Historical Jesus Archives - Page 11 of 35 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Knowing What Jesus Said and Did

I was just now looking through some old posts on the blog -- there over 2000 of them, since 2012 -- and ran across one that struck me as particularly relevant, to me at least. It's the topic I'll be discussing with my PhD students on Tuesday, and it turns out this is what I first said about it in a post I made nine years ago. I'll say pretty much the same thing on Tuesday! It's in response to a question from a reader, about how scholars try to determine what Jesus said and did. ****************************** QUESTION: I've seen, somewhere on the internet (I know, great source!) some discussion that modern scholarship is moving away from the idea of criteria (such as multiple attestation, dissimilarity, etc.) and that the use of criteria is becoming seen as outmoded. Is there any truth to this, or were these sources just blowing smoke? RESPONSE: This question is about the criteria that scholars use to establish historically reliable material about the historical Jesus. For background: there are several [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:38-04:00October 19th, 2021|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus’ View of Salvation: Who Can Have Eternal Life?

Jesus believed that destruction was coming for some people, and salvation for others. So did the author of Revelation. So what’s the difference? Big difference. In modern terms, Jesus' views of who would be saved were non-discriminatory. That is, they were not based on who a person was, but what she did. It did not matter if she was a she or a he; if she was a Jew or a gentile; if she believed one set of things or another; if she came from one nation/nationality or another. What mattered was how she lived. Other Jews at the time probably had similar views, but they are striking on the lips of Jesus. Salvation does not come necessarily to Jews by virtue of being the chosen ones. It comes to anyone who lives a life of love, caring for others, especially those in need. To see this, consider two passages from the Gospel of Luke. First note Eternal life? Seems important. Jesus' view? Especially important. Want to keep reading? Join the blog! Click here for membership [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 15th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Historical Jesus|

Jesus and the Coming Destruction: Who, Why, and How?

In my book on Revelation, one of my goals (once I start to write it) will be to contrast its view of judgment with that of Jesus himself. I think the differences are stark and telling. BUT, that is not because I think Jesus imagined that God was simply a God of love who would forgive everyone in the end. I wish he did think that, but alas. He was a Jewish apocalypticist who firmly believed the judgment of God was coming on the earth. So did the prophet John, seventy years later, writing the Apocalypse. But for me the important issue is the object and reason for destruction. Here they differ significantly, in ways that make me think John the prophet is not preaching the gospel of Jesus. Nowhere, in my view, can Jesus' understanding of the coming judgment be seen more clearly than in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46). I have talked about this passage several times on the blog before. In order to explain the contrast with [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 14th, 2021|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

On the Flipside: The Glorious Salvation of Saints in the Teachings of Jesus

In my previous two posts I’ve talked about Jesus’ view of the coming destruction of sinners. My goal is to compare and contrast his views with those of the book of Revelation. For both Jesus and the prophet John (author of Revelation) the future will not only bring very nasty destruction for some people on earth, but also an amazing salvation for others. Here is how I talk about the future rewards of the righteous in my book Heaven and Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020). ****************************** It is easier to document Jesus’ words about the dreaded fate of sinners in Gehenna than about the blessings of the saved in the Kingdom of God. Even so, we have seen one teaching that is repeated in the Gospels: the coming Kingdom will entail a fantastic banquet where the redeemed eat and drink at leisure with the greats of Jewish past, the Patriarchs. This is a paradisal image of great joy. Another key passage involves Jesus’ discussion of what life will be like once the resurrection has [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 12th, 2021|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

The Horrible Fate of Sinners: Jesus’ Teaching on Gehenna

I continue now with my reflections on Jesus’ view of the coming destruction and the very bad fate coming to those who are not rightly aligned from God. In this post I deal specifically with his teaching on Gehenna, and the devastation that will happen there. Spoiler alert: it is not the place you want to go, but Jesus is not talking about “hell.” If you want to read more about this, join the blog! You will get access to five posts a week dealing with just about everything connected to New Testament and Early Christianity. There are various tiers of membership, and whatever you pay goes straight to charities helping those in need. Click here for membership options I have taken this discussion from my book “Heaven and Hell” ****************************** It is highly unfortunate that sometimes English translations of the New Testament render the Greek word “Gehenna” as “hell.” That conjures up precisely the wrong image for Bible readers today, making them think Jesus is referring to the underworld of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 11th, 2021|Afterlife, Historical Jesus|

Jesus’s Apocalyptic View of Destruction

In my book on Revelation I am planning to contrast the violence and wrath of God there with what we find in the teachings of Jesus. It would be easy but too simplistic to paint an obvious contrast: unlike John (the author of Revelation) Jesus believed in love and so was opposed to violence. It is certainly true that he was, at least on one level (as we'll see). Jesus did not only think his followers should not be violent against one another, but also not against their enemies, not even the Romans. But the same can probably be said about the book of Revelation. It also does not urge the followers of Jesus to engage in violence. The massive destructions that take place on earth in the book are sent from heaven. And Jesus too thought a massive destruction was to be sent from heaven. So, well, what’s the difference? That will be the complicated issue. To understand the views of destruction of both Jesus and the prophet John, I need to situate them [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 9th, 2021|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Revelation of John|

Jesus as a Healer: “First: Do No Harm” Platinum Guest Post by Douglas Wadeson

I have very much enjoyed these guest posts by Doug Wadeson, who spent his long career in medicine, reflecting on Jesus' healing miracles in light of contemporary medical knowledge. This final post is unusually thought provoking. Did Jesus sometimes do more harm than good? Let Doug know what you think. [[And if you have a post you'd like to get out there to your fellow Platinum members, with a chance that it could appear on the entire blog, zap me a note at [email protected] ]] ***************************** In the previous 3 posts I suggested some ways that Jesus could have achieved apparent success at healing various afflictions and thus gained a reputation as a healer, and presented some evidence from the Gospels that there were limitations to Jesus’ ability to heal and that some people may have relapsed after their apparent healings. In this final post I would like to discuss both negative and positive aspects of Jesus’ reputation as a divine healer, with some concluding thoughts. I doubt that Jesus knew the medical phrase, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:06-04:00August 18th, 2021|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Jesus the Healer, Repossessed? Platinum guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

I am pleased now to publish the third of Doug Wadeson's four posts on Jesus as a healer, based on Doug's own extensive experience as a practicing physician and a deep understanding of the biblical texts. The first two have been terrific and this one is especially intriguing, dealing with a question most people have never even thought to ask: If Jesus healed someone, did they stay healed? The biblical evidence is tantalizing, and almost never considered. Remember: you too can offer up a Platinum post. Just come up with an idea, write it up in around 800-1200 words, and zap it to me to look at in a personal email at [email protected]. All platinum posts have a chance to appear not just to Platinum members but to the whole blog. So why not share your thoughts? Here now is Doug's provocative post on the possibility of "repossession." Feel free to share your comments and views! **************************** In the previous post I examined some possibilities that might explain how Jesus achieved some spectacular successes in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 11th, 2021|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Jesus Healing the Paralyzed. How Do We Explain the Stories? Platinum Guest Post by Douglas Wadeson, MD

This week's Platinum Guest Post (for and by Platinum members only!) is again by Doug Wadeson, M.D.; it is the second of four dealing with Jesus' healing miracles in light of modern medicine. I find this one especially interesting. How do explain these stories in the Gospels? Here are some options. ****************************** In the previous post I discussed how demon possession may have been assumed in cases of neuropsychiatric disease, and how Jesus could have achieved apparent cures of such disorders. Another type of neurologic disorder we see in the Gospels is paralysis, or some sort of crippling disease. One of the earliest miracles in Mark is such a healing. In Mark 2 we read of Jesus teaching in a house when four men bring a paralyzed man, but the house is so crowded that they have to dig a hole in the roof and lower the man on a pallet in front of Jesus. Jesus first tells the man that his sins are forgiven. This upsets the scribes present, who see this as blasphemy. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:52-04:00July 29th, 2021|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Jesus the Healer: Those Darn Demons. Platinum guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

I'm pleased to be able to begin publishing short thread of posts for Platinum members only, focused on Jesus as a healer. Our guest poster is Doug Wadeson, himself a medical doctor with (obviously) a lifelong interest in healing but also a keen interest in the historical study of the NT Gospels. In this series he combines these two interests and provides some some unusually interesting reflections. This is one of the perks of being a Platinum member. You can read -- and more important, WRITE! -- posts for other Platinum members. I can can post up to one a week, and there is plenty of room in the queue for you! Want to give it a shot? Your post can be on any topic of relevance to the blog and I'm happy to preview for you if you would like. Once it is posted, you can then get feedback from Platinum members. Hey, Express Yourself! You have ideas and thoughts. Get them out there! If you're interested, let me know. Here now is Doug's [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:37-04:00July 20th, 2021|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Metzger, the Squirrel, and Me (…and Jesus).

In my previous post I talked about the locally famous story about (my teacher) Bruce Metzger and the dead (dying?) squirrel. Here I continue the story to show why in fact is has some relevance to the New Testament! As I indicated, for years friends of mine were eager for me to find out whether the story about Metzger and the squirrel really happened. They wanted me just to ask Metzger. But there were problems with that. Among other things, if it had happened, he almost certainly wouldn’t remember, since it would have simply been something that happened with no significance to him – only to the one who thought it was very odd that Metzger would happen to know the Greek word for squirrel and that he would volunteer it at that rather inauspicious moment. Moreover, there were aspects of the story that did not “ring true.” Metzger was not heartless toward other living beings and he was not one to boast about his knowledge about Greek -- or about anything else. Years later [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:20-04:00July 11th, 2021|Bart’s Biography, Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations|

Was Jesus Like One of the Pagan Fertility Gods?

Lots of people (esp. on the Internet!) say that the stories of Jesus' death and resurrection were modeled on widespread beliefs in the pagan world of "fertility" gods, whose life-cycle dictates the fertility of the earth. They are born (spring); they become productive as the earth becomes fertile (summer); they become ripe for harvest (autumn); and then they die (winter). But they "rise again" (spring) and the pattern then repeats itself. Wasn't Jesus like that? That is the question I was asked in this final segment in my interview with Ben Witherington, a prominent evangelical biblical scholar. Ben and I don't agree about a lot when it comes to religion, and have crossed academic swords in public contexts. But we have an amicable relationship and agree on some very basic things. For example: Jesus existed! Hey, it's a start. And we agree a lot on the relationship of Jesus to Judaism and the need to situate him in his own Jewish context (rather than some mythical pagan context). And so, here is the final question [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:19-04:00July 1st, 2021|Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus|

Other Gods Who Died and Rose from the Dead?

Here I continue with the Q&A I had years ago with evangelical New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, focused on my book Did Jesus Exist. I think I can say with relative confidence that this is the ONE book of mine that evangelicals on the whole were (mainly) pleased with. A nice change! And why do they like it? Because I argue there must have been a man Jesus. OK, then! Doesn't seem like a lot to be grateful for, but I'll take what I can get. Ben's questions were more astute than that, dealing with some of the key issues at a scholarly level. Here are two more of them, and my responses. Q. It appears that mythicists have not read Jonathan Z. Smith, and do not realize that there is no unambiguous evidence for the historical argument that ancients believed in dying and rising gods before the time of Jesus, and that therefore the story of Jesus is just a historicized version of that myth. Why do you think this theory of dying and rising [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:19-04:00June 30th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

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|

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|

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