Paul and His Letters Archives - Page 6 of 20 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Paul’s Letter to the … Laodiceans? Long Thought to be Part of the New Testament!

One of the most intriguing letters forged in the name of Paul is his alleged letter to the Laodiceans. As you’ll see, it’s intriguing both because some Christian churches accepted it as part of the New Testament for centuries and because scholars have never been able to figure out why a forger bothered to write it. I have a theory about that though, which I laid out in my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford University Press, 2013), from which I have taken this discussion. (I’ve edited it a bit to get rid of the weeds; here I explain the issues and my argument in accessible terms). ****************************** The Letter to the Laodiceans The Letter of “Paul” to the Laodiceans is a pastiche of Pauline phrases with no obvious theme or purpose. Apart from the opening line, drawn from Gal. 1:1, the borrowings are almost exclusively from Philippians. About a tenth of the letter represents “filler” provided by the author, which is also without character or color. Scholars have long vied with one another to see [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:40-04:00March 7th, 2024|Christian Apocrypha, Forgery in Antiquity, Paul and His Letters|

Paul’s THIRD Letter to the Corinthians? A Very Interesting Forgery

Even though we don’t have the forgeries of Pauline letters connected with Marcion (they’ve all been lost or destroyed by orthodox Christians), we have other letters forged in Paul’s name that appear to be opposing Marcion (you don't need to read the previous posts to make sense of this one; but if you want to learn more about Marcion -- see the two posts preceding). These surviving letters are forgeries written to oppose forgeries, an orthodox attempt to fight fire with fire. One of the most interesting is Paul’s alleged Third Letter to the Corinthians! Here’s what I say about it in my book Forged (HarperOne, 2011). ****************************** Third Corinthians It was quite common for “orthodox” Christians (that is, Christians who accepted the theological views that eventually became widely accepted throughout Christianity) to charge “heretics” (those who taught “false teachings”) with forging documents in the names of the apostles in order to support their views. We will see much more of this phenomenon in chapter five. The Gospel of Peter, for example, was charged with [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:27-04:00March 6th, 2024|Christian Apocrypha, Forgery in Antiquity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Paul and His Letters|

The Two Gods of Marcion and the Forgeries in the Name of Paul
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The Two Gods of Marcion and the Forgeries in the Name of Paul

Forgery in Antiquity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Paul and His Letters

The Two Gods of Marcion and the Forgeries in the Name of Paul

Here I continue my discussion of Marcion, the arch-heretic of the second century, whose followers forged writings in the name of Paul to support their view that the God of the Old Testament was not the God of Jesus and Paul. Recall: Marcion argued that the God of the Old Testament was the Jewish God who created this world, chose Israel to be his people, and then gave them his law. He was a just, wrathful God: not evil, just ruthlessly judicial. The God of Jesus, on the other hand, was a God of love, mercy, and forgiveness. This good God, superior to the God of the Jews, sent Jesus into the world in order to die for the sins of others, to save people from the wrathful God of the Old Testament. Salvation comes, then, by believing in Jesus’ death. To prove his point, Marcion pointed out the contradictions between the Old Testament God and the God of Jesus. The God of the Old Testament sent his prophets, one of whom was Elisha. One [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:27-04:00March 5th, 2024|Forgery in Antiquity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Paul and His Letters|

The Heretic Marcion and Forgeries of Pauline Letters

If Christians made up stories about Paul, did they also make up writings allegedly by Paul? My two previous posts were about fabricated narratives connected with Paul both from outside the New Testament and in the NT book of Acts. After posting, I realized that after lo these many years, I’ve never discussed at any length the related topic, non-canonical Pauline forgeries, writings that claim to be written by Paul but were definitely not. I leave out of consideration here the six “disputed” Pauline epistles of the New Testament – Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. There are very good reasons for thinking none of these were written by Paul either (they all, of course, explicitly claim to be), but I’ve dealt with those before (see What about Forgeries IN the New Testament? Is it Possible?, Forgeries in the Name of Paul, Pauline Forgeries: 2 Thessalonians as a Test Case, for example) and will no doubt do so again. Here I’m interested in less familiar writings. You probably know [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:27-04:00March 3rd, 2024|Paul and His Letters|

Our Controversial Sources About the Controversial Paul

Peter and Mary Magdalene are not the only early followers of Jesus whose lives are shrouded in mystery. What about Paul? As it turns out, of all of Jesus’ female disciples after his life, we have the most information about Mary Magdalene, and of all his male disciples, Peter and Paul. All are mentioned (Mary just briefly) in the New Testament, and all have lots of stories floated about them after the New Testament, and there are writings allegedly by Peter and Paul in the New Testament, and more outside. That’s a lot to go on. But, we have seen in previous posts that information about Peter and Mary is scanty, and much of it unreliable. With Paul we are in better shape, since we really do have letters he wrote available to us (at least 7 of the 13 in the New Testament really do appear to be his). But we also have lots of other material that is … iffy at best. In some ways separating out the fact from the fiction about [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:27-04:00February 29th, 2024|Paul and His Letters|

How to Sugarcoat Scripture but Seem Sophisticated. Final Guest Post by Jill Hicks-Keeton
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How to Sugarcoat Scripture but Seem Sophisticated. Final Guest Post by Jill Hicks-Keeton

History of Biblical Scholarship, Paul and His Letters, Women in Early Christianity

How to Sugarcoat Scripture but Seem Sophisticated. Final Guest Post by Jill Hicks-Keeton

It's amazing how committed New Testament scholars often try to tame the Bible, making it upbeat and relevant for today when, on the surface, it affirms views that most of us, when we're honest about it, simply can't abide. And not just the Old Testament celebration of slaughter (those damn Canaanites) and execution (for, say, disobeying parents) but also the New Testament (and not just the grotesque torture and annihilations of Revelation). Jill Hicks-Keeton, professor of Religious Studies at Oklahoma, deals with how evangelical Christians (one could pick other groups!) try to whitewash the Bible in her book Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves. This now is Jill's third and final guest post for us on the topic. Once again, she names names. Any comments? Bring 'em on! ****************************** The ancient people who wrote the texts that would become “the Bible” lived in patriarchal societies. Modern Bible readers who see these texts as scriptural and who also deem patriarchy an undesirable way to order society have a problem to solve: [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:12-04:00January 30th, 2024|History of Biblical Scholarship, Paul and His Letters, Women in Early Christianity|

How To Make the New Testament Non-Patriarchal. Good Luck with That One. Guest post by Jill Hicks-Keeton

I'm very pleased to post this second contribution by Jill Hicks-Keeton, professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, and an author who does not appreciate "experts" who try to explain away the problems of the Bible (e.g., with respect to women) and sees no need to pull her punches! This is an unusually effective and interesting instance; here she reveals the the flaws of a recent attempt by a New Testament scholar to make Paul patriarchally palatable. She names names. The post is an adaptation from her recently published Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves. ****************************** In my last post, I introduced the concept of Bible benevolence, which is the rhetorical and intellectual work that people do to make ancient texts in the Bible square with modern moral sensibilities. The Bible is not good by itself. People have to make it so. My recent book, Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves, uses white evangelical Protestants in the U.S. as a case study to illustrate [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:11-04:00January 28th, 2024|History of Biblical Scholarship, Paul and His Letters, Women in Early Christianity|

Paul, the Apostate: a Platinum Post by Manuel Fiadeiro

Was Paul responsible for the split between gentile Christians and Jews? Did he have regular visits with Jesus after he converted? Did he consult the Alexandrian philosopher Philo about the issue? These are some of the controversial issues raised in this this guest post by Platinum Member Manuel Fiadeiro. Check it out. What do you think? Blog members at the platinum level are allowed to submit posts for other Platinum members only; after several come in, we take a vote and the winner gets posted to the entire blog for all to see. Manuel's is our current winner. If you'd like the same opportunity, check out the Platinum membership tier and its various perks, and give it a thought! For now here's Manuel on Paul: ******************************** Circa 35 CE, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a young man, no more than 20 years old called Saul, with scribes and Pharisees, was stoning a man belonging to a sect of a Galilean called Jesus. Saul was in Jerusalem to study with the Pharisee master Gamaliel. Few students [...]

admin2025-07-16T17:45:54-04:00January 25th, 2024|Jews and Christians in Antiquity, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

Is There Any Sarcasm in the New Testament?
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Is There Any Sarcasm in the New Testament?

Paul and His Letters, Reflections and Ruminations

Is There Any Sarcasm in the New Testament?

Every now and then someone asks me if there is any sarcasm used in the New Testament. You would think the answer would be fairly obviously, No. But, well, I've dealt with the issue before, and my response was Yes. Let me start by giving a definition of sarcasm. You can find various definitions just on the Internet, but the basic idea is that sarcasm is a form of humor that used irony in order to mock another. It is difficult to identify sarcasm in ancient writings. In fact, as you’ve probably noticed, sometimes it’s hard to know if someone is being sarcastic when they are speaking directly to our face. The way we typically detect sarcasm is by the context of the comment and the non-verbal signs given – the facial expression, for example, or the tone of voice used and the words orally emphasized. You have none of that for the writings of the New Testament – only a bit of information about context (inferred from the text itself) and no non-verbal signs. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:05:28-04:00November 29th, 2023|Paul and His Letters, Reflections and Ruminations|

How Paul’s Own Writings Show the Earliest Church Was Split Over “Orthodoxy” and “Heresy”

Are Christian "heresy" (that is, "false belief") and "orthodoxy" ("right belief") products of developments within Christianity after the New Testament? Or can they be detected in the New Testament itself? I'm not asking if the New Testament literally has false teachings. As per my definitions, I'm asking whether it contains views that disagree with one another, only some of which later came to be seen as acceptable. In getting to that answer I have been discussing the views of Walter Bauer, in his classic work, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, who maintained that from the earliest of times, so far as we can tell from our surviving records, Christianity was not a single unitary thing with one set of doctrines that everyone believed (orthodoxy), except for occasional groups that sprang up as followers of false teachers who corrupted the truth that they had inherited (heresies). Instead, as far back as we can trace the history of theology, Christianity was always a widely disparate collection of various beliefs (and practices). In the struggle for [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:05:27-04:00November 24th, 2023|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Paul and His Letters|

Is It Better to Follow Christ or to Live a Contented Life? Paul vs. Epicurus

What would other deep thinkers in the ancient world have thought of Paul’s teachings? Short answer: not much. Earlier this year I posted on one of my favorite Greek philosophers, Epicurus (341 – 270 BCE). Epicurus acquired a bad reputation already in antiquity, and still has one among many people today, mainly because his views are widely misunderstood and often simply misrepresented. As it turns out, he advocated views that have widely become dominant in our world, and for good reasons. For that reason I’ve always read him as remarkably prescient, entertaining ideas that would not become popular for two thousand years. And they stand precisely at odds with the views of the apostle Paul. I’ve recently begun to think about this more deeply -- especially since they talk about the same *topics* but take completely different stands on them.. Unfortunately, we do not have very many of Epicurus’s writings. In fact, the most important sources we have are simply three long letters, quoted in toto by a significant but little-read author named Diogenes Laertius, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:04:44-04:00September 20th, 2023|Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Paul and His Letters, Reflections and Ruminations|

Did Paul Get Along with the Other Apostles?
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Did Paul Get Along with the Other Apostles?

Acts of the Apostles, Paul and His Letters

Did Paul Get Along with the Other Apostles?

I mentioned in my previous posts that there are discrepancies between Paul’s letters and the book of Acts in both major and minor ways, and in my last post I dealt with some differences that appear when one looks closely at the details (the issue I addressed: what does Paul do immediately upon his conversion). There are many instances like that throughout Acts: if you compare what Paul has to say with what Acts has to say, on the same topic or about the same event, you will find differences, and often these differences matter a lot to the overall narrative. There are also of differences that emerge from the overall portrayal of Paul and his Christian mission. In this post I’ll deal with one example, Paul's relationship with the other Apostles. In both Acts and Paul's letters its clear that Paul had relations those who were apostles before him, chiefly the former disciples of Jesus (Peter, John, etc.) and Jesus’ own brother James, who was to become the leader of the church in Jerusalem. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:03:37-04:00June 29th, 2023|Acts of the Apostles, Paul and His Letters|

After Paul Converted… Does the Book of Acts Contradict Paul Himself?

Is the account of Paul's life in Acts at odds with what Paul says himself? If not, are the stories in Acts just invented out of whole cloth? Some people who responded to my previous post on the historical trustworthiness of the book of Acts suggested that maybe its author “Luke” (we don’t know the author’s real name, so we may as well call him this) wasn't just makin' stuff up, but had sources of information available to him for the book of Acts, just as he clearly did for the Gospel (e.g., the Gospels of Mark and Q). I think this is absolutely right, he almost certainly did have sources. It should be clear that he wasn't simply creating complete fictions about Paul: that there are numerous close parallels in Acts to what Paul has to say about himself. So there is a historical gist to his accounts on some level. At the same time, almost all these parallels also contain striking discrepancies from Paul. So Luke had sources, but the sources were not [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:03:37-04:00June 28th, 2023|Acts of the Apostles, Paul and His Letters|

Was Paul Authorized to Persecute Christians?

Who gave Paul the authority to persecute Christians? The book of Acts suggests it was the authorities in Jerusalem. Can that be right? In fact, is Acts right in what it says about Paul generally? The questions matter: Acts provides our oldest surviving narrative description of the first thirty years of Christianity, and the only narrative source of the life of Paul (before the legendary Acts of Paul from a century or so later). It's a terrifically interesting book. What can we say about its historical accuracy? I was browsing through posts from the good ole days of the blog "in the beginning," and came across a brief thread from, well, eleven years ago that addressed these kinds of questions. I thought would be worth reposting it here. My posts started in relation to a question I received. ****************************** QUESTION: You mention in your book "Did Jesus Exist?" that Paul started his persecution of Christians in the early 30s. If he was tasked with hunting down Christians by the Sanhedrin he must have had a [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:03:17-04:00June 27th, 2023|Acts of the Apostles, Paul and His Letters|

Was Matthew Attacking Paul?

On my podcast this past week (Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman) someone asked me if I thought any of the Gospels of the NT were influenced by Paul. It's an interesting question that I should post on (my view: Mark, maybe; Luke, unexpectedly and oddly not; John, I doubt it; Matthew?) Ah, Matthew. As it turns out, I think Matthew shows a rather obvious and ironic connection with Paul. Did he know Paul's writings? I have no idea. Did he know about Paul? Same, no idea. Did he oppose a major feature of Paul's gospel message? Sure looks like it!! (I'm trying to say that he could be opposed to Paul's views without necessarily knowing Paul's writings; the views may have been more widely spread than just by Paul. In fact, they almost certainly were. Here's how I've discussed the matter once when I was reflecting at greater length in the issue: Paul certainly had opponents in his lifetime: "Judaizers," as scholars call them -- that is, Christian teachers who maintained that followers of Jesus [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:02:23-04:00May 9th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

Is 2 Thessalonians a Forgery? From 132 CE? Platinum Guest Post by Omar Robb

The proposition that the 2 Thessalonians was forged in 132AD by a Thessalonian priest. Omar Abur-Robb omr-mhmd.yolasite.com There have been lot of arguments discussing the authenticity of the 2 Thessalonians. Many Scholars concluded (due to many observations) that it is a forgery. I am going here to add one more observation into the list by highlighting an angle that was probably missed. I need to give credit to Joseph Turmel (1859 - 1943) who probably was the first to link this letter to Bar-Kokhba revolt, and the model that I am presenting here is not very far from his model. [Reference: Introduction by Neil Godfrey, https://vridar.org/2011/05/31/identifying-the-man-of-sin-in-2-thessalonians/] The Second Thessalonians is a letter that is attributed to Paul for the Thessalonian Christians. The main objective of this letter is a discussion about the return of Jesus in 2.1: “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him”, and the narratives related to the antichrist: the “man of sin”. So, the explicit objective of the letter is: Jesus will not return [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:02:23-04:00April 28th, 2023|Forgery in Antiquity, Paul and His Letters|

Did Jesus Appear to 500 People After His Resurrection?

What do we make of Paul's claim that 500 people at one time saw Jesus after the resurrection (in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5)? I get this question every now and then -- maybe five or six times just this year. These days, among other things, I point 0ut something I hadn't thought about in most of the years of my existence, that there was almost certainly no Christian group (meaning: a group of people who believed Jesus was raised from the dead) of that size in Paul's day anywhere in the world! (I discuss the numbers of Christians at different time periods in antiquity in my book The Triumph of Christianity.) So on that level alone it seems highly implausible. But jut now looking through old posts from many years ago, I see I was asked the question and dealt with it in a different way. I'd forgotten all about it, but see now that I give a bit of analysis that tries to unpack Paul's claims. Here's the Q and the A: ****************************** QUESTION on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:00:35-04:00December 20th, 2022|Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

What Would the Apostle Paul Think of The Trinity? Platinum Guest Post by Joel Scheller

Now here's an intriguing question about early Christianity, posed and answered by Platinum Blog member Joel Scheller in a guest post for all you other Platinums. One way to put the question is this: Would the apostle-Paul have been considered an arch-heretic in the fourth century? A good case can be made! Read on. And think about contributing a post yourself, on any topic connected to the blog. Have an idea/thought? Get it out there! For now -- here's Joel's most recent contribution. He'll be happy to address your comments. ****************************** I find it interesting that so much Christian teaching is based on the Apostle Paul’s influence and yet the doctrine on the very nature of God for most Christians seems out of step with what Paul has to say on the subject. To start off with, The Nicene Creed was originally provoked by the question of how Jesus was God in relation to God the Father, with the inclusion of The Holy Spirit in the creed as almost an afterthought, and whose relationship in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:00:34-04:00December 16th, 2022|Early Christian Doctrine, Paul and His Letters|

So Which Text is Original?? My View of 1 Thessalonians 2:7

I am about ready to wrap up my discussion of the textual problem of 1 Thessalonians 2:7. When recalling his time with the Thessalonians, when he had worked hard not to be a burden with any of them, did Paul indicate that he and his missionary companions had become "as infants, as a nurse tending her children" or that they had become "gentle, as a nurse tending her children." It is not an obvious decision, whether you think the change was made accidentally or on purpose. (If you think it *is* obvious, look at the preceding two posts). It seems like it might go either way. I myself have an opinion on the matter (textual scholars tend to have opinions); but I"ll hold off on that for a minute. First: some of you might be wondering--which of these readings do the best surviving manuscripts actually suggest? Is one of the readings ("infants" or "gentle") better attested than the other? Which reading do our oldest and best manuscripts have? Here, as it turns out, the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:00:18-04:00November 30th, 2022|New Testament Manuscripts, Paul and His Letters|

Do We KNOW What Paul Wrote? If You Think So, Answer This….

Do we really KNOW what the authors of the New Testament wrote? Sometimes we just can't decide -- despite what apologists almost always say (Most apologists, btw, have never actually studied the problem; I'm not trying to be snide or rude when I say that -- it's an empirical fact; even most PhD's in New Testament Studies have not been trained to determine which actual words of the surviving manuscripts probably go back to the authors). I am now looking at a case in point, a single word in a single passage of Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians (see the previous post). The decision of what he wrote comes down to a single letter in the word. Scholars (especially, as it turns out, those few who ARE deeply trained to figure these things out) can't agree about the single letter. And the decision determines the meaning of the passage. Did Paul remind the Thessalonians that when he and his missionary colleagues were with them they became like “infants” among them rather than great, powerful, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:00:18-04:00November 29th, 2022|New Testament Manuscripts, Paul and His Letters|

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