Book Discussions Archives - Page 7 of 31 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Fiction and Fact, Legend and History. Is it Either / Or?

This now is the 7th of 10 parts of my interview with Ben Witherington on my book Did Jesus Exist. Here there are two interesting questions, both focusing on the relationship of legend and history in ancient stories about Jesus. Part of the question is whether the Gospel writers were simply riffing on (or, more cynically, ripping off) earlier stories of other amazing figures when talking about Jesus; the other is whether that has a significant bearing on how we understand what he said and and did -- or on whether we think he even existed. Q. Robert Price's argument that the stories of Jesus are a giant midrash on OT stories about Moses and others, and so are completely fiction seems to ignore the fact that midrash is a hermeneutical technique used for contemporizing pre-existing stories. Talk briefly about the difference between how stories are shaped in the Gospels and whether they have any historical substance or core or not. (N.B. It appears that Crossan has recently made the same kind of category mistake arguing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:19-04:00June 26th, 2021|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Texts and Towns that Allegedly Didn’t Exist (So Did Jesus?)

Here I continue to answer questions from my evangelical colleague in the field, Ben Witherington, as addressed some years ago, These again deal with the claims of "Mythicists," who insist that there never actually was a man Jesus, but that he is simply made up, a complete myth. One way they support their point is by saying that some passages in the ancient world that mention him in fact are later "interpolations" into the original writings (that is, some nefarious editor stuck references to Jesus into a text that originally didn't mention him) and that his hometown, Nazareth, actually did not exist at the time. Is either claim credible or, well, supported by any actual *evidence*? Here are Ben's queries and my responses. Q. Mythicists seems to often uses the interpolation theory to explain away NT texts that are inconvenient to their agendas. Yet it is also true that some NT scholars use interpolation theories to the very same end, even when there is apparently no textual basis for the interpolation theory. Explain how [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:05-04:00June 24th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, New Testament Manuscripts|

How Do We Know If Jesus Did Something?

This post continues my 10-part interview with Ben Witherington dealing with "mythicists," those who claim that there never actually *was* a man Jesus, but that he is a complete fabrication, a myth. In Did Jesus Exist, I try to show why that is simply not true. But if he did exist, and the Gospels say things about him that probably didn't happen, how do you separate the fact from the fiction? Here Ben asks me questions related to that idea, and I give some responses. Q. Various mythicists have tried to argue that in fact there is only one source, namely Mark, that provides evidence that Jesus existed and presumably he made up the idea? Why is this not a fair representation of the evidence, and why do you think it is that various of them hardly even deal with the evidence from Paul? A. Most mythicists claim that Paul never mentions the historical Jesus or says anything about him, but that he only speaks of a “mythical Christ” who was not a real human [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:05-04:00June 23rd, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Some Key Evidence for Jesus

I continue here with the conversation I had some years ago with evangelical New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, based on my book Did Jesus Exist. In this post, we start getting into some of the key evidence we have for Jesus, not only to show that he actually existed (uh, yes he did...) but also to help us know what we can say about him, about what he really said and did. Q (Witherington). In the middle portion of your book, you place a great deal of emphasis on what is usually called the criteria of multiple attestation to demonstrate that Jesus surely existed. Would you explain briefly why historians place so much stock in this criteria, and why it is especially important when dealing with the question of the existence of Jesus. A. Multiple attestation is one of the most important historical criteria for establishing what happened in the past – not just for historical Jesus research, but for any serious historical research. If the sources to a historical person or event are [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:05-04:00June 22nd, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Why My Book on Revelation Has Been Different To Write

As many of you know, my next book is on the Revelation of John, to be written not for scholars but for a general audience. I decided I wanted to write the book maybe four years ago, and my ideas about it have changed significantly since I began to think about it. Part of that is because the book is, as Bob Dylan says, “a slow train coming.” My original plan was to have the book finished by now. In fact, that was the publisher’s plan too. This is the first time in my mortal existence that I’ve been seriously behind on a book deadline. Usually, I finish way ahead of time. Not with this one. There are several reasons for that and I won’t bore you with them since virtually everyone I know has had the same problems: Covid burnout, too much work, and too little time. BUT the positive side of it all is that with this book I’m allowing myself time to think and reflect without a definite plan. It’s a new [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:05-04:00June 20th, 2021|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

What About Other References to Jesus Outside the New Testament?

I continue here with the re-post of an interview from years ago but of ongoing relevance, about how we can know what we know about Jesus. The interview was with Ben Witherington, a conservative evangelical Christian New Testament scholar, who asked me to respond to a number of questions about my book Did Jesus Exist in light of criticism I received for it (not, for the most part, from committed Christians!). Some of Ben Witherington’s most popular books are The Jesus Quest, and The Problem with Evangelical Theology, among others. - Q. Sometimes you make a distinction between literary evidence and other sorts of written evidence (e.g. records of trials or tax records), and you place especial stress on the former as a way of answering the question of whether or not Jesus existed. Can you explain why you do this? A. Yes, there is a clear distinction to be made between literary and documentary evidence. The only reason I place special evidence on the former, when talking about the historical Jesus, is that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:05-04:00June 19th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Evidence for Jesus Outside the New Testament: Part 2 of My Exchange with Ben Witherington

Nine years ago, Ben Witherington, a conservative evangelical Christian New Testament scholar, asked me to respond to a number of questions about my book Did Jesus Exist, especially in light of criticism I have received for it (not, for the most part, from committed Christians!). I am reposting the interview, since it's on such an important topic. Ben's blog is widely read by conservative evangelicals, and he has agreed to post the questions and my answers without editing, to give his readers a sense of why I wrote the book, what I hoped to accomplish by it, and what I would like them to know about it. He has graciously agreed to allow me to post my responses here on my blog, which, if I’m not mistaken, has a very different readership (although there is undoubtedly some overlap). It’s a rather long set of questions and answers – over 10,000 words. So I will post them in bits and pieces so as not to overwhelm anyone. The Q’s are obviously his, the A’s mine. Some [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:05-04:00June 17th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

Why I Wrote my book Did Jesus Exist? Interview with Evangelical Scholar Ben Witherington

Ever since I started publishing books for non-scholars, I've been attacked by evangelical Christians for my views of the Bible. Then, somewhat ironically, about nine years ago I came under attack by the nemeses of evangelical Christians, the "mythicists," who claim that Jesus never existed. And why did they attack me? For my views of the Bible. Isn't life marvelous? In 2012 published a book arguing that whatever else you say about him, Jesus certainly existed. It drove some of the mythicists to distraction. What was I thinking? I didn't agree with them! Traitor! Oh boy I didn't agree with them. And on this point, at least, some evangelicals came to love me. One of the leading New Testament scholars in the evangelical community is Ben Witherington, with whom I've been on friendly terms for a very long time. Ben also has a blog, quite different from mine. Soon after the book was published, Ben asked if he could do a multi-part series with me on the book that both of us could post on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:04-04:00June 16th, 2021|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

What About Authors Who “Just Want to Sell Books”?

I was looking through some old posts from years ago, and came across this one, which continues to be an issue for me. It's the kind of thing I continue to hear on occasion, and so I thought maybe it was worth approaching again. Sometimes I hear someone criticize me, or another author, by saying “he just wants to sell books.” That has always struck me as a very strange thing to say. Of course I want to sell books. Why else would I write books? Would I want to write books so no one would read them? What people actually *mean*by that comment, of course, is more snide and offensive. What they mean is: “he will say anything in a book in order to get people to buy it.” There may indeed be authors for whom this is true. I can’t speak for them, only for myself. This is a charge I really bristle at. Almost no one of course comes out and actually makes the charge directly. But it must be what they [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:50-04:00May 30th, 2021|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Did the Disciples See Jesus Raised from the Dead?

On this Easter Sunday I would like to explain what I think led to the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead. A lot of readers over the years have not liked my answer (readers on wide ends of the spectrum): I think some (a few) of the disciples had visions of Jesus. That is, they saw him, or thought they saw him -- which for them would have been the same thing. I dealt with the matter in my book God's Problem, and responded to a question on the blog about it a long time ago. Here it is. QUESTION: I am reading How Jesus Became God and would like to comment on some of the content of Chapter 5. To that point in the book, it seems to me you have been very careful to avoid speculation, but it seems to me that the application of your usual standards may have lapsed somewhat in regard to the visions of Jesus after the crucifixion. Specifically, what evidence do we have, apart from [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:04-04:00April 4th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

How to Make Sense of (or at least Peace with) What’s Strange in the Bible: Guest Post by Kristin Swenson

Three weeks ago we had a guest post by Kristin Swenson about her new book A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible. Here's the link if you haven't read it yet: https://ehrmanblog.org/an-intriguing-but-most-peculiar-book-guest-post-by-kristin-swenson/ Her post raised a lot of interest, and so now we are fortunate to have her back for a second, related post. Kristen has PhD in biblical studies from Boston University and is an associate professor of religious studies (affiliate) at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has written other books as well, including God of Earth: Discovering a Radically Ecological Christianity and Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time. ********************************** One of the things about writing is how frequently the process of writing itself reveals something new. In the case of A Most Peculiar Book, I set out to discuss some of the Bible's many weirdnesses. It quickly became clear that the topic has two, general parts – what's weird about the Bible, and what's weird in it. So that's how I continued (and what [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:52:49-04:00March 14th, 2021|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

An Intriguing but Most Peculiar Book! Guest Post by Kristin Swenson

A new book has just come out that many of you will be very interested in. It is called A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible (Oxford University Press), by Kristin Swenson. I did not know Kristin until I learned of the book, some months before it was published. The publisher asked if I would write an endorsement for the cover. I usually have to say no to this kind of request, but I read the book and thought it was terrific. Here is what I said in my blurb: Do you think you know the Bible? Wait till you read Kristin Swenson’s new book. What if you don’t know the Bible at all? Even better. A Most Peculiar Book is a deeply informed, completely accessible, and endlessly fascinating explanation of what scholars know about the Bible and lay people, as a rule, do not. Read this book and prepare to learn! I received my copy a couple of weeks ago and contacted Kristin to ask if she’d be interested in writing a [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:52:48-04:00February 24th, 2021|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Interview about My Writing with the North Carolina Writers’ Network

I recently did an interview for spring issue of the North Carolina Writers' Network’s newsletter The Writers' Network News (Spring, 2021). If you are interested in learning more about their organization, this is their website: www.ncwriters.org. Some of the questions in the interview were about my most recent book Heaven and Hell, others were on my approach to writing. Eight questions overall, with brief answers. The issue was published just yesterday, so I have permission now to post it here as well on the blog. Many thanks to Charles Fiore from the NCWN, who set up and conducted the interview. Q&A for NCWN Writers Literary portrayals of the afterlife are full of spectacle. For example, who can forget the circles in Dante's "Inferno"? ("Purgatorio" was unnerving enough...) Are we somehow drawn to terrible spectacle, even though we also fear it? The first chapter of my book Heaven and Hell deals with early Christian tours of the afterlife. These are the earliest forerunners of Dante, and he was familiar with one of them. Unlike the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:52:17-04:00February 11th, 2021|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

What About All Those Other Virgin Births in Antiquity?

I have devoted several posts to the issue of Jesus’ virgin birth, as recounted in Matthew and Luke. As I pointed out, there is no account of Jesus’ virgin birth in the Gospel of John, and it appears that the idea is actually argued *against* (implicitly) in the Gospel of Mark. As happened last time I did a thread like this, several readers have asked me (or told me) about the similarities to the virgin birth stories in pagan texts, where a son of God, or demi-god, or, well, some other rather amazing human being, is said to have been born of a virgin. Aren’t the Christians simply borrowing a widely held view found among the pagans, that if someone is the son of God (e.g., Hercules, or Dionysus, or Asclepius, etc.), his mother is always thought to have been a virgin? As it turns out, that’s not the case at all. I don’t know of any parallel to ... Want to be well informed? Keep reading. Not a member of the blog? Join! Costs [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:51:58-04:00January 3rd, 2021|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

How Then Can We Believe?

I continue now with the amazing and disturbing chapter “Rebellion” from the Brothers Karamazov, which significantly affected my view of suffering. If you did not read yesterday’s post, you will probably want to do so before launching into this one. ****************************** Ivan’s stories are not just about wartime atrocities. They involve the everyday. And what is frightening is that they ring true to real life experiences. He is obsessed with the torture of young children, even among well educated “civilized” people living in Europe: They have a great love of torturing children, they even love children in that sense. It is precisely the defenselessness of these creatures that tempts the torturers, the angelic trustfulness of the child, who has nowhere to turn and no one to turn to – that is what enflames the vile blood of the torturer. He tells then the story of a five-year-old girl who was tormented by her parents and severely punished for wetting her bed (this is a story that Dostoevsky based on an actual court case): "These educated [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:51:40-04:00December 10th, 2020|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

How Do Popular Books Get Their Titles?

This now is the third of my series of FIVE FAVORITES from blog posts in previous years; this one is taken from 2014. ******************************** How do trade books -- written for a general audience -- get their titles? There's not an easy answer to that. Most scholarly books are simply given a title by the author; the publisher has to agree, of course, and they have the last word. They are unlikely to accept anything "cute": for scholarly books they want the titles to sound erudite and learned. If they are meant to be “clever” then they are to be clever only to those on the academic inside who catch the allusions. Trade books are meant to be witty and intriguing for a general reader, and a sign that the book will be really interesting and about something that the reader wants to learn more about. In the best cases, the reader – a non-scholar – should read the title and think, “Huh, I’d like to know about that!” or “Huh, I wonder that that’s [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:51:03-04:00October 25th, 2020|Book Discussions|

The Original Blog Post!! Misquoting Misquoting Jesus!

As you can see, we have now launched our new version of the blog, very new and much improved. I've decided to start our new life together by returning to the beginning. Over the next week I will be posting five of my favorite posts from years past, one from each of the first five years of the blog. Here is the very first post I made. Looking back, to me it looks a bit, well, feisty. I was a bit more cantankerous and, uh, defensive in those days. Nonetheless, I agree with just about everything in it still. But I should say, in case any of you wonder, that Ben Witherington, whom I address here, and I are actually friends in the field. He has attacked me a good deal in the past, in very public forums; but I maybe go a bit overboard here. Still, this post is a nice museum piece, at least in my mind. Some of Ben Witherington’s most popular books are The Jesus Quest, and The Problem with Evangelical [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:51:03-04:00October 22nd, 2020|Bart's Debates, Book Discussions, New Testament Manuscripts|

Paul’s Ascent to Paradise. Guest Post by James Tabor
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Paul’s Ascent to Paradise. Guest Post by James Tabor

Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Paul and His Letters

Paul’s Ascent to Paradise. Guest Post by James Tabor

A couple of weeks ago I learned that James Tabor had republished his book Paul’s Ascent to Heaven, his first scholarly monograph, which, alas, had gone out of print. But it’s back in! I wrote him to ask if he’d be willing to write a couple of guest posts about it, and here is the first. This one explains how and where the book originated (published 1986); his next post will discuss how his mind has changed on some issues in the intervening years. Many of you know James from his other writings. He publishes for both scholarly and popular audiences. James has long been a professor of Religious Studies at UNC Charlotte. Here is his story of how his book first came to be. He will be happy to respond to comments and questions. James Tabor’s most popular books are Paul and Jesus and The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find that Reveals the Birth of Christianity, among others. ************************************************************ James D. Tabor, Dept. of Religious Studies, UNC Charlotte Paul’s Ascent to Paradise [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:50:26-04:00August 28th, 2020|Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Paul and His Letters|

Smith-Pettit Lecture – The History of Heaven and Hell

Here is a webinar that I did on July 29th, 2020, as the Smith-Pettit lecture for the Sunstone Digital Symposium sponsored by Sunstone Education Foundation. It was on the "History of Heaven and Hell." It was an unusual event for me: Sunstone is an independent organization located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sunstone does not have any official ties to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but it does serve mainly them, bringing together traditional and non-traditional Latter-day Saints, promoting an atmosphere that seeks to value faith, intellectual, and experiential integrity. Moderating the event was Karin Franklin Peter, president of the Fifth Quorum of Seventy, who serves on the Council of Presidents of Seventy with the Community of Christ. This is a branch of "Mormons" that split from the LDS over polygamy in the 19th century. She received a bachelor of science in psychology and a master of arts in Christian ministry from Community of Christ Seminary at Graceland University, Independence, Missouri. I was introduced by Lindsay Hansen Park, an American Mormon feminist [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:50:24-04:00August 21st, 2020|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Public Forum, Video Media|

Christianizing the Old Testament and the Museum of the Bible: Guest Post by Jill Hicks-Keeton

Here now is a final guest post on the Museum of the Bible by Jill Hicks-Keeton, one of the two editors of the recent book that contains a number of evaluative essays by a range of scholars. Her title asks the driving question of her post and her first word answers it! Many thanks to Jill and her co-editor Cavan Concannon for providing these three posts. If they have sparked your interest -- check out the book! Jill will be happy to respond to your comments and questions. - Jill Hicks-Keeton is the editor of The Museum of the Bible: A Critical Introduction, and the author of Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel's Living God in Jewish Antiquity. *************************************************************** Can the Bible Organize History? By Jill Hicks-Keeton No—but the Museum of the Bible makes an intrepid, though misguided, effort. By its very name, the Museum of the Bible must privilege certain literature: texts that became biblical. The institution is structurally organized around the category “Bible.” Yet, as readers of this blog will already [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:50:04-04:00July 21st, 2020|Book Discussions, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

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