Public Forum Archives - Page 47 of 88 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Last Minute (well, sort of): Another Blog Dinner Option. NYC, August 27

OK, this is a bit unexpected. But I'm going to be in New York (Midtown Manhattan) for a few days (that part was expected) and it turns out I'll have an evening free, August 27. And so if anyone's interested I can do a blog dinner. Given the location, it might be kind of pricey, but ... well, if you're interested, wanna come? As per my custom: the table will be limited to eight, of which I will be one. That means seven spots are available. First come first served: please do NOT response here on the blog, but send me a private email, at [email protected]. No agenda from my end, other than simply to have some of us to have a chance to meet and talk about matters of mutual interest. The only requirements for attendance to the dinner are that (a) you are a blog member; (b) you pay your own way – both getting to the event and your meal itself. Otherwise, there is no expense and no requirement. You don’t even [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:58-04:00August 12th, 2019|Public Forum|

Blog Dinner in D.C.: Full!

I am pleased and regret (at the same time) to say that the table for the blog dinner in D.C. in September is now full. I have a waiting list that I have started, and have notified everyone who contacted me (both those at the table and those on the waiting list.) But I'll be doing others this coming year in a few other places! Hopefully others can come to these

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:58-04:00August 9th, 2019|Public Forum|

Blog Dinner, Washington DC. September 6, 2019

On Friday, September 6, 2019, at 7:00 pm, I will be hosting a Blog Dinner for blog members (members only, I'm afraid) at the Bistro Bis at the George Hotel in Washington D.C. The table is limited to eight. I'm one of them. That means that seven spots are available. First come first served: please do NOT response here on the blog, but send me a private email, at [email protected]. The occasion is the Smithsonian Associates Seminar I'm doing the next day, four lectures on "More Controversies in Early Christianity": Here's the website. https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/more-great-controversies-in-early-christianity-bart-ehrman-ponders-four-new-questions?utm_source=RAad&utm_medium=OAtsa&utm_content=mwX&utm_campaign=MayWe Please note: you do NOT need to be attending the seminar to attend the dinner. The dinner is designed simply to allow us to have a chance to get to know each other and talk about matters of mutual interest. The only requirements for attendance to the dinner would be that (a) you be a blog member; (b) you pay your own way – both getting to the event and your meal itself. Otherwise, there is no expense and no requirement. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:58-04:00August 5th, 2019|Public Forum|

My Current Research Projects, 7/2019

I often get asked what I’m doing in my personal research – both long term and, well, what is it I actually do during the day? It’s all related to the blog, so I thought I’d devote a single post to it, just a kind of overview of the kinds of things I’m working on. Right now, as it turns out, it’s a wide range. Tomorrow I’m off to Marburg Germany (I’ve been in London for most of the summer, so it’s a short flight) for an international conference of New Testament scholars, called the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas – i.e., Society for New Testament Studies. It’s an annual affair, mainly of Europeans and Americans, that takes place over four days, with major lectures, less major lectures, and seminar papers. The latter involves small groups of anywhere, I suppose, from five to twenty scholars discussing papers written in advance for an hour and a half each. I’m presenting a paper I’ve been working on for about a month now on and off, on the Katabasis [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:40-04:00July 29th, 2019|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Sad News From Larry Hurtado

Many readers on the blog will know of Larry Hurtado, a prominent New Testament scholar who has been influential as one of the most regular and reliable bloggers on issues of relevance to the study of early Christianity. Larry has announced that he is very ill and will no longer be able to participate in either scholarship or the promotion of early Christians studies to a broader reading audience. This is very sad, especially for us who know him. (I will give his announcement about his illness and the prospects at the end of this post.) I have known Larry for over thirty years. He started out as a New Testament textual critic, with his first book a published version of his dissertation: Hurtado, Larry W. (1981). Text-Critical Methodology and the Pre-Caesarean Text: Codex W in the Gospel of Mark. Studies and Documents. 43. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. It's not something you will want to try to reading, unless you're an expert on Greek and the Greek manuscript tradition of the NT. Trust me. But I used [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:38-04:00July 10th, 2019|History of Biblical Scholarship, Public Forum|

Would You Be Willing To Donate a Membership?

Twice a year on the blog, around mid-year and Christmas, I open up a possibility to help out people who really want to be on the blog but cannot afford the membership fees. We are at that point! So here is the semi-annual appeal for you to pitch in, as you feel moved. We've been doing this for nearly six years. It all started off when two anonymous donors proposed that they provide some funds to pay for memberships for a few people who wanted to be on the blog but because of personal circumstances, could not afford the membership fees. I put out the offer on my Facebook page, asking if anyone was in that boat, and within twenty minutes I had thirty requests –all from people who were eager to join but simply did not have the means to do so. I had to shut down the offer nearly as soon as I made it. This made me suspect that there were a lot more people out there like that. And so [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:20-04:00June 30th, 2019|Public Forum|

Do You Need a Free Membership?

Thanks to the incredible ongoing generosity of members of the blog! I am happy to announce that there are a limited number of free one-year memberships available. These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year. I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment. Please send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected]. In your email, let me know your situation (why you would like to take advantage of this offer) and provide me with the following information: Your first and last name. Your preferred personal email. Your preferred user name (no spaces). Your preferred password (should be 8 or more characters, no spaces). Country located The donors will remain anonymous, but here let me publicly extend my heartfelt thanks for such kind [...]

admin2025-07-16T17:31:35-04:00June 30th, 2019|Public Forum|

Finally! Now We Know. The “First-Century Copy” of Mark

I have posted on and off over the past six or seven years about an allegedly first-century copy of the Gospel of Mark that some scholars claimed we had now in our possession. This would be by far the earliest manuscript we have of any part of the New Testament, a matter of real importance and interest. But it turns out NOT to be that, and it has involved a real academic farce. Those of you who have followed this charade know most of the important facts, but for those of you who don’t, and just to remind those of you who do, let me set them out, before explaining the new development: In 2012 I was holding a public debate on whether we can know what the authors of the New Testament “originally” wrote, given the fact that we don’t have their original writings but only later copies of them, all of them different in many, many small ways and sometimes in more important ways. Virtually all of these copies are many centuries removed [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:20-04:00June 24th, 2019|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum|

Feedback on the Blog?

I’m back from Greece and Turkey now, with two weeks with nothing to do but work like a wild-person day and night on my book project on Christian tours of heaven and hell in relation to their Greek and Roman predecessors. I’m madly into Virgil’s Aeneid just now. Great stuff. I’ll say more about it anon. But it seems like a good time for me to pause for a day and take assessment of developments on the blog and get your reactions. I do this a couple of times a year, as old-timers will know. My basic questions: How is the blog going, from your point of view? And is there anything we should change/do differently? Any feedback at all is welcome – just let me hear it. The goal, of course, is to keep the customers satisfied and to draw more in. I’d like to use the blog to disseminate scholarly knowledge of the New Testament and the early Christian movement more broadly, for three interrelated reasons. First, of course, is that I think [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:19-04:00June 19th, 2019|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

How Do We know When Manuscripts Were Written? Guest Post by Brent Nongbri
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How Do We know When Manuscripts Were Written? Guest Post by Brent Nongbri

New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum

How Do We know When Manuscripts Were Written? Guest Post by Brent Nongbri

Here is the second post by Brent Nongbri on his recent book God's Library. I mentioned in the first of his posts that the book is "ground-breaking." In part that's because he challenges the widely accepted dates of a number of our earliest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament. Here he talks about his further explorations of this problem. The basic question: When scholars say "This manuscript dates from the fourth century" (or the second, etc.): how do they *know* that? Or do they?? A lot of scholars will not be happy with Brent's conclusions! But no one can simply write him off -- he gives some very convincing analyses.... - Brent Nongbri’s most popular books are Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept and God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts. *********************************************************** In my last post (HERE), I talked a little bit about some of the interesting stories of discoveries of ancient Christian manuscripts I uncovered while researching my recent book, God’s Library. What I would like to do [...]

admin2025-09-10T12:45:01-04:00June 4th, 2019|New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum|

The Blog Podcast: A Milestone!

As you may know, there is a weekly Podcast connected with the blog, called, cleverly enough, The Bart Ehrman Blog Podcast. The idea was hatched two years ago by blog member John Mueller, who has put a tremendous amount of effort into the whole affair every week since, producing and managing the podcast all himself, simply out of the goodness of his heart. The podcasts appear in a variety of venues, most anywhere you typically go for such things (e.g., Itunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Spotify). You can find it simply enough: just search for “Bart Ehrman” or look on the episode webpage: http://ehrmanpodcast.libsyn.com/ John releases a new episode every Sunday and now, I am happy to say, we have reached a milestone. Episode 100 is to be released this weekend. The goal of the podcast is to help raise blog awareness. The theory was and is that this in turn would increase membership in the blog, which would then raise more money for charity. The best part of John’s offer to start the project is that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:01-04:00May 31st, 2019|Public Forum|

God’s Library Part 1: Finding Ancient Christian Manuscripts in Egypt. Guest Post by Brent Nongbri
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God’s Library Part 1: Finding Ancient Christian Manuscripts in Egypt. Guest Post by Brent Nongbri

New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum

God’s Library Part 1: Finding Ancient Christian Manuscripts in Egypt. Guest Post by Brent Nongbri

Here is a post by Brent Nongbri, from whom we have heard before on the blog. His recent book on early Christian manuscripts, especially those of the New Testament, is ground-breaking and insightful. He will give us a couple of posts devoted to it. Here's the first. - Brent Nongbri’s most popular books are Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept and God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts. *********************************************************** Bart suggested that a book I recently wrote might be of interest to readers of this blog, and he invited me to write a couple posts about it. The book is called God’s Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts. It’s an introduction to early Christian manuscripts as archaeological artifacts. What exactly does that mean? Well, lots of excellent scholars have been studying our earliest Christian manuscripts for decades (in the case of some manuscripts, for centuries!), but they have mainly been interested in the texts that these manuscripts carry and not so much in the books themselves as physical [...]

admin2025-09-10T12:45:01-04:00May 28th, 2019|New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum|

Interview for “Letters & Politics” on The Triumph of Christianity

Here is an interview I did on my book The Triumph of Christianity, back on December 25th, 2018, with host Mitch Jeserich. The program was called "Letters & Politics," for FM 94.1 KPFA. The theme of my book, as you know, is how the Christians took over the religions of the Roman Empire to become the dominant religion of the west. Mitch wanted to know about that. Many years ago, when I started thinking about my book, so did I! Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:01-04:00May 28th, 2019|Book Discussions, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum, Spread of Christianity, Video Media|

Judging the Debate!

Now that my debate with Matthew Firth over the contradictions in the Gospels has ended, I would like to know your reactions. Any reactions are fine. There is the obvious question of which side you found more convincing, but also the less obvious question of why that is. What about the argument, or counter-argument, was compelling or not compelling? Part of the problem, of course, is that virtually everyone listening in on the debate already had a pretty firm idea of what they think about the issues. And because of “confirmation bias” we tend to agree with what we already think, and anyone who says it is obviously right! (Hence the problem with most viewers of both FOX and MSNBC.) But for my money, the most interesting responses come from people who have changed their minds. Still, in all the public debates I’ve had, in front of many thousands of people, I almost never have heard of anyone changing their mind. So what’s the point? I often ask myself that! And often I ask it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:45:00-04:00May 15th, 2019|Bart's Debates, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Constantine and the Christian Faith: My Fourth Smithsonian Lecture

I have found over the years that lots of people have mistaken ideas about Constantine the Great, the early fourth century Roman Emperor who converted to Christianity. I used to have mistaken ideas myself, until I started reading the sources and examining the scholarship. For example, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, right? (Wrong.) Constantine is the reason Christianity took over the empire, right? (Wrong again). Constantine didn't really convert to Christianity: it was a political move by a savvy politician who remained, at heart, a pagan, right? (Well, uh, sorry...) It is true, though that the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 312 CE is one of Christianity’s pivotal events, and that by the end of the 4th century, Christianity was proclaimed the official religion throughout Rome, leading to the suppression of other religious traditions. Here is a lecture I gave on Constantine and Christianity at the Smithsonian on Feb. 10, 2018. It is the last of the series of four that I have given here on the blog, based on my [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00May 2nd, 2019|Book Discussions, Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum, Spread of Christianity, Video Media|

Why Did Christianity Take Over the World? Smithsonian Lecture 3.

Here is Lecture 3 (out of 4) that I came at the Smithsonian Associates in Washington DC on Feb. 10, 2018, based, again, on my book The Triumph of Christianity. This lecture deals with the key aspects of the early Christian movement to try to explain its success. What was it about Christianity that allowed it to take over the entire Christian empire? People have all sorts of "common sense" answers to the question -- as did I for many years, even as a professional scholar -- which are probably wrong (e.g., Christianity was naturally superior to all the other religions, because of its strict monotheism and strong ethical stance, so naturally people were inclined to convert). The first time I realized the actual answer to the question was when, long ago, I read Roman social historian and Yale professor Ramsay MacMullen's brilliant analysis The Christianization of the Roman Empire. I pondered the matter for years, read massively on it, and here is what I ended up concluding (very much in line with MacMullen, but [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00April 23rd, 2019|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Spread of Christianity, Video Media|

Who Were The “Pagans” Christians Were Converting?

PART TWO of FOUR: Pagan Converts and the Power of God This is the second lecture I gave at the Smithsonian on Feb. 10, 2018, based on my book The Triumph of Christianity: How A Forbidden Religion Swept the World. The premise behind the lecture: as Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, it converted almost entirely pagans (after the first couple of decades). Who were these people, and what were they converting *from*? And why? Paganism is not and was not really a "thing." The term was designed (by Christians) simply to designate all the ancient religious practices that were not either Jewish or Christian -- that is, it lumped together all kinds of religious practices, thousands of them, as some"thing" opposed to the faith in the Jewish god. But is there anything all these religions spread throughout the Roman world had in common? And how did Christians approach people from these traditional religions, religions that each individual would have always assumed was simply right, involving rituals and ideas that had always been part of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00April 14th, 2019|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Spread of Christianity, Video Media|

Fund Raising Event on the Blog: Contradictions in the Gospels??

We will be engaging in an unusual fund-raising event on the blog in a week or so. A well-trained Anglican priest named Matthew Firth had issued a challenge that no one could point out any contradictions in the Gospels of the New Testament that could not be explained. As I understand it, he offered an award of $1000. OK then! Someone on the blog contacted me to see if I'd be willing to take up the challenge. Of course, there is not a contradiction in the known universe that someone cannot explain away to his or her own satisfaction, given sufficient ingenuity and the deep inclination or desire to think that contradictions do not exist. So in a sense the outcome is pre-determined. Rev. Firth will not be convinced, nor will his followers, nor anyone on either side of the pond who comes into the question with mind already made up. So in one sense, at least, it's a pointless exercise. On the other hand, outsiders might be interested in a back and forth. There's [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:38-04:00April 10th, 2019|Bart's Debates, Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

A Blog Anniversary! Seven Years!

Today is the seven anniversary of the blog. My first post (which I reposted a few days ago) appeared on April 3, 2012. I never thought it would last this long. I figured I would run out of things to say in about six months. Hasn’t happened yet! There’s so much interesting material back in ancient Christianity, starting with Jesus and the New Testament, and going on up through the next three hundred years, that it seems inexhaustible. And readers have so many interesting and important questions, many of them that take numerous posts just to answer (without even getting into the weeds). When I started the blog I was really not sure what it would be or become. In *principal* I knew what I had in mind. The idea was guided by two desiderata: (1) to disseminate scholarly knowledge about the New Testament and early Christianity to a wider reading public of non-scholars, in terms that were intelligent and sensible, but not overly technical or loaded with jargon or requiring extensive background information; and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:22-04:00April 3rd, 2019|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Secular Versions of the Coming Apocalypse

I have been describing my ideas about the book I’m proposing to write, tentatively called Expecting the Apocalypse. In the past couple of posts I’ve talked about the heightened expectation that the world would be ending soon with the return of Jesus, an originally fundamentalist Christian view that started off in the 19th century and that has moved into much broader circles in American culture. Part of my book will be looking not only at this religious view, but also at how it has, in our lifetimes, moved into a variety of secular discourses, and is, in fact, in its secular guise, all around us, affecting seriously what is happening in both society and politics, and therefore of real importance for our daily lives. If I write this book, it will be the first time I’ve ventured outside of biblical and early Christian scholarship involving “religion” into areas of cultural importance to most people living in the modern world – which is another way of saying that this kind of material is not something that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:44:21-04:00March 22nd, 2019|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Revelation of John|

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