Book Discussions Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Discussions and comments about Bart’s latest book.

Jesus as God in the New Testament

One of my personal favorite books (of mine!) is How Jesus Became God. In my New Testament textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction, now in its eighth edition with Hugo Mendez, we include a couple of brief discussions of the topic in two of the sidebars. One of the tricks in writing a textbook is figuring out how to say something in a way that is succinct and interesting, when there is not much space to cover a topic fully (so, my first box here covers in 326 words what I take an entire chapter to develop in my book!) But how to make something succinct but also accurate and / or interesting? It’s always a balancing act. In any event, here are the two boxes. ****************************** Box 19.2 What Do You Think? Humans Exalted to Heaven at the End of Their Lives What do you imagine the early Christians would think had happened to Jesus once they came to believe that he had not only been raised from the dead but [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-23T15:47:36-04:00October 24th, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine|

Oral Traditions and the Dates of Our Gospels

As many of you know, this past year I published the 8th edition of my textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 2024), but this time, rather than doing it myself, I asked my colleague Hugo Mendez to join me in editing / updating it, and truth be told, since hey, I believe in telling the truth, he did the vast bulk of the work on this one. Most of the changes came in his rewriting sections that needed to be brought up to snuff with current scholarship, including the one dealing with the sources of Synoptics, since a lot of scholars (though not the majority, so far as I can tell) are inclined to think the Q source never existed (including Hugo!) and the entire chapter on the Gospel of John, on which Hugo is a major expert and the paradigm of how to understand it has changed significantly over the past five years or so. In ANY event, one of the features I've always liked [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-14T16:07:25-04:00October 23rd, 2024|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels|

Suffering. Is It Really Worth Talking About? Doesn’t the Bible Give the Right Answer?

People react lots of different ways when trying to deal with the problem of how there can be so much suffering in a world that is said to be controlled by the almighty God who loves people and wants the best for them. I decided to write my book God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Address our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer (HarperOne, 2008) both because many people don’t realize how many different answers the Bible itself gives (some of them at odds about it) and also because in my judgment lots and lots of people (most?) simply don’t take it seriously enough. Here's how I talk about why I think it matters and my approach to it, another excerpt from the book itself. (Recall: the book was published in 2008, so 16 years ago now). ****************************** Based on my experience with the class, I decided at the end of the term that I wanted to write a book about it, a study of suffering and biblical responses to it. [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-14T16:00:05-04:00October 20th, 2024|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

The Problem of Suffering? So What’s the Problem?

The “problem of suffering” is especially a problem in the monotheistic religions. In ancient Greek and Roman religions, with their many, many gods, it wasn’t an intellectual puzzle. If there’s suffering, it’s because some or all of the gods are ticked off and out to get you. There are some bad ones up there as well as good ones. Just the way it is. But if there’s only one God, why is there suffering? Many people have very simply solutions and they don’t see a problem. But there is a problem. It just has to be explained. Here I continue by showing why it’s a problem and to motivate some thinking by trying to explain how deep thinkers have expressed the problem and tried to address it. Again, this is excerpted from my book God’s Problem (HarperOne, 2008). Just before this excerpt I was explaining my first time teaching about the issue in a class I did at Rutgers in the mid 1980s. ****************************** For the class I had students do a lot [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-11T12:29:51-04:00October 17th, 2024|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

How Can We Imagine That God is Active in Our World? (A genuine, not rhetorical, question)

Are there moments when you wonder not just why things are going badly for you, or why they are very badly for others, but more comprehensively about why there needs to be suffering at all? I certainly have, and I am now doing a thread of posts that explain some of my reflections through excerpts of the opening sections of my book God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Explain our Most Important Problem – Why We Suffer (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008). In my previous post I explained how these issues eventually led me to leave the faith. Now I continue by reflecting on a subsequent moment, long after I was no longer a believer, when I was particularly floored by the problem of suffering. ****************************** Only on rare occasions do I go to church now, usually when my wife, Sarah, very much wants me to go. Sarah is a brilliant intellectual-a distinguished professor of medieval English literature at Duke University—and a committed Christian, actively involved in the Episcopal church. For her the [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-11T12:46:31-04:00October 16th, 2024|Book Discussions|

Hurricanes, Suffering, And My Loss of Faith
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Hurricanes, Suffering, And My Loss of Faith

Book Discussions, Public Forum

Hurricanes, Suffering, And My Loss of Faith

Two weeks ago I gave a fundraising webinar for the victims of Hurricane Helene, on the topic: Why Do Disasters Strike: The Bible’s Views. In preparing for the talk I decided to re-read the opening section of my book God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question: Why We Suffer (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008). I hadn’t read it for years, and while I was reading it I realized anew just how important the topic is and how glad I am that I addressed it. I’ve decided to excerpt the opening bit from the first chapter and the beginning of the second to give you a sense of the book. If you’re interested in more, check it out. It is definitely different from all the others I’ve written, and now that I’ve re-read it, I think it’s the one I’m most proud of personally, not because of the author but because of the topic and its perennial importance. ALSO, if you would like to listen to the webinar (with Q&A) and [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-15T16:47:13-04:00October 15th, 2024|Book Discussions, 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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-10-02T09:36:49-04:00October 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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-26T13:47:13-04:00September 29th, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-19T09:38:15-04:00September 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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-23T10:51:43-04:00September 24th, 2024|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Mythicism|

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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-05T11:20:20-04:00September 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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-05T11:22:54-04:00September 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 [...]

BDEhrman2024-09-03T13:42:07-04:00September 11th, 2024|Book Discussions|

Jesus’ Followers in History and Legend

I continue here describing my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene (Oxford University Press, 2005), with a final excerpt from the Introduction. In my previous post I discussed how historical accounts and literary fictions mix in the accounts we have of these three key followers of Jesus. I pick up from there: ****************************** Some scholars would argue that we ourselves are not so different from the storytellers of the ancient world, that when we recount what happened in the past, we too do so not merely to show what “really” happened, but because what happened is important to us, today, for our own lives. That is to say, at the end of the day, no one has a purely antiquarian interest, an interest in the past for its own sake. Instead, we are interested in the past because it can help us make sense of the present, of our own lives, our own beliefs, values, priorities, of our own world and our experience of it. If this view is right -- and I [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-20T16:15:19-04:00August 18th, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

My Book on Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene

The only book I've written because I wanted to use the title is Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. It was a blast to write. One could argue that in one respect or another these three were historically the most significant followers of Jesus (whether they were in their own day or not is another question). In my view they are the only followers of Jesus that we can say with relative certainty that they *claimed* to have seen him raised from the dead (a controversial view on all sides). And most intriguing, there are lots of extraordinary legends about them that survive and that, in fact, are still believed by many people today, for example that Peter was crucified upside down; Paul was beheaded; and Mary was a prostitute. And those are just among the more tame accounts. It's also interesting to figure out what we can actually know about them historically. Hence my book, which devotes six chapters to each figure. Here is how I describe the book [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-12T10:31:59-04:00August 17th, 2024|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

My Edition of the Apostolic Fathers

Since I often get asked about topics I've written about, I have been doing a long thread discussing the various books I've published. For the next several posts I'll talk about my edition of the "Apostolic Fathers Volume 1" and "Apostolic Fathers Volume 2" for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, 2003). The "Loeb" series provide bi-lingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin writings. "Bi-lingual" means that the original (Greek or Latin) text of the writing is on one side of the page with an English translation on the other side. These are designed for students and scholars who know the ancient languages at least to some extent, as a way of helping them study the texts even if their knowledge of the languages is not as good as it could be (when is it ever?). So these volumes are probably not for most blog readers! But the General Introduction I provided to the two volumes is reasonably accessible and explains what these writings are, where they came from, and why they are important. [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-12T10:18:54-04:00August 15th, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

How I Almost Published “Lost in Transmission”
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How I Almost Published “Lost in Transmission”

Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions

How I Almost Published “Lost in Transmission”

I can't end my discussion of my book Misquoting Jesus without telling one of my favorite publishing stories. OK ... without *repeating* it. I've given it on the blog before, but it's been some years. It was originally a response to a question about how trade books get their titles, and my explanation that "Misquoting Jesus" was NOT the title I wanted. ****************************** QUESTION: Dr, Ehrman, can you explain a little how you go about choosing a title for your trade books? Is it a collaborative effort between you and your agent or publisher? Can it be a difficult process where the title can change as the book progresses? And if so,, can you give just a couple examples when you had decided on a title (could you name the original title ) and changed the title to the book that finally appeared at our local book store ? RESPONSE: In earlier posts I discussed the strategies behind giving a title to a scholarly book. When it comes to trade books, written for popular [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-12T10:28:42-04:00August 13th, 2024|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions|

Why I Wrote Misquoting Jesus

My book Misquoting Jesus was the biggest surprise of my career. No one thought (as colleague scholars frequently told me, somewhat emphatically, in advance) that a book like this would go *anywhere*. A discussion of changes made by scribes while copying the manuscripts of the New Testament? What? Even New Testament experts were and are by and large simply uninterested in the field, considering it a technical, detailed, and incredibly dull enterprise. My friends in graduate school thought i was an odd-duck for wanting even to study the matter, let alone devote a lot of my scholarship to it. And to think about writing a book for non-scholars about it? Yikes. I've been devoting posts to explaining the various books I've written, and so now it's time to hit this one. This will take will take three posts, all excerpted from the Introduction to the book (Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Harper, 2005). In this opening bit I give the autobiographical background to why I originally got [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-01T09:37:10-04:00August 8th, 2024|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, New Testament Manuscripts|

Interested in Textual Criticism? Probably My Most Useful (Edited) Book

Many people on the blog are interested in textual criticism, the field that examines our surviving manuscripts of the New Testament to figure out what the authors originally wrote and to see how and why their writings came to be changed by later scribes. One of the most important books I've published was one I didn't write (!), an edited collection of essays by leading scholars in the world on various aspects of the topic. The book was for academics, but some of you might be interested in what it was all about. I was asked about it many years ago on the blog, and thought reposting the question and response would be a good way to introduce it here. QUESTION: Dr. Ehrman, in your first and second edition of The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis that you co-edited with Dr. Michael Holmes, what was your role in editing, especially since some articles were beyond your admitted expertise? RESPONSE: This is actually a [...]

BDEhrman2024-08-09T09:37:30-04:00August 7th, 2024|Book Discussions, New Testament Manuscripts|

More Major Issues Confronting the Early Christians.

What were the major issues, concerns, and debates confronting the earliest Christians? My book After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed, 2015) addresses these issues. I've explained the book in my two previous posts. Here is my third, again giving an excerpt from the General Introduction, explaining the rubrics I used in the book to cover the vital topics of Christian Origins, chapter by chapter. At the end I provide a bibliography for further reading, books that cover the history of the period broadly and competently. ****************************** Christians of all theological persuasions in the second and third centuries realized that having a set of books deemed authoritative or “scriptural” could not, in itself, provide guidance over what to believe or how to behave. Books needed to be interpreted in order to be understood, and to be understood correctly. And the early centuries of the church witnessed numerous debates over just how books were to be read and used. Among the debates was the question of whether a [...]

BDEhrman2024-07-24T11:54:50-04:00July 28th, 2024|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

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