What happens when a modern physician starts asking difficult questions of familiar biblical stories?  Here is one answer:  an intriguing post covering a topic that will not have occurred to most of us.  Let's think about how a Virgin Birth works when (now, unlike antiquity) we have a pretty good idea of how Births work in general.  If God made Mary pregnant through the spirit, what does that have to say about the nature of Jesus' at the biological level and, well, the chromosomes of God? This Platinum guest post is delivered to us courtesy of Platinum member Doug Wadeson.  As I've mentioned, Platinum members can publish posts for other Platinum members, and they then vote on one to go to the blog at large.  Doug won *twice* recently, so here's the second one. I have to admit, HERE is something I never thought of before! But I don't know, does it sound controversial to you? ****************************** Does God Have Chromosomes? Dr. Ehrman has many posts discussing the technical difficulties of the two birth stories [...]

There is nothing better than a guest blog post that flat-out disagrees with me!  And here we have one.  Is it plausible that Jesus could have had large crowds gathering together to hear his preaching in rural Galilee?  I say: Not really.   Platinum blog member Doug Wadeson says: Oh yes! As you may know, blog members on the Platinum Tier are allowed to write posts for other Platinum members.  (Nice perk!  If you're not a platinum member: take a look at it and see if you're interested.  Just click JOIN [even if you belong already] and scroll to Platinum Tier and see).  Every few weeks other Platinum members vote on which recent Platinum post should be posted on the blog at large.  Doug's won the prize.   Here's his post.  What do you think?   ****************************** On those few occasions when I have challenged something Dr. Ehrman has said he can usually shoot me down pretty quickly based on his range and depth of knowledge.  But I am going to try again. Dr. Ehrman has suggested [...]

Here is the second of three posts on my first book-length study -- my dissertation on a particular aspect of how we can determine what the original words of the New Testament were and how they came to be changed over time.  The dissertation was directed by Bruce Metzger, and it dealt more directly with the rather technical issue of the Gospel quotations of the fourth-century church father Didymus the Blind. When I first started thinking about how to write up this second post, I remembered one of my clearest pieces of advice that I ever gave to myself, many years ago now, based, already then, on substantial experience.  Never , ever, EVER ask a graduate student what s/he is writing the dissertation on.  They invariably will tell you, and it will take a half hour, and your eyes will glaze over in 30 seconds.  So just don’t do it.  With that principle in mind, I think I had better not go into all the ins and outs of the dissertation.  I’ll just go into some [...]

Is there a way to “disprove” the existence of God?  I’m not asking what the best arguments are; I’m asking whether an argument is possible. Just now I’m on a tour of some of the Greek Islands (Andros, Naxos. Amorgas, Santorini, and Crete) giving lectures for a group of unusually interesting people from a striking range of backgrounds – doctors, psychologists, scientists, financial advisers, business owners of various kinds, and so on, most of them one-time religious, some still committed to a religious tradition, some for whom religion never has made sense. Most of the conversations we’ve been having so far are Q&A: someone asks me me about some historical/literary issue connected with the NT or early Christianity and I tell them what I know (or at least think).  But some discussion topics don’t have historical answers.  Including whether it is possibly to prove God does not exist. That particular conversation has involved how we know what we know, as opposed to how people before the modern period thought they could know what [...]

In case you missed it last time, here's my announcement of the course I'll be doing on this coming Sunday.  It's a difficult, very complicated, and often incredibly important topic.  I hope you can come! ************************ I'm pleased to announce that I will be doing a new two-lecture course on a rather timely topic, When Does Life Begin: The Status of the Unborn in the Biblical Tradition.  The course is not connected with the Blog per se, except insofar as I'm doing it and many of you might be interested.   For more information and registration, go to http://www.bartehrman.com/life Even if you can't come to the live lectures, you will be able to get a recording of the course to watch at your leisure. Here's a description of the course: **********************               The issue of abortion is one of the most divisive controversies in our country.  In many ways it comes down to a very basic question:  When Does Life Begin? At conception?  Later in gestation?  When the fetus is viable?  At birth? For many people the question is [...]