Bart's Critics Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Anniversary Post #3: My Response to an Ill-Tempered Richard Carrier

Here is the third post in my series celebrating our 14th blog anniversary, a post from each of our 14 past years. This is the one I've chosen from April 2014; it's another one that involves a response to a rather spirited attempt to show that I'm an idiot. I tried not to respond TOO much in kind, but, well, I guess it is a bit feisty.... ****************************** Sometimes I think that if I’m “getting it from all sides,” I may be doing something right. The religious conservatives seems to be up in arms about my book How Jesus Became God – both conservative evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics like the Very Reverend Robert Barron. In fact, as I’ve said, I do not think anything in the book is inimical to Christian faith, unless it is completely committed to a view of the infallibility of the Bible and its full, historical accuracy. The Christianity I admire is not like that. But I get it from the non-religious left as well. Yesterday a [...]

BDEhrman2026-04-09T15:35:55-04:00April 12th, 2026|Bart's Critics, Historical Jesus|

Anniversary Post #1: Defending Misquoting Jesus

Here I begin my 14-post "anniversary" series with the very first post that appeared on the blog (April 3, 2014). Recall: this thread will consist of 14 posts from each of the 14 years of the blogs life, one per year, 13 of them from ... April of that year. (Not this year's, since if you follow the blog, they are still fresh in your mind. This first one is rather telling. Among other things, it tells how much more thin-skinned, snarky, and combative I was in the days of my youth (fourteen years ago!). Hey, go for the jugular! Even so, since it was post #1, it simply has to start the thread. ****************************** Probably more than any of my other books, Misquoting Jesus provoked a loud and extensive critique from scholars – almost exclusively among evangelical Christians, who appear to have thought that if readers were “led astray” by my claims in the book (in many instances, these critics pointed to claims that in fact I never claimed!) they might be [...]

BDEhrman2026-04-09T15:10:39-04:00April 9th, 2026|Bart's Critics, New Testament Manuscripts|

Can We Trust You When You Say “Most Scholars” Think Something?

As I've pointed out, most critical scholars do not think that Paul actually wrote the letter to the Ephesians, even though the author claims to be Paul. We will see that is true for five other Pauline letters. I should stress: the fact that most critical scholars think something does not mean they are right. For millenia, "most scientists" agreed the sun revolved around the earth, but that was not evidence. Apart from whether scholarly views are right, why should you think that I myself am right when I say "most critical scholars" think one thing or another? Have I taken a survey? I dealt with a similar question on the blog years ago. This was in response to my similar claim that "most scholars" don't think John the son of Zebedee wrote the Gospel of John. It was in response to a reader's question and follow up. I'd say pretty much the same thing today, about Ephesians. Here's what I said back then: ****************************** I have received a particularly interesting question that has led to a [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:11:44-04:00May 3rd, 2025|Bart's Critics, History of Biblical Scholarship|

A Really Scathing Review of My Book on Suffering

I’ve devoted my past couple of posts to a review of one of my books that the reviewer (really) didn’t like, and doing so reminded me of the most scathing review that, to my knowledge, I ever received, that at the time (sixteen years ago) I thought was outrageous, and now find rather humorous…. I’m a believer in letting the “other side” have its say, so I thought I’d post it here. The book under review was God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Explain our Most important Question – Why We Suffer. (As is usual, I didn’t give the book its title; usually publishers do that). It was reviewed in the Christian Century (Dec. 30, 2008) (View PDF (christiancentury.org), by Will Willimon, a well-known preacher and a former Bishop of the United Methodist Church and Professor at Duke Divinity School. No need for me to comment on it. Read it for yourself: ****************************** Bart Ehrman has written another book that is probably destined to be a best seller. God’s Problem is a lively, though [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:42-04:00March 31st, 2024|Bart's Critics, Book Discussions|

Making the Gospels Say What You WANT Them To Say

Here is the second post on the Very Reverend Robert Barron’s curious critiques of my book How Jesus Became God. I will not be doing a point-by-point assessment of everything he says; I frankly found none of his criticisms very convincing, largely because, as I indicated in the previous post, he does not appear to have read my book very carefully, but at best skimmed it to find what he was expecting to find. But I thought I would deal at least with his opening counter-argument, over whether Jesus saw himself or proclaimed himself to be God. Here is what he says. Ehrman’s major argument for the thesis that Jesus did not consider himself divine is that explicit statements of Jesus’ divine identity can be found only in the later fourth Gospel of John, whereas the three Synoptic Gospels, earlier and thus presumably more historically reliable, do not feature such statements from Jesus himself or the Gospel writers. This is so much nonsense. It is indeed the case that the most direct affirmations [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:41-04:00March 30th, 2024|Bart's Critics, Canonical Gospels|

Dealing With Reviews of My Books By People Who (Apparently) Haven’t Read Them

As I am inching closer to writing my next book, on how the ethics of Jesus transformed the moral conscience of the West, I have started thinking, possibly not unnaturally, about how some of my earlier books were critiqued in published reviews. I really don't mind if someone understands what I write and has reasoned disagreements with it; and I'm happy to make vigorous counter-arguments in response. But unless the reviewer misrepresents what I say, I'm generally not irritated. I do get irritated, though, by reviewers who go for the jugular without seriously understanding (or caring) what I actually say. Or possibly knowing what I say? I sometimes genuinely do wonder if the reviewer actually bothered to read the book. In that context, I suddenly remembered that ten years ago I did a couple of blog posts after a reader alerted me to a published review of my book How Jesus Became God, by the Very Reverend Robert Barren. When I read the review I was a bit, well, outraged. I wrote two posts on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:41-04:00March 28th, 2024|Bart's Critics, Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels|

But Your Own Teacher Bruce Metzger Didn’t Think That!

In my previous post, and a number of times elsewhere, I mentioned my mentor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Bruce Metzger. Over the years I've been asked a number of times why, if he was my teacher, I don't agree with him on so many things. Usually this comes as an accusation more than as a genuine query. Here's a reworking of a response I gave to the issue about ten years ago. ****************************** Prof. Metzger was not just a brilliant scholar but also a deeply committed Christian, an ordained Presbyterian minister, who believed in the inspiration of the Bible and in the literal truth of the statements found in the Christian creeds, about the incarnation, the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, and so on. Behind the question are usually the unexpressed statements: he was more learned than you, he knew what you do, he was your teacher, but he disagreed with you. What's wrong with you that you would disagree with your own teacher?? It’s a good question and it deserves a straightforward answer. The people [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:05:27-04:00November 21st, 2023|Bart's Critics|

Why Do Some (Many?) Scholars Not Treat the Bible Like Other Ancient Sources?

As I was thinking today about the need to be consistently critical with all of our sources – not just the ones we want to be critical of (this was the topic of yesterday’s post, with an ultimate view of what I want to say about Josephus as a possible witness to the practice of Jews burying their executed dead on the days of their deaths) -- another anecdote occurred to me that I thought might help illustrate my point. Here it is. In the next post I will get to Josephus, I promise. As some of you know, I have had a number of debates with evangelical Christians on the question of whether we know what the original writings of the New Testament actually said. The typical line from these evangelical Christians is that since we have so *many* surviving manuscripts of the NT, that we can be almost completely certain that we know what the authors wrote in the vast majority of cases (virtually all). My view is that we simply cannot know [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:04:12-04:00August 26th, 2023|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, New Testament Manuscripts|

Pontius Pilate, Intransigent Governor, Crucifier of Jesus

To make the best sense of this post it is important to keep in mind what I said in the previous one. In his response to my views of in How Jesus Became God – that Jesus most likely was not given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea – Craig Evans has maintained, among other things, that Pilate was not the kind of governor who would ignore Jewish sensitivities. For Craig, Pilate started his rule by making a big mistake of bringing into Jerusalem the Roman standards that bore on them the image of the emperor. But once he realized that the Jewish populace was offended, he backed down and from then on he showed that he had learned his lesson. For that reason, Craig finds it “hard to believe” that at a later time Pilate would do something so opposed to Jewish custom as allow a body unburied on the day of a person’s death. This view strikes me as extremely problematic, for several reasons. To start [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:04:12-04:00August 16th, 2023|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Did Pilate Allow Jesus to be Buried Because He Had “Learned his Lesson”?

I think there is almost no historical figure that Craig and I disagree on more than the Roman governor of Judea at the time of Jesus’ death, Pontius Pilate. I see him as a cruel, vicious, hard-headed, insensitive, and brutal ruler; Craig portrays him as an efficient but wise and rather sensitive aristocrat who could learn from his lessons and who would go out of his way not to offend Jewish sensibilities. A lot hangs on which view (if either) is right, since it was Pilate – we agree on this! – who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, if Jesus was given a decent burial (Craig’s view) or was left to hang on the cross for some time in accordance with standard Roman practice (my view), it was, in either case, Pilate’s decision. Craig’s view is that Pilate’s sensitive decision not to allow crucified victims to hang on their crosses after their deaths is what allowed him to keep “the nation at peace” (the phrase comes from the Jewish historian Josephus, whom I will be dealing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:04:11-04:00August 15th, 2023|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Was Pilate Sensitive to Jews and their Customs (such that he would allow decent burials for crucified victims)?

When I was in high school I was active on the debate team, and really loved it. The team as a whole was really good, but I was nowhere near being the best member. My colleague and another fellow on the team ended up debating together in college and won the national championship as sophomores. These guys were terrific. One of the decisions we constantly had to make when arguing the negative side of a resolution was how to go about attacking the claims of the affirmative side. There were two general approaches: one was what we called the “shotgun” approach. This involved leveling lots and lots of arguments (like buckshot) and hoping that the other side could not respond to them all, thereby making the judge of the debate think that some of the arguments stuck, even if not all of them were that good. The problem with the shotgun approach was that if a bunch of the arguments weren’t very good, the affirmative side could knock them down fairly easily, and by the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:04:11-04:00August 13th, 2023|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Back to Whether Jesus Was Really Given a Decent Burial

Was Jesus actually given a decent burial the afternoon he was crucified? Almost every Christian in the known universe, and almost all New Testament scholars, don't ask the question and if they do they don't ask it seriously: of *course* he was. Just read the Gospels! Why wouldn't he be? For years now I've taken a different stand, as pointed out in my recent post on Monty Python's Life of Brian (see: The Life of Brian and Jesus: Was Jesus Really Buried on the Day of the Crucifixion? - The Bart Ehrman Blog) After that post, and for years before that, blog readers have asked for a fuller explanation of my views, and for my responses to scholarly rejections of it. Most everything I talk about on the blog comprises views held either by a majority of scholars or by a respectable minority. Not this one. So why do I find it convincing? My fullest discussion of the matter came not in a scholarly publication but here on the blog, nine years ago. I've decided [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:03:53-04:00July 22nd, 2023|Bart's Critics, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

What’s It Like to Teach PhD Seminars?

In a previous post I discussed what it's like to teach undergraduates at a research university. Now I discuss teaching PhD seminars. Again, these posts are from some years ago; some details are different now, but the essence is, not eternal, but at least, till now, pretty much the same. ****************************** In addition to my undergraduate classes, I teach one PhD seminar each semester. We have a small but terrific graduate program in the Department of Religious Studies. Students admitted each year are the cream of the crop. Most of them come to us already with both an undergraduate and master’s degree, and we admit students (maybe 7-10 a year) in a range of fields: Islamic studies, Religion in the Americas, Asian Religions, Religion and Culture, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and Ancient Mediterranean Religions. My area is Ancient Mediterranean Religions, which comprises religions of the Ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible, Graeco-Roman Religions (i.e., “pagan” religions), ancient Judaism, and early Christianity (which includes the New Testament). We have probably 35 or so applicants a year [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:47-04:00October 11th, 2022|Bart's Critics, Teaching Christianity|

What’s It Like to Teach at a Research University?

I continue here with my reflections on what a research scholar at a research university actually *does*. This post covers the most important part of the work. The main job of a professor, of course, is to teach. (!) Different colleges and universities have different requirements and expectations for their faculty. At many small colleges, professors teach four or even five courses a semester. Rarely can a person teach that much and still produce substantial (or much of any!) research, so that professors in those contexts are usually handicapped when it comes to publishing scholarship in the form of books and articles. But many of them are in the job because they mainly LOVE teaching. So do I. But I'm in a different situation. Large research universities expect their professors to be at the cutting edge of scholarship, and so the teaching requirements are lighter (since the research demands are so much heavier). Faculty in research schools can never get tenure or promotion (or raises!) if they do not regularly and extensively publish in their [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:47-04:00October 4th, 2022|Bart's Critics, Teaching Christianity|

Why Do Some Smart People Just Not Think?
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Why Do Some Smart People Just Not Think?

Bart's Critics, Reflections and Ruminations

Why Do Some Smart People Just Not Think?

I was recently contacted by a conservative Christian theologian who was interested in doing a public back and forth with me, not necessarily a debate but an exchange of ideas on the issue of theodicy – how to explain evil in a world over which God is sovereign. What puzzled me was his explanation for suggesting the event. He said he had followed my work for years and had read my books, but was surprised recently to find out that the reason I no longer believed in God not “for historical reasons” but because of the problem of suffering. I have to say, I found this comment to be completely mystifying. I still do. Not for the rather obvious reason that, contrary to what he said, he clearly had *not* been following me for many years or read my books. A constant theme of my work (blog, books, interviews) is that I became an agnostic because of the problem of suffering. One of my books, God’s Problem, is devoted specifically to the issue, and it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:07-04:00August 7th, 2022|Bart's Critics, Reflections and Ruminations|

Why Do I “Trash” the Gospels??

Every now and then I get emails from people who are, well, not exactly fans. They have heard that I've said this that or the other thing, and have no interest at all in reading anything I've written, but genuinely want to know: Why are you trashing the Gospels? It’s a fair question, and deserves a fair answer. I dealt with it years ago on the blog; this is what I said then. ****************************** The short story is that I’m not *trying* to trash the Gospels. In my view, what I’m doing is showing what the Gospels really are and what they really are not. And that is not a matter of trashing them. It’s a matter of revealing their true character, rather than foisting a false character on them. I'd agree, of course, that by arguing that the Gospels are not historically accurate I am contesting and challenging views of the Gospels that many Christians unreflectively have (and that some Christian scholars reflectively have). But urging a different understanding of the Gospels is not [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:06-04:00August 2nd, 2022|Bart's Critics, Canonical Gospels|

Specious Arguments for the Truth of the Bible

Professors who have taught the same subject for decades often get tired with covering the same material time after time and, as a result, answering the same questions time after time. I've had friends who teach New Testament tell me: "If I have to teach the Synoptic Problem ONE MORE TIME I am going to SCREAM…." I've never felt that way. It's probably just a matter of personality and brain chemistry. For me, teaching someone who doesn't know something that I’ve taught for many years just means they haven’t had the chance to learn it. It’s the same outside the classroom with questions/comments I get – the same questions all the time. I’ll admit that often in the first nano-second I sometimes think: Why don’t they just GET IT? But then I remember: Wait a second. This person hasn't heard the answer.... Here is a question that comes to me all the time. I got it again a few days ago. QUESTION: I have a brief question. I was a biblical studies major in college [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:58:51-04:00July 24th, 2022|Bart's Critics, New Testament Manuscripts|

Did Paul Write “Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians”?

Here's an important question I received recently from a blog member: Someone told me that “I should never listen to you” because you say Paul did not write six letters of the New Testament, even though the letters start with the claim he did: "Paul, an Apostle of Christ to the Church at ….." This person's main issue was: what is the evidence Paul did not write Ephesians? Your thoughts. Response This is an issue I dealt with directly in my book Forged: Why The Biblical Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2012). Here's what I say there. (If you are interested in the hard-core academic and detailed discussion of the evidence, I have a much fuller discussion in my book Forgery and Counterforgery) ****************************** When I was teaching at Rutgers in the mid 1980s, I regularly offered a course on the life and teachings of Paul. One of the textbooks for the course was a book on Paul by a conservative British scholar named F. F. Bruce.[1] I used the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:58:21-04:00June 8th, 2022|Bart's Critics, Forgery in Antiquity, Paul and His Letters|

The Critique of the “Very Reverend Robert Barron”

I am celebrating the ten year anniversary of the blog (April 18, 2022) by reposting the ten previous posts made on April 18 of each year. I am now up to 2014. On that day I posted a response to someone's critique of my then just published How Jesus Became God. I was a bit testy. Who, me? Here's what I said. ****************************** The responses to How Jesus Became God are starting to appear, and I must say, I find the harshest ones bordering on the incredible. Do people think that it is acceptable to attack a book that they haven’t read – or at least haven’t had the courtesy to try to understand? Some of the reviewers are known entities, such as the Very Rev. Robert Barron, a Roman Catholic evangelist and commentator who has a wide following. His full response is available at http://wordonfire.org/Written-Word/articles-commentaries/April-2014/Why-Jesus-is-God--A-Response-to-Bart-Ehrman.aspx I find it very disappointing. Here is his opening gambit: ****************************** "In this most recent tome, Ehrman lays out what is actually a very old thesis, going back at least to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:58:07-04:00May 22nd, 2022|Bart's Critics, Book Discussions|

Why Romans Crucified People and Who Was Crucifixion Reserved For?
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Why Romans Crucified People and Who Was Crucifixion Reserved For?

Bart's Critics, Historical Jesus

Why Romans Crucified People and Who Was Crucifixion Reserved For?

Why Romans crucified people.....and who was crucifixion reserved for? Most people acquire their knowledge about ancient Roman crucifixions from the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion in the Gospels. They learn the stories about the cross, the nails, the "King of the Jews" sign nailed above Jesus' head, and the agony he endured. But there's another side to the story. By studying the facts of Roman crucifixions, including their methods and process, you'll find that crucifixion was about a lot more than pain and punishment. Their goal was absolute humiliation. This is part 5 in a thread of my responses to Craig Evans, who has argued against the positions I take in How Jesus Became God. Here's the beginning of the thread. Why Romans Crucified People - Why it's Important Because you must understand the REASON the Romans crucified people in order to understand an important position I take in my book, How Jesus Became God, which Craig Evans attacked. In the book, I argue that it is likely that Jesus was not given a decent burial, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:25:48-04:00May 1st, 2022|Bart's Critics, Historical Jesus|

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