Reflections and Ruminations Archives - Page 22 of 31 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Does a Person Need the Holy Spirit to Interpret the Bible? Is John’s Gospel Accurate? Readers Mailbag August 7, 2016

Does a person need to “have the Holy Spirit” in order to interpret the Bible? And does the Gospel of John give a historically accurate accounting of the teachings of Jesus? These are the two questions I will be dealing with on this week’s Readers’ Mailbag. If you have any questions, simply ask them as a comment to any of the posts on the blog, and I’ll add them to the list. QUESTION: How do you respond to those who say “you can’t correctly interpret the bible unless you have the Holy Spirit” RESPONSE: I’ve never found it at all convincing that a person needs the Holy Spirit in order to interpret the Bible. As an agnostic, of course, I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit (since I don’t believe in God). But even when I did believe in the Holy Spirit, I thought that it was silly to claim that a person could not interpret the Bible correctly without the Spirit – for a couple of reasons that have always struck me [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:34:12-04:00August 7th, 2016|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Metzger and the Squirrel Part 2: Another Blast from the Past

I’ve decided that I can’t do just one Blast from the Past this week, since the one I chose was a two-part post, and I can’t leave anyone hanging. Here is the all important (and in some ways more interesting) part two of my Metzger and the squirrel story, from exactly four years ago. **************************************************************** As I indicated on my previous post, for years friends of mine were eager for me to find out whether the story about Metzger and the squirrel really happened. They wanted me just to ask Metzger. But there were problems with that. Among other things, if it had happened, he almost certainly wouldn’t remember, since it would have simply been something that happened with no significance to him – only to the one who thought it was very odd that Metzger would happen to know what the Greek word for squirrel was and that he would volunteer it at that rather inauspicious moment. Moreover, there were aspects of the story that did not “ring true.” Metzger was not heartless toward [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:56-04:00July 23rd, 2016|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Bruce Metzger and the Squirrel: A Blast from the Past

A Blast From the Past: four years ago I posted the following, an amusing anecdate about my mentor in graduate school (and beyond) the illustrious New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger. *************************************************************************** As with all great men, Metzger was widely talked about among those who knew and revered him. There were lots of stories told about Metzger at Princeton Seminary. Someone should probably collect and publish them. I was especially interested in the stories, since I came to Princeton in order to study with him. Most of the stories were meant to be funny, and we always wondered which, if any of them, were “true” (in the sense that they really happened). Far and away the most commonly told and best known story was the one I heard when I first arrived at the seminary in 1978. It is the story of Metzger and the Squirrel. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for membership options. If you don't belong yet, JOIN!! Before telling the story and explicating it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:56-04:00July 21st, 2016|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

A Personal Note and a Bit of a Bummer

This post is on a personal note and will be a bit self-indulgent, so if you’re looking for some information about the history or literature of early Christianity, this won’t the right time or place. As many of you know from earlier blog posts, I was supposed to go off on a research trip to Greece (Athens), Egypt (Alexandria), and Italy (Rome), in connection with my work on my current project, The Triumph of Christianity (or whatever we call it) dealing with the Christianization of the Roman Empire. My idea was to go to these places to see formerly “pagan” sites that were lost, changed, “converted” or destroyed by Christians in the fourth and later centuries (e.g., destroyed temples; shrines converted into churches; and so on). I was supposed to go today. But I have had to cancel the trip. Yesterday while starting to do some preliminary packing I bent over to pick up a bag of books, and my back went out. Bad. Not “Call-911-and-the-Morgue” bad, but bad enough. I had done something similar [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:23-04:00May 29th, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

How Did Christianity Start?

I wish we knew how many people “started” Christianity. Before I reflect on this issue, let me say some things about definitions and terms, specifically the terms “Christianity” and “Christian.” A lot of scholars object to using the term “Christianity” for the first followers of Jesus who came to believe that he got raised from the dead. Once they believed this, these scholars say, these people didn’t actually become “Christian.” They were still fully Jews, Jews who believed that Jesus was the messiah. “Christianity,” in this opinion, is a later development when these believers in Jesus developed their own religion that was distinct from Judaism. Christianity doesn’t exist, in this view, until you have some kind of set of distinctive Christian beliefs and practices (such as baptism, eucharist, weekly meetings, and so on). And so often scholars will talk about the “Jesus Movement” during the early years and decades after Jesus’ death. I see the force of this view, but I have to admit that for my part, I’ve never had qualms about calling the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:23-04:00May 26th, 2016|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Whom Do We Consider a Christian?

Who counts as a Christian? When I was a hard-core evangelical at Moody Bible Institute, we had a pretty clear and straightforward answer: if you have not been born again and accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you were not a Christian. No matter what you believed or where you worshiped or how you lived. This meant, among other things, that most people who called themselves Christian were not really Christian. Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians – most of them were not really Christians. Roman Catholics were certainly not Christians. Greek Orthodox? Not even close. Mormons? You gotta be kidding. At the time I knew people who had an even more rigorous definition: if you did not know the exact day and hour in which you had accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you hadn’t done so, and were not saved. Some were even more strict: you not only had to have accepted Christ, you had to have been baptized by immersion – dunked in the water, as an adult. Anyone who had not [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:22-04:00May 18th, 2016|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

My Trip to Athens

About fourteen years ago, my son Derek graduated from high school, and I told him that for his graduation present I would take him anywhere in the world for two weeks. I gave his sister Kelly the same deal two years earlier and she chose Ireland. Derek decided on Greece. At first I was impressed with the sophistication of his choice. Later I realized that what he really wanted to do was to head to a Greek island and hang out on the nude beaches. So I struck a deal with him. We’d spend a week on Mykonos. But the first week we’d be on the mainland visiting archaeological sites. He was keen to do that too, and so we did. I had been to Greece once before and had seen a lot of the main touristy sites. But we went back to them, starting in Athens. Athens is one of my favorite places in the world. I love the food, the atmosphere, the people, and especially the archaeological ruins. Two of the most famous [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:33:08-04:00May 7th, 2016|Paul and His Letters, Reflections and Ruminations|

Getting a Literary Agent

I am now ready to talk about how I switched trade publishers, so that now I have a two-book contract with Simon & Schuster, after being with Harper for some thirteen years. As I mentioned in a previous note, I had a particularly close and productive relationship with my editor at Harper, Roger. A couple of years ago, when I was just starting to work on the book that just came out (Jesus Before the Gospels), Roger called me and left a message that he had some bad news and needed to talk with me. I thought that it was either a serious health issue or a career change. Luckily it was the latter. But I didn’t feel lucky! He had been my editor!! He had decided to leave Harper, stop editing books, and become a literary agent. Big bummer for me. I had never used a literary agent before, and was not really interested in doing so now (at the time he didn’t ask me to). My reasons were pretty straightforward. Agents typically charge [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 18th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Getting a First Book Published

I regularly get emails from people who want to break into publishing for the first time, who ask me “How can I get my book published?” As I indicated in my previous posts, almost always what they have in mind is not a work of scholarship for scholars but a trade book for a general audience. And so here is a weird fact about me: even though I have been publishing trade books for eighteen years, I’m not completely sure of the answer. But I know some things, and in this post I’ll indicate what those things are. I absolutely know how one gets his or her first scholarly book published. I help my graduate students, and other scholars just starting their careers, do that all the time. There I’m an expert. But a first trade book? That’s a trickier proposition. The reason is one I’ve intimated before. Most scholars who publish a trade book do so after they have already published serious scholarship and so are to some extent a “known quantity.” In my [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 14th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Who Should Write Trade Books?

Most people who contact me about a book they would like to write – or that they have written – are not talking about a work of scholarship (though some are); they are talking about a book that they would like to publish that “reaches the masses.” They have some ideas about early Christianity, the historical Jesus, the life and writings of Paul, the Gospels, the entire Bible, or some related topic, and they would like to publish a book to make their views known. I never encourage them. This will probably be the most intellectually snobbish post I’ve ever made on this blog, but I think maybe I should just tell it like it is. In my view, no one should write a book if they lack the necessary expertise. And expertise doesn’t come from wanting to have it or wishing to have it. It comes from years of hard work – in this case, intellectual work – after being trained sufficiently to be able even to *do* the work. I may really, deeply [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:52-04:00April 13th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Being Qualified to Write a Scholarly Book

The goal of this thread is to talk about the book that I’m working on now, which I hope to have written (gods willing) by the end of this calendar year. We’ll see. To get to that I felt like I needed to talk about how I had changed publishers, and now that I’m talking about that, it occurs to me that I should talk about how one goes about getting a book published. One of the emails I get *all* the time is from authors who have written a book, or hope to write a book, who want to know how they can get a publisher to take a look at it. The short answer: it ain’t easy. So first let me do this autobiographically, how I myself got into the publishing business. The first thing to stress: I had a leg up. I had a PhD at a reputable school (Princeton Theological Seminary) and a teaching job at another one (Rutgers University). The reality is that publishers of scholarly books look for authors [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 12th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Why I Have Moved to a New Publisher

In my previous post I began to talk about how I have now changed publishers. This past book Jesus Before the Gospels, was my last with HarperOne, and now I have a two-book contract, for the next two books (obviously), with Simon and Schuster. A couple of readers have inferred that I have left Harper because I did not like the way they had handled my most recent book. That’s not the case at all. I made the decision before they even *started* handling the book. And let me stress, I have had a wonderful experience with Harper. They really are one of the truly great publishing houses in the world. Absolutely. How could I possibly complain? Since 2005 I have done seven books with them. One of those seven was a a book that none of us -- not me, not my editor, not my publicist, not anyone in the Harper hierarchy, not anyone on the planet – thought was going to be a big selling book. This was Did Jesus Exist? We originally [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 11th, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Publishing with HarperOne

Now that I’m in the deep throes of research for my next book, I thought it would be a good time to devote a thread to it. It’s what I’ve been thinking about day and night -- and reading voraciously on – since this past August! To explain it all, I need to provide a bit of personal background. The point of this post: I have decided to change publishers. The book that just came out last month, Jesus Before the Gospels, is my seventh book with HarperOne, which is an Imprint of HarperCollins, one of the five largest publishing houses in the world. It has been an absolutely terrific run with Harper’s, an absolute career-changer. But I’ve decided now – after working with them for twelve years – to move on to something else. My next two books will be with Simon and Schuster, another one of the “big five,” which is located in New York (HarperOne is in San Francisco). Why I changed is a long story. First maybe I should say something [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 8th, 2016|Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Our Fourth Anniversary!

Yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of our blog. We began this little venture back on April 3, 2012. Happy anniversary to us! In thinking back on the past four years, I have lots of things to reflect on, as this blog is a rather complicated affair. For every single week over these four years I have made 5-6 posts, on average 1000 words in length; I have read and added comments made by readers (I post almost all the comments, deleting only those that are not related to the concerns or the blog, or inappropriate for one reason or another) (very few are overly snarky, but on occasion there will be one) (I try to keep the tone of the discussion on the blog at a high level – not an easy thing to do on the internet) (and I try to limit the number of parenthetic comments that I make) (obviously that is not easy either). I also answer every direct question I get – obviously not at any great length, since, as with most [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:51-04:00April 4th, 2016|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Does the New Testament Condemn Modern Practices of Homosexuality?

The third in-class debate (for the other two, see my two preceding posts) is in some ways the most controversial of all, as it hits at the heart of a highly fraught topic today. And yet the resolution may seem to some people to be undebatable – that the answer to it is obvious. As it turns out, it isn’t. The third resolution is this: Resolved: The New Testament Condemns Modern Practices of Homosexuality Again, the wording of the resolution is meant to make students think about the very words being used. What is “homosexuality”? And what are “modern” practices? If you define homosexuality as same-sex sexual relations, and you define modern practices as things like men having sex with men, then it seems that the answer would be fairly obvious: yes the New Testament does seem to condemn that sort of thing. But, actually, it’s not that simple. At all. There are tons of issues involved, which make this debate very complicated. For one thing ... The Rest of this Post is for Members [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:36-04:00March 16th, 2016|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations, Sex and Sexuality in the Bible|

A Less Weighty, Personal Matter

A lot of people have noticed that I’ve lost a good bit of weight, and have asked if I’m OK. So, this is obviously of limited interest to people on the blog! But instead of answering each query, I thought I would waste a blog post and say something more broadly. Or less broadly. The short answer is that I’m more than OK: I’m in the best shape I’ve been in for probably thirty years! So here’s the deal, for those who want to know, and even for those who don’t. This past April I went in for my annual physical and my blood tests came back: pre-diabetic. I thought there must be a mistake. Pre-diabetic?!? I didn’t have the typical indications: no history in the family, no high blood pressure, and so on. Well, I was a little overweight. OK, maybe you think more than a little, but still. I had been working out regularly, sleeping well, and was in good cardio-shape. But, well, I did have a bit of a beer gut. Years [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:19-04:00February 23rd, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Upcoming Debate!

This coming weekend, Feb. 12-13, I will be holding a debate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on the topic "How Did Jesus Become God?" They are calling it a "Dialogue," but that's just because they're being nice. It's actually a great group of people, even though, as you might imagine, we agree on very little when it comes to matters of faith. My worthy opponent is Michael Bird. You may have heard of him. He is the author of The New Testament in Its World, and Introducing Paul: The Man, His Mission and His Message, among other books. Back when I published How Jesus Became God, he was the one who edited the response book that came out the same day, How God Became Jesus. He wrote one of the articles in the book. We will both be staking out our claims on Friday night. The next day are papers delivered by scholars we have hand-chosen for the event, two each: mine are my good friends Jennifer Knust (Boston University) and Dale Martin [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:18-04:00February 8th, 2016|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Are the Prophecies Being Fulfilled?

The Christians knew growing up had a very different understanding of “prophecy” in the Bible from the view adopted by professional biblical scholars. (I have been thinking about this because of my posts on Amos.) My sense is that most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians (certainly the latter) continue to have this non-academic view. It is that the prophets of the Bible – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, Zechariah, and so on (there are seventeen prophets in the English Bible) – were principally interested in what was going to be happening in our day. At the time when I became familiar with this view, that meant that prophets were interested in what would happen in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, of course, it would mean that they were principally interested in what would happen in the 2010s. That in itself should give us pause. Do you mean they were *not* mainly interested in the 1970s and 80s? The same can be said, obviously – far more so! – for Christian understandings of the book of Revelation, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:01-04:00January 13th, 2016|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Blog Year in Review 2015

The year is now fading away (or blasting out, depending on your perspective), and I want to take a few minutes to reflect on how the Blog has been doing since last year at this time. We started this venture in April 2012, so by one way of calculating, 2015 was our fourth year of operation. By most standards and criteria it was our most successful year yet, possibly by a large margin. When I started the blog one of my main concerns was that I would run out of things to talk about in a year or so. It hasn’t happened yet. I do find on occasion that I write up a post and it occurs to me, “Hey, haven’t I written on this already?” When that happens, I’ll check (it’s easy to search the blog for past posts, btw: just click on the magnifying glass in the upper right hand of your screen for the search function, and go from there) and sometimes I’m right! If the two posts are sufficiently different, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:46-04:00December 31st, 2015|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

The Death of the Messiah for Salvation

In a previous post I argued that Christians invented the idea of a suffering messiah. Because Jesus was (for them) the messiah, and because he suffered, therefore the messiah *had* to suffer. That was clear and straightforward for the Christians. They backed up their newly devised theology by appealing to Scripture, finding passages of the Bible where a righteous person suffered but was then vindicated by God, passages such as Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Psalm 69 and so on. They reinterpreted these passages (where the messiah is never mentioned) in a messianic way, and they were massively successful in their reinterpretations. Many Christians today cannot read these passages without thinking (knowing!) that they refer to Jesus, the suffering messiah. But why would the messiah have to suffer? Yes, for Christians, it was because it was “predicted.” But why would God predict it? That is, why would he want his messiah to suffer? This is where Christians came up with yet another innovation, the idea that the death of the messiah brought about the salvation of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:45-04:00December 28th, 2015|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

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