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Was My Weird Background a Help or a Hindrance: Mailbag October 22, 2017

In this week’s readers’ mailbag I deal with a personal question about my background and whether it gave me and advantages or disadvantages in my rather unusual line of work as a secular scholar of the Bible. QUESTION: Just as a matter of empirical fact, do you think that your religious background gave you any (intellectual) advantages, or disadvantages, in your work over someone who lacked that background? RESPONSE: Every now and then I look back on my life and think: Wow, now that was weird. Even though I’m a pretty normal American guy in lots of ways – at least normal as an American guy who is a professional scholar (OK, that’s already weird, but it’s weird in a socially normal way) (my normalcies: I have passions for football, basketball, working out, reading novels and nonfiction, traveling, the outdoors, hiking, family, kids, grandkids; I love martinis and cigars [both of which I enjoy much more rarely than I would like, since I’d like to enjoy them for many more years….]; I’m politically [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 22nd, 2017|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Decent Burials for Crucified Victims: A Blast From the Past

My post a couple of weeks ago about the burial of Jesus (understandably) struck a nerve for some readers; I was just now digging around in the archives, and see that I addressed most of the important issues, head on, in this rather controversial post I made back in 2012. All these years later, I'm still open to being convinced otherwise!!! ****************************** In my previous post I quoted a number of ancient sources that indicated that part of the torture and humiliation of being crucified in antiquity was being left, helpless, exposed not just to the elements but to scavenging birds and other animals. These sources suggest that the normal practice was to leave the victims on the cross to be pecked and gnawed at both before and after death; in some instances there are indications that this would go on for days. And so the question naturally arises if the same thing could be expected in the case of people being crucified in Judea around the year 30 CE. As I pointed out John [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 20th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Jesus, the Sheep, and the Goats

I have been talking about the criterion of dissimilarity for one ultimate reason: wanted to show why, in my opinion, a particular passage in Matthew’s Gospel goes back to the historical Jesus, the man himself. I.e., it does not involve words put on his lips by later followers, but is something he himself actually said. If you’re a little fuzzy on how the criterion of dissimilarity works, please read the preceding two posts. The following has been taken from my undergraduate textboo on the NT. In it I give two examples of how this particular criterion can be applied to the teachings of Jesus. It is the *second* example that I will be most interested in, but the first can help get you into the swing of things about how the criterion works. ********************************************************** In some respects, there isn’t a whole lot that we can say about the various apocalyptic teachings ascribed to Jesus in our Gospels from the standpoint of the trickiest of our criteria to use, the criterion of dissimilarity. Most of his [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 18th, 2017|Afterlife, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

How Do We Know What Jesus Said or Did? The Criterion of Dissimilarity in Practice

The reason I’m explaining the criterion of dissimilarity is because I want to *use* it to talk about a passage in Matthew of relevance to the broader themes of this thread. But before I use it I need to make sure everyone understands it. In this post I show how it can be applied usefully; I being by restating the caveat about the criterion that I ended with yesterday (if you haven’t read that post, I’d suggest doing so before reading this one). ********************************************** I want to be perfectly clear about the limitations of this criterion. Just because a saying or deed of Jesus happens to conform to what Christians were saying about him does not mean that it cannot be accurate. Obviously, the earliest disciples followed Jesus precisely because they appreciated the things that he said and did. They certainly would have told stories about him that included such things. Thus, on the one hand, the criterion may do no more than cast a shadow of doubt on certain traditions. For example, when in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 17th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Are Jews and Christians Monotheists? Mailbag October 15, 2017

I will be dealing with an unusually important question in this week’s mailbag: is it right to consider Judaism and Christianity monotheistic? QUESTION: Aren't Judaism and Christianity really henotheistic rather than monotheistic? For example, even in the 10 Commandments it merely says YHWH is the only god to be worshiped, not that He is the only god. And in Christianity there is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Satan, angels and demons, and in some sects, Mary the queen of heaven. And I would think all the pagans coming into the church would bring along their polytheistic thinking - perhaps that is part of the reason Jesus was elevated to the status of God. RESPONSE: This is a very good question, and as you might imagine, a lot of it comes down to how one defines one’s terms. One set of definitions involves the actual terms themselves. Normally “Monotheism” is understood to be the belief that there is only one God, no other; “Henotheism” is the belief that there are other gods, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 15th, 2017|Early Christian Doctrine, Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

How Old Was Jesus at His Baptism, Start of His Ministry & Death?
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How Old Was Jesus at His Baptism, Start of His Ministry & Death?

Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations

How Old Was Jesus at His Baptism, Start of His Ministry & Death?

How old was Jesus at his baptism, when he started his ministry, or when he died? You've probably seen the popular inspirational quote that goes something like this, "Jesus didn't start his ministry until he was 30 years old, and yet he changed the world." I guess this is supposed to encourage people in their teens and twenties that haven't accomplished much in their life. (As if comparing their potential future to the accomplishments of the supposed "son of God" is supposed to make them feel better! Ha!) It also illustrates a common assumption (or perhaps misconception), that Jesus was 30 years old when he began his ministry. Is that a fact? If so, where does the Bible say so? How Old Was Jesus When He Died? This is not a slam dunk answer. In fact, I ask all my students at Chapel Hill this question (many of whom answer incorrectly) on their first-day quiz. Almost everyone who thinks about the matter thinks that Jesus was 33 years old when he died. But the New [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 11th, 2017|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Explaining Jesus’ Apocalyptic Assumptions

One other aspect of Jesus’ teaching is important to emphasize before continuing on to consider his understanding of the afterlife. That is the thoroughly apocalyptic character of his views. I have discussed Jewish apocalypticism a number of times on the blog—including some months ago on the current thread. I don’t want to repeat all that here in the same form, but I do want to summarize what the view is and discuss its underlying assumptions. In a small nutshell, apocalypticists believed that this world was being controlled by evil forces responsible for this terrible mess of things (corrupt governments; natural disasters; persecution of the righteous), but that God, who was ultimately sovereign, was soon to intervene in the course of human affairs, overthrow the forces of evil, and establish a utopian kingdom here on earth. To Read the rest of this post you need to belong to the blog. Belonging is easy and relatively cheap -- less than 50 cents a week! And every cent goes to help those in need. You get tons for [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 10th, 2017|Afterlife, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Preaching of Jesus in a Nutshell

I am trying to set up what I want to say about Jesus' view of the afterlife, and am finding that it requires a good bit of background information. I have already done two things: shown what he taught about the coming kingdom and explained that his teaching (about the kingdom and everything else) is very different in John from the Synoptics. Scholars are almost unanimous that given these differences, the older sources (the Synoptics and the accounts they built on, e.g., Q, M, and L) are more likely to be accurate about Jesus' words than the later and heavily theologized John. Now I need to explain more broadly, if in very brief form, the major elements in Jesus' preaching/teaching. For that I have borrowed from a post a few years ago, as follows: ************************************************************** We could obviously have a year-long thread on the topic of what it was Jesus taught during his itinerant preaching ministry. Many people have written very long books on the subject – and the books just keep comin’ out. If [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 9th, 2017|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Skeletal Remains of Yehohanan: Readers Mailbag October 8, 2017

Yehohanan: a reader's question. QUESTION: One thing came to mind during the discussion of whether crucified persons were buried. There is a case where an ossuary was found with a nail through the ankle bone. [I think it was an ankle, might have been a wrist.] Obviously, this was an exceptional case; as I recall, there are some 900 bone boxes in Israeli museums and this is the only such case, where according to Josephus hundreds (thousands?) were crucified in 1st Century Palestine. But at any rate, what do you make of this exceptional case? RESPONSE: I dealt with this issue on the blog several years ago, while I was responding to the claims of my scholarly colleague Craig Evans, who maintained that Jesus must have been buried right away, not left to hang on the cross for days, as I had argued in my book How Jesus Became God. Craig was asserting the traditional Christian view (as found in the Gospels), and he mounted a number of arguments based on various pieces of evidence. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:55-04:00October 8th, 2017|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Reasonable Doubts – How Jesus Became God

I have not posted any audio (or video!) appearances for a while. Here's one from a few years ago. On July 25, 2014, I was interviewed by Jeremy Beahan and Justin Schieber for their podcast called "Reasonable Doubts" on my book "How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee." The issue of the book is how Jesus, an apocalyptic prophet from Galilee, came to be regarded as a God by his followers. Reasonable Doubts was a production of WPRR Reality Radio (Grand Rapids, MI) and was the winner of the 2009 Peoples Choice Award for Best Religious/Inspirational Podcast. Please adjust gear icon for 1080pp High-Definition: If you don't belong to the blog yet, why not join? It won't cost much, you get mega-tons for your money, and every dime goes to charity.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00October 6th, 2017|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Video Media|

Is This the Same Teacher? Jesus in John and the Synoptics.

I have been talking about the differences between John and the Synoptics, and have discussed the overall contents of John and its unusual take on Jesus’ deeds. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Jesus’ teachings, whichy are very different here from what you find in the other three Gospels. Here is how I explain it in my New Testament textbook. ****************************************************** John’s unique understanding of Jesus’ miracles is matched by his distinctive portrayal of Jesus’ teachings. In the Synoptic Gospels, you will have noticed that Jesus scarcely ever speaks about himself. There his message is about the coming kingdom of God and about what people must do to prepare for it. His regular mode of instruction is the parable. In John, however, Jesus does not speak in parables (which he never uses), nor does he proclaim the imminent appearance of the kingdom (which he never mentions). He instead focuses his words on identifying himself as the one sent from God. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus... The rest of this post is for members only. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00October 4th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Jesus’ Miracles in John and the Synoptics

I’m trying to explain how John is so very different from the other three Gospels in its presentation of Jesus’ words and deeds. As I have shown, John tells different stories from the others. More striking when it tells the same kinds of stories, there are stark and compelling differences. Here is how I explain it in my New Testament textbook. ****************************************** The differences between John and the Synoptics are perhaps even more striking in stories that they have in common. You can see the differences yourself simply by taking any story of the Synoptics that is also told in John and comparing the two accounts carefully. A thorough and detailed study of this phenomenon throughout the entire Gospel would reveal several fundamental differences. Here we will look at two differences that affect a large number of the stories of Jesus’ deeds and words. First, the deeds. Jesus does not do as many miracles in John as he does in the Synoptics, but the ones he does are, for the most part, far more spectacular. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00October 3rd, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

(Birthday) Gifts and (Speaking) Gigs

Two brief blog-related issues, one involving a birthday and the other my speaking gigs. The birthday – well, it kind-s involves the blog. This Thursday (October 5) is my birthday. 62. Who would-a thought? And who cares? (Apart from me…) Well … I bet you’re wondering what you should get me for my birthday. Here’s an idea, suggested by two blog members already: How bout you get me a donation to the blog? None of the money would come to me, of course. But it would make me SO happy. I’d love to be able to gather a chunk of change for the charities we all support. They’d be happy, I’d be happy – everyone would be happy. It’s very, very easy to donate: just hit the Donate button on the landing page and BINGO: you’re in. I hope you can do it! The speaking gigs. I’ve had a number of requests to post my speaking schedule for this academic year. OK, I’ll do that soon. The reason I haven’t posted the schedule is that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00October 2nd, 2017|Public Forum|

Differences Between John and the Synoptics

In this sub-thread I'm trying to explain why I do not use the fourth Gospel extensively in trying to decide what Jesus actually taught (specifically about the afterlife, but about much of anything else as well). One of the main issues involves the differences between John and the three Synoptic Gospels (all of them earlier than John), Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here I discuss one aspect of these differences: at the very fundamental level, John simply has Jesus say and do different things than he does in the others. This is how I put it in my introductory textbook. ************************************************************ Even to the casual reader, the Fourth Gospel may seem somewhat different from the other three within the canon. Nowhere in the other Gospels is Jesus said to be the Word of God, the creator of the universe, the equal of God, or the one sent from heaven and soon to return. Nowhere else does Jesus claim that to see him is to see the Father, that to hear him is to hear the Father, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00October 1st, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Lunch in Boston?

I’m thinking about arranging a lunch, with anyone on the blog who is interested and will be in Boston on Thursday November 16 for the Biblical Archaeology Society FEST -- or who will be there for any other reason! Would you be interested? Here’s the deal. The Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) is a great organization, which brings knowledge about the Bible and especially about relevant archaeological digs to a wider interested public. Every year – for twenty years now -- they hold a special conference for anyone interested in such things, that they call the FEST. For the FEST they bring in over 20 scholars to give talks over the course of three days. A few of the scholars are mainly biblical types, like, me, and a lot of them are active archaeologists, some of the top ones in the world. Here is the information for this year’s FEST. https://travelstudy.bib-arch.org/seminars/20th-annual-bible-and-archaeology-fest I have done the FEST every year, and I always have an arrangement with them to do the first talk on the Friday morning (the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00September 30th, 2017|Public Forum|

An Introduction to the Gospel of John

I have started to discuss Jesus’ view(s) of the afterlife, and it has occurred to me, based on some readers’ comments, that it may not be clear why I am not appealing to what Jesus says about such things in the Gospel of John. That raises a very large question (or two) that I don’t recall dealing with head-on on the blog before (though surely some sleuth will point out that I did!): how John differs from the other Gospels and whether it can be used to establish what the historical Jesus of Nazareth actually preached and taught. My views are that John is (a) *very* different from the other Gospels and that it is (b) *not* a reliable guide to the word of the historical Jesus. That will be important for my discussion of Jesus’ view of the afterlife, and so I will devote several posts to the issue as a kind of sub-thread. In this post I begin by giving some essential information about John’s Gospel, a foundational introduction to what it actually [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00September 29th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Jesus’ Teaching About the Kingdom of God

I have explained how the idea of resurrection arose within early Judaism, and now I want to talk about the idea of afterlife in the teachings of Jesus. To begin with, I need to stress that when Jesus talked about the coming kingdom of God – the core of his apocalyptic message – he was *not* referring to what happens to a person’s soul after she or he dies. Here is how I explain Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom in my first-ever trade book for a popular audience, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium ***************************************************** The very first thing that Jesus is recorded to have said in our very earliest surviving source involves an apocalyptic pronouncement of the coming Kingdom of God. In Mark’s Gospel, after being baptized by John and tempted by Satan in the wilderness, in neither of which is he recorded as having said anything, Jesus comes into Galilee with an urgent message: The time is filled up and the Kingdom of God is almost here; repent and believe in the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00September 27th, 2017|Afterlife, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Paul on Trial for the Resurrection

In previous posts I have discussed the different Jewish sects that we know about from the first century, at the dawn of Christianity (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Fourth Philosophy) in order to show that (a) there were different understandings of the afterlife among them, but (b) there was a belief in a future resurrection of the dead attested in at least two of the groups: the Pharisees and Essenes. We don’t know what the eschatological views of the Fourth Philosophy were; possibly different Jews who wanted the violent overthrow of the Roman overlords had various expectations. We really don’t know. One reason we don’t know is that we don’t have any writings from any of them. On other hand, that’s true of the Sadducees and the Pharisees as well. That may seem weird, but it’s the case. We have no clear and certain writing from any Sadducee in all of antiquity that explains what it is they thought and believed. Even more strange, from all of antiquity up until the time of the Jewish war, leading [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:41-04:00September 26th, 2017|Acts of the Apostles, Early Judaism, Public Forum|

Is Luke’s Christology Consistent? A Blast from the Past

I have had several comments about the point I made that in Acts 2 Luke indicates that it was at the resurrection that God "made" Jesus both "Lord" and "Christ." Uh, does that fit in with Luke's views otherwise? Wasn't he *born* the Lord and the Messiah, for example? Then how could it be at his resurrection? I dealt with the question on the blog a couple of years ago, and after some digging, found the post. When I discussed the issue before it was because at Jesus' *baptism" Luke appears to indicate that it was then that God made him his Son. So how does all that tie together? Or does it? Here is that post again: ************************************************************************** Does Luke present a (strictly speaking) consistent view of Jesus throughout his two-volume work of Luke-Acts? I raise the question because of the textual problem surrounding the voice at Jesus’ baptism. I have been arguing that it is likely that the voice did NOT say “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:40-04:00September 25th, 2017|Acts of the Apostles, Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum|

Did Luke Have a Doctrine of the Atonement? Mailbag September 24, 2017

For this week’s readers’ mailbag I have chosen a question about my claim that the author of Luke-Acts, unlike other writers of the New Testament, does not have a doctrine of the atonement – that Jesus’ death brought about a restored relationship with God (for Luke, it was the *resurrection* that mattered, not the crucifixion). The questioner sets up the question with an important observation. I suspect my answer will not be what he expected. QUESTION: I have spent a lot of time looking in the gospels for teachings on the atonement. I could only find 5 passages (really more like 2, because they are parallel). Mt 20:28/Mk 10:45 Jesus life as a ransom for many Luke leaves this part out of the story Mt 26:28--this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Mk 14:24--This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Lk 22:20 This cup that is poured out for you is the new [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:40-04:00September 24th, 2017|Acts of the Apostles, Canonical Gospels, Early Christian Doctrine, New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

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