Historical Jesus Archives - Page 22 of 34 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Does a Person Need the Holy Spirit to Interpret the Bible? Is John’s Gospel Accurate? Readers Mailbag August 7, 2016

Does a person need to “have the Holy Spirit” in order to interpret the Bible? And does the Gospel of John give a historically accurate accounting of the teachings of Jesus? These are the two questions I will be dealing with on this week’s Readers’ Mailbag. If you have any questions, simply ask them as a comment to any of the posts on the blog, and I’ll add them to the list. QUESTION: How do you respond to those who say “you can’t correctly interpret the bible unless you have the Holy Spirit” RESPONSE: I’ve never found it at all convincing that a person needs the Holy Spirit in order to interpret the Bible. As an agnostic, of course, I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit (since I don’t believe in God). But even when I did believe in the Holy Spirit, I thought that it was silly to claim that a person could not interpret the Bible correctly without the Spirit – for a couple of reasons that have always struck me [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:34:12-04:00August 7th, 2016|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Celibacy and Polygamy in the Bible: Weekly Readers’ Mailbag July 30, 2016

In this week’s Readers’ Mailbag I’ll be addressing two questions having to do with marriage: first, is it possible that Jesus was not actually celibate but was married and second whether the Bible allows for multiple wives and/or husbands. Hot topics! QUESTION Why do so many NT scholars (most recently John Meier) state as fact that Jesus took a lifelong vow of celibacy? Wouldn't it be more historically accurate simply to say that the NT is silent on the topic? RESPONSE I have dealt with this issue on the blog before but here let me simply give the brief version, by making a couple factual points and then making a specific argument Factual points: No ancient source of any kind indicates that Jesus was married. The recent “discovery” of the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’ wife” has been shown to be a modern forgery. No Gospel (or any other writing from antiquity) indicates or even suggests that he had (or ever had) a wife (let alone that he had any kind of sexual relationship [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:34:12-04:00July 30th, 2016|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Sex and Sexuality in the Bible|

Did Matthew Write in Hebrew? Did Jesus Institute the Lord’s Supper? Did Josephus Mention Jesus? Weekly Readers’ Mailbag July 9, 2016

Was the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew? Did Jesus have a Last Supper? And does Josephus mention Jesus’ brother James? These are the three questions I will be addressing in this week’s Reader’s Weekly Mailbag. If you have any question for me to address, let me know! ************************************************ QUESTION: Just a short question: is there any possibility that Matthew gospel’s was written in Hebrew or Aramaic ? RESPONSE There was a long tradition throughout early and medieval Christianity that maintained that Matthew – commonly called the “most Jewish” of the Gospels – was written in Hebrew (or Aramaic). Given its heightened Jewish concerns (see, for example, 5:17-20, verses found in no other Gospel), wasn’t it probably written to Jews in their native language? There are two preliminary points to be made. First, a number of scholars doubt if Matthew, or his community, was Jewish. It is widely thought, instead, that Matthew portrays a Jesus who insists that his followers keep the Jewish law precisely because they were not accustomed to doing so, that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:55-04:00July 9th, 2016|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Progressive Spirit Interview

On March 27, 2016, I had an interview with John Shuck for the Progressive Spirit Podcast. Progressive Spirit (formerly Religion For Life) is an exciting and intelligent program about Spirituality and Social Justice. The program is a production of KBOO Community Radio in Portland, Oregon. John interviewed me about his new book Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. In the book as many of you know, I look at research on memory–how it’s formed, how it’s recalled, how it can change when transmitted from person to person, and how it can be remolded based on historical perspective and current events, all in order to helpe us better understand how traditions about Jesus were in circulation in the years before they were written down. Jesus Before the Gospels is available in hardcover, audiobook and for Kindle. Please adjust gear icon for high-definition.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:23-04:00June 9th, 2016|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Video Media|

Paul, Jesus, and the Messiah

My current thread on the blog is less like a thread and more like a tapestry. Ultimately it is all related to the book I’m now working on, The Triumph of Christianity, which is interested in the question of how the Christian movement that started with just a couple of dozen people after Jesus’ death (i.e., those who almost right away, soon thereafter, came to believe he had been raised from the dead) came to be a prominent religion by the early fourth century and the official religion of the Roman state by the end of the fourth century. Good questions! I just hope I can give some good answers! Scholars have long worked on the problem, of course, and there are many parts to the overall picture. Which is why this thread is a tapestry. At present (on the blog) I am wrestling with the importance of the apostle Paul, and am ruminating on his significance for the early Christian movement. And the first thing that I noted about him is that before he [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:24-04:00June 7th, 2016|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

Were Jesus’ Followers Crazy? Was He? Mailbag June 4, 2016
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Were Jesus’ Followers Crazy? Was He? Mailbag June 4, 2016

Historical Jesus, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum

Were Jesus’ Followers Crazy? Was He? Mailbag June 4, 2016

I’ll be dealing with two questions in this week’s Readers Mailbag, both dealing, as it turns out, with issues related to psychology and the early Christian movement: one has to do with why the followers of Jesus didn’t simply give up and disband when the end-of-the-world-apocalypse they had been anticipating didn’t happen (so that they were proven to be *wrong*) and the other about whether Jesus was, literally, crazy. Interesting questions! If you have one you would like me to address, just ask in a comment on any of my posts. QUESTION I get that when the Apocalypse didn’t happen as the apocalyptic Jesus had predicted that a kind of reinterpretation of events including the resurrection took place. But why? Why didn’t the fledgling fringe then Jesus-Jewish (my term) sect simply die out? RESPONSE Ah, this is a meaty question that someone could write a book about. In fact, people have written books about it! I won’t give a definitive answer here, but will instead mention just one book – now a classic [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:24-04:00June 4th, 2016|Historical Jesus, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum|

The Resurrection and the Beginning of the Church

In my book on the Christianization of the Empire, I probably will not be talking about *how*, exactly, Christianity started. That’s a very thorny issue and not directly germane to what I want to do in the book. And I’ve talked about it a bit in a couple of my other books, especially How Jesus Became God and Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. In the former book my main interest was precisely what the title indicates. There I argued that the key event that made the followers of Jesus come to think that he was a divine being was their experience of the resurrection. Looked at from another angle, though, that moment can be considered the key not only to later Christian views of Jesus, but also to the question of when Christianity started as a distinct set of beliefs and practices. Before the resurrection-belief, there was nothing about Jesus followers that would differentiate them in any truly significant way from other Jews. After the belief there was. That may, of course, be granting too [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:23-04:00May 27th, 2016|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

HNN News Story on Jesus Before the Gospels
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HNN News Story on Jesus Before the Gospels

Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum

HNN News Story on Jesus Before the Gospels

Below is an article that I published for the History News Network, based on my recent book Jesus Before the Gospels. Enjoy!! ******************************************************************************** Historians/History article featured on HNN (History News Network) posted 3-18-16: Are the Stories in the Bible About the Last Days and Hours of Jesus True? by Bart D. Ehrman The season of Lent has come upon us, the time when Christians focus their devotional attention on the last days and hours of Jesus. Even though we devote more social (and media) space to Jesus’ birth, historically the Christian church has paid far more attention to his death. That is certainly the case with the New Testament itself. The Gospel of John, the perennial favorite of believers, after spending eleven chapters on the three years of Jesus’ public ministry, devotes fully ten chapters to his final week and its aftermath. It says not a word about his birth. The stories of Jesus’ last days – his Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the temple, his last supper, his betrayal by Judas Iscariot, his [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:36-04:00April 3rd, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Memory, Eyewitnesses, and the Relevance of Jesus: Readers Mailbag

In this week’s Readers’ Mailbag I will deal with three questions, all of them having to do with the historical Jesus: how has memory studies affected my understanding of Jesus; whether the claim that the Gospels are based eyewitnesses is a new or an ancient attempt to “guarantee” their accuracy; and whether Jesus can be relevant today if his basic apocalyptic view was proven to be wrong. Good questions, all of them! If you have any questions about anything involving the New Testament or the history and literature of Christianity in the first four centuries, let me know! *********************************************************** QUESTION: Has your view of the historical Jesus changed at all after your studies into memory? RESPONSE: My basic view of Jesus has not changed at all. I continue to think that he was an apocalyptic preacher who proclaimed that he and his listeners were living at the end of the age and that God was (very) soon to intervene and overthrow the evil powers who were in charge of this world in order to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:36-04:00March 18th, 2016|Historical Jesus, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Memory Studies, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Do Paul and Jesus Represent Fundamentally Different Religions?

I’m in the middle of a thread on the class debates that I assign for my Introduction to the New Testament. This started by my remarking on the debate I did with myself in front of the class, on whether the book of Acts is historically reliable; I haven’t yet gotten to what it is I argued (both affirmative and negative), but will do so! First I need to set the broader context. As I’ve indicated, every student is required to participate in one of three debates in their 20-person recitation. The first debate will be next week, after Spring break. This resolution strikes me as a particularly important one: RESOLVED: Paul and Jesus Advocated Fundamentally Different Religions. For my money, this gets to the very heart of the formation of early Christianity. Did the religion that emerged after Jesus’ death correspond closely to the religion that he himself followed and proclaimed? Or not? I could obviously devote a large number of posts to just this question. Here let me point out that as will [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:36-04:00March 14th, 2016|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

The Triumphal Entry as a Distorted Memory

In my previous post I provided an excerpt from Jesus Before the Gospels where I summarized the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry.” Here is the second part of that two-part post, another excerpt, where I call this tradition into question, arguing that it cannot be right historically and that it must, therefore, represent a distorted memory. It is important to recall that “memory” is not simply a recollection of what we ourselves experienced (what you had for dinner last night; the name of your first-grade teacher; etc.). Memory involves anything that you “call back to mind” (the literal meaning of “remembering”). It can be factual information (what is the capital of France?), even of something you haven’t experienced (e.g., if you have never been to Paris); it can be a shared understanding of a person from the past (Einstein; Karl Marx), even if you never met them. And it can be a recollection of a past event even if you were not involved. Such as the Triumphal Entry, to pick one example out [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 8th, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies, Public Forum|

The Memory of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry

Two chapters of my book Jesus Before the Gospels involve discussions of “distorted memories” – that is, recollections of events from Jesus life that appear not to represent what actually happened. One of the chapters deals with events leading up to Jesus’ death (the most remembered part of his life), the other with his public ministry. Just to give a taste of how I proceed in these chapters, I will excerpt here my discussion of the Triumphal Entry. The discussion is a little long for a single post, so I will divide it into two. Today’s post explains what the memory is (one many people still have today!); the next one will try to show why it is best seen as not being a “true” memory. The Triumphal Entry There seems to be no reason to doubt that Jesus spent the last week of his life in Jerusalem looking ahead to the celebration of the Passover feast. Passover was by far the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem, when the city would swell [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 5th, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

My First Interview on Jesus Before the Gospels

Here is the first interview I have done for Jesus Before the Gospels, for the American Freethought Podcast, hosted by John C. Snider & David Driscoll (on March 1st, 2016). American Freethought is meant to serve freethinkers of every stripe: atheists, agnostics, skeptics, secular humanists, brights, rationalists, or whatever. In the interview we talk about what research on memory–how it’s formed, how it’s recalled, how it can change when transmitted from person to person, and how it can be remolded based on historical perspective and current events. Studies of memory, of course, can help us understand the oral traditions of Jesus before the written accounts of the Gospels were produced. Jesus Before the Gospels is available in hardcover, audiobook and for Kindle. Please adjust gear icon for high-definition.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:35-04:00March 3rd, 2016|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Video Media|

Christ as the Adopted Son of God

In this post I can begin to explain what I *think* is the point of contention between Michael Bird and me on the question of how the followers of Jesus came to think he was God. When I say that I “think” this is the main point, it’s because I’m not completely sure. As I’ve pointed out, Michael never laid out an alternative hypothesis for how the early Christian views of Christ came into existence or developed. Moreover, since he never said how he thought it happened, he obviously didn’t mount a case for his view or indicate what he thought was the evidence for it. So it’s a little hard to know how to assess his view. What is clear is that he disagrees with a fundamental point in my view, and his main talk at the debate was focused on this point. My thesis is simple. During his lifetime Jesus’ followers did not consider him to be God (as the Gospels themselves indicate so well). After his lifetime they did (as seen, for [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:19-04:00February 25th, 2016|Bart's Debates, Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

My Debate with Michael Bird Feb. 12 , 2016

As many of you know, this past weekend (February 12-13, 2016) I met with Australian New Testament scholar Michael F. Bird at the 2016 Greer-Heard Point Counter Point Forum on for a two part debate. The event was held at the Leavell College Chapel at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. A question and answer session followed the debate. The subject of the debate was focused on my book. How Jesus Became God. Michael was the editor of the "response" book, produced by a group of evangelical scholars, called How God Became Jesus. Michael F. Bird, BMin, BA (Hons), PhD taught New Testament at the Highland Theological College in Scotland (2005-9) before joining Crossway College in Brisbane as lecturer in Theology (2010-12). He joined the faculty at Ridley as lecturer in Theology in 2013. As an industrious researcher, Michael has written and edited over twenty books in the fields of Septuagint, Historical Jesus, Gospels, St. Paul, Biblical Theology, and Systematic Theology. Michael Bird’s most popular books are The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:19-04:00February 20th, 2016|Bart's Debates, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Video Media|

My Debate This Past Weekend

I just returned yesterday from a two-day event in New Orleans involving a public debate with an Australian New Testament scholar named Michael Bird, who is the author of The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians, and Introducing Paul: The Man, His Mission and His Message. To explain the situation, I need to give some background. As most readers on the blog know, a couple of years ago I published my book How Jesus Became God. This was my attempt to show how it is that the man Jesus, an apocalyptic preacher from a remote area of rural Galilee, came to be considered the second member of the Trinity, God the creator, who had always existed, who was fully equal with the God of the universe, who was in fact of the same “essence” as him. How’d that happen exactly? Also as many of you know, a group of evangelical scholars learned I was writing the book, and decided, even before they had seen it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:19-04:00February 15th, 2016|Bart's Debates, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Drew Marshall Show – How Jesus Became God

On May 17th, 2014 I appeared on The Drew Marshall Show with Professor Natalie Evans from University of Waterloo.. The broadcast was recorded from the studio of CJYE based in Oakville, Ontario Canada. Drew Marshall begins the show by discussing my spiritual journey initially and then focusing on his latest book "How Jesus Became God." Please adjust gear icon for high-definition.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:01-04:00February 14th, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Video Media|

Are “Group Hallucinations” Possible? The Case of Mary.

Several people have asked me about my claim that “group hallucinations” are possible. That is, a “vision” can be seen by many people at once. It seems counter-intuitive: aren’t hallucinations by definition the inner workings of a person’s mind? How can more than one person have the same hallucination at the same time? Well, I’m not sure how that works, psychologically. My guess is that there is a strong sociological component as well. For example, if something weird is seen by a number of people, one of the persons in the group interprets it, and the rest agree that yes, that is indeed what they saw. But that’s just my guess. Maybe some of the trained psychologists on the blog can tell us. But in any event, it is a well-documented phenomenon. Here is the query from one of the people who asked the question, specifically with respect to the modern-day appearances of Jesus’ mother, Mary, followed by a brief discussion of the phenomenon taken from my book How Jesus Became God. Group Hallucinations - [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:18-04:00February 9th, 2016|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Upcoming Debate!

This coming weekend, Feb. 12-13, I will be holding a debate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on the topic "How Did Jesus Become God?" They are calling it a "Dialogue," but that's just because they're being nice. It's actually a great group of people, even though, as you might imagine, we agree on very little when it comes to matters of faith. My worthy opponent is Michael Bird. You may have heard of him. He is the author of The New Testament in Its World, and Introducing Paul: The Man, His Mission and His Message, among other books. Back when I published How Jesus Became God, he was the one who edited the response book that came out the same day, How God Became Jesus. He wrote one of the articles in the book. We will both be staking out our claims on Friday night. The next day are papers delivered by scholars we have hand-chosen for the event, two each: mine are my good friends Jennifer Knust (Boston University) and Dale Martin [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:18-04:00February 8th, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Q & A about Jesus Before the Gospels, Part 1

Steven pointed out to me that the first part of the Q&A also got obliterated and sent into the stratosphere during our recent technological nightmare. So I need to re-post it. Here it is! I have received a number of interesting questions about the book, raised by these three segments of Q&A. If you have any you would like me to address on the blog, let me know! Here is the original post: ****************************************************************************** As I have already indicated, my book Jesus Before the Gospels will be published in a month, on March 1. As part of the promotion and marketing of the book, I have written out a few answers to questions that my publicist presented to me, as a kind of Q&A that she can use for her work of getting the word out there. I answered twelve questions related to the book, and will post my responses here on the blog in three bite-size chunks. Here is chunk #1. *************************************************************************** What is it that drives your fascination with how Jesus [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:18-04:00February 5th, 2016|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Memory Studies, Public Forum|

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