BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 27 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.

Was the New Testament Canon Really Closed in 367 CE?

If we are talking about the earliest Christian writings -- the subject of my previous three posts -- we naturally want to know when decisions were made about WHEN church father settled on our 27-book canon of the New Testament. Many people -- including tons of scholars -- set a precise date: 367 CE, in the decision written by the famous theologian Athanasius of Alexandria. Is that right? My first academic publication addressed this question and answered: NO. Here's how I have talked about the issue and my attempt to overturn the widely held view, from long ago! ****************************** My first semester in the PhD program at Princeton Theological Seminary I had a seminar on the “Canon of the New Testament” with Bruce Metzger. This was a class that focused on the questions surrounding how we ended up with the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. Who decided that it would be these twenty-seven books, and no others? What was motivating these people? What were the grounds for their decisions? And when did they make [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00October 3rd, 2024|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Public Forum|

Finding All the Earliest Christian Texts in One Place

How does one decide which books should belong to a collection of ALL the surviving early Christian writings of the first hundred years of the church? Here I explain my procedure when producing my set of translations with introductions, The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, 2nd ed. 2004 (Oxford University Press), and explain the other features of book. This follows on my earlier posts and again is taken from the Introduction to the volume. ****************************** In sum, it is important for modern readers to realize that the book we call the New Testament is actually a collection of books, put together by persons living much later than the actual authors. When "Matthew" wrote his Gospel, he had no idea that someone would eventually combine his book with three others that were more or less like it to form the first section of a canon of Scripture, a canon that was to include a history of the Christian movement, personal letters sent by other early Christians, and an apocalyptic narrative [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00October 2nd, 2024|Public Forum|

Why Were Some of the Earliest Christian Books Left OUT of the NT?
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Why Were Some of the Earliest Christian Books Left OUT of the NT?

Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)

Why Were Some of the Earliest Christian Books Left OUT of the NT?

How did church leaders decide which books would be included in the New Testament canon? Why were some let in, but others left out? Here I continue my discussion as excerpted from the Introduction in my anthology: The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, 2nd ed. 2004 (Oxford University Press.) ****************************** The literature that was produced by early Christians served to bind the various Christian communities together. Leaders and groups from one congregation wrote to others; books written in one place for one purpose were taken to another place, copied there, and read by Christians completely unknown to the author and his or her own community. This earliest Christian literature thus provided spiritual, intellectual, and emotional cohesion for communities that were geographically separated. The literature that was produced by early Christians served to bind the various Christian communities together. Leaders and groups from one congregation wrote to others; books written in one place for one purpose were taken to another place, copied there, and read by Christians completely unknown to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00October 1st, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

ALL the Christian Writings of the First Hundred Years

In 1996 I was struck by the thought that it would be really useful for professors of New Testament to have an anthology of ALL the Christian books written in the first century of the religion, not just a translation of the NT itself. I looked around and couldn’t find one. I told my editor at Oxford Press, and he couldn’t believe it. But lo and behold. So we agreed I should produce one. I decided that it should be all the surviving books written by Christians during its first hundred years, so 30-130 CE (though the first surviving book was probably not written till 20 years after Jesus’ death), that I would use the NRSV translation for the NT (with permission), and then include all the other books that could be plausibly dated to the period. The idea is that the New Testament contains *some* of the earliest Christian literature, not all of it. And if anyone is interested in a historical study of the NT, they need to read it in light of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00September 29th, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

Some Interesting Random Questions

I’ve recently answered some queries from readers and thought that the questions were too good not to post for all to see. They are all on different topics, but interesting ones, and they required different lengths of answer. Here they are, four of them, a blog Q&A. Question One: I am writing a blog about how Christians defend biblical inerrancy and I came across an on-line article with this quote. “You have searched the Scriptures, which are true and given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unrighteous or counterfeit is written in them.” —Clement of Rome, letter to the Corinthians, first century Two questions: Was there really a Pope in the first century? What kind of “scripture” could he possibly be referring to in the last decade of the first century? My Response: This article is giving a passage found in 1 Clement 45.2. 1 Clement is a letter from around 95 CE or so, written by the Christians in Rome to the Christians in Corinth; presumably *someone* [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00September 28th, 2024|Reader’s Questions|

A PROOF of the Resurrection of Jesus. What Do YOU Think?

Do you yourself think there can be empirical proof that Jesus was raised from the dead? There’s not a right answer – I’m just asking, so you can express your opinion. Last week I held a live Q&A for the Gold Members of the blog (if you’re not familiar with the perks that go along with being a Gold member, check the options out here: https://ehrmanblog.org/register/ ) There were lots of intriguing questions on a range of topics. One that I found particularly, well, intriguing was about an argument sometimes used to show that Jesus must have been raised from the dead and that the Christian claims are therefore demonstrably true. The questioner asked what I thought of the argument made by William Lane Craig that the amazing expanse of Christianity, as it began to grow into the world’s largest religion, shows that the resurrection of Jesus must have happened. How else would one explain the incredible success of the Christian claims? It must have been based on a miracle. Let me make [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00September 26th, 2024|Public Forum|

More About My Book “Did Jesus Exist”

I think what surprised me the most about the vitriolic response I received from (some) mythicists to my book "Did Jesus Exist" was that when I actually spoke or corresponded with them, it became very clear that many knew almost nothing about the Bible, let alone biblical scholarship. I was at a social event for mythicists some years ago now, after I wrote my book. Even though a lot (most?) of the people there thought I was completely out to lunch, everyone was extremely friendly and affable in person and I had some very pleasant conversations. But often, after small talk and a few jokes, when we'd get to issues or questions, it would be clear that the person I was talking with literally had almost no idea about basic information about the New Testament -- for example what was actually in the Gospels, when they are usually dated in relation to the time of Jesus, what we can say about their authors, what sources lie behind them, and so on -- most [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00September 25th, 2024|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Mythicism|

My Book “Did Jesus Exist” (an answer to the mythicists)

Is there actually any evidence that Jesus existed? Are there reasons for thinking he was completely made up? That Jesus of Nazareth is actually a myth? I have been providing a series of posts connected with the various books I’ve written for general audiences over the years and now I’ve arrived at my book Did Jesus Exist (HarperOne: 2011). I wrote the book when “mythicism” was still kind of taking off and most people hadn’t heard about it. I suppose most still haven’t heard about it, but lots of agnostics, atheists, skeptics, and general-internet-junkies have. It was so unheard of at the time that my publisher (Harper) was not interested in publishing the book. They wanted it to come out only digitally, since they were pretty sure that as many people would buy it as would buy a book that mounted the evidence that there really was a successful landing on the moon. But after I wrote the book they decided it would be worth putting into print. In the end, it got a lot [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00September 24th, 2024|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Mythicism|

Can We Get Rid of Our Presuppositions?

Here's a set of questions I get asked a lot, expressed here with particular clarity by someone on the blog a while back. QUESTION: What are presuppositions? Why do we all have them? And how do we make sure we have the right ones, or at least good ones. Having come out of Fundamentalist circles I heard so much about “presuppositions”, “worldviews”, “presuppositional apologetics” and so on. Seems the argument goes “Well, we all have presuppositions. No one is free of them. Therefore it is just as valid to come to historical and scientific issues with the presupposition that the claims are all true. Just as unbelievers come to the evidence with the presuppositions that there are no such things as miracles.” And this is my... RESPONSE: This is a huge question (and a very important one), and requires a long answer. I can’t answer it any better than I already tried to do in my book How Jesus Became God. This is what I say there, in response to a particular issue, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 19th, 2024|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Jesus, the Law, and a New Covenant (Lecture)

For some reason I don't understand (maybe someone can explain it to me), one of the most frequently watched lectures I've ever given was on "Jesus, the Law, and the New Covenant." This was keynote address for the Mendenhall Symposium, in honor of the eminent scholar of the Hebrew Bible, George Mendenhall, on October 6, 2016 at the University of Michigan. The symposium focused on issues on the law and covenant in the the Ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, and second-temple Judaism, with prominent scholars in these fields presenting papers on key aspects of the subject. This is not a topic I normally talk about (I never had lectured on it before and, now that I think of it, have never done so since) and ... and well, it's not one I would have guessed would be widely viewed. But anyway, it is. If you haven't seen it, here it is. And if you have seen it, well, here it is again.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 18th, 2024|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Video Media|

Why Don’t Pastors Teach What They Know about the Bible?

That's the KEY question I address in my book Jesus Interrupted (2010). Here is an excerpt from the Intro where I press it head on : ****************************** One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don’t have the original copies of any [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 17th, 2024|Public Forum|

New Insights Into Paul! Conference this Weekend! Wanna Come??

I’ve been excited about this coming weekend’s conference (New Insights into the New Testament) for eight months now. If you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance. You can sign up here: https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insights-into-the-new-testament-conference-2024/ This annual conference is not directly connected with the blog per se, except to the extent that I do both and both are focused on spreading biblical scholarship to a wider non-scholarly audience. We mean to do that in a big way at the conference. The topic: Paul and His Letters 10 of the best New Testament scholars in the world Each giving a 50 minute lecture with 10-15 minutes live Q&A Over the course of two days (Sat Sept. 21 and Sun Sept. 22) We will transform it into a video course with additional materials for all who come. And for all who purchase a ticket but choose not to come to the live lectures. And additional features for all: An Attendee Mixer for all who want to come, remotely, to see and talk with presenters (in break out rooms; you [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:52-04:00September 16th, 2024|Public Forum|

Major Contradictions (and Other Problems) in the Old Testament

In my previous posts I've dealt with some of the critical problems with the New Testament that many students have to grapple with (often for the first time) when they take seminary courses on biblical studies during their ministerial training. One of the big questions I address in my book Jesus Interrupted (HarperOne, 2009) is why pastors who learn such things in seminary don't say anything about them in their churches after graduation, not even in adult education classes. Isn't one of the objectives of education to get educated? In this post I continue with an excerpt from the book dealing with comparable problems in the Old Testament. **************************** These kinds of problems turn out to be even more common in the Old Testament, starting at its very beginning. Some people go to great lengths to smooth over all these differences, but when you look at them closely, they are very difficult indeed to reconcile. And why should they be reconciled? Maybe they are simply differences. The creation account in Genesis 1 is very different from [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 15th, 2024|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Critical Problems With the Bible, in a Nutshell

What's it like for a devoted seminary student to be confronted with critical problems of the Bible for the first time? Here I continue the discussion with an excerpt from my book Jesus Interrupted (HarperOne, 2009). ****************************** For students who come into seminary with a view that the Bible is completely, absolutely, one hundred percent without error, the realization that most critical scholars have a very different view can come as a real shock to their systems. And once these students open the floodgates by admitting there might be mistakes in the Bible, their understanding of Scripture takes a radical turn. The more they read the text carefully and intensely, the more mistakes they find, and they begin to see that in fact the Bible makes better sense if you acknowledge its inconsistencies instead of staunchly insisting that there aren’t any, even when they are staring you in the face. To be sure, many beginning students are expert at reconciling differences among the Gospels. For example, the Gospel of Mark indicates that it was [...]

BDEhrman2026-01-02T14:57:18-05:00September 14th, 2024|Book Discussions|

What Seminarians Learn About the Bible (Often to Their Surprise)

In this post I explain how prospective pastors and teachers beginning work in seminaries and divinity schools start learning things about the Bible they never would have imagined – or if they did imagine it was only to reject out of hand. As with the previous post, this is an excerpt from the first chapter of my book Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them), (HarperOne, 2009). ****************************** The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “historical-critical” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church. The devotional approach to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act? About social responsibilities? How can [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 12th, 2024|Book Discussions|

Jesus Interrupted: My Most Thorough Explanation of Critical Scholarship on the New Testament

What do professional scholars know about the Bible, what do religious professionals (ministers, e.g.) learn about it in seminary/divinity school, and why don't they (usually/normally/ever) tell their congregations about it? That is the topic of my book Jesus Interrupted (Harper One, 2009). I consider it my most thorough overview of the range of problems found in critical scholarship on the Christian scriptures. In this thread of posts I've been explaining the topics/contents/ideas of my various books in case anyone wants to read/reread them. In many ways I consider this one the most important: it deals with contradictions, divergences, forgery, problems of using the Gospels to know about the historical Jesus, how/why we got this canon of Scripture, the later theological creations of Christian thinkers that most readers wrngly assume are in the New Testament, and ultimately the question of whether it is possible to know all this material and yet still be a believer. I've decided to excerpt the opening chapter of the book to give a good sense of what it's about -- this will take [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 11th, 2024|Book Discussions|

How Many of Those Early Christians Could Read?

How many Christians by near the end of the New Testament period – say, 100 CE – could read and write? In his intriguing article “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Roman historian Keith Hopkins tries to come up with some ballpark figures. As you may recall, he is assuming that there were Christian churches in about 100 communities in the world at the time (we have references to about 50 in our surviving texts, and he is supposing that maybe there were twice as many as we have any evidence for); and he agrees that if Christianity started out with about 1000 believers in the year 40 then with a growth rate of 3.4% per year, by the year 100 there would be just over 7000 Christians in the world. That would mean the 100 churches would have an average of 70 believers. (Some of course would be larger – think, Rome – others would be much smaller; we’re talking averages here. And if Rome did have, say 120 believers, they would be meeting [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 10th, 2024|History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Special Gold Members Event: A Live AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Hey Gold Members, I much regret that we did not get a July Gold Q&A out (there were scheduling and sundry other issues), and I want to make up the loss by doing a special event on the evening of Monday September 16, at 8:00-9:00, Eastern Time, a Live GOLD-ONLY Q&A. You ask the questions, I answer them. Do NOT send questions here in a comment to the post. (Any that do come in that way will immediately be sent up into stratospheric oblivion.) The way it will work is instead this: If you have a question (just one please) send it into [email protected] Keep it concise and directly relevant in some way to anything we deal with on the blog. We will choose a selection of them to represent a range of interests and topics. If yours is chosen, we will contact you a day or so in advance to ask you to ask it live at the time of the event, so it will be direct "you-ask-I-answer" event. The DEADLINE for submitting your question [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 9th, 2024|Public Forum|

The Next Ten Commandments Platinum Guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

Here's another guest post by Platinum member Doug Wadeson, who once again brings out some startling issue just from what the Bible says that most people don't see, or at least blithely ignore. What do you think? If you like Doug's work (I do!), he has started a new blog, that he describes as providing "off-beat articles about the Bible." Interested? Check it out: TheBibleUndressed.blog – A doctor dissects the Holy Book at https://thebibleundressed.blog For now, let's get to Doug's reflections on the heart of the Bible: the Ten Commandments! (And remember: you too can post on most anything you'd like connected to the blog, as a Platinum member for other Platinum members) ************************* There is a controversy these days about Louisiana requiring that the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, (King James version no less) be posted in public schools. I wager that few people who support this can list the ten laws. I will also wager that even fewer people have ever turned the page to study the next set of commandments. After all, the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:33-04:00September 6th, 2024|Public Forum|

How Strikingly Few Early Churches Were There? How Amazingly Many Christian Letters?

In his important and stimulating article, “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Roman historian Keith Hopkins next begins to think about the implications about the size of the Christian church at different periods. One point to emphasize is that there was not simply one church. There were lots of churches in lots of places, and it is a myth to think that they were all one big cohesive bunch. On the contrary, they were often (as we see in our records) often at odds with each other. But even more than that, even within one city – if it was large enough (think Rome or Antioch for example) there would have been more than one church. And why? Because there would have been too many people to meet in one place. The first time we have any evidence of a church “building” – that is, what we today normally think of as a church (the Baptist church on the corner; the Methodist church up the street) – is not until the middle of the third Christian [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:08:51-04:00September 5th, 2024|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations, Spread of Christianity|

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