-17T10:20:11-04:00July 22nd, 2026|Early Judaism|

The King of Israel Was Called … God?
Gallery
The King of Israel Was Called … God?

Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

The King of Israel Was Called … God?

In my previous post I showed that beings other than God could be called God in the Old Testament and other ancient Jewish literature. It seems strange, but there it is. I continue now with an especially important case in point: the king of Israel. In this case there is not a lot of ambiguity about the matter, as odd as that might seem. Again, this is from my book How Jesus Became God. ****************************** Hebrew Bible scholar John Collins points out that the Israelite notion that the human king could be considered in some sense divine ultimately appears to derive from Egyptian ways of thinking about their king, the Pharaoh.[1] Even in Egypt, where the king was a god, it did not mean that the king was on a par with the great gods, any more than the Roman emperor was thought to be on a par with Jupiter or Mars. But he was a god. In Egyptian and Roman circles, there were levels of divinity. So too, as we have seen, in Jewish [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-17T10:11:00-04:00July 21st, 2026|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Jewish Precedents for Jesus Becoming God

In my previous post I showed how Jews could and did conceive of humans who became super-human beings -- angels. But that's a far cry from thinking humans could be GOD! And yet the Jewish followers of Jesus claimed that's what he was. How'd that work exactly? That may come as a surprise: Jews who were monotheists thought that others could be God, along with the one God? Uh, how does *that* work? As it turns out, you can find it in the Hebrew Bible and in later Jewish traditions as well. Angelic beings are sometimes called “gods” (e.g. Psalm 82, esp. vv. 1, 7); a figure called “The Son of Man” is considered a divine being before whom the entire world falls down in worship (1 Enoch 48:2-7); God’s “Wisdom,” a being separate from God himself, is said to have created the world (Wisdom of Solomon 9:-10); so too God’s “Word” (the Logos) is called “God” and “the second God” (Philo, Dreams 1.230 and Questions on Genesis 2.62). But more than that, even some [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-17T03:24:55-04:00July 19th, 2026|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

How Can Monotheists Think a Human Could Become God?

One of the questions I regularly get is how we can imagine that Jews -- specifically, the Jewish followers of Jesus after his death -- could possibly imagine that he had become God. They were monotheists. How could someone in addition to God be or become God? That maybe makes sense in pagan circles, where there are many gods and a rather fluid transition between humanity and divinity. But not in Judaism, right? Well, wrong. As it turns out Jews also sometimes thought that a human could become divine. In this post I’ll talk about one variant of this view, that mortal humans could become divine superhumans, angels. In later posts I’ll talk about an even more bizarre view (bizarre, that is, in the context of Judaism) that humans could become gods. Jews believed that? Who woulda thought? This is how I begin to explain the matter in my book How Jesus Became God. ****************************** Many people today have the view that when people die, they become angels (well, at least if they’ve been “good”). [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-12T14:37:30-04:00July 18th, 2026|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Personal Faith, Textual Problems, and the Miracles of Jesus: More Readers’ Questions

Here are three quite disparate questions from readers (with attempts at answers), each interesting and together showing the kind of range of issues that are involved with trying to make sense of the Bible from a historical point of view. QUESTION: I am at one of the hardest points of my life, the dimming of my faith. I have always been a person of faith throughout my young age, and I really want to keep that faith mainly because I want a better future for my son. However, upon the discovery of the contradictions, errors, and upon actually studying the difficult-to-digest parts of the Bible, I do not know what to think anymore. I still pray and read the Bible, but it’s like the house is slowly crumbling down; I can’t even read without being critical of the text. I know your position regarding faith, but also know that you have many friends and family members who still hold faith. How do they do it? How do they keep faith despite the facts mentioned [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-10T10:13:35-04:00July 16th, 2026|Reader’s Questions|

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