Historical Jesus Archives - Page 9 of 34 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Does Paul Know That Judas Iscariot Betrayed Jesus?

I sometimes get asked about Paul and Judas Iscariot: did Paul know Jesus was betrayed? I was asked it again a couple of weeks ago and have decided to repost an answer from some years ago. SO: QUESTION: Do you think that Paul, without naming him, is referring to Judas in 1 Corinthians 11:23-24? (The verse in the NRSV: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”) RESPONSE: Ah, it’s a great question. Paul never explicitly mentions Judas Iscariot or indicates that Jesus was betrayed by one of his own disciples. But couldn’t this verse contain a reference to Judas? It refers to the night on which Jesus was betrayed! One reason the question matters is that Paul says almost *NOTHING* about the events of Jesus’ lifetime. That seems weird to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:57:34-04:00April 10th, 2022|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

The Apocalypse of John and the Gospel of Jesus: My Final Thoughts

Here now is the conclusion to my lecture on the ideology of domination in the book of Revelation. ****************************** I conclude with several more focused reflections on whether the Revelation of John represents the Gospel of Jesus. To sum up what I have been emphasizing: there is not a single word in all of Revelation about God loving others and no instruction to the followers of Christ to do so either. Instead, they are called to be “conquerors” – and once they overwhelm the rest of the earth with divine military might, they become its rulers, kings who control “the nations with a rod of iron.” Whether John meant this literally is beside the point. This is how he sees God, Christ, his followers, and the rest of the human race: powerful rulers and abject subjects. Is this what Jesus meant when he told his followers to abandon all desire for greatness? To live lives of service to others? To become slaves? In the book of Revelation Christ’s followers are slaves, but only to God. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:57:34-04:00April 9th, 2022|Historical Jesus, Revelation of John|

The Criterion of Dissimilarity
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The Criterion of Dissimilarity

Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus

The Criterion of Dissimilarity

The criterion of dissimilarity. Over the past couple of class periods, I have introduced my undergraduate students to the problems that confront critical scholars who try to reconstruct what Jesus really said and did. These problems are created by the nature of our materials especially the New Testament Gospels. This is why I begin my course, which focuses on the historical approach to the New Testament, in something other than the chronological order of events or writings. Irony! But an irony with pretty compelling logic. If we began with a chronological order of writings, of course, we would begin the course with the writings of Paul, since these are the first surviving writings from any early Christian. Earlier by 15-30 years than the Gospels. But it doesn’t make sense to start with Paul (in my opinion) if you don’t know something about Jesus. And you can’t begin with Jesus unless you know something about our sources for Jesus, our Gospels. And so for a historical approach to the New Testament, we go out of chronological [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00April 8th, 2022|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Are the Teachings of Jesus Realistic? Guest Post by Douglas Wadeson

Platinum members on the blog (Check it out! Register | The Bart Ehrman Blog ) are allowed to submit guest posts to other Platinum members, and among those submitted we (they) vote on which ones to include on the whole blog. Here is an extremely interesting and challenging one posted by Platinum member Doug Wadeson. Read it and see! Doug will be happy to reply to comments. ****************************** Jesus is generally thought of as a great moral teacher, but I have heard that questioned on occasion. For example, Jesus said, “Do not show opposition against an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other toward him also” (Matthew 5:39). Really?! Does Jesus want us to be target practice for bullies? Won’t that just enable and embolden them? And on a societal scale, if America is attacked are we not supposed to defend ourselves? Otherwise evil will win. A real sore point for some people is that Jesus never condemned slavery, which was a common institution in his day (e.g., Matthew [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:57:34-04:00April 7th, 2022|Historical Jesus|

Did Nazareth Exist?
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Did Nazareth Exist?

Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Reader’s Questions

Did Nazareth Exist?

One question I repeatedly get asked is about my opinion on whether the town of Nazareth actually existed. I was puzzled when I started getting emails on this, some years ago now. What I came to realize is that mythicists (i.e., those who think that there never was a man Jesus; he was invented, a “myth”) commonly argue that Nazareth (like Jesus) was completely made up. I still get the emails today – a couple within the past month. I tried to deal with this issue at length in my book Did Jesus Exist? But since I get asked the question still, apparently by people who haven’t read my book (!) – I thought I would repeat some of what I say there. Here is an excerpt on the issue: Did Nazareth Exist - Jesus' Hometown One supposedly legendary feature of the Gospels commonly discussed by mythicists is that the alleged hometown of Jesus, Nazareth did not exist but is itself a myth. The logic of this argument, which is sometimes advanced with considerable vehemence and force, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:23-04:00April 1st, 2022|Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Reader’s Questions|

Must Jesus Divide Families? Guest post by Douglas Wadeson

As you know, Platinum members on the blog are allowed to compose blog posts for one another, and I choose one every month or so to publish on the blog at large. Here is a particularly interesting one by blog member Doug Wadeson, based on a careful and interesting reading of the Gospels. It's dealing with an incredibly timely issue and provides a rather unexpected answer. It involves Jesus and family values. ****************************** People often think of Jesus as teaching traditional family values, but in fact he seems to be rather dismissive of the natural nuclear family. To be fair, maybe his family was to blame. In Mark 3:20, 21 we are told that some of his family [kinsmen] sought to take custody of him because they thought he had lost his mind. Not very supportive. Then when his mother and brothers arrived and called for him, Jesus responded: “Who are My mother and My brothers?” Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:57:06-04:00February 24th, 2022|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

The Messages of Jesus and Paul: Basically the Same or Fundamentally Different?

I have been talking about the relationship of Jesus’ proclamation of the coming Kingdom of God to Paul’s preaching about the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the previous post I argued that the fundamental concerns, interests, perspectives, and theologies of these two were different. In this post I’d like to give, in summary fashion, what strikes me as very similar and very different about their two messages. Again, in my view it is way too much to say that Paul is the “Founder of Christianity”: that assumes that he is the one who personally came up with the idea of the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus for salvation, whereas almost certainly this view had been around for a couple of years before he came onto the scene. And it is probably too much even to say that he was the “Co-founder of Christianity,” for much the same reason. But it is safe to say that of all the early Christian thinkers and missionaries, Paul is the one we [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:57:06-04:00February 19th, 2022|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

Jesus and Paul: Are They on the Same Page?

I spent several posts explicating Paul’s understanding of his gospel, that by Christ’s death and resurrection a person is put into a restored relationship with God. He had several ways of explaining how it worked (the “judicial” model; the “participationist” model; and the other models I described). But in all of these ways, it was Jesus’ death and resurrection that mattered. It was not keeping the Jewish law. It was not knowing or following Jesus’ teaching. It was not Jesus’ miracles. It was not … anything else. It was Jesus’ death and resurrection. I then summarized in my previous post, the teaching of Jesus himself, about the coming Son of Man and the need to prepare by keeping the Law of God, as revealed in the Torah, as summarized in the commandments to love God above all else and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Do these represent the same religion? I see this as one of the most fundamental and important questions in all of early Christianity. I’m not asking if Paul invented Christianity, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:57:06-04:00February 17th, 2022|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

Would Anyone Invent the Story of the Women at the Tomb?

I received a question in the comments recently that I've gotten a lot before. Wouldn't the Gospel story about women being the first to realize Jesus had been raised be contrary to what Christians would have *wanted* to say, possibly even embarrassing? If so, isn't it likely that no one made it up but that it's actually what probably happened? It's been a few years since I posted on the question, so it seems like a good chance to post on it again. Here's what I've said before: ****************************** Who in the ancient world would ever try to *prove* the resurrection by making up a story that women, in particular, discovered Jesus' empty tomb? Weren't women seen as complete unreliable witnesses? Their testimony never even accepted in a court of law? If someone want to prove that Jesus had been raised -- and that therefore the tomb was empty -- they would have invented *men* at the tomb (reliable witnesses) rather than *women* (untrustworthy). Right? The reason anyone ever has this question is because it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:51-04:00February 16th, 2022|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Heart of Jesus’ Message

To this point in the thread I have been talking about Paul’s “religion” – specifically, what he thought was important in a person’s relationship with God. He expressed his views in a variety of ways – I have talked about his judicial and his participationist understandings of salvation, and have made brief comments on yet other “models” that he used to express his view about the act of salvation that God had achieved through Christ. In all of these models, it was the death and resurrection of Jesus that was of paramount importance. It was that, nothing else, that brought about salvation. And what did Jesus himself think? This is arguably the most important point to consider about early Christianity. Did the best known apostle of Christ proclaim the same, or very similar message, to Jesus himself? Or not? In my New Testament class every semester I have my students debate, in class, a resolution dealing with the issue: “Resolved: Paul and Jesus represented fundamentally different religions.” Students are surprised by the topic. Until they [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:51-04:00February 12th, 2022|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Do We Have Any Reliable Sources for Pontius Pilate?

I recently was asked in a comment what kind of independent information do we have, outside the Gospels, for Pontius Pilate? Answer: not much. I told the commenter that I thought I had once written about the matter, and lo and behold, I was right. It was in my book Did Jesus Exist? The book was written to show why -- contrary to what you sometimes hear these days -- there doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt that, whatever else you might think of him, there was a man Jesus of Nazareth (a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was crucified on orders of Pontius Pilate --- and about whom we can say a good deal more. This is not an issue I want to re-address here again on the blog. But I do want to show why it's not weird that Jesus isn't talked about much in ancient sources. Here's what I said about it in my book (slightly edited for the sake of the blog): ****************************** I have often pointed out that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:50-04:00February 5th, 2022|Historical Jesus|

Are the Teachings of Jesus Realistic? Platinum guest post by Douglas Wadeson

Now *here's* a challenging post, by Platinum member Doug Wadeson. Read it and see! Doug will be happy to reply to responses. Many thanks Doug. Others of you who want to do a post -- go for it. ********************** Jesus is generally thought of as a great moral teacher, but I have heard that questioned on occasion. For example, Jesus said, “Do not show opposition against an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other toward him also” (Matthew 5:39). Really?! Does Jesus want us to be target practice for bullies? Won’t that just enable and embolden them? And on a society scale, if America is attacked are we not supposed to defend ourselves? Otherwise evil will win. A real sore point for some people is that Jesus never condemned slavery, which was a common institution in his day (e.g., Matthew 10:24, 24:46, etc.). Apologists sometimes rationalize this by explaining that slavery was not that bad in the Roman empire; it was more like indentured servitude. Yet a truly wise [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:51-04:00February 4th, 2022|Historical Jesus|

Where Did the Apocalyptic Views of Jesus (and others) Come From?

I have spent a few posts explaining the overarching views of the ancient Hebrew prophets; in this lecture I want to explain how a very different "apocalyptic" view -- one embraced by Jesus, John the Baptist before him, and the earliest Christians after him -- emerged within ancient Israel. It has to do with how historical circumstances forced thinkers in Israel to re-evaluate what the prophets had said. Here is the simple version of the story, as I lay it out in my textbook on the Bible, edited a bit. ****************************** The Prophetic Perspective We have seen that the classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible differed from one another in a number of ways, in the historical contexts that they addressed, in their manner of addressing them, and in the specifics of their messages. But there are certain common features that tie all the prophets together, especially with respect to their understanding of God, his reaction to Israel’s failure to do his will, and the coming disasters that will occur as a result. If you [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:38-04:00January 25th, 2022|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus|

Are the Gospels Too Early To Have Legends About Jesus? Platinum Guest Post by Bob Seidensticker

Here is an interesting and important post by Platinum member Bob Seidensticker for the rest of you Platinums. In it he deals with a fundamental issue. Some Christian apologists who otherwise are smart people have made the odd claim that "legends" about Jesus could not have sprung up in the forty years between his life and the first Gospel accounts. There just wasn't enough time: forty years ain't enough! In one instance, apologist William Lane Craig claims that this view was put forward by a famous historian of ancient Rome, Sherwin-White. Is that true? Read and find out! Remember: you too can prepare a Platinum post. Just write up something connected with the blog, make it about 1000-1200 words, and send it to me; I'll put it in queue. But for now, read and enjoy Bob's post! And if you have comments for him, bring 'em on! Oral Tradition and the Game of Telephone: A. N. Sherwin-White’s Famous Quote The time from the death of Jesus to the writing of the first gospel was [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:50-04:00January 24th, 2022|Historical Jesus|

On Misreading The Gospels: Platinum Guest Post by Joel Scheller

I am pleased to present this interesting guest post to Platinum members to fellow Platinum Joel Scheller. Joel has taken on one of the most important issues that we can ask of the New Testament: Are the Gospels meant to be read historically? Or, as John Shelby Spong argued, are they meant to be symbolic and liturgical expositions of the significance of Jesus? If you have comments and questions for Joel, let us hear from you! *************************** After Dr Ehrman wrote a tribute article regarding the late Anglican Bishop, John Shelby Spong, I began reading this man’s books, and became enamored with many, but not all, of his assertions. His book “Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy” really struck a chord with me because of Spong’s explanation regarding the difference in what we actually know about the historical Jesus from what we read in the Gospels. As fellow blog member, Dan Kohanski, so recently and aptly explained in his guest blog “What We KNOW About Jesus”, our actual knowledge of Jesus’ life and ministry is [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:37-04:00December 28th, 2021|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Why Doesn’t Paul Say More about the Historical Jesus? Other Options.

In my last post I started giving the principal options, as I see them, for why Paul did not mention more about the historical Jesus. Below are two other leading options. As I’ve indicated, there are probably others, and if some occur to you, feel free to comment! ****************************** Option Two: Paul knew more of the traditions of Jesus, but considered them irrelevant to his mission. This option relates closely to the one preceding, with a major difference. In this case, Paul did not himself teach his congregations many of the traditions about Jesus that he knew, nor did he refer to them extensively either in person or in writing -- not because he had no occasion to (since he clearly did) but because he chose not to. Why would he choose not to? Perhaps because he considered the traditions about Jesus' words and deeds to be irrelevant to his message of Jesus' death and resurrection. Support for this view can come from a passage like 1 Cor 2:2, where Paul insists that the only [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:09-04:00December 11th, 2021|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

But Why Doesn’t Paul Say More About the Historical Jesus?

To this point I have enumerated everything that Paul explicitly says about what Jesus said, did, and experienced during his earthly life. The driving question is the one that I turn to now and in the next post. Why didn’t Paul tell us *more*? I’ve long been fascinated by this question, and even though I’ve thought about it for well over thirty years, I’ve never decided on what I really think. There are just too many counter-arguments for every perspective that I’ve heard or thought of! In these two posts I want to lay out three of the main options. If you think of others that need to be aired, feel free to make a comment. I have taken the following from my textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. ****************************** Paul of course has a lot to say about the importance of Jesus, especially the importance of his death and resurrection and his imminent return from heaven. But in terms of historical information, what I've listed above [i.e., in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:09-04:00December 9th, 2021|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

What We KNOW about Jesus. Platinum guest post by Dan Kohanski

I am pleased to post this offering from Dan Kohanski, who was inspired by my posts on Bill O'Reilly's book, Killing Jesus, to come up with a discussion of what historians can "actually* know about Jesus. What do you think? Things to add to his list? Not convinced by some? Would change some others? Feedback welcome. With this post the QUEUE IS EMPTY! Want to post something for fellow Platinums! Don't hold back -- go for it! Just write something up, say 600-1400 words, and zap it to me. But for now, Enjoy! ********************************* It often surprises people to learn that Jesus, who has long been one of the most recognizable names in history, was an obscure figure in his own lifetime. We have no contemporaneous record of him, and very little for decades afterwards other than writings from his followers. The oldest known sources about Jesus are the letters of Paul, written starting about two decades after Jesus’s death. Paul was not concerned with how Jesus lived, but with why he died. The first [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:21-04:00December 7th, 2021|Historical Jesus|

Did Paul Know What Jesus Taught? More Reflections

I have been talking about Paul’s knowledge of the historical Jesus, and yesterday began a discussion of what Paul clearly knew about Jesus’ teachings. That’s where I will pick up here. Again, I have taken the discussion from my book Did Jesus Exist?, so the orientation of what I have to say is toward showing that Paul provides solid (and for my mind, virtually incontrovertible) evidence that Jesus was not simply “made up” but was an actual historical figure – an issue that, for most people in the universe of intelligent humans, is not much of an issue, but which is disputed by that tiny yet oh-so-vocal group of “mythicists” about which I have said some things before. In any event, there are a few more interesting aspects of the question of Paul’s use of Jesus’ teachings, as follows: ****************************** There are no other obvious places where Paul quotes Jesus, although scholars have often found traces of Jesus’ teachings in Paul. The big question is why Paul does not quote Jesus more often. That is [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:08-04:00December 5th, 2021|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

What Paul Says about Jesus’ Teachings

So far I have been discussing what Paul says about the historical Jesus in his surviving seven letters. For the next couple of posts I’ll indicate what he says about the teaching of Jesus. Once again there are two observations to make. The first is that he obviously knew that Jesus taught some things. The other is that it is a bit surprising that he doesn’t tell us more. I will be dealing with that second issue soon, when I discuss why Paul doesn’t give us more information about the historical Jesus (there are several options). The following discussion is taken from my book Did Jesus Exist, which was meant to deal more with the first issue: the fact that Paul quotes Jesus on occasion shows at the least that Paul knew Jesus existed (as do the other data that he mentions about Jesus’ life). ****************************** The Teachings of Jesus in Paul In addition to these data about Jesus’ life and death, Paul mentions on several occasions the teachings he delivered. We have seen two [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:56:08-04:00December 1st, 2021|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

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