Reader’s Questions Archives - Page 10 of 30 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Visiting the Monastery at Mount Sinai: A Blast From the Past

A long-time reader has asked that I re-post one of her favorite bits from the blog archives, about my trip a few years ago to Saint Catherine's monastery at Mount Sinai. It was indeed an amazing trip with an interesting tale connected to it, involving one of the greatest biblical manuscript discoveries of the 19th century (or, actually, of all time). This will take two posts. ***************************************************************************************************** In my previous post I talked about Constantin von Tischendorf and his discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus in St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai peninsula in 1844 and then 1859. I have a personal anecdote to relate about the manuscript, one of the most interesting things every to happen to me on my various travels hither and yon. To make sense of the anecdote I need to provide some background information. As I indicated in my previous post, when Tischendorf discovered the codex Sinaiticus (as it was later called), he considered it to be the most ancient biblical manuscript then known to exist. He was right. It was. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:40-04:00July 14th, 2018|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Student Excuses: A Blast From the Past

After I posted the story of the mother who called me about her daughter's failing my class (and then not), a reader of the blog asked me to repeat a post from years ago, of the best excuse I've ever received from a student for missing an exam. I dug around and found it. It begins with my apologies for not getting to my Mailbag as much as I should, as it grows longer and longer. The apologies still apply! And the excuse remains the best I've ever gotten. Here's the post: **************************************************************************** My sincere apologies to any- and every-one who has asked me a direct question that I have said I would devote a post or more to. The list of questions that I need to address is as long as my arm, and in many cases I suppose people forgot that they even asked! But if you asked and are waiting – apologies. I still have the questions and I will get to them, slowly. But I find that once I start answering [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:39-04:00July 6th, 2018|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

The Strangest Moment of My Teaching Career

Here is an interesting question that I sometimes get asked, which brought to mind one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me in my now 34 years of teaching at the university level. QUESTION: As you teach your students the material, how do you handle those students with an evangelical or fundamentalist background that refuse to accept your findings? RESPONSE: This is a great question, and I was all set to answer it directly, when it suddenly brought to mind a *related* question that I’ll address first. (I’ll save this specific question to answer in a later post.) This other question is whether I’ve ever had parents of students from evangelical or fundamentalist background call me to complain about what I was teaching their children. That must happen a lot, right? As it turns out, the answer is no. It never happens. Ssince I started teaching in 1984, I have never ever had a parent call to complain about what I teach -- or about misleading their child, or promoting [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:39-04:00July 1st, 2018|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Are Contradictions the Real Point?

In my last couple of posts I’ve talked about internal contradictions in Luke-Acts and John. I’ve had several readers tell me that they already “got the point” and so they don’t see any reason for me to keep harping on it: there are contradictions so you don’t think the Bible is inerrant. OK OK OK, got the point! As it turns out, that’s not really the point. To be sure, it is *one* of the points. But it’s not actually the main one. If I had to explain fully why it matters that there are internal contradictions in an ancient document created by the use of disparate sources (the case with both Luke-Acts and John) I would do so under three distinct rubrics, each rather complex. Religious implications. Yes, if there are contradictions in a book found in the Bible that means that the common fundamentalist understanding that the text is inerrant is almost certainly wrong. I have tried to word that statement carefully. I’ve noticed that often in these kinds of discussions, people don’t [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:39-04:00June 27th, 2018|Acts of the Apostles, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Internal Discrepancies in the Gospel of John

Yesterday I answered a question about whether some of the discrepancies in Luke-Acts are due to the author having used a variety of sources that had different views. The blog member who asked the question also wanted to know if this happened in other books from antiquity. Just sticking with the Bible, the answer is: Yes indeed! Here is what I say about the same issue with respect to the Gospel of John, in my textbook on the New Testament. ********************************************************* Authors who compose their books by splicing several sources together don’t always neatly cover up their handiwork but sometimes leave literary seams. The Fourth Evangelist was not a sloppy literary seamster, but he did leave a few traces of his work, which become evident as you study his final product with care. Here are several illustrations. To see what I have to say about this, you will need to belong to the blog. It doesn't cost much, and you'll learn more than your friends and neighbors will be able to *stand*. So [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:39-04:00June 26th, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Why Does Luke Appear to Contradict Himself?

A question has come from a reader, based on my recent post dealing with the apparent contradiction between Luke and Acts on the timing of Jesus’ ascension. Do contradictions often result from authors editing several documents together and inserting them side by side in their work? If different source documents have different views, that would create contradictions in the final product which embodies their amalgamation, no? Here’s the question. QUESTION: I continue to be struck by how often Bible authors, since there were no copyright laws, seem to edit two or more different versions of an event together as seen in the Documentary Hypothesis. Is it likely that Luke and Acts had such an editor editing two or more manuscripts together thus producing contradictions? I would also like to know if this kind of editing together of two or more manuscripts was a common way of writing ancient books. RESPONSE: The answer is Yes and Yes. This apparently did happen with the book of Acts and it is indeed a phenomenon we can [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:25-04:00June 25th, 2018|Acts of the Apostles, Reader’s Questions|

Sources for the Hebrew Bible: A Blast from the Past

I was fishing around for something different to post today, and came across this Q & A from exactly six years ago. I get asked the question a lot, and I would answer it the same way even now, despised my advancing age... ************************************************************************************* QUESTION: Do you have a suggestion for a book concerning the OT's construction? I believe in the History of God (by K. Armstrong) she mentioned that there were about five distinct writers for the OT. Is this the scholarly view and do you have a book suggestion to delve deeper into it? RESPONSE: Right! The Old Testament (for Christians; otherwise: the Jewish Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible; the Tanakh – these are all more or less synonyms.) It’s been on my mind a lot lately. Right now, my current writing project is a college-level textbook on the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation. This seems to me to be way too much to cram into a semester, but as it turns out, something like half the colleges in the country teach [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 24th, 2018|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reader’s Questions|

Does Luke Flat Out Contradict Himself?

Sometimes readers ask questions that have answers they probably would not suspect in a million years. My guess is that this is true of the following interesting query about a contradiction between the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts (written by the same author) about the ascension of Jesus. QUESTION: Talking of authors who contradict themselves any idea why Luke has Jesus ascending on the day of his resurrection but Acts places it 40 days later!? This seems like quite an obvious mistake for the same writer to make. RESPONSE: I explain the problem and try to come up with a solution in my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Here is what I say there (edited to get rid of some of the technical discussion that is not directly germane to the question): ****************************************************************************** How did the proto-orthodox doctrines of Jesus’ bodily ascension and return in judgment affect the text of Scripture? I begin by considering a problem that proves particularly difficult to adjudicate. The final verses of Luke’s Gospel [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 22nd, 2018|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts, Reader’s Questions|

Does the Book of Acts Portray the Teachings of Paul Accurately?

This is my second post on the portrayal of Paul in the book of Acts. In the one previous I tried to show, briefly, how the account of Paul’s activities in Luke’s narrative do not gel well with what he says in his own letters. Here I address the question that was originally raised: his teachings. Do the things Paul says in Acts coincide with what he himself indicates? I won’t give a detailed discuss, but just look at one key passage. Again, this is drawn from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. ************************************************************** Paul’s Teaching. Almost all of Paul’s evangelistic sermons mentioned in Acts are addressed to Jewish audiences. This itself should strike us as odd given Paul’s repeated claim that his mission was to the Gentiles. In any event, the most famous exception is his speech to a group of philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens (chap. 17). In this speech, Paul explains that the Jewish God is in fact the God of all, pagan and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 18th, 2018|Acts of the Apostles, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Does the Book of Acts Accurately Portray the Life and Teachings of Paul?

A fundamental question has recently come to me, which involves one of the central issues in the study of the life and teachings of Paul. As most members of the blog may know, there are thirteen books in the NT that claim to be written by Paul, six of which are widely thought not actually to be by him. But that means, on the positive side, that we almost certainly have seven letters actually written by Paul, so that if we want to know about him, we can turn to his own writings (unlike, for example, Jesus, from whom we have no writings). We also, however, have the book of Acts, the fifth book of the NT, which gives a narrative of the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman world, as the faith moved from being a sect within Judaism to becoming a world-wide religion for both Jews and Gentiles. The key figure in that transition, and the main character in the book of Acts, is Paul. But can we trust that wuat the book [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 17th, 2018|Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

The Name Judas Iscariot: What Does It Mean?

Several members of the blog have commented on my posts about the death of Judas by asking about his name itself. Most interesting, what does “Iscariot” mean? I deal briefly with the topic in my book on Judas, a book in which I deal at length with the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, but then go on to say what I think we can actually know historically about the man himself, and his one most famous nefarious act, the betrayal of Jesus. Here is what I say about the name. **************************************************** The Name Judas Iscariot Sometimes knowing the names of persons from antiquity can give further information about them. People of the lower classes did not have last names, and so to differentiate people with the same first name, descriptive designations were often added. For example, there are several different Marys in the New Testament. “Mary” was one of the most common names in first-century Palestine. And so each New Testament Mary is given some kind of identifying feature: Mary “the mother of Jesus”; Mary [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 12th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Why Would I Call Myself Both an Agnostic and an Atheist? A Blast from the Past

My personal beliefs came up in my debate with Dinesh D’Souza that I posted last week, and I received several questions about how I classify myself: agnostic or atheist? I’ve talked about that on the blog a couple of times, but as I am constantly reminded, many of the people who are on the blog now were not on it a year or two ago, as there is turnover and our numbers continue to grow. And certainly no one (well, almost no one) goes back and reads everything from, say five years ago! So I thought it would be fine to repost my earlier comments. It was in response to a question I received back then, very similar to the questions I’ve received over the past week. ****************************************************** QUESTION: If you don't think God exists, why do you refer to yourself as an agnostic? If this is your perspective, why not refer to yourself as an atheist? Could it be that you don't believe the Christian God exists, but are open to the possibility [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:24-04:00June 10th, 2018|Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Why Did Judas Iscariot Betray Jesus?

In this edition of the Readers’ Mailbag I address an interesting and perplexing question about Judas Iscariot: QUESTION You may have mentioned this (I cannot recall) but why did Judas go to the authorities in the first place? RESPONSE I wrestled with this question long and hard while writing my book The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot, which includes a section on what we can know about the historical Judas. In the book I argue that there are some things that we can know with relative certainty about Judas (he was one of the Twelve and was the one who actually betrayed Jesus); other things we can profitably surmise based on our evidence (e.g. what it is Judas betrayed to the authorities – not just Jesus’ whereabouts, I argue); and other things that are almost entirely in the realm of speculation. Among the latter I would include the reasons Judas *wanted* to betray Jesus. Scholars have offered numerous suggestions over the years. You may have your own favored view. Here is what [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:23-04:00June 3rd, 2018|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Did the Gospels Originally Have Titles?

I have received a number of questions from readers about my blog post that tried to explain why the Gospel writers wrote their books anonymously; some of the questions have concerned the titles of the Gospels: if they books were not *written* by named authors (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) why do the titles *indicate* they were, and could the titles be original to the books? My view is that the books did not originally have titles, but – for reasons I explained in a different post (https://ehrmanblog.org/why-are-the-gospels-called-matthew-mark-luke-and-john/) – were given titles naming their authors years after they had been circulating anonymously. I explain why I think that the Gospels were originally without titles in a couple of my books; here are a couple of extracts (slightly edited) taken from Jesus Interrupted and Forged that marshal some of the arguments that are often adduced. There is some overlap between the two sets of comments, but together they pretty much make the point. ************************************************************* In our surviving manuscripts of the Gospels they are always [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:23-04:00May 31st, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Why Didn’t the Gospel Writers Tell Us Who They Were?

Yesterday I dealt with the issue of anonymous writings in antiquity, what we know about them in general. Today I deal directly with the question about why the Gospels of the New Testament were all written anonymously, with the authors giving us no indication of who they were. I have a theory about that, a theory that I’ve never heard or seen before. Here is how I lay it out in my trade book Forged. ***************************************************************** It is always interesting to ask why an author chose to remain anonymous, never more so than with the Gospels of the New Testament. In some instances an ancient author did not need to name himself because his readers knew perfectly well who he was and did not need to be told. That is almost certainly the case with the letters of 1, 2, and 3 John. These are private letters sent from someone who calls himself “the elder” to a church in another location. It is safe to assume that the recipients of the letters knew who he [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:07-04:00May 23rd, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Why Would an Ancient Author Write a Book Anonymously?

In response to yesterday’s post, I received a seemingly simple question that is both intriguing and complex. I will devote two posts to giving an answer QUESTION: Why were the gospels written anonymously? Was this the usual practice with this type of account in those times? RESPONSE: It’s a bit surprising that more attention hasn’t been paid to this question by scholars, who, as a rule, are *far* more interested in proving that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by the people named in their (current) titles than in exploring the issue of why the authors never named themselves. In this post I’ll deal with the phenomenon of anonymous writings *generally* in the ancient world; in the following post I’ll elaborate a suggestion I make here, but do not develop at any length, about the Gospels in particular. The following has been drawn from my discussion in my scholarly book Forgery and Counterforgery. But apart ********************************************************************************************** There are far fewer anonymous writings from antiquity – and from Christian antiquity – than of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:07-04:00May 22nd, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Do We Know Why Jesus Went to Jerusalem?

Browsing through my blog posts I came across this one from exactly six years ago today. Amazingly, I still agree with it! It deals with an unusually important question, one that, in a sense, involves a decision that changed the entire history of our world. QUESTION Just what did the historical Jesus think he was doing that last week in Jerusalem? It looks to me like he was working as hard as he could to get himself killed. If that's what he was doing, then why was he doing it? RESPONSE Interesting question! There have been scholars, of course, who have argued that this is precisely what Jesus was doing, that he went to Jerusalem in order to be crucified. It is interesting that those who take that view cover as wide a range of ideology and theology as you could possibly imagine. Conservative Christian thinkers (from protestant fundamentalists to Roman Catholic theologians to … well, take your pick) have long thought that the point of the Jerusalem trip was in fact the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:07-04:00May 19th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Bogus Christian Apologetics and a First-Century Fragment of Mark

One reason I get so frustrated with conservative evangelical Christian apologists is that they often aren’t honest and straightforward, but insist instead on making completely bogus claims that surely they actually know are bogus. I can’t think they’re actually dumb enough to believe them. But they hope to pull the wool over the eyes of the members of their audience – most of whom don’t realize that rhetorical tricks being pulled on them. Why not just look at the evidence, give a fair evaluation of it, and then draw a conclusion? Do you really want to defend your views with subterfuge? Why not be above board? Here is an example, from a question and link someone recently sent me about the so-called first-century fragment of the Gospel of Mark. I call it “so-called” because no one has produced this fragment, shown it to scholars, or to anyone else so far as I know, let alone published it to let everyone in the world see it for themselves. I think the whole thing is a hoax, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:06-04:00May 8th, 2018|New Testament Manuscripts, Reader’s Questions|

Did Constantine Outlaw the Pagan Religions?

In today’s mailbag I deal with an interesting question about when, exactly, Christianity became the state religion of Rome and the traditional pagan religions were outlawed. Was it during the reign of Constantine (as is popularly imagined?)? Later? At the end of the fourth century? Here’s the question. QUESTION: I was listening to The Great Courses lectures on Early Middle Ages by professor Philip Daileader and he mentions that Christianity was made the official state religion of the Roman Empire and that pagan rituals and practices HAD been made illegal BEFORE the reign of Julian the Apostate and that Theodosius only made it illegal AGAIN to practice paganism in 391-392 !?! I always thought (and taught...) that Christianity became the state religion and that paganism was outlawed in 392 for the first time. Since you have been working on this period recently, I would love to know your stand on that matter RESPONSE: I need to say at the outset that I have not listened to this course by Prof. Daileader and so [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:40:51-04:00April 29th, 2018|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Reader’s Questions, Spread of Christianity|

Why Should Faith and the Afterlife Matter? Readers’ Mailbag April 15, 2018

I have a very long list of questions in my Readers’ Mailbag. Here’s an interesting one that’s been hanging around for a while. QUESTION: One of the really odd things about Christianity is the emphasis on believing in order to gain admission to heaven. Why is that so critical? RESPONSE I would say that this one really odd thing is actually two really odd things: from the outset of the Christian movement, followers of Jesus emphasized both the centrality of belief and the realities of the afterlife. These are oddities because prior to Christianity (this admittedly seems weird) there weren’t any religions that (a) focused on “having faith” and (b) stressed the afterlife as an incentive to practice religion. Really? Yup, really. People may have trouble believing this (at least my students do), but it’s true. Let me start with the afterlife. For many of my students the afterlife is the one and only reason that anyone would want to be properly religious. If there is no afterlife, why bother? If there are [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:40:50-04:00April 15th, 2018|Afterlife, Reader’s Questions|

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