BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 69 of 204

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.

An Impromptu FREEBIE. A Zoom Lecture Tomorrow Morning!

Because of some weird circumstances, I will need to record a lecture for my undergraduate class tomorrow morning, September 21st. As some of you know, I hate recording a lecture to an empty room. I prefer an audience. Are you free to come? The lecture will be on "The Early Christian Apologists." It will take place at 11:00 am, Eastern time, on Zoom. Are you free to come? Below is the link. I do not know yet if I will be able to release the recording to the public. The "Apologists" were the early Christians intelligentsia who defended the Christian claims against the charges of their pagan adversaries that Christians were hateful atheists who engaged in wild licentious activities. The apologists tried to refute the charges and to argue for why Christianity was in fact the ultimate "truth." The event will be free, but as always, I would encourage a donation to the blog. Any amount is welcome. Pay what you think it's worth! If, well, anything at all. And if you can't afford anything [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:23-04:00September 20th, 2021|History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Then Who WAS the First Bishop of Rome (if not Peter)?

In my previous post I addressed question from a reader whether Peter was really the first bishop in Rome (that is, the first Pope). I guess I could have just answered the question with one word: no. But it took a post to explain. Now I want to move to the obvious corollary. If not Peter, then who?? The ancient traditions about the leadership of the church of Rome is a bit confused. According to the second-century Irenaeus, the first leader known by name (after the apostles) was a man named Linus, who was appointed to the office by Peter and Paul (Against Heresies 3, 3, 3). In one place the father of church history, Eusebius, appears to agree with this, to some extent, when he says that “the first to be called bishop after the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul was Linus” (Church History, 3, 2); but here Linus is appointed not by Peter, but by someone else, after Peter’s death. And to confuse things even further, just a few paragraphs later Eusebius phrases [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:22-04:00September 19th, 2021|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reflections and Ruminations|

Was Peter the First Pope?

Several people have recently asked (in reference to that pop quiz I gave to my class this semester) whether it is in fact right that Peter was the first pope. I dealt with the question a few years ago, along with another interesting tradition about Peter. Here's the question I got and my response. QUESTION: Is there any historical evidence that the apostle Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and that he was martyred upside down on a cross? RESPONSE: Ah, I get asked this one (or these two) on occasion. I dealt with them both in my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene (which, by the way, was a blast to write). First I’ll deal with Peter in Rome – which will take a couple of posts; then the question of his martyrdom. Here is what I say about the first in my book ****************************** In some circles, Peter is best known as the first bishop of Rome, the first pope. In the period I’m interested in for this book, however, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:22-04:00September 18th, 2021|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Reader’s Questions|

Working as a Secretary for the New Revised Standard Version

Here I continue with some reminiscences of my work with my mentor Bruce Metzger. ****************************** When I was still a graduate student in the PhD program at Princeton Theological Seminary, Metzger invited me to serve as a secretary for the committee that was producing the new revision of the Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible. The RSV (on which the new translation was to be based) had come out in 1952, and it had caused a huge furor at the time. It was an “official” revision of the King James Bible, that was supposed to update the language (English has changed a lot since 1611), to take into consideration new manuscript discoveries (especially important for the New Testament, since the KJV was based on only a few medieval manuscripts that were not of very high quality; hundreds of better ones had since been discovered, and to incorporate the findings of modern Biblical scholarship). The RSV of 1952 was an “official” translation because it was authorized by the National Council of Churches in the U.S. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:22-04:00September 16th, 2021|Bart’s Biography, History of Biblical Scholarship|

Jesus’ View of Salvation: Who Can Have Eternal Life?

Jesus believed that destruction was coming for some people, and salvation for others. So did the author of Revelation. So what’s the difference? Big difference. In modern terms, Jesus' views of who would be saved were non-discriminatory. That is, they were not based on who a person was, but what she did. It did not matter if she was a she or a he; if she was a Jew or a gentile; if she believed one set of things or another; if she came from one nation/nationality or another. What mattered was how she lived. Other Jews at the time probably had similar views, but they are striking on the lips of Jesus. Salvation does not come necessarily to Jews by virtue of being the chosen ones. It comes to anyone who lives a life of love, caring for others, especially those in need. To see this, consider two passages from the Gospel of Luke. First note Eternal life? Seems important. Jesus' view? Especially important. Want to keep reading? Join the blog! Click here for membership [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 15th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Historical Jesus|

Jesus and the Coming Destruction: Who, Why, and How?

In my book on Revelation, one of my goals (once I start to write it) will be to contrast its view of judgment with that of Jesus himself. I think the differences are stark and telling. BUT, that is not because I think Jesus imagined that God was simply a God of love who would forgive everyone in the end. I wish he did think that, but alas. He was a Jewish apocalypticist who firmly believed the judgment of God was coming on the earth. So did the prophet John, seventy years later, writing the Apocalypse. But for me the important issue is the object and reason for destruction. Here they differ significantly, in ways that make me think John the prophet is not preaching the gospel of Jesus. Nowhere, in my view, can Jesus' understanding of the coming judgment be seen more clearly than in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46). I have talked about this passage several times on the blog before. In order to explain the contrast with [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 14th, 2021|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

On the Flipside: The Glorious Salvation of Saints in the Teachings of Jesus

In my previous two posts I’ve talked about Jesus’ view of the coming destruction of sinners. My goal is to compare and contrast his views with those of the book of Revelation. For both Jesus and the prophet John (author of Revelation) the future will not only bring very nasty destruction for some people on earth, but also an amazing salvation for others. Here is how I talk about the future rewards of the righteous in my book Heaven and Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020). ****************************** It is easier to document Jesus’ words about the dreaded fate of sinners in Gehenna than about the blessings of the saved in the Kingdom of God. Even so, we have seen one teaching that is repeated in the Gospels: the coming Kingdom will entail a fantastic banquet where the redeemed eat and drink at leisure with the greats of Jewish past, the Patriarchs. This is a paradisal image of great joy. Another key passage involves Jesus’ discussion of what life will be like once the resurrection has [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 12th, 2021|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

The Horrible Fate of Sinners: Jesus’ Teaching on Gehenna

I continue now with my reflections on Jesus’ view of the coming destruction and the very bad fate coming to those who are not rightly aligned from God. In this post I deal specifically with his teaching on Gehenna, and the devastation that will happen there. Spoiler alert: it is not the place you want to go, but Jesus is not talking about “hell.” If you want to read more about this, join the blog! You will get access to five posts a week dealing with just about everything connected to New Testament and Early Christianity. There are various tiers of membership, and whatever you pay goes straight to charities helping those in need. Click here for membership options I have taken this discussion from my book “Heaven and Hell” ****************************** It is highly unfortunate that sometimes English translations of the New Testament render the Greek word “Gehenna” as “hell.” That conjures up precisely the wrong image for Bible readers today, making them think Jesus is referring to the underworld of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 11th, 2021|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

Reminder: My Public Lecture on the Book of Revelation — This Saturday!

Reminder! This Saturday, September 18, I will be giving a lecture with Q&A on the book of Revelation; I'm calling it "Expecting Armageddon: What the Book of Revelation Reveals." Wanna come? The event is a fundraiser (not for the blog, but) for my Department of Religious Studies, which is trying very hard to sustain its work in training graduate students. My own students are becoming experts in the kinds of things I do, engaging in serious research in the study of the New Testament and the history of early Christianity, teaching important aspects of the field to undergraduate students, and communicating broadly this kind of knowledge to broader audiences in the population at large. It is very important work, not just for the graduate students themselves but for the people they do and will teach and reach, as we try to keep the public educated in what we actually know based on scholarship on these issues of broad importance. But we are having trouble providing students with the funds they need to complete their training. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:22-04:00September 10th, 2021|Public Forum|

Jesus’s Apocalyptic View of Destruction

In my book on Revelation I am planning to contrast the violence and wrath of God there with what we find in the teachings of Jesus. It would be easy but too simplistic to paint an obvious contrast: unlike John (the author of Revelation) Jesus believed in love and so was opposed to violence. It is certainly true that he was, at least on one level (as we'll see). Jesus did not only think his followers should not be violent against one another, but also not against their enemies, not even the Romans. But the same can probably be said about the book of Revelation. It also does not urge the followers of Jesus to engage in violence. The massive destructions that take place on earth in the book are sent from heaven. And Jesus too thought a massive destruction was to be sent from heaven. So, well, what’s the difference? That will be the complicated issue. To understand the views of destruction of both Jesus and the prophet John, I need to situate them [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 9th, 2021|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Revelation of John|

Bruce Metzger and My Strange Dissertation Defense

Here I continue with another reminiscence of my interactions and relationship with my mentor, the great textual scholar Bruce Metzger. This one has always struck me as a bit humorous. *************************** In almost (but not absolutely) all PhD programs in this country, the doctoral candidate has do an “oral defense” of the dissertation. If s/he successfully defends, the PhD is then granted. Here at UNC, the defense is conducted in front of the five-person dissertation committee, all of them experts on one or another aspect of the work. Everyone on the committee has carefully read the dissertation, and the defense is designed to see if, well, the thesis is defensible. In other words, faculty members do not hold back but probe deeply into the work to see if there are any flaws in it. If a student fails the defense, s/he has to revise the dissertation and try again. Even if it is considered passable, revisions of some sort are often considered necessary. If you're interested in the blog, why not join? It costs [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 8th, 2021|Public Forum|

Weird (But Common) Ways To Read the Bible

It constantly amazes me that so many people who believe the Bible never read it. My undergraduate students (to this day) have read the Harry Potter books. But when I ask if they have read the entire Bible, the answer is almost always no. And yet most of them will say the Bible comes from God. So I ask them: “I can understand why you’d want to read a book by J. K. Rowling, but if GOD wrote a book wouldn’t you want to see what he had to say?” My puzzlement is old news to long-term blog members – I've talked about it before. But here’s something else that I find puzzling: Why do people who do read the Bible read it in such an unusual way? If I want to read a short story by Mark Twain, O. Henry, or (to pick one of my modern favorites) William Trevor, I do so after having some idea of where he was from and when he was writing, and then I start with the first [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 7th, 2021|Reflections and Ruminations|

MORE Assignments on the Birth of Christianity

Here now are the other position paper assignments for "The Birth of Christianity." See which of them you'd like to take on in your spare time! Recitation Six: Perpetua and Felicitas Read carefully the account of the Martyrdom of Perpectua and Felicitas (ANT 47-55), several times, until you can remember the significant incidents in good detail. For the recitation, you should think about ALL of the following issues. For your position paper you are to discuss just ONE of them, whichever one you find most intriguing. From an outsider’s perspective it may seem very strange, unsettling, and perplexing that such a brilliant, insightful, apparently wealthy, young mother would be so eager to leave this world through a violent death. How can you explain it, from Perpetua’s own perspective? Is this world really such a terrible place (for her)? Discuss Perpetua’s treatment of her father. Do you see him as a sympathetic figure? Does she seem rude and uncaring to him? How do you explain that? Choose either the vision of Perpetua in ch. 4 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 5th, 2021|Teaching Christianity|

Student Papers for “The Birth of Christianity”

If you checked out my syllabus for my undergraduate course this semester, you will have noticed that every week each student is to write a two-page "position paper" on an assigned topic, something of intrigue that, for this class, will involve texts and issues they have probably never addressed or even heard of, even though if they were raised as church-going Christians. I certainly hadn't when I was their age.... Here are the instructions I give for the papers; you obviously couldn't do the papers without reading the assignments, but you can get an idea here what they would be studying. (The abbreviation ANT is for their textbook, the reader I edited called After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity 100-300 CE). INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSITION PAPERS Welcome to instructions for your weekly bit of recitation fun: the position papers! For basic instructions, otherwise known as absolute sine qua non (purpose, length, grading, etc.), see the syllabus. But do remember: these are to be two-pages, double-spaced, and turned in before the recitation itself. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 4th, 2021|Teaching Christianity|

Was Paul Really at Odds with Peter and James? Guest Post by Richard Fellows

Those of you who read the comments on my posts know that my thread on Cephas and Peter elicited some very interesting responses. One person in particular who who took me on leveled some very learned and detailed critiques. It made my day(s)! Richard Fellows is an unusual person, not to mention blog member. He is trained in a different field (Physics at Cambridge university) and works as an engineer, but he has published a number of articles in academic journals on the New Testament. Now THAT doesn't happen very often. In fact, I don't think I know of anyone else who has pulled it off (though I know a lot who have tried and a lot more who have wanted to). Academic journals are very demanding, whatever field you're in, and without training, well.... But Richard has done it and is still doing it (he has another article coming out). His special interests are the apostle Paul and those associated with him, including Peter (whom he, like most other sentient beings, except me on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 2nd, 2021|Paul and His Letters|

Pop Quiz on Early Christianity

For just about all of my undergraduate classes, I begin the semester, on the first day, after explaining the course, by giving students a pop quiz. In my New Testament classes, students are often surprised at how little they know. "Hey, I went to Sunday School my entire life! Why don't I know this stuff?" Yeah, good question. But this semester, as I indicated in my previous post, I'm teaching a course on "The Birth of Christianity," which focuses on the period just after the New Testament up through Constantine. For *this* class students come in *knowing* that they don't know much of anything. No matter: I give them a quiz anyway! (It's not graded.) Since I haven't taught the class in 25 years, I had to come up with a new quiz (having no idea if I even did one before) . Here it is. How well can you do? I'll be discussing answers in subsequent posts (I give the quiz, in part, to discuss the answers with students as a way of introducing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 1st, 2021|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), History of Christianity (100-300CE), Teaching Christianity|

My Syllabus for “The Birth of Christianity”

Classes have now started at UNC, and I'm back in the classroom. Last year it was all remote teaching (NOT fun for anyone, though my classes were terrific); this year we are starting out live, and desperately hoping we will be able to continue that way. For me, the most exciting part of the semester is that I"m teaching a course that I literally have not taught in 25 years. There's lots of reasons for that -- among other things, I ended up having to teach other things and other colleagues came into the department who could and wanted to teach it. But the course is more closely related to my research over these past 25 years than even my New Testament classes: this one deals with Christianity in the second and third centuries, and it is called "The Birth of Christianity." Here is the syllabus for it! Reli 208 The Birth of Christianity Fall 2021 Instructor: Bart Ehrman Teaching Assistants: Benjamin Sheppard and Thomas Waldrupe Course Description and Objectives For most [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00August 31st, 2021|Teaching Christianity|

Platinum apologies: the LINK for the webinar

As a number of you pointed out, I rather inconveniently didn't include the link to our webinar in my post announcing the link to our webinar. Details. I've updated the post, but in case you're reading this one instead, here it is: https://youtu.be/ygmkj5OZXZA

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00August 31st, 2021|Public Forum|

Recording of our Platinum Webinar: History of Biblical Scholarship

Thanks to those of you who made it to the Platinum webinar on Saturday, on "The History of Biblical Scholarship." I enjoyed it very much -- I've never talked to a public audience about that. There's a lot more to be said, obviously, but I did try to hit the major points! If you weren't there, or even if you were, here's the talk. https://youtu.be/ygmkj5OZXZA To relieve your concerns, the talk itself doesn't go as long as the recording! A good chunk of it was Q&A. Watch as much or as little or as none as you like! I appreciate how you've been involved on the blog as Platinum members. If we can improve your experience, please let me know. Bart

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00August 29th, 2021|Public Forum|

Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.
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Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.

I have been discussing the wrath of God in the Old Testament and have mentioned a point that here that I want to reemphasize, a point rarely observed by Bible readers (in fact I think I didn’t take much notice of it until recently). In the Bible God sometimes punishes people because they misbehave toward others – kill, exploit, oppress, and so on; other times he punishes them because they do not worship him properly or at all. This is a difference worth considering because it goes to the heart of a fundamental matter: is God more worried about how people treat one another or about what they believe and do in relationship to him? Is it all about him, or is it all about our fellow humans? Most Christians, I suppose, would say “both”! But it’s interesting that different parts of the Bible tend to focus on one or the other, sometimes exclusively. I have talked, e.g., about the prophet Amos, who predicted the coming destruction of Israel because the elite among them had [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 29th, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

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