Canonical Gospels Archives - Page 26 of 36 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

The Death of Judas in the NT

In this and the next couple of posts I will be talking about what we know was in Papias’s five-volume book, now lost, Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord. As I previously indicated, the only reason we have any clue about the matter is that later church fathers quoted a few passages from the book. Would they had quoted more! But what they give us is very tantalizing. The first passage I want to discuss involves the death of Judas Iscariot. To make sense of what Papias has to say, I need to provide some context. Many people don’t realize that Judas’s death, after he betrayed Jesus, is not mentioned in three of our Gospels: Mark, Luke, and John. It is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, however, and just as important, in the book of Acts, written by the same author who produced the Gospel of Luke (so, well, let’s call him Luke). What is striking is that the descriptions of Judas’s death in these two accounts are at odds with one, even [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:29-04:00June 2nd, 2015|Acts of the Apostles, Canonical Gospels|

The Nature of John’s Signs Source

I have given one of the major pieces of evidence that there was a Signs Source that was used by the author of the Gospel of John, a written document that enumerated seven miraculous deeds of Jesus that were designed to show that he was a divine being, the Son of God. There is another piece of evidence. It is the concluding comment of chapter 20 of the Gospel, which I have already quoted a couple of times: “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, but these are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name.” (20:30-31) The reason this verse seems to suggest the existence of a signs source is that it doesn’t really make very much sense where it now occurs, at the end of the stories of Jesus’ resurrection (Note: as I’ve indicated before, scholars frequently think that chapter 21 of John was tacked on later, in a second edition; [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:29-04:00May 28th, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

Some Evidence for a Signs Source in John

I started this mini-thread by mentioning one of the now-lost documents of early Christianity that I would love to have discovered, the alleged “Signs Source” of the Gospel of John. Before giving the evidence that there may have been some such source, I went off on a tangent, in order to show that John has a different view of Jesus’ spectacular deeds from what you find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In these earlier Gospels, Jesus does “miracles,” both because he feels compassion for those in need and in order to illustrate his teaching that the Kingdom of God was soon to appear. In John, however, he does “signs” to prove that he really is a divine being. So, what evidence is there that John’s accounts of Jesus’ signs derive from a previously existing, but no longer surviving, written source? The evidence does not make a slam-dunk case, and so the matter is debated among scholars. I’ve long thought, though, that there probably was some such source. First, some basic factual information. These are the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:29-04:00May 27th, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

Why Jesus Does Miracles

I seem to be taking a very circuitous route (as you may have noticed) to the question of why we might think that the author of the Gospel of John had access to a written source that gave him his information about the “signs” that Jesus did during his public ministry. To get to that point, I have been discussing how John’s view of Jesus’ spectacular deeds differed significantly from the view of the Synoptics. I have stressed that whereas in John Jesus does signs in order to prove that he is the Son of God so that people would come to believe in him, in the Synoptics Jesus refuses to do signs in order to prove his divine identity. But why then does he do miracles in the Synoptics? I suppose the common answer is probably right: he does miracles out of compassion for those who are suffering. But there is more to it than that. The miracles in the Synoptics do demonstrate that what Jesus says is true. But in these Gospels what [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:29-04:00May 26th, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

The Temptation Narrative Missing from John

In my previous post I started to discuss the hypothetical Signs Source that some scholars have claimed lay behind the accounts of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospel of John – one of the now lost documents of early Christianity (assuming it once existed) that I very much wish could be discovered. Before giving evidence that there was some such written source, I started in the last post by discussing the distinctive view of Jesus’ spectacular deeds in the Fourth Gospel, where they are called “signs” rather than “miracles.” In that post I argued that John has a completely different view of these deeds from that found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In these Synoptics Jesus refuses to do miracles in order to prove his identity. When he is asked to do so, he indicates that “no sign will be given to this generation” – apart from the sign of Jonah. Not so in John. Jesus does signs. They are designed to make people believe who he is (4:54). And the Gospel writer himself indicates that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:29-04:00May 25th, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

Signs in the Gospel of John

For many decades now there have been scholars who have been convinced that the Gospel of John is based, in large part, on written, but no-longer surviving, sources. It is much debated whether John relied on the Synoptic Gospels for any of its stories, or whether in fact its author had ever read (or even heard of) Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There are very few verbatim overlaps between John and the others, and outside of the Passion narrative there is not a lot of overlap in the stories told. Somewhat like the Synoptics John does have the healing of a Capernaum official’s son, the feeding of the 5000, and the walking on the water – all told in striking different ways. John’s four other miracles (which he doesn’t call miracles, but “signs”) are unique to his account (including the favorite miracle on college campuses everywhere, the turning of water into wine, and the favorite of most Hollyood screen writers, the raising of Lazarus). Moreover, the teachings of Jesus are highly distinctive in John. Almost nothing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:29-04:00May 23rd, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

The Community Behind the Gospel of John: Part 2

In the last post I began to discuss what we can know about the history of the community that produced (or that produced someone who produced) the Gospel of John. The reason for dealing with this question is this: one of the overarching theses of my book on memory and the historical Jesus is that the things we experience in the present affect how we remember the past. They affect which parts of the past we remember (if they something in the past isn’t relevant for something in the present, we don’t bother to recall it; that’s just how memory works) and they radically affect how we remember. The past is always shaped, in our minds (unconsciously), by the present. My argument in the book is that this is true not only of us as individuals but also for us as social groups. Collective memory reflects the present as well as the past, or rather it reflects the past as it is molded by the present. To illustrate the point here on the blog, I’m [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:12-04:00April 28th, 2015|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels|

The Community Behind the Gospel of John

In chapter 6 of my proposed book Jesus Before the Gospels, after I deal with collective memory in theory, I move on to talk about how Jesus was remembered in three different early Christian communities, those behind the Gospels of Mark (our earliest canonical Gospel), John (our latest canonical Gospel), and Thomas (our best known non-canonical Gospel). One thing we have learned from memory studies is that the present affects not only what is remembered about the past, but also how it is remembered. That is true for communities as well as individuals. And so in my treatment of how Jesus was remembered in such different ways in these three communities, I discuss as well what can be established or at least surmised about the historical circumstances that would have made such memories plausible. I don’t want to spill the beans here about what I say for each of these communities, but I do want to show how scholars have tried to establish the historical context for one of them, the one behind the Gospel [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:12-04:00April 25th, 2015|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels|

My Memory Book: False Memories and the Life of Jesus

As I indicated in my previous two posts, the fifth chapter of the book I’m now writing, Jesus Before The Gospels, deals with “False Memories and the Life of Jesus.” The first part of the chapter shows what we know about how traditions are kept alive in oral cultures, as they are told and retold, either by professionals who are experts or by regular ole folk who are not. And so this part of the chapter summarizes the research into oral cultures undertaken by anthropologists. Of course there are no anthropologists who can study ancient cultures, at least in the way they can study modern cultures, when they can go in to observe how the culture “works,” interview people, and get to know the cultural world first-hand. But it is possible to apply the findings of modern anthropology to long-deceased cultures, such as the Christian communities of the first century. And that’s what I try to do in this chapter. My specific interest is in how Jesus was remembered in these cultures that passed along [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:57-04:00April 20th, 2015|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies|

Can A Made-Up Story Be A False Memory?

It has become clear to me, in seeing a number of responses to my posts on memory, that I’m not quite explaining myself clearly enough to get my point across to everyone. So, well, what else is new? When I have mentioned “false memories” in the Gospels – that is, recollections of Jesus that are not true to what really happened – some readers have pointed out that these may not be memories at all, but they may simply be what the Gospel writers made up for their own reasons. In that case Jesus isn’t being “remembered” in these ways. Someone’s just making up stuff. In response to that view, let me make two points, the second one of which is the the most relevant and important. The first, though, is that in most cases I don’t think there is any way to know whether a non-historical tradition in the Gospels is something that the Gospel writer inherited from others before him or invented himself. Take Luke’s story of how Jesus came to be born [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:56-04:00April 10th, 2015|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies|

Jesus, Matthew, and the Law
Gallery
Jesus, Matthew, and the Law

Canonical Gospels, Paul and His Letters

Jesus, Matthew, and the Law

In my previous post I discussed the differences – what strike me, at least, as the differences – between the Gospel of Matthew and Paul’s letter to the Galatians and with respect to whether the followers of Jesus are to follow the law or not. Matthew’s Gospel indicates that the law will not cease to be in force until the heavens and earth pass away, and that Jesus’ followers need to follow the law to the limit, to follow it even better than the scribes and Pharisees do. Paul, on the other hand, insists that the followers of Jesus must not think that they have to follow the law. Any gentile who thinks he has to be circumcised, or to follow other aspects of the Jewish law, is in danger of losing salvation. I would like to clarify one point about my view and explain one of its complications. Clarification: in my post I was not discussing whether Paul saw eye-to-eye with Jesus about this issue. My post was about the Gospel of Matthew. I [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:40-04:00March 27th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Paul and His Letters|

Is Paul at Odds with Matthew?

In yesterday’s post I indicated that I really very much wish that we could have some of the writings produced by Paul’s opponents in Galatia. They believed that in order to be a follower of Jesus, a person had to accept and follow the Law of Moses as laid out in the Jewish Scriptures. Men were to be circumcised to join the people of God; men and women were, evidently, to adopt a Jewish lifestyle. Presumably that meant keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath, and so on. Anyone who didn’t do this was not really a member of the people of God, since to be one of God’s people meant following the law that God had given. Paul was incensed at this interpretation of the faith and insisted with extraordinary vehemence that it was completely wrong. The gentile followers of Jesus were not, absolutely not, supposed to become Jewish. Anyone who thought so rendered the death of Jesus worthless. It was only that death, and the resurrection, that made a person right with God. Nothing else. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:40-04:00March 25th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Paul and His Letters|

Q and the Passion Narrative

This, I think (!), will be my last post for now on the Q source apparently used by Matthew and Luke for many of their sayings materials, a source that must at one time have existed (since Matthew and Luke appear both to have had access to it), that was written in Greek (otherwise Matthew and Luke could not agree word-for-word in places – in Greek -- in their non-Markan sayings material), and that contained almost exclusively (or exclusively) sayings of Jesus. There are many other issues that we could discuss about Q, but for now I would like to end by mentioning just one. It is regularly and routinely maintained by New Testament scholars that one of the striking features of Q is that it contains a list of Jesus’ sayings and no passion narrative – no account of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Scholars then draw a conclusion: the death of Jesus was not important to the community that produced the Q document. I have to admit, I’m not completely convinced of this claim, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:39-04:00March 20th, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

Did Matthew Copy Luke or Luke Matthew?

In this thread, which is supposed to be on the lost writings of early Christianity that I would most like to have discovered, I can’t seem to get away from Q, Several readers have asked a pointed question about Q. If you recall, Q is the hypothetical document that contained principally sayings of Jesus, that was evidently used by Matthew and Luke (but not by Mark) in constructing their Gospels. The logic is that if Matthew and Luke both used Mark (which the vast majority of scholars agree about), then one has to explain why they have so many other materials (mainly sayings) in common not *found* in Mark. I have pointed out that Matthew does not seem to have gotten those sayings from Luke or Luke from Matthew, and so they both most have gotten them from some other one-time-existing source. That is what we call Q (for the German word Quelle: Source). But some readers have asked WHY it is unlikely that Matthew got these sayings from Luke or Luke from Matthew. It’s [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:39-04:00March 19th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Q and The Gospel of Thomas

Before I move on to discuss other lost books from early Christianity that I would love to have discovered (I know, this thread could go on forever, since I would like *every* early Christian writing to be discovered) I need to answer a couple of queries that I have received about the Q source. First, several people have asked me whether it is possible that the Q source is actually what we now call the Gospel of Thomas, one of the books discovered among the so-called Nag Hammadi Library in 1945. I don’t want to go into great depth about the Gospel of Thomas here since, well, it has been discovered and this thread is about book s that have *not* been discovered. But I do need to say some basics about Thomas and its relation to Q. By way of background, let me say something a bit more about the Q-hypothesis. When 19th century German scholars established with a reasonable level of certainty that Mark was the first Gospel written and that Matthew and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:39-04:00March 18th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Christian Apocrypha|

Evidence that the Synoptics Are Copying (one another? other sources?)

In yesterday’s post, when talking about the one-time existence of Q, I indicated that scholars have long recognized that there must be some kind of literary relationship among Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Synoptic Gospels, since they have so many similarities: they tell many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes – lots of times – in the very same words. That is to say, someone must be copying someone else, or they are all using the same written sources. Some of my students have trouble seeing that if two documents are word-for-word the same, one must be copying the other (or they both are copying a third source). Older adults don’t seem to have any problem seeing that, right off the bat. But younger adults need to be convinced. And so I do a little experiment with them that more or less proves it. I do this every year in my New Testament class, which normally has 200-300 students in it. I come to class a minute or two late [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:39-04:00March 17th, 2015|Canonical Gospels|

The Lost Q Source

I can now return to my thread dealing with a question asked by a reader: if I could choose, which of the lost books from Christian antiquity would I want to be discovered? My first and immediate answer was: the lost letters of Paul. My second answer is what I will deal with here. I would love – we would all love – to have a discovery of Q. Many readers of the blog will know all about Q. Many will know something about Q. Many will have never heard of Q. So here’s the deal. Scholars since the 19th century have worked out the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels with one another. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called “synoptic” because they tell many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes in exactly the same words. Synoptic means “seen together.” You can “see” these Gospels “together” by laying them side by side and noting their abundant similarities (and differences). But the only way they could have such extensive similarities (especially the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:39-04:00March 16th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

A Source for the Birth Narratives in Matthew and Luke?

QUESTION: What’s your take on the independence or interdependence of Mt 1-2 and Lk 1-2. Do you think Luke’s infancy narratives are based on Matthew’s? Or vice versa? Or on some other unknown earlier common source? Or neither and they’re both independent? It sounds like you’re advocating independence. But if they are separate and independent, then we have to account for common elements in the two. Some commonalities are easier to explain (e.g., location in Bethlehem [Micah 5.2]; mother’s name Mary [Mk 6.3]), but others less so (e.g., both have the same name Joseph for Mary’s husband even though that name is not in Mark or Q; both have the unexpected and unprecedented miracle story of a virgin birth). Thoughts? RESPONSE: This is a great and very perceptive question. It is rooted in my thread, just finished, on Bethlehem and Nazareth, in which I argued that both Matthew and Luke have given us stories to explain how Jesus could be the messiah – who (in their opinion) was to be born in Bethlehem – [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:39-04:00March 9th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Bethlehem and Nazareth in Luke: Where Was Jesus Really Born?

Yesterday I discussed Matthew’s account of how it is that Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem, if in fact he “came” from Nazareth. Of course, critical scholars suspect Matthew has placed Jesus' birth there to fulfill Michah's prophecy (5:2) that a great ruler (the supposed messiah) would come from Bethlehem. For Matthew it is because Joseph and Mary were originally from Bethlehem. That was their home town. And the place of Jesus’ birth. Two or more years after his birth, they relocated to Nazareth in Galilee, over a hundred miles to the north, to get away from the rulers of Judea who were thought to be out to kill the child. (That in itself, I hardly need to say, seems completely implausible, that a local king is eager to kill a peasant child out of fear that he will wrest the kingdom away from him….) Luke has a completely different account of how it happened. In Luke, Bethlehem is decidedly not Joseph and Mary’s home town. The whole point of the story is that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:38-04:00March 6th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Bethlehem and Nazareth in Matthew

In my last post I showed why it is virtually certain that Jesus’ home town was Nazareth. All of our sources agree that he was from there, and it is very hard to imagine why a Christian story teller would have made that up. But now the question is whether that was also his place of birth. The only two accounts we have of Jesus’ birth, Matthew and Luke, independently claim that even though he was raised in Nazareth, he was actually born in Bethlehem. So isn’t that the more likely scenario? Born in Bethlehem but raised in Nazareth? You might think so, given the fact that this is what is stated in our only two sources of information, and that they independently agree about the matter (based on their own sources, the no longer existing M – Matthew’s source or sources – and the no longer existing L – Luke’s source or sources). But there are reasons for thinking that we cannot trust these accounts, for three reasons: THE REST OF THIS POST IS [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:38-04:00March 5th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Previous 1···252627···36 Next