BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 9 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.

Who Wrote the Shepherd of Hermas, and When?

Here now is a final post on the early Christian text known as the Shepherd of Hermas, considering what we can know about who wrote it and when -- important issues since a number of church fathers early on thought it should be included in the New Testament. (It is actually found as one of the books of the New Testament in our oldest complete copy of the NT, Codex Sinaiticus, around 375 CE) Here is what I say about such things in the Introduction to my edition of the Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 2004). ****************************** The Shepherd of Hermas was one of the most popular books of early Christianity. Judging from the surviving manuscript remains, it was copied and read more widely in the second and third centuries than any other non-canonical book, even more than many of the books that later came to be included in the New Testament. ... It is difficult to say much about the author’s identity apart from the autobiographical information he himself provides, assuming [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-15T21:51:53-05:00February 25th, 2026|Public Forum|

What’s Actually *in* the Shepherd of Hermas?
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What’s Actually *in* the Shepherd of Hermas?

Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Public Forum

What’s Actually in the Shepherd of Hermas?

In my earlier Nutshell post on the Shepherd of Hermas, I indicated what it was and what it was about, but I didn't actually summarize what it said. I can do that here, by excerpting part of the Introduction I give in my bi-lingual edition (i.e., the Greek on one side of the page and my English translation on the facing page) in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 2004). ****************************** The Shepherd recounts a series of revelations and direct angelic communications to a prophet named Hermas, a Christian from early to mid second-century Rome. Like other ancient apocalypses, the book is ultimately concerned to reveal the divine truths that affect earthly realities, and to that extent there is some focus on the future course of human events, especially a time of tribulation that Christians will experience before the end of the age, soon to arrive. But even more the book deals with problems of Christian existence in the here and now, especially the problems of sin and repentance, of Christians remaining faithful [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-18T09:58:52-05:00February 24th, 2026|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Public Forum|

Blog Dinner in Charlottesville, VA on March 21. You Interested?

I'm gonna be in Charlottesville VA on Saturday March 21 to give a talk at the Virginia Festival of the Book for my then-about-to-be-released Love They Stranger. I'd love to have a blog dinner with any blog folk who happen to be around or, well, can get around. I'll probably start around 6:30 or so for drinks with whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger, with dinner at 7:15 or so. Location TBD. You interested? I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7. 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're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment. Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!

BDEhrman2026-02-22T15:45:52-05:00February 23rd, 2026|Public Forum|

A Sign From God? Mormon Missionaries and Me

When I was a conservative evangelical teenager, I very much believed that God not only did miracles but gave us signs to show us the truth and save us from error. The most amazing (and funniest) sign I received was in the summer of 1975, while painting my house. I was home from my second year at Moody Bible Institute and was doing odd jobs here and there to pay for school, and my parents needed the house painted. I hate(d) painting, but I like(d) being able to earn my keep, so I went for it. To make sense of the sign, some background: one of my classes at Moody that year had been on the Christian “cults” – that is the Christian groups that evangelicals considered to be so far out there that they weren’t only non-Christian (like those Catholics and Greek Orthodox) but were dangerous to society and the well-being of the human race. These included such nefarious apostates as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Mormons. We [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-19T19:58:23-05:00February 22nd, 2026|Public Forum|

If It Wasn’t “For Your Sins” Why Did Jesus Die (according to Luke)?

I have been dealing with the question of Jesus’ death in the Gospel of Luke and have been arguing that Luke does not appear to have understood Jesus’ death to be an atonement for sins. He has eliminated the several indications from his source, the Gospel of Mark, that Jesus’ death was an atonement, and he never indicates in either his Gospel or the book of Acts that Jesus died “for” you or “for” others or “for” anyone. Then why did Jesus die? It is clear that Luke thought that Jesus had to die. For Luke it was all part of God’s plan. But why? What is the theological meaning of Jesus’ death for Luke, if it was not a sacrifice that brought about a right standing before God (which is what the term “atonement” means)? You get the clearest view of Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ death from the speeches delivered by the apostles in the book of Acts. As you probably know, Acts is about the spread of the Christian church throughout the Roman [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-13T11:29:22-05:00February 21st, 2026|Acts of the Apostles, Canonical Gospels, Early Christian Doctrine|

Has Luke Gotten Rid of the Idea That Jesus Died for Your Sins?

In my previous post I tried to argue that the longer version of the account of Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke could have been created by a scribe who wanted to make the passage sound more like what is familiar from Matthew, Mark, and John, and to stress the point made in those other accounts as well, that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood are what bring redemption. The passage, as you recall, reads like this: 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he took) the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood that is shed for you. 21 [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-15T11:41:06-05:00February 19th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts|

The Controversy Over Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke (Did He Speak of Dying “For you”?)

In my previous post I pointed out that scholars have often claimed that Luke has gotten rid of the idea that Jesus "died for your sins." That will seem counter-intuitive to, well, everyone on the planet, and some astute and learned Bible readers will point out that Luke explicitly does indeed have Jesus talk about his death "for you" in Luke, at his Last supper. I indicated that there's a textual problem with the verse (it's not in our oldest and best manuscripts). Years ago I dealt with the problem on the blog. I deal with it again here -- over the course of a couple of posts. The issue is focused on the wording of Luke 22:19-20. Here is the form of the text as found in most of the manuscripts. (I have put verse numbers in the appropriate places) 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-15T11:41:38-05:00February 18th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts|

Should You Say It Like You Mean It? Those Inoffensive Critical Scholars…
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Should You Say It Like You Mean It? Those Inoffensive Critical Scholars…

Canonical Gospels, History of Biblical Scholarship

Should You Say It Like You Mean It? Those Inoffensive Critical Scholars…

Yesterday I was listening to my weekly Misquoting Jesus Podcast (I do that each week to make sure I didn’t make any egregious mistakes in the interview) (I did make a couple, as usual, but so it goes…) and was struck by how, at the end, I described the topic for our next podcast: why “Luke has gotten rid of the idea that ‘Jesus died for your sins.’” I had forgotten I put it that way, and when I heard it said out loud, head-on and clear-as-day, I realized I had never heard anyone put it that way before. And that struck me as interesting – especially because it is what most of my classmates in my PhD program at Princeton Seminary also were taught and thought but they never said/say it this way. What did/do they say instead? The said/say what we learned from our teachers, a far more innocuous way of putting it: “Luke doesn’t have a theology of the cross.” What that means (as my peers and teachers knew) is [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-22T17:59:55-05:00February 17th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, History of Biblical Scholarship|

Yet More: A Christian Forger Who Warns Against Reading Forgeries!

Here is my second post dealing with a highly ironic early Christian text, which tells its readers not to be led astray by authors forging books in the names of the apostles, even though this book itself is forged in the names of the apostles. This again is taken from my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford Press), edited a bit. ****************************** The alleged authors of the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions– the apostles of Christ, including Paul and James -- explicitly claim that the books of the New Testament were theirs: διαθήκης (8.47.85). And so the author gives a list of which books those are, a list that includes all of the books that eventually became the New Testament, with the exception of the book of Revelation. Strikingly, after listing the Gospels and the letters of Paul, James, John, Jude, and Peter, the author indicates that the New Testament is also to include the his own book, the Apostolic Constitutions themselves! But the author of the Apostolic Constitutions is not only a deceiver; he is also [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-11T15:27:48-05:00February 15th, 2026|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

And an Ancient Christian Deceived Deceiver (i.e. Forger)

In a previous post I talked about a forger from the ancient Greek world who was duped by another forger who intentionally tried to deceive him (with remarkable success and to his great chagrin). As it turns out we have comparable instances within early Christianity, as I discuss in my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford University Press). Here's what I say there, edited a bit: ****************************** This ironic phenomenon of a deceiver being deceived has rough parallels in the Christian tradition. One case to consider is the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, a so-called “church order” allegedly written by none other than the apostles of Jesus (hence its name), but in reality produced by someone simply claiming to be the apostolic band, living three hundred years after they had been laid to rest in their respective tombs. This book is patched-together composite of three earlier writings that we still have, the third-century Didascalia Apostolorum, which makes up books 1-6 of the text; the Didache (one of the Apostolic Fathers), which is found in book [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-11T15:27:03-05:00February 14th, 2026|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

Should You “Give It All Away”? The Views of Wealth in the Shepherd of Hermas

In my previous post on the Shepherd of Hermas (in a nutshell) I talked about some of its major themes and characteristics. It's a long book with lots of parables and moral injunctions; one of its major themes has to do with charitable giving, how important it is that those in the church with resources should share with those in need. Jesus himself told his followers to "sell everything and give to the poor." A century or so later, Hermas had a different view -- related, but much softened from Jesus's radical demand. Here's how I talk about it in my book Love Thy Stranger (coming out soon: pre-orders available on Amazon or wherever). ******************************* The idea that Christians should give of their resources generously is one of the major themes of the second-century apocalypse known as the Shepherd of Hermas, a book sometimes considered canonical Scripture in the first four centuries.[i] Hermas instructs his Christian readers to give “simply to all those in need, not wavering about to whom you should give or [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-13T10:33:08-05:00February 12th, 2026|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

The Shepherd of Hermas in a Nutshell

I have taken a hiatus in a thread I was doing on the “Apostolic Fathers in a Nutshell.” In case you need a reminder: the Apostolic Fathers are a group of early proto-orthodox Christian writers/books, most of them from the first half of the second century (a couple were contemporaneous with New Testament writers; a couple were later in the second century). These writings were originally gathered together because the authors were thought to have been companions with the apostles, though now it’s clear none of them was. I have discussed in several posts each the writings of 1 Clement, the Didache, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, the Epistle of Barnabas – all of them striking on their own terms and quite different in many ways from one another. I now turn to the longest and apparently most widely read writing in the collection, called The Shepherd, written by an otherwise virtually unknown Christian named Hermas. Like the book of Revelation in the New Testament, it is an apocalypse, but it is [...]

BDEhrman2026-07-04T07:37:00-04:00February 11th, 2026|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

A Great Story of a Deceived Deceiver
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A Great Story of a Deceived Deceiver

Public Forum

A Great Story of a Deceived Deceiver

I sometimes look back on books I've written just to see what I still think of them. My scholarly books usually don't have a ton of humor in them (OK, some; at times I just can't resist); but I start my academic study of forgery (Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics) with an amusing anecdote from the annals of ancient forgery, a case where a forger was intentionally deceived by someone else’s forgery, to his deep chagrin. Here's the excerpt from the book. ****************************** Heraclides Ponticus was one of the great literati of the classical age. As a young man from aristocratic roots he left his native Pontus to study philosophy in Athens under Plato, Speusippus, and eventually, while he was still in the Academy, Aristotle. During one of Plato’s absences, Heraclides was temporarily put in charge of the school; after the death of Speucippus he was nearly appointed permanent head. His writings spanned a remarkable range, from ethics to dialectics to geometry to physics to astronomy to music [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-09T10:20:59-05:00February 10th, 2026|Public Forum|

The Second Coming (Yeats)

It is impossible to understand, let alone appreciate, many aspects of modern culture ("high" culture -- art, music, poetry, fiction, etc.) without a relatively deep knowledge of the Christian tradition going back to the New Testament itself. I repeatedly tell my students this -- becoming religiously literate in the western tradition is not simply for those who are religious, or are committed the Christian faith in particular, or are even just curious about ancient religion. It is important for making sense of many of the cultural glories of the modern world. As a New Years Resolution this year my wife Sarah decided to memorize a poem every week. She's an English professor who has no trouble knowing the best of the best. Her first week it was W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming," a familiar poem to literary buffs but not universally, and one with deep resonances that take a lot of pondering, even if one knows some of the key phrases ("the centre cannot hold," "anarchy is loosed on the world," etc.). [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-02T11:24:08-05:00February 8th, 2026|Public Forum|

About Work Habits and Productivity…

Now that I have retired from UNC (but not from anything else!) I've had several people ask me about my personal work habits. In reply to the most recent query from a blog member, I remembered I wrote a post about them some years ago. Looking back (and looking now), I don't necessarily recommend my approach. More than a bit excessive, and I've eased up a good deal! But, if you like getting a lot done.... Here's what I said then, in the first year of Covid.... ****************************** Blog members sometimes ask me about my work habits: I seem to get a lot of writing done in addition to the day job as a university professor and doing the blog and what not. How’s that happen exactly? I should say that it’s not happenin’ too well right now: start of classes – teaching 240 students remotely! – and lots of other things--I ain’t getting twit done on my research…. But normally I do try to pack it in. And how? My usual answer [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-01T10:37:28-05:00February 7th, 2026|Public Forum|

Why I Wrote Love Thy Stranger and Significant Benefits that Can Come Your Way

As many of you know, my book Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West (Simon & Schuster) is coming out next month: March 24. The issues I address in the book are obviously central to what we do here on the blog, and I'm unusually excited about this one. It is now available for pre-order, and later in the post I'll explain why it might be worth ordering-pre. But first I'd like to say something in general about it. The only reason an author writes a book of non-fiction (OK, or SHOULD write a book!) is because it deals with something that is both significant and of interest to readers. I've tried to write books for a general audience that cover issues important and even intriguing to people interested in the Bible, the historical Jesus, the history of early Christianity, and the Christian religion in general. This book is a different because I think it is IMPORTANT. To lots of things. To be sure, for anyone who [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-06T12:51:42-05:00February 6th, 2026|Public Forum|

Greek Island Trip: Cancellation

On January 26 I announced on the blog a lecture cruise I was planning to take to the Greek Islands. I have decided I will not be doing this trip. Many apologies to any of you who expressed interest in coming.

BDEhrman2026-02-05T12:39:41-05:00February 5th, 2026|Public Forum|

From Eternal Torment to Styles of Greek to the Dating of Ignatius: Interesting Readers’ Questions

QUESTION: You seem reluctant to view any of the early major figures in Christianity (Jesus, Paul, the author of Revelation) as endorsing the idea of eternal torment for the damned. Who do you think is the first figure in Christianity to endorse the idea unambiguously? RESPONSE: Yes, I try to show in my book Heaven and Hell that none of these figures subscribed to the idea of eternal torment. They talk about the ultimate punishment as "destruction" and "annihilation" rather than torture. They do call it an "eternal” punishment, but that is because it will never be reversed (not that it will be eternal conscious torment). We don't know who first among the Christians came to the view of eternal torment; it starts finding expression at least by the time of the writing of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, which is often said to have been from around 155 CE or so, but may have been written some decades later. By the third century eternal torment was starting to become the standard Christian view. (it [...]

BDEhrman2026-01-27T16:23:13-05:00February 5th, 2026|Reader’s Questions|

The Most Egregious Copying Mistake by a New Testament Scribe
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The Most Egregious Copying Mistake by a New Testament Scribe

Public Forum

The Most Egregious Copying Mistake by a New Testament Scribe

Did scribes of the New Testament ever make astoundingly bad errors when making a copy? Yesterday I mentioned a rather amazingly bad copy of a Christian text (connected with the Muratorian Fragment). Anything like that for any of the books of the New Testament, inattention taken to a rather incredible length? The reality is that most copyists of the books of the New Testament even in the early years/decades/centuries were doing their best mostly to reproduce the text they were copying. They did make mistakes (more in the early centuries than later) and intentionally changed the text in places (probably, we might assume with good intentions), but copying is by its very nature a "conservative" practice: a scribe is trying to reproduce a text as he has inherited it. There are some truly major changes in the NT manuscripts, but very few of them are of the rather outrageous sort. The most egregious one I know of was certainly (surely!) made by accident, and it is rather humorous. It involves a copy of the genealogy [...]

BDEhrman2026-01-27T16:23:03-05:00February 4th, 2026|Public Forum|

Just How Careless Could an Ancient Christian Scribe Be?

I have often talked about scribes of the New Testament sometimes being careless, occasionally making rather amazing mistakes. Most of the time, of course, scribes were careful and accurate, but every now and then they would make a mess up by, say, leaving out a word or three, or an entire line, or copying the same word twice, etc. And sometimes they added things they thought ought to be in the text but were not. Only in a few places does that involve MAJOR additions, the two largest and most significant by far are the last twelve verses of Mark (16:9-20, where Jesus appears to his disciples after the resurrection) and the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11). Most of the changes scribes made were accidental (slips), others were almost certainly intentional (whoever added the long ending of Mark didn’t do so by a slip of the pen). In making mistakes, these early Christian scribes were almost certainly never ill-intentioned: they were human and made mistakes (accidental changes) [...]

BDEhrman2026-02-01T10:29:43-05:00February 3rd, 2026|Public Forum|

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