Historical Jesus Archives - Page 30 of 34 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Is History Possible?

One other section that I attended at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Baltimore was devoted to the field of social memory and the historical Jesus. This was a very interesting panel, of four papers, devoted to what we can say about the recollections of Jesus found in the Gospels, based on what psychologists now tell us about memory, and what historians familiar with this psychological work are saying about how the past can be remembered. I found one paper in particular to be especially interesting, because the author, a very smart scholar named Zeba Crook, used developments in the psychology of memory to argue that we can NOT know anything about the historical Jesus. Crook’s paper (I’m reconstructing this from my mind, based on what I heard two days ago; I may get some of this wrong. But if Crook’s point is correct, then I can’t reconstruct the event at all, as you’ll see!) was based on the phenomenon of memory distortion. Psychologists have determined several things about memory and how it gets [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:26-04:00November 27th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Memory Studies|

Is The NT Portrayal of Jesus Accurate? Debate With Craig Evans

This video is of a debate that I participated in nearly two years ago in Nova Scotia with Dr. Craig Evans, a very well-known and widely published scholar of the New Testament who is also a conservative evangelical Christian (not “ultra-conservative,” and nowhere near a fundamentalist – but still conservative). He is the author of Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence and Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. This was the first of two debates that took place, in two different locations,on subsequent evenings. The topic of the debate was: “Does the New Testament Present a Reliable Portrait of the Historical Jesus.” As you might imagine, Craig Evans argues that Yes, it does. I argue that No, it does not. Both of us, naturally enough, focus our attention on the four Gospels of the New Testament. We each gave an opening speech of 30 minutes; and then we had a chance for a rebuttal, followed by some Q & A. I have to say, this was one of the favorite debates that I [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:13-04:00November 17th, 2013|Bart's Debates, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Video Media|

Why Historians Can Talk “About” the Resurrection

In this final post (for now) on the historian and miracles, I want to emphasize one point that I raise of my own volition, and answer one question that has been asked by a reader. First, a point to emphasize (I borrow this from my forthcoming book on How Jesus Became God), on whether my stand on miracles just means that I’m a crazy secularist…. The reason that historians cannot prove or disprove whether God has performed a miracle in the past – such as by raising Jesus from the dead – is not because historians are required to be secular humanists with an anti-supernaturalist bias. I want to stress this point because conservative Christian apologists, in order to score debating points, often claim that this is the case. In their view, if historians did not have anti-supernaturalist biases or assumptions, they would be able to affirm the historical “evidence” that Jesus was raised from the dead. I should point out that these Christian apologists almost never consider the “evidence” for other miracles from the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:15-04:00November 15th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Historians and the Problem of Miracle

Yesterday I started to talk about why historians cannot demonstrate that a miracle such as the resurrection happened because doing so requires a set of presuppositions that are not generally shared by historians doing their work. Over the years I’ve thought a lot about this question, and have tried to explain on several occasions why a “miracle” can never be shown, on historical grounds, to have happened -- even if it did. Here is a slightly different way of approaching the matter, as I expressed it in an earlier publication on the historical Jesus: ******************************************************** People today typically think of miracles as supernatural violations of natural law, divine interventions into the natural course of events. I should emphasize that this popular understanding does not fit particularly well into modern scientific understandings of "nature," in that scientists today are less confident in the entire category of natural "law" than they were, say, in the nineteenth century. For this reason, it is probably better not to speak of supernatural violations of "laws," but to think of miracles [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:14-04:00November 15th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

History is Not the Past

Yesterday I started to answer a question from a reader who pointed out that just as the existence of Jesus is multiply attested, so too is Jesus’ resurrection. And so if *one* is established as historical, doesn’t the other one *also* have to be seen as historical? And if one is considered non-historical, doesn’t that show that the other is probably also non-historical? These are great questions, but I think the answer to both of them is “no.” Yesterday I showed why multiple attestation strongly supports the existence of Jesus. Some readers objected to that, but I should reiterate – this is simply a common sense principle that all of us use every day to decide if something happened (say, what happened at lunch yesterday). Today I want to show why multiple attestation can *not* be used to support the resurrection of Jesus. I begin by pointing out something that hasn’t occurred to a lot of people, but is nonetheless a fundamental point. History is not the past. This may come as a surprise, but [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:14-04:00November 13th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Multiple Attestation for Jesus

I had an interesting email from a reader the other day, in which he pointed out that the “multiple attestation” for the existence of Jesus is virtually matched by the “multiple attestation” for the resurrection of Jesus. At first I thought his point was the Christian apologetic one, that therefore since the resurrection is just as well (not quite, but still pretty well) attested as the very existence of Jesus, doesn’t that show that Jesus was probably raised from the dead? When I responded to that question, it turned out that he was actually saying the opposite: since we (meaning he and I) don’t believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, but *that’s* well attested, doesn’t that call into question the very existence of Jesus, which has comparable attestation. Multiple attestation can’t “show” it, in this view. As I think about it now, my response to *both* points (the Christian apologetic and the non-christian mythicist) is probably the same, that when dealing with the two phenomena – 1. the existence of Jesus and 2. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:14-04:00November 12th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Who Can Still Be A Christian?

QUESTION: If historical Jesus scholars believes that Jesus' main message was the imminent apocalypse, and that didn't happen, how can anyone who believe that remain a Christian, given that Jesus was wrong on the main focus of his life? RESPONSE: This is a great question, and one I get asked a lot. Let me say at the outset that I think it is exactly right in its evaluation of who Jesus was. As I’ve explained in a lot of places, for over the past century – since Albert Schweitzer’s classic, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), the majority of NT scholars in Europe and the United States have been convinced that Jesus was indeed an apocalyptic preacher, like others of his day. Apocalypticism appears to have been widespread throughout Palestinian Judaism at the time. In rough form (with lots of variations) it was held by the Pharisees (who believed in the “resurrection” at the end of the age, an apocalyptic idea; they therefore probably held to other apocalyptic notions), by the Essenes who produced [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:14-04:00November 10th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Carrier, Bayes Theorem, and Jesus’ Existence

As most of you know, I’m pretty much staying out of the mythicist debates. That is for several reasons. One is that the mythicist position is not seen as intellectually credible in my field (I’m using euphemisms here; you should see what most of my friends *actually* say about it….) – no one that I know personally (I know a *lot* of scholars of New Testament, early Christianity, and so on) takes it at *all* seriously as a viable historical perspective (this includes not just Christians but also Jews, agnostics, atheists – you name it), and my colleagues sometimes tell me that I’m simply providing the mythicists with precisely the credibility they’re looking for even by engaging them. It’s a good point, and I take it seriously. In that connection I should say that I can understand how someone who hasn’t spent years being trained in the history of early Christianity might have difficulty distinguishing between serious scholarship that is accepted by experts as being plausible (even when judged wrong) and the writings of others [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:14-04:00November 7th, 2013|Bart's Critics, Bart's Debates, Historical Jesus, Mythicism|

Upcoming Lectures at the Smithsonian

Now that the government is back in business, the Smithsonian Associates has resumed its work; they sponsor lectures and lecture series in Washington D.C., every week, all the time, and I usually do a day long series of lectures for them once or twice a year, based on a book I have coming out. I’m scheduled for the Spring 2014 in conjunction with my book How Jesus Became God. But I’ll also be doing one this December for the English-only version of the apocryphal Gospels that is to be published by then (edited from the original-language + English version that came out last year; this new one, like the old one, was written, edited, and translated with my colleague at UNC, Zlatko Plese). This first event is scheduled for Saturday Dec. 7; there will be four lectures, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. It’s a killer of a day (for me at least). But anyone in the area should consider attending. You can get further information at their website: http://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/index.aspx The following [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 25th, 2013|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus|

Jesus’ Brother and the Mythicists (Part 2)

In my previous post I pointed out that mythicists have a real problem on their hands when it comes to insisting that Jesus didn’t exist (well, they actually have a *boatload* of problems; but this is one of them): Paul actually knew, personally, Jesus’ own brother, James. It’s hard to say that Jesus never lived if he in fact had a brother…. It doesn’t solve the problem to say that this was in fact Jesus’ cousin, since, well, he would still then be the cousin of (the real) Jesus (!) (plus the word Paul uses is “brother” not “cousin”) and it doesn’t work to say that he is Jesus’ brother meaning he is a member of the Christian church (since Paul differentiates him from himself and Peter by calling him the “brother” – and both Peter and Paul were also members of the church!). Mythicists have tried other approaches, including the one I discussed yesterday, of trying to claim that there was a group of fervent missionaries in Jerusalem called “the brothers of the Lord,” [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 24th, 2013|Bart's Critics, Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Brothers of Jesus and the Mythicists

QUESTION: Since you’ve brought up the subject of Jesus’ family perhaps it won’t be too far off the subject to ask this question. Mythicists are forced by their arguments to deal with Paul’s encounter with Peter and James in Galatians 1:18–20. They claim that when Paul refers to James as “The Lord’s brother” he does not mean that James is Jesus’ biological brother (which of course would mean that Jesus actually lived) but that he was using the word “brother” in the sense that all the disciples were “brothers” i.e., metaphorically. What about this? Is the word translated as “brother” in English that ambiguous in the original Greek? Can it be other than a biological relationship? Elsewhere I believe Paul uses the word “brothers” to describe fellow believers. Does he use the same Greek word? Thanks for the clarification. RESPONSE: Great question! I’ve dealt with the issue in my book Did Jesus Exist. I think this is one of the real deal-breakers for the mythicist position – that Paul was personally acquainted with Jesus’ own [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 23rd, 2013|Bart's Critics, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus’ Brothers?!? And the Proto-Gospel of James

One more post on the Proto-Gospel of James. As it turns out, this Gospel was very popular in Eastern, Greek-speaking Christianity throughout the Ages, down to modern times; and a version of it was produced – with serious additions and changes – in Latin, that was even more influential in Western Christianity (a book now known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew). In some times and places, these books were the main source of “information” that people had for knowing about Jesus’ birth and family – more so than the NT Gospels. The idea that Joseph was an old man and Mary was a young girl? Comes from the Proto-Gospel (not the NT!). The view that Jesus was born in a cave? Proto-Gospel. The notion that at the nativity there was an ox and a donkey? Pseudo-Matthew. And there were lots of other stories familiar to Christians in the Middle Ages not so familiar to people today, all from these books – for example, a spectacular account (in Pseudo-Matthew) of Jesus as an infant, en [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 23rd, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Jesus Books

QUESTION/REQUEST: You did mention one thing above that I think would be good to expand on: What are good books to read about the life of Jesus (and related issues) based on scholarship but intended to the general, but intelligent, reader. I would like you to consider someday to publish here a list of solid books (from various points of view), other than what you have written since most of us are likely familiar with your work, about the life of Jesus, the growth of Christianity, solid theology from various perspectives, the history and description of first century life in the Roman world and other issues that are written based on valid historical and textual research that are intended for readers like me…well educated but not a scholar. RESPONSE: What follows is a bibliography just on the historical Jesus that I published once, over ten years ago now, supplemented with a few of the most significant works to appear since. The list is highly selective – mainly books that I think are either good [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:59-04:00October 14th, 2013|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

More Conspiracy Nonsense

Poor Hercules, trying to fight the Hydra. Once he lops off *one* head…. So I’ve received several emails over the past couple of days about the breathtaking new announcement to be made on October 19 (assuming the world still is functioning after October 17!) in London by “American Biblical scholar” Joseph Atwill (whom – I have to admit – I have never even heard of, to my recollection) In this announcement Mr. (so far as I can tell, from his blog, he is not a “Dr.”; in what sense is he a “scholar”? Is it because he’s read a bunch of book? Hmm….) Atwill will “prove” that “the New Testament was written by first-century Roman aristocrats and that they fabricated the entire story of Jesus Christ.” In other words – brace yourself – Jesus is in fact a myth. Has anyone heard this before? For the full story, go to http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm Atwill is a different breed from most mythicists. That’s probably good and bad. Good because, well, you wouldn’t like to be like the others. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:58-04:00October 10th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations, Religion in the News|

Colbert on his Hero O’Reilly

OK, this really is my last post on O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus. It’s not much of one! But today is the day I normally take “off” from the blog. Monday’s are my day from hell: a three-hour undergraduate seminar (“Jesus in Scholarship and Film”) in the morning (today: students compared all the accounts of Jesus’ Passion in the four Gospels, seeing if there were any differences they thought were irreconcilable; we discussed it all; and then we watched four movie clips – Passion scenes from the 1925 silent Ben Hur; the 1959 Ben Hur; the Greatest Story Ever Told; and the 1977 Zephirelli Jesus of Nazareth – in order to see how directors chose what to include, what to exclude, what to do when different Gospels relate different stories, that sometimes really can’t be easily reconciled, etc. Great stuff) and then a three hour seminar (“Early Christian Apocrypha”) in the afternoon (today: The Coptic Gospel of Thomas - -when was it written? Where? In what language? Is it dependent on the NT Gospels? Is it Gnostic? [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:58-04:00October 7th, 2013|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Religion in the News, Video Media|

Jesus as a First-Century Tea-Partier

I have decided not to provide a full and detailed review of O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus. It doesn’t really deserve it, and much more of what I have indicated before – on which see my previous posts. I will say that the book is extremely well written and easy on the eyes. It is entertaining. A lot of human-interest material, which is both its strength and its very great weakness, as almost all of this, as I’ve mentioned before, is simply MADE UP, even though it is presented as if were historical fact. There is page after page after page of that kind of thing. This is not a research book written by a scholar and his writing buddy -- with, for example, footnotes indicating where they got their information from. It can’t be that, since almost all of the details didn’t come from ancient sources but from their own fertile imaginations And since that is the main source for the Gospel according to Bill, and since most of us know what Bill’s imagination spends its [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:58-04:00October 6th, 2013|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Religion in the News|

Riled by O’Reilly

OK, I know I promised to read and review Killing Jesus. But I’m not sure I can do it. It’s just so aggravating. Pointing out its flaws is like shooting fish in a barrel. I’ll make one general comment in this post and in the next one mention one of the leading themes of the book to show why its so problematic and then, unless I have a complete change of heart or people ask me pointed questions, I think I’ll just let it go. For now, a general comment. I was one of the 4893 people who wrote a book *about* the Da Vinci Code (Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine, 2004). The other 4892 people, so far as I know, were religious – usually religious scholars – who were afraid that Dan Brown might lead the faithful astray by his wild claims, and for religious reasons wanted to set the record straight. As an agnostic, that was nowhere [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:58-04:00October 4th, 2013|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Religion in the News|

Killing Jesus is Killing Me….

I received my copy of Killing Jesus in the mail today and started to glance at it. I know I said I would read it, but I’m just not sure I can bring myself to do it. The opening “Note to Readers” makes one’s heart sink. We are told that this will be a “fact-based book.” Oh, that’s good, the reader thinks: it won’t be biased but will be objective, based only on facts. Until you begin to read the opening page of ch. 1 “Heavily armed solders from the capital city of Jerusalem are marching to this small town, intent on finding and killing the baby boy. They are a mixed-race group of foreign mercenaries from Greece, Gaul, and Syria….” Oh dear. So, for our FOX historian of antiquity writing this account – the Gospel according to Bill – who is giving us only “facts,” it turns out that the “slaughter of the innocents” in Bethlehem, taken from Matthew’s infancy narrative, is a factual, historical account. We not only know it happened, we know [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:43-04:00October 3rd, 2013|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Religion in the News|

Bill O’Reilly’s Jesus

Several people have (urgently) asked me to write up a review of the new blockbuster hit, Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus. So, my short answer to the request is that, well, I haven’t read it. It did just come out after all! But I see it is – from the get-go – the #1 book (in the world!) on Amazon. I will obviously have to read it: just as I have to read Reza Aslan’s Zealot. The latter I will be reading over the next month or so in conjunction with my course on “Jesus in Scholarship and Film,” since otherwise I won’t be able to grade my students’ book reviews of it! But I will not be assigning O’Reilly, since it just came out and I won’t be changing my syllabus. I’ve ordered the O’Reilly book (against my wishes; I really don’t want to “contribute to the cause.” But I obviously have to read it) and will be able to give an evaluation soon enough. For now I should make just a couple of comments. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:43-04:00October 2nd, 2013|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions, Religion in the News|

But Did It Really Happen?

During my recent posts on the story of Jesus and the leper in Mark 1:40-44, I got a number of comments from readers that made me realize that I wasn’t being at all clear about what I was talking about. For a professional communicator, that is, well, an unsettling thought! These comments came from people who appear to have understood that I was talking about what really happened (historically) in the episode. Did Jesus really get angry or did he really feel compassion? Some of these readers stressed that what really mattered was not his emotion but the fact that he did what he did; some others wanted me to know that it didn’t matter to them which emotion was ascribed to Jesus, because in their opinion the whole thing never actually happened at all. Both of these views (they’re obviously at the opposite ends of the spectrum) thought I was discussing historical realities. But that’s not what I was talking about. I too don’t believe the episode “actually” happened (i.e., that it’s a historical [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:22:43-04:00September 26th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions, Teaching Christianity|

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