In my previous post I gave a short introduction to Papias, one of the Apostolic Fathers, and the one -- oddly enough (since we don't have any of his writings, just some quotations of them) -- that has garnered the most attention among New Testament scholars over the past some decades.  Especially those interested in the question of who wrote our Gospels. More than anything, biblical scholars have latched onto Papias because it is widely thought that he provides direct evidence that the Gospel of Matthew really was written by Matthew, and the Gospel of Mark was really written by Mark. I’ll be dealing with the evidence from Papias on both matters in subsequent posts.   What is even more remarkable is that some conservative scholars have actually argued that Papias gives us evidence about Luke and John, even though in none of the surviving fragments does Papias so much as *mention* Luke and John!!   Scholars can be amazingly inventive sometimes….. Before discussing what Papias says about the two Gospel-writers that he does actually [...]

As many of you know, my new book, Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West, will be published on March 24th. I have spent the last few years immersed in researching a profound shift that occurred in antiquity. In the Greco-Roman world, ethical obligations were largely confined to one's family, friends, and local community. The idea that you had a moral duty to help those in need who were not part of your family or circle of friends or potential friends, regardless of ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, or anything else, was simply not on the radar screen. That changed with the teachings of Jesus and the subsequent spread of the early Christian movement, which introduced to the world the revolutionary concept that everyone, regardless of their origin or status, is deserving of care, compassion, medical attention, and the resources to survive.. To celebrate the release of this book, I wanted to do something that takes this historical concept and puts it into immediate, tangible practice. Today, we [...]

In case you're interested!   I am doing a live debate with Jonathan Sheffield, an Anglican Autodidact, on the resurrection of Jesus.  March 2 (tomorrow, as of this writing), 8:00 pm. Eastern Time.   You're welcome to come.  Hey, it's free!  And surely worth every penny you'll be paying for it. Feel free to comment (here on the blog) on what you see if you see any of it! Here is the brief promo add and link. Live Debate: Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (Live Debate on FACTS Podcast, with Bart Ehrman and Jonathan Sheffield) Did Jesus rise from the dead? This debate focuses on the historical evidence surrounding the resurrection, examining early testimony, eyewitness claims, the empty tomb, and the origins of resurrection belief. Don't miss this free event! Watch the Live Debate

Here now is a final post on the early Christian text known as the Shepherd of Hermas, considering what we can know about who wrote it and when -- important issues since a number of church fathers early on thought it should be included in the New Testament.  (It is actually found as one of the books of the New Testament in our oldest complete copy of the NT, Codex Sinaiticus, around 375 CE) Here is what I say about such things in the Introduction to my edition of the Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 2004).   ****************************** The Shepherd of Hermas was one of the most popular books of early Christianity.  Judging from the surviving manuscript remains, it was copied and read more widely in the second and third centuries than any other non-canonical book, even more than many of the books that later came to be included in the New Testament. ... It is difficult to say much about the author’s identity apart from the autobiographical information he himself provides, assuming [...]

I'm gonna be in Charlottesville VA on Saturday March 21 to give a talk at the Virginia Festival of the Book for my then-about-to-be-released Love They Stranger.    I'd love to have a blog dinner with any blog folk who happen to be around or, well, can get around. I'll probably start around 6:30 or so for drinks with whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger, with dinner at 7:15 or so.  Location TBD. You interested?  I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7.   For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest.  (Whatever you exgest is free.) If you're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment.  Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!    

When I was a conservative evangelical teenager, I very much believed that God not only did miracles but gave us signs to show us the truth and save us from error.  The most amazing (and funniest) sign I received was in the summer of 1975, while painting my house. I was home from my second year at Moody Bible Institute and was doing odd jobs here and there to pay for school, and my parents needed the house painted.  I hate(d) painting, but I like(d) being able to earn my keep, so I went for it. To make sense of the sign, some background: one of my classes at Moody that year had been on the Christian “cults” – that is the Christian groups that evangelicals considered to be so far out there that they weren’t only non-Christian (like those Catholics and Greek Orthodox) but were dangerous to society and the well-being of the human race.  These included such nefarious apostates as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Mormons.  We [...]

It is impossible to understand, let alone appreciate, many aspects of modern culture ("high" culture -- art, music, poetry, fiction, etc.) without a relatively deep knowledge of the Christian tradition going back to the New Testament itself.  I repeatedly tell my students this -- becoming religiously literate in the western tradition is not simply for those who are religious, or are committed the Christian faith in particular, or are even just curious about ancient religion.  It is important for making sense of  many of the cultural glories of the modern world. As a New Years Resolution this year my wife Sarah decided to memorize a poem every week.  She's an English professor who has no trouble knowing the best of the best.  Her first week it was W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming," a familiar poem to literary buffs but not universally, and one with deep resonances that take a lot of pondering, even if one knows some of the key phrases ("the centre cannot hold," "anarchy is loosed on the world," etc.). [...]

Now that I have retired from UNC (but not from anything else!) I've had several people ask me about my personal work habits.   In reply to the most recent query from a blog member,  I remembered I wrote a post about them some years ago.  Looking back (and looking now), I don't necessarily recommend my approach.  More than a bit excessive, and I've eased up a good deal!  But, if you like getting a lot done.... Here's what I said then, in the first year of Covid.... ****************************** Blog members sometimes ask me about my work habits:  I seem to get a lot of writing done in addition to the day job as a university professor and doing the blog and what not.  How’s that happen exactly?  I should say that it’s not happenin’ too well right now: start of classes – teaching 240 students remotely! – and lots of other things--I ain’t getting twit done on my research…. But normally I do try to pack it in.  And how?  My usual answer [...]

As many of you know, my book Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West (Simon & Schuster) is coming out next month: March 24.  The issues I address in the book are obviously central to what we do here on the blog, and I'm unusually excited about this one.  It is now available for pre-order, and later in the post I'll explain why it might be worth ordering-pre. But first I'd like to say something in general about it. The only reason an author writes a book of non-fiction (OK, or SHOULD write a book!) is because it deals with something that is both significant and of interest to readers.  I've tried to write books for a general audience that cover issues important  and even intriguing to people interested in the Bible, the historical Jesus, the history of early Christianity, and the Christian religion in general.  This book is a different because I think it is IMPORTANT.  To lots of things.  To be sure, for anyone who [...]

On January 26 I announced on the blog a lecture cruise I was planning to take to the Greek Islands.  I have decided I will not be doing this trip. Many apologies to any of you who expressed interest in coming.

I have often talked about scribes of the New Testament sometimes being careless, occasionally making rather amazing mistakes.  Most of the time, of course, scribes were careful and accurate, but every now and then they would make a mess up by, say, leaving out a word or three, or an entire line, or copying the same word twice, etc.  And sometimes they added things they thought ought to be in the text but were not. Only in a few places does that involve MAJOR additions, the two largest and most significant by far are the last twelve verses of Mark (16:9-20, where Jesus appears to his disciples after the resurrection) and the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11). Most of the changes scribes made were accidental (slips), others were almost certainly intentional (whoever added the long ending of Mark didn’t do so by a slip of the pen).  In making mistakes, these early Christian scribes were almost certainly never ill-intentioned:  they were human and made mistakes (accidental changes) [...]

One of the most frequent questions I get asked about (who woulda thought?) is  whether the source called "Q" really existed and why I think so. I'll explain what that means in a second, but first: if you are interested in hearing two of the world's experts talk about it (taking opposite sides!), do we ever have an event for you!  It is not connected with the blog, but it would be a shame not to let blog members know about it in case they (you!) want to attend.  Here's a link for more information and registration: Did Q Exist? So, for those who don't know, "Q" is the hypothetical document allegedly used independently by both Matthew and Luke for a good many passages in their Gospels, mainly sayings of Jesus (the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, a number of parables, one-liners, etc.). The deal is this:  it is almost universally agreed that both Matthew and Luke used Mark for many of their narratives (they have verbatim agreements all over the place, and there [...]

One of the best ways to follow the proto-orthodox line of reasoning for what to include in the canon of the new testament is to consider the earliest surviving canonical list, a fragmentary text, subject to considerable debate in recent years, that is commonly known as the Muratorian Canon. Here is what I say about it in my book Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press) ****************************** This “canon” is a list of books that its anonymous author considered to be part of the New Testament Scriptures.  It is named for the eighteenth-century scholar, L. A. Muratori,. who discovered the manuscript that contains it in a library in Milan.  Muratori published the manuscript in 1740, not so much to provide the world access to the documents it contained -- principally treatises of several fourth- and fifth-century church fathers -- but in order to show how sloppy copyists could be in the Middle Ages.  In a treatise of Ambrose, for example, the scribe inadvertently copied the (same) thirty lines twice!  What’s worse, the second copy of these [...]

There's no way to put a precise date on the canonical process, but it is worth nothing that the formation of the canon was a long, drawn-out process.  Here are some thoughts on some of the key issues of the late second century drawn again from my book Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press). ****************************** Justin Martyr of Rome was one of the most productive proto-orthodox authors of the second century (martyred around 165 CE).  Still preserved are two “apologies” that he wrote – intellectual defenses of the faith against its pagan detractors – and a piece called the “Dialogue with Trypho,” in which he tries to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, largely by appealing to a Christian interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures.  Others of his works were lost, though, including an attack on heresies of his day that was later used as a source by Irenaeus. Despite his frequent appeals to authoritative texts, Justin shows no inclination towards a fixed canon of New Testament Scripture in his surviving writings.  He does [...]

Here now is a translation (from the Coptic) of a section of the intriguing apocryphal Gospel, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, by my colleague Zlatko Plese, as found in our book The Other Gospels (Oxford Press, 2014). As you’ll see there are eleven chapters before this and yet more after it; for the whole thing – along with some forty other apocryphal Gospels! – check out our book. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples, in the first person. ****************************** Joseph’s Death Draws Near 12 (1) But then the death of Joseph, my father, drew near, as is appointed to all people. (2) When his body grew ill, his angel announced to him, ‘In this year you will die.’ (3) And as his soul was troubled, he went up to Jerusalem. He entered the temple of the Lord and repented in front of the altar.  He prayed in this way, saying …. (I’m omitting the prayer here) 14 (1) After these things he returned to Nazareth, the town where he resided, and [...]