Please remember our fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders (MUCH in need of support just now in particular!).  It's your chance to ask me questions and my chance to desperately think of answers.    ALSO: I will have a one-one-one after the event with the highest bidder!  And bids are due TONIGHT.   See details here: https://ehrmanblog.org/ask-bart-anything-blog-event-march-6/    

On Sunday March 6, 4:00 - 5:15 EST we are holding a blog event which will be a two-way affair: I will have the pleasure of trying to answer questions participants have and participants will have the pleasure of stumping me with questions I can't answer.  And a good time will be had by all! This will be a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders.  Donations are voluntary but encouraged for this great cause. To learn more, keep reading; to register and get the link: go here:  Register here for the ABA The format: I will take live questions through chat.  The questions can be on ANY topic that anyone is interested in.  If it is something I don’t know anything about (Kant's second critique or quantum mechanics) or that I would rather not talk about (that little incident when I was 16….) I’ll just say so.  I will get through as many questions as I can, answering easy ones briefly and taking as long as I need to deal with more complicated ones.  My only [...]

I have been discussing various ways that Paul understands the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus for salvation, and have focused on the judicial and participationist models – mainly because these are the two that Paul most frequently appeals to (without calling them the judicial and participationist models!).  I need to clarify a few points before moving on to speak of yet other models that Paul appears to use. First, over the years when I've discussed these models in a public forum, people have asked me about my personal views of these models.   Several have asked how I could possibly believe such a thing.  And one has asked what right I have to talk about “sin” if I’m not a Christian and so do not believe in sin.  So let me clear: I’m not affirming or denying anything Paul says in any of his writings.  I’m simply describing what it is he says.  Some people have trouble understanding the difference between description and prescription, but there’s a big difference. I remember back when [...]

One of my classes this semester is a First Year Seminar, designed, obviously for students in their first year of college (either semester) and meant to be a bit more hands-on and with an unusual creative component.  I’ve mentioned the course on the blog in previous years; it is called “Jesus in Scholarship and Film.”   (The creative element: for a final writing project they have to write a Gospel.) In preparation for the second meeting of the semester this time I asked the students to reflect on what they thought would be the difference between studying religion – and especially the New Testament and the historical Jesus – in a faith context such as a church, synagogue, or Sunday School, and in a secular research university funded in part by the state. It led to an interesting discussion and the students had good ideas.  Most of the comments were along similar lines, that there must be a difference between discussing biblical writings in light of your faith / personal beliefs and studying them as historical [...]

In case you're interested: here is the post I made a while back about the course I'll be starting tomorrow. *********************** I am pleased to announce that I will be doing a six-lecture online (recorded) course called: “In the Beginning:  History, Legend and Myth in the Pentateuch.  Part 1.  The Book of Genesis.”   This will not be in connection with the blog per se, but there is an important connection worth noting for blog members (see below). The plan is to make this course the first installment of a rather long series of courses that I am calling, “How Scholars Read the Bible.”  (The next six-lecture course – no surprise! – will be the rest of the Pentateuch after Genesis).  Each lecture in this course, and the ones that follow, will be thirty minutes of length. We will later be announcing the release date of the course (it will probably in February).   But I want to let you know about it now, so that it can be on your radar screen.  And because there is [...]

Jewish apocalypticism was a very common view in Jesus’ day – it was the view of the Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, of the Pharisees, of John the Baptist, later of the Apostle Paul – and almost certainly of Jesus.  I can demonstrate that in some later thread if it seems appropriate.  For now, let me just say that this is a widely held view among critical scholars – by far the majority view for over a century, since the writings of Albert Schweitzer, author of The Quest of the Historical Jesus  What did early Jewish apocalypticists believe?  Let me break it down into four component themes.  I have Join the blog and you can get five posts a week like this, giving information that can help you understand the New Testament and the historical Jesus!    Click here for membership options   drawn this discussion from my textbook on the New Testament.   Dualism Jewish apocalypticists were dualists.  That is to say, they maintained that there were two fundamental components to all [...]

Just a reminder in case you haven't signed up yet:  I'll be doing a book event Thursday evening (Jan 27).  Here's the announcement from last week.  I hope you can make it! ****************************** I am excited to announce a new and unusual fund raiser for the blog, to take place on Thursday January 27 at 7:30 pm EST.  For anyone who is willing to make a donation, I will be holding a discussion on: “What Book Should I Write Next?”   Those who come will be able to talk it over with me and give me their opinions. Here’s the deal.  I have all but finished my book on Revelation: Expecting Armageddon: What Revelation Really Reveals.  I have just a couple of mop-up exercises, then it’s off to the publisher.  And now I have to decide what to do next. This is the first time in my adult life, since 1983, that I did not have the next writing project lined up, in my head, ready to be started, after finishing the current one.  For some [...]

In order to understand the difference between what the prophets of the Hebrew Bible proclaimed, and what came to be the views of apocalyptic Jews, I need to sketch a set of historical events that the people of Israel had to live through.  Without this kind of historical knowledge, you simply will not understand ancient Judaism at the time of Jesus.  That is to say, you really have to know what happened among ancient Jews in order to make sense of what their theological beliefs were, since these beliefs were molded by and informed by nothing so much as the historical context out of which they emerged. And so here is a very brief sketch of the history of Judea over the four hundred years from approximately 540 BCE, when the Persians were in control, up to 63 BCE, when the Romans came in and took over.  I’ve taken the sketch from my textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction. ****************************** The Later History of Judea In the Persian period (starting in the late [...]

I am excited to announce a new and unusual fund raiser for the blog, to take place on Thursday January 27 at 7:30 pm EST.  For anyone who is willing to make a donation, I will be holding a discussion on: “What Book Should I Write Next?”   Those who come will be able to talk it over with me and give me their opinions. Here’s the deal.  I have all but finished my book on Revelation: Expecting Armageddon: What Revelation Really Reveals.  I have just a couple of mop-up exercises, then it’s off to the publisher.  And now I have to decide what to do next. This is the first time in my adult life, since 1983, that I did not have the next writing project lined up, in my head, ready to be started, after finishing the current one.  For some time now, while in the throes of the last two books, I thought that I simply would stop now.  The past couple of years have been a bit hellacious for the ole' work [...]