Historical Jesus Archives - Page 2 of 35 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Understanding the Gospels, Jesus, and the Spread of Christianity: Great Readers’ Questions

Weren't Jews trying to make converts? Did Christians really do it mainly by telling stories about Jesus through word of mouth? And what did Jesus mean when he was talking about the Son of Man? Here are some of the excellent questions I've been asked by readers recently. QUESTION: Bart, My understanding is that Judaism WAS a proselytizing religion between about 150 BCE and 100 CE., which spread Judaism all around Mediterranean and parts of eastern Europe. I got that understanding from the book Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (2010) by Michael F. Bird. Michael Bird is apparently a well-known New Testament scholar in Australia. Are you familiar with him or with that book? What is your rationale for thinking he is incorrect? RESPONSE: Yes, I know Michael. And no, there's no real evidence of Judaism as a proselytizing religion. This was the view that was popular about 50 years ago and still is among some evangelicals today. The passage in Matthew that [...]

BDEhrman2026-04-02T16:24:04-04:00April 5th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

While We’re Talking About the Reliability of Eyewitnesses…

After posting on the (surprisingly good) eyewitness testimony to the miracles of the founder of Hasidic Judaism (the Besht) yesterday, I couldn't resist saying a bit more about it, not from a purely anecdotal perspective but from the academic perspective of scholars engaged in actual research on the matter, research that is virtually ignored by conservative Christian biblical scholars who have written entire BOOKS on eyewitness testimony but appear to know very little about it as a phenomenon. Here is another excerpt from my book devoted to the issue, Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne, 2016). (the book includes footnotes/references I won't include here for the post) ****************************** In the history of memory studies an important event occurred in 1902. In Berlin, a well-known criminologist named von Liszt was delivering a lecture when an argument broke out. One student stood up and shouted that he wanted to show how the topic was related to Christian ethics. Another got up and yelled that he would not put up with that. The first one replied [...]

BDEhrman2026-03-12T14:52:16-04:00March 15th, 2026|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies|

Eyewitness Accounts of Miracles

When thinking about my upcoming debate with Jonathan Sheffield about "proof" of the resurrection, since I anticipated he would take a "legal" approach to the question (since something connected with the law is his day job), I expected we would get into a discussion of the validity of eyewitness testimony. Hey, if all these people said they saw Jesus after his death, he must have been brought to life, right? I've always been struck by how conservative Christians find "eyewitness testimony" strong evidence for what they believe but of no value for what others in other religious traditions believe. One of my favorite instances involves a well-documented case in far more modern times that most people have never heard of, and when they do hear of it they simply dismiss it. It involves the 18th century founder of Hasidic Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov, often simply called Besht. I talk about the situation in my book Jesus Before the Gospels. (The specific issue is that it has been show that if someone imagines [...]

BDEhrman2026-03-16T09:34:35-04:00March 14th, 2026|Bart's Debates, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies|

A New Proof of the Resurrection. What Do YOU Think?
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A New Proof of the Resurrection. What Do YOU Think?

Bart's Debates, Historical Jesus

A New Proof of the Resurrection. What Do YOU Think?

Last week (March 2) I did a two and a half hour debate on whether Jesus was raised from the dead with Jonathan Sheffield, who is not a scholar but a self-professed “Anglican Autodidact.” (He works in some kind of legal field but I don’t believe he’s a lawyer.) He debates a lot of people (someone provides funding for it I suppose): Mark Goodacre, Richard Carrier and others. I debated him some months ago on whether Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually wrote the Gospels. You can find the debate on YouTube. You can find last week’s as well. I’m afraid that I was a bit forceful at times and I hope he didn’t find me somewhat belligerent or rude, but, well, I can see why he might have. He is a good guy and we have some laughs together, but I don’t find his argument convincing. But it certainly was unusual. I’d never heard THAT one before! It took me about fifteen minutes before I understood what it was. Here I’ll describe [...]

BDEhrman2026-03-10T18:48:53-04:00March 10th, 2026|Bart's Debates, Historical Jesus|

Was Jesus a Member of the Dead Sea Scroll Community (the Essenes)?
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Was Jesus a Member of the Dead Sea Scroll Community (the Essenes)?

Early Judaism, Historical Jesus

Was Jesus a Member of the Dead Sea Scroll Community (the Essenes)?

In my previous post I talked about the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for understanding Jesus and the milieu out of which earliest Christianity grew. My basic point is that if Jesus was a Jew, then to understand him, you have to understand Jews in his world. And the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us valuable information to that end. I am not saying that the Dead Sea Scrolls are representative of what all or even most Jews thought at the time. They clearly are not. If the “Essene hypothesis” is right (that is, that the Scrolls were produced by members of a Jewish sect known as the Essenes) – and it is the view held by the vast majority of the experts (I am *not* an expert on the Scrolls) – then the Scrolls were produced by a Jewish sect that had very distinctive views of its own that were not, in many respects, shared by outsiders. In particular, this was a group of Jews who insisted that the coming apocalyptic judgment, soon to [...]

BDEhrman2025-12-16T11:01:45-05:00December 16th, 2025|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Why Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Matter for Understanding Jesus?

Many people assume that somehow or other the Dead Sea Scrolls matter for understanding better who Jesus was and what he preached. But how? In this post I'll give a fairly succinct answer to the question. I should begin by stressing that the Scrolls are *mainly* important for understanding early Judaism, and only secondarily for understanding early Christianity. Even so, they are highly important for Christianity as well, though not in ways you might suspect (especially if you acquire all your historical knowledge from random searches on the Internet!). If I were to do the one-sentence version of why they matter for understanding Christianity, the shortest iteration I can come up with is that: "The Dead Sea Scrolls are texts written and/or copied by Jews living at about that same time and about the same place as Jesus, and so inform us about the milieu out of which his ministry, and the earliest Christian church, emerged." The first thing to stress is that the Scrolls are thoroughly Jewish in every sense. There is [...]

BDEhrman2025-12-16T10:55:09-05:00December 14th, 2025|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Uh, Duh. What I SHOULD Have Said. (Bethlehem)

Last week, in the lead up to Christmas, I had a remote, live event, a back and forth with Roman Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin on the question of whether Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem. This was part of Paths in Biblical Studies, my online courses and events venue that is not directly connected with the blog; you can learn more about it on my website http://www.bartehrman.com. This particular event was one of our “Face to Face on the Bible series. It was not set up as a formal debate but a conversation. But we did have disagreements! Jimmy has a highly unusual way of reconciling the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. I naturally responded to it -- I explained why I didn't think it was plausible -- but after it was over I realized that there was a killer argument that a forgot to mention. Ever do that? Come away from a disagreement and later say, “Ah, I should-a said that!!”? The issue concerns the home town of Joseph and Mary. [...]

BDEhrman2025-12-30T16:37:17-05:00December 3rd, 2025|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Four More Intriguing Topics on the Historical Jesus

The previous post provided a summary of the first four lectures given by internationally known historical Jesus scholars at our New Insights Into the New Testament conference at the end of September (the summary was produced by Marko Marina, in advance of the lectures). The second day of the conference also had four lectures, by Paula Fredriksen (Boston University emerita and Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Me (UNC Chapel Hill), James Tabor (UNC-Charlotte, emeritus), and A.J. Levine (Hartford International University and Vanderbilt University, emerita). Well, sort of. James Tabor was in Athens and his Internet went a bit haywire, so he had to record his talk later -- it is included in the recording of the conference. In its place, I gave a rather impromptu additional talk (on whether Jesus was probably literate). Here are Marko's summaries of the lectures, made in advance of the conference itself: Dr. Paula Fredriksen: Turning the Tables on the ‘Purification’ of the Temple All scholarship, as the saying goes, stands on the shoulders of those who came before. [...]

BDEhrman2025-10-09T10:34:48-04:00October 12th, 2025|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Problems with the Gospels: A Primer for the Study of the Historical Jesus (Part 2)

This now is the second part of the Primer on the Historical Jesus prepared by Marko Marina, which deals head on with the hardest question of all: how do scholars deal with the Gospels of the New Testament "critically" (not "criticizing" them but providing an honest assessment of their historical value) Marko provides a very clear summary and set of insights, as you'll see: To Begin With For me as a historian, it’s self-evident that no narrative source from the ancient world can be taken at face value. All texts reflect the perspectives, interests, and cultural assumptions of their authors -- even ones that are discussing historical events. This is all the more true for writings that come from a time and place so distant from our own. When we turn to the canonical Gospels from a historical perspective, we must therefore be prepared to recognize both their immense value and their serious limitations. Canonical Gospels and Their Historical Value On the side of value, the Gospels remain our earliest extended narratives [...]

BDEhrman2025-10-09T17:20:38-04:00October 9th, 2025|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, History of Biblical Scholarship|

A Primer for the Study of the Historical Jesus: Our Non-Gospel Sources

As some of you know, my recording company, Paths in Biblical Studies (PBS) which normally produces online courses (www.bartehrman.com) held its third annual New Insights Into the New Testament (NINT) live/remote/recorded conference last week. The topic was the Historical Jesus, and we had eight speakers along with a keynote address by Elaine Pagels (you can see it all here: https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insights-into-the-new-testament-conference-2025/_) About a week prior to the event I realized (duh...) that some in the audience may not know a number of the fundamental critical issues that scholars have to deal with when broaching the topic. And so we asked Marko Marina, an early Christianity specialist who writes online articles and does sundry other things for us at PBS, to write up a "Primer" to explain what scholars who work to unpack what Jesus really said and did have to confront when taking on the task (so that viewers would not think: "Well, why don't they just read the Gospels and see?") Marko produced a primer to set the stage for the conference [...]

BDEhrman2025-10-07T08:37:16-04:00October 8th, 2025|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Death and Afterlife of Jesus: A Historical Reconstruction Part I – by Mark Reichert (Platinum Member Winner)
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The Death and Afterlife of Jesus: A Historical Reconstruction Part I – by Mark Reichert (Platinum Member Winner)

Historical Jesus, Public Forum

The Death and Afterlife of Jesus: A Historical Reconstruction Part I – by Mark Reichert (Platinum Member Winner)

As you know, the Platinum Members of the blog are invited to submit their own posts to be considered for publication on the blog. After we've published four of these posts, Platinum members are asked to vote for one to be published to the entire blog. Today, we have a post for you from Platinum blog member Mark Reichert. He offers the first part of a compelling two-part reflection on one of the most well-known—and debated—stories in history. It’s part historical reconstruction, part personal inquiry, and entirely worth the read. According to the Gospel of Mark, the Jewish preacher Jesus was crucified by Roman Governor Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem the day before the Sabbath (Friday) during the holiday period of Passover. After about 9 hours on the cross Jesus “gave up the ghost.” The Roman centurion in charge of the crucifixion said “truly this man was the son of God.” A supporter and onlooker, Joseph of Arimathaea, asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. After consulting with the centurion, Pilate relented and Jesus was removed [...]

admin2025-09-09T20:23:54-04:00August 12th, 2025|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Does the Book of Hebrews Indicate Jesus Ever Came To Earth? A Response to Richard Carrier.

In an earlier post I indicated that I have difficulty responding to writings of mythicists, largely because they often say things that I think are dead wrong, but it would take so much time and effort to explain why. This morning I did think I should at least give one example of the sort of thing I mean, and I have chosen (just) one of the claims made several times by one of the mythicists’ leading spokespersons, Richard Carrier. Carrier argues that the earliest Christians did not believe Jesus ever came to earth but was a god who ministered and crucified in the heavenly realms. He also claims this view is supported by a close reading of the early New Testament writings themselves. He lists a number of them and discusses them all. I am here simply picking one example, the book of Hebrews. I could do the same thing with others (he equally surprisingly includes the letters of Paul and the non-canonical book of 1 Clement, for example) but my idea is not to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:50-04:00July 26th, 2025|Catholic Epistles, Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Public Forum|

Did Jesus Exist? Why I Don’t Enjoy Reading the Mythicists

I’ve been doing some reading in preparation for a two-lecture on-line course called “Did Jesus Really Exist” scheduled for July 19. You can find out about it here: https://courses.bartehrman.com/did-jesus-really-exist. It’s a freebie, so, well, feel free to get it for free! Even though I'm pumped to do this course, and I don’t really much enjoy reading about it (that is, reading the work books that argue Jesus did not exist). I once did, back when I wrote my book Did Jesus Exist. But unlike most issues I deal with, I don’t find it very interesting or intellectually challenging. Still it’s a topic that comes up a lot among lay people, especially over the past 20 years or so, and so I feel a need to address it, and will do so with vigor. In preparation, Ive been rereading some of the work of one of the leading spokespersons among the “mythicists." In this view, it’s not just that Jesus did not do and say a number of things recorded of him in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:35-04:00July 12th, 2025|Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Public Forum|

Another Reason for Thinking Jesus Called Himself the Messiah
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Another Reason for Thinking Jesus Called Himself the Messiah

Historical Jesus

Another Reason for Thinking Jesus Called Himself the Messiah

I now can mount a second argument for why Jesus almost certainly called himself the messiah during his lifetime. Remember: by that I do not mean that Jesus wanted to lead a military rebellion against the Romans to establish himself as king. On the contrary, I think Jesus was not a supporter of a “military solution.” Jesus was an apocalypticist who believed that God himself would take action and do what was needed – overthrow the evil ruling authorities in a cataclysmic show of power and destroy all that was opposed to himself, and so bring in a good, utopian kingdom on earth. And Jesus would be made the king. I don’t need here to give the extensive reasons for thinking that Jesus held to this kind of apocalyptic view in general – I’ve talked about it at length both in a number of my books and on the blog. The question here is the more narrow one: did Jesus think he would be the king of the coming kingdom? I have given one strong [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:40-04:00November 12th, 2024|Historical Jesus|

Why Should We Think Jesus Called Himself the Messiah?

This thread is about whether Jesus considered himself to be the Jewish messiah. My view is that Yes, he did. But he meant something very specific by that, and it is not what most people (Christians and non-Christians) today mean by it. Recall what I have tried to show thus far. There were various expectations of what the messiah would be like among Jews of Jesus’ day – a political ruler over Israel, a great priest who ruled God’s people through God’s law, a cosmic judge of the earth who would destroy God’s enemies in a cataclysmic act of judgment. All these views had one thing in common: the future messiah would be a figure of grandeur and might who would come with the authority and power of God. And who was Jesus? For most people of his day, Jesus was just the opposite – an itinerant Jewish preacher from the backwaters of rural Galilee who ended up on the wrong side of the law and was tortured and executed for his efforts. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:40-04:00November 10th, 2024|Historical Jesus|

Albert Schweitzer and the Apocalyptic Jesus
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Albert Schweitzer and the Apocalyptic Jesus

Historical Jesus

Albert Schweitzer and the Apocalyptic Jesus

In the current thread I’m trying to establish that Jesus believed he was the messiah. I have pointed out that his followers would not have considered him the messiah because they believed he had been raised from the dead (since the messiah was not supposed to die and rise again) unless they had already considered him the messiah prior to his death. But that, of course, does not mean that Jesus *himself* thought he was the messiah. And so we have to look for evidence from Jesus’ life that indicates that this is what he thought about himself, and my argument is going to be that there are several pieces of evidence that strongly suggest it is, of which my plan is to stress two. As background, in my previous post, I laid out the world view that Jesus himself almost certainly subscribed to, a view that scholars have called Jewish apocalypticism. I need to develop these thoughts a bit in this post; and the next; after that I’ll lay out in (very) summary fashion [...]

admin2025-07-16T17:50:45-04:00November 9th, 2024|Historical Jesus|

What Would an Apocalyptic Jew (Jesus!) Mean By Calling Himself Messiah?

In this thread I am trying to argue that Jesus understood himself to be the messiah. So far I have made one of my two main arguments, with the understanding that *both* arguments have to be considered in order to have a compelling case. So the first prong doesn’t prove much on its own. But in combination with the second argument, it makes a strong case. The first argument is that Jesus’ followers would not have understood him as the messiah after his death (as they did) unless they believed him to be the messiah before his death – even if they came to believe he had been raised from the dead, that would not have made them think he was the messiah. I’ve explained why in my previous post. The second second involves showing that it was not only the disciples who understood Jesus to be the messiah before his death, but that Jesus himself did. This is even harder to show, but I think there is really compelling evidence. There are [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:39-04:00November 7th, 2024|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Can We Know What Jesus Said About Himself?

Do we know what Jesus said about himself? Yesterday I started my two-prong argument for why Jesus probably considered himself the messiah. The first prong is that Jesus must have been called the messiah during his lifetime, or it makes no sense that he would be called messiah after his death. Even if there were Jews who believed that Jesus was raised from the dead after he was crucified (as indeed there were! Otherwise we wouldn’t have Christianity), the resurrection of a dead person would never lead anyone to say “Ah, he’s the messiah!”. No one expected the messiah to be a resurrected person. So Jesus was being called the messiah before his death. Otherwise, we can’t make sense of the fact that he was called the messiah after his (believed-in) resurrection. Do We Know What Jesus Said About Himself? Several readers have pointed out that this does not mean that Jesus *himself* thought of himself as the messiah. It simply means that some of his followers did. That is absolutely right. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:39-04:00November 6th, 2024|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Would the Resurrection Make Anyone Believe Jesus Was the Messiah?

I have been talking about the early Christian understandings of Jesus as the messiah. Not just the messiah, but the “crucified messiah,” a concept that would have seemed not just unusual or bizarre to most Jewish ears in the first century, but absolutely mind-boggling and self-contradictory. I’ve been arguing that it was precisely the contradictory nature of the claim that led almost all Jews to reject the Christian claims about Jesus. Several readers have asked me whether I think Jesus understood himself to be the messiah. Probably those who know a little bit about my work and my general views of things would think that my answer would be Absolutely Not. But, well.... I think Jesus did consider himself the messiah. But not the to-be-crucified-messiah. The key to understanding Jesus’ view of himself is to recognize what he *meant* by considering himself the messiah. I will get to that in a later post. For now I want to give the evidence that Jesus thought that in *some* sense (a sense distinctive to Jesus) [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:39-04:00November 2nd, 2024|Historical Jesus|

More About My Book “Did Jesus Exist”

I think what surprised me the most about the vitriolic response I received from (some) mythicists to my book "Did Jesus Exist" was that when I actually spoke or corresponded with them, it became very clear that many knew almost nothing about the Bible, let alone biblical scholarship. I was at a social event for mythicists some years ago now, after I wrote my book. Even though a lot (most?) of the people there thought I was completely out to lunch, everyone was extremely friendly and affable in person and I had some very pleasant conversations. But often, after small talk and a few jokes, when we'd get to issues or questions, it would be clear that the person I was talking with literally had almost no idea about basic information about the New Testament -- for example what was actually in the Gospels, when they are usually dated in relation to the time of Jesus, what we can say about their authors, what sources lie behind them, and so on -- most [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:09:07-04:00September 25th, 2024|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Mythicism|

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