History of Christianity (100-300CE) Archives - Page 9 of 15 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Irrelevant Arguments and the So-called Tenacity of the Tradition

A couple of posts ago I promised to deal with an argument sometimes used by those who believe we can know with good certainty what the original text of the New Testament books said. This is the argument called the “tenacity of the tradition.” If you recall, the argument is prefaced on the very interesting phenomenon that whenever papyri manuscripts are discovered – say from the third or fourth Christian century – they almost *never* contain new variant readings that we did not already know about from later manuscripts, of say the seventh to fifteenth centuries. Instead, the readings of these early manuscripts re-appear in later manuscripts. The conclusion that is sometimes drawn, then, is that that tradition is “tenacious.” That is to say, later manuscripts did not invent their variant readings, but in almost every instance replicated variant readings that they got from earlier manuscripts. And one corollary that is sometimes drawn, then, is variant readings do not disappear but continue to be replicated in later witnesses. If that is the case, then the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:38-04:00September 5th, 2015|History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Did Scribes Add the Passage of the Bloody Sweat?

In my previous posts I’ve been puzzling over the textual problem of Luke 22:43-44, the so-called “bloody sweat” passage, where Jesus, before his arrest, is said to have been in such deep agony that he sweat drops “as if of blood,” so that an angel came down from heaven to minister to him. These verses are found in some manuscripts of Luke, but not others. So which text is “original”? The version of Luke with the verses or the version without them? In previous posts I have argued that the verses run contrary both to the structure of Luke’s passage and to the theology of Luke, who worked to *eliminate* any sense of Jesus actually suffering from his Gospel. In my last post I began to ask, not which of the two texts the author Luke himself would have written (scholars call that kind of question “intrinsic probabilities”: what is more intrinsically likely to go back to the author?) but which of the two texts scribes of the second century, when the passage came to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:21-04:00August 25th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

The Bloody Sweat and the Scribes Who Changed It

I have been talking about the famous passage in Luke 22:43-44, the account of the so-called “bloody sweat,” where we are told that prior to his arrest, Jesus went into deep agony and began to sweat great drops “as if of blood,” and to be so deeply disturbed that an angel had to come down from heaven to support him. These verses can be found in a lot of manuscripts, including those used by the translators of the King James Bible, which is why the passage became so familiar to English-Bible readers over the years; but they are absent from many or our earliest and best manuscripts, which is why some modern translations put the verses in a footnote or, more commonly (as in the NRSV), in double brackets, indicating that in the opinion of the translators, the verses were not original (the translators keep them – bracketed -- in the text because they knew they are familiar and judge that they are very ancient). In my previous posts I have given two reasons for [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:21-04:00August 24th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Patristic Evidence for the New Testament

Yesterday I discussed very briefly the benefits and difficulties of versional evidence for establishing the text of the New Testament. As it turns out, it is a very big and complex issue, or rather sets of issues. There are large and difficult books written on very small aspects of the versions. One, still authoritative, treatment of the whole shooting match, with extensive bibliography (which is now, of course, out of date), is one of the magna opera of my mentor, Bruce Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations (1977). It’s a great book, arguably his most impressive. In this post I would like, to move into a very brief discussion of one other area of evidence for the text of the New Testament, the Patristic sources. The term “patristic” stands for “fathers” (Latin: patres) of the church – that is, the early church authors who quoted the books of the New Testament in the course of their writings. This too is an exceedingly thorny area of scholarly investigation, and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:02-04:00July 21st, 2015|History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts, Proto-Orthodox Writers|

Orthodoxy and Proto-Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy and Proto-Orthodoxy - the current thread on the diversity of early Christianity actually began as a response to a question raised by a reader, which was the following: Dr. Ehrman, I do not know if others would find this interesting, but I would love to know how you developed the idea for The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. How did you go about researching it? How long did it take? Is it a once-in-a-lifetime work? My initial thought was that I would be able to answer the question in roughly five or six posts. But here it is, two weeks later, and I haven’t even started to answer it because it has taken this long to describe what I mean by the term “orthodox.” And I haven’t finished doing even that! But I hope to do so with this post. Orthodoxy and Proto Orthodoxy - Right Belief vs False Belief To this point I have tried to explain why so many scholars for the past 80 years or so have been convinced that we cannot [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:02-04:00July 14th, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Proto-Orthodox Writers|

Earliest Christian Diversity

In keeping with the current topic of the diversity of early Christianity, I thought I could say something about a book that I just read that I found to be unusually interesting and enlightening. It is by two Italian scholars, married to each other, who teach at the Università di Bologna, Adriana Destro, an anthropologist, and Mauro Pesce, a New Testament specialist whose teaching position is in the History of Christianity. Their book is called Il racconto e la scrittura: Introduzione alla lettura dei vangeli. It is about all the things I am currently interested in: the life of Jesus as recounted by his earliest followers, the oral traditions of Jesus, and the Gospels as founded on these oral traditions. In it they develop a theory that I had never thought of before. I’m not sure all the evidence is completely compelling, but the overall view is very interesting and very much worth thinking about. As an anthropologist Prof Destro looks at things in ways differently from most of us who are text-people; and she [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:30:02-04:00July 13th, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Historical Jesus, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Taming the Diversity of the New Testament

In my previous post I started to show why it is difficult to use the New Testament itself as evidence that Christianity started out as an original unity, only to come to be fragmented with the passage of time into the second and third Christian centuries. It is true that the NT is the earliest set of Christian writings that we have, and that most of the books can probably be dated to the first Christian century. We don’t have any other books (well, virtually any other books) this early (I don’t think the Gospel of Thomas can date to the first century; the one exception to the rule would probably be 1 Clement, which is usually dated to the mid 90s CE, and which is, indeed, a proto-orthodox writing). The two problems I’ve isolated with using the NT to demonstrate early Christian unity are that: 1) The reason we have these books and no others from the time is that these are the books that later orthodox church fathers deemed scripture and worked to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00July 8th, 2015|Catholic Epistles, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Paul and His Letters|

Doesn’t the New Testament Show that Christianity Was Originally Unified?

In my discussions so far of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity I have been talking about Walter Bauer and his classic work, which argued that as far back as we can trace the Christian movement in numerous regions of Christendom, we find forms of the Christian faith that were later deemed heretical. “Heresy” is not necessarily, therefore, a later corruption of the orthodox truth. In some places it was the “original” form of the religion. Some readers have objected that it doesn’t make sense to start with the second century evidence in order to say what Christianity was originally like, since Christianity originated long before all that, in the first century. I think that’s absolutely right. And so the question is what the first century evidence – that is, the writings of the New Testament – can tell us. Let me stress a point I have already made, that ... THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don't belong yet, JOIN UP!! It doesn't cost much, and every penny goes [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00July 7th, 2015|Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

How Diverse Was Early Christianity?

In order to get to the question of what motivated my book The Orthdox Corruption of Scripture, and to explain more fully what the book was about, I have spent three posts talking about the terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy” and why they are problematic; in doing so I have been explaining both the traditional view of the relationship of orthodoxy and heresy (as found, for example, in the writings of Eusebius) and the view set forth, in opposition, by Walter Bauer. Several readers have asked where we now stand on the issue, some 80years after Bauer’s intervention. As I indicated in my last post, there are some problems with Bauer’s analysis, but also much positive to say about it. Conservative scholars continue to hold to a more traditional view (e.g., conservative Roman Catholic and evangelical scholars); others find it *basically* convincing, even if they would write the details up very differently from Bauer. I am very much, and rather enthusiastically .... THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don't belong yet, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00July 6th, 2015|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Evaluating the Views of Walter Bauer

In my last two posts I talked about the relationship of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity. The standard view, held for many many centuries, goes back to the Church History of the fourth-century church father Eusebius, who argued that orthodoxy represented the original views of Jesus and his disciples, and heresies were corruptions of that truth by willful, mean-spirited, wicked, and demon inspired teachers who wanted to lead others astray. In 1934 Walter Bauer challenged that view in his book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Bauer argued that in many regions of the church, the earliest known form of Christianity was one that later came to be declared a heresy. Heresies were not, therefore, necessarily later corruptions of an original truth. In many instances they were the oldest known kind of Christianity, in one place or another. The form of Christianity that became dominant by the end of the third century or so was the only known particularly in Rome. Once this Roman form of Christianity had more or less swept aside its [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00July 4th, 2015|Book Discussions, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Biblical Scholarship, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

A Radically Different View of Orthodoxy and Heresy

In my last post I started discussing the terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” pointing out that their traditional/etymological meanings are not very helpful for historians. “Orthodoxy” literally means the “right belief” about God, Christ, the world and so. That means it is a theological term about religious truth. But historians are not theologians who can tell you what is theologically true; they are scholars who try to establish what happened in the past. And so how can a historian, acting as a historian, say that one group of believers is right and that another is wrong? The problem with the two terms came to particular expression in a book written in 1934 by a German scholar named Walter Bauer. The book was auf Deutsch, but its English title is Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. For my money, this was the most important book on early Christianity written in the 20th century. It completely revolutionized how we are to understand the theological controversies that were wracking the Christian church in its early years. If you recall, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00July 3rd, 2015|Book Discussions, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Biblical Scholarship, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

What Are Orthodoxy and Heresy?

In my previous post I began to explain what I meant by the title of my 1993 book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. One of the terms of the title is non-problematic: by “Scripture” I meant specifically the writings of the New Testament. Another term, “corruption,” is a bit trickier, and as I indicated I was using it both in a technical sense to refer to any kind of alteration of a text by a scribe who was copying it (that is what textual critics have traditionally called any change of the text, since for them the most important thing was the “original” text as written by the author) and in an ironic sense because I wanted to talk about changes of the text away from, rather than toward, a possible heretical meaning. And that takes me to the other two terms of importance, “orthodoxy” and “heresy.” These are two much debated terms, and part of the issue has to do with their literal or etymological meaning. In terms of etymology, the word “orthodoxy” comes [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00July 2nd, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

What is An Orthodox Corruption of Scripture?

READER’S QUESTION: Dr. Ehrman, I do not know if others would find this interesting, but I would love to know how you developed the idea for _The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture_. How did you go about researching it? How long did it take? Is it a once in a lifetime work? MY RESPONSE: Ah, this is a great question and it will take a number of posts to lay it all out, as it is a very complicated affair. But it could make for an interesting thread. We’ll see! To begin with, I need to say something about what the book was about. I will have a lot more to say about that in subsequent posts. At this point I’ll simply try to give the whole thing in a nutshell. First let me clarify the key terms of the title, which in full was : The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. By “Scripture” I was referring only to the specifically Christian Scriptures, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00June 30th, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts, Reader’s Questions|

Guest Post by Brice Jones on the Reliability of the Early Manuscripts

Here is a second guest-written post dealing with manuscripts. We are unusually lucky over the past two days! This one is by Brice Jones, another ancient manuscript person who happens to be on the blog. Brice runs his own blog devoted to issues related to papyrology (roughly: the study of ancient papyri manuscripts). His very useful blogsite is: http://www.bricecjones.com/blog Brice here is responding to some rather extravagant claims made by Craig Evans (my friend and erstwhile debate opponent) about whether we know what the original manuscripts of the NT said, based on a book recently published by George Houston (who is also – though neither Craig nor Brice knew this – also a friend and erstwhile colleague: he was a longtime member of the Classics department at UNC and is a very bright fellow, even if his work sometimes gets misused by others). In any event, Brice summarizes Craig’s just-published article and shows some of the reasons it is problematic. - Brice Jones is the author of New Testament Texts on Greek Amulets from Late [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:46-04:00June 29th, 2015|History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts|

Questions on the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library

I have received a number of questions from readers about the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, arising out of my earlier discussion of it and the beginning of the back and forth I’m having with Mark Goodacre (as we await his reply to my initial response; he is overseas attending an academic conference and has his hands tied up just now). Here I will deal with two questions, one that’s a zinger and the other that has been asked by several readers. First the zinger. The reader noted that I indicated that the books of the library were manufactured in the fourth century; we know this because the leather bindings on the books had their spines strengthened with scrap papyrus (and is therefore called the cartonnage) and some of these papyri were dated receipts. And so the reader’s question: QUESTION: Just out of curiosity – what form of dating did the compilers of the books use, that would correspond to our “341 CE” and so on? I’m assuming they weren’t using Roman dates. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 25th, 2015|History of Biblical Scholarship, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions|

Contradictory Stories and Historical Method

I was surprised and intrigued to see the reactions I received to my post in which I responded to Mark Goodacre’s five points calling into question the traditional story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library. In it I pointed out that just because a story changes over time does not mean that the gist of the story is false. If some tellings indicate that the jar was two feet tall and others that it was six, or that there were two people involved or seven, this does not indicate that the story is, at its heart, false, only that it has been changed in the retelling. A number of readers to the blog reacted by saying that the arguments Mark was making about the discovery of the library are precisely the kind of arguments that I (and critical scholars generally, including, probably Mark!) would make, and have made, against the stories of the Gospels about Jesus. If I want to use those kinds of argument against the historicity of the Gospel accounts, what [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 24th, 2015|Historical Jesus, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions|

My Response To Mark Goodacre on the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library

A couple of days ago we enjoyed a guest post on the blog by Mark Goodacre, Professor of New Testament at Duke University. In this post Mark provided five reasons for doubting if the story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library – as that story has been recounted by scholars for many years – is in fact accurate. Mark’s post was a summary of a longer, more detailed, and scholarly article that he has published on the subject. I asked Mark’s permission to respond to his five points, and he gladly agreed; I in turn have agreed to let him respond to my responses. Rather than asking you to reread his post, I have reproduced each of his five reasons here, and then dealt with them one at a time. Mark will later post a response to each of my responses. Let me say that I really don’t have a horse in this race, and my sense is that Mark doesn’t either. We would both love to be able to keep telling the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 22nd, 2015|History of Biblical Scholarship, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Mark Goodacre: Questioning the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library

A few days ago I posted about the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, giving the remarkable story that scholars -- for as long as I myself have been a scholar -- have been telling about how it happened. I also mentioned that my New Testament colleague at Duke, Mark Goodacre – who is on this blog and who has an important blog of his own, as well as the most important website on the New Testament on the entire Internet – has written an article calling this story into question. I asked Mark if he would be willing to summarize his objections to the story as it is typically recited, and he has done so in the following post. In my next post I will respond to his objections, and then Mark will respond to my response. Isn’t scholarship great? Here’s Mark’s post on the matter: - Mark Goodacre is the author of several books, including The Case Against Q, and Thomas and the Gospels. ************************************************************************** Five Reasons to Question the Story [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 20th, 2015|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum|

The Contents of the Nag Hammadi Library

In my last post I gave the story typically recited by NT scholars for the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library. As I pointed out, some scholars have doubted the story, most recently Mark Goodacre. He has agreed to do a guest post on the blog in which he shows why this story – which has been told by probably every NT scholar to every Introduction to NT class for undergraduates for the past thirty years! – is problematic and, well, possibly not true. That post will come by way of tomorrow’s blog. For today’s post, first, I want to say something about the contents of the Nag Hammadi library. This, at least, is not in dispute. Here is what I say in my undergraduate textbook on the matter. ************************************************************** What was this ancient collection of books? The short answer is that it is the most significant collection of lost Christian writings to turn up in modern times. It included several Gospels about Jesus that had never before been seen by any Western scholar, books [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 18th, 2015|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library

In this thread on the discovery of ancient Christian texts, I have mentioned the serendipitous discovery of both the Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt and the Dead Sea Scrolls in what is now Israel. It might be useful for me to say something about both of these discoveries. In this post and the next I will talk about the Nag Hammadi Library. I have taken this discussion from my New Testament textbook. But let me reproduce the discussion with a warning. Caveat lector! My friend Mark Goodacre, NT scholar at Duke and inveterate destroyer of New Testament scholarly myths, has called this account (which is the standard account found among NT scholars) into question. Mark is on the blog. Maybe he will be inspired to respond! In any event, here is the tale of the discovery from my undergraduate textbook: ************************************************ It is an intriguing story, this chance discovery of a cache of ancient Christian documents in 1945, in a remote part of Upper Egypt, a story of serendipity, ineptitude, secrecy, ignorance, scholarly brilliance, murder, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 17th, 2015|Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

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