Loading...Dear Gold Members,
It’s that time again. Time for the Gold Q&A for June — a perk of your membership! Do you have any questions you’d like to ask, on anything related to the blog? Ask away, and I’ll do my best to answer.
To get your question on the list: zap a note to Diane at [email protected]
DEADLINE for your question. Midnight (your time) on Saturday, June 25. I will record the Q&A that weekend, and it will be available, if all goes to plan, by Thursday, June 30.
Fire away!
- Bart
You only got 3 days for ALL the questions!!!
People! Now is the chance to throw all our zingers at him! Let’s test how this stockpile of seventy thousand books and articles he’s read in the last 50 years fares!!
Dear Dr. Ehrman – I have two questions:
1) This one has been rambling around in my brain for literally decades. A very brilliant professor I knew a long time ago was convinced that Jesus was misquoted in John 14:6, claiming he didn’t say “I am the way and the truth and the life”, but rather “I AM *is* the way and the truth and the life” – referring of course to the I AM of Exodus. He was convinced there was something about Aramaic grammar that would have made this misquotation likely when written in Greek. What do you think of this? It would make sense in the context of Jesus as an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who never actually called himself divine (which is how I regard him)…but of course it’s probably more likely that he never said either thing!
2) Of the various English translations/versions of the NT available today, which do you regard as being the result of the best critical scholarship?
Many thanks for the blog and your time and consideration in answering our questions.
I’d say that John 14:6 shows no evidence of being composed in ARamaic and in Greek the translation he proposes is not correct. My preferred translation is the NRSV, which now has come out in an “updated edition”
Dr. Ehrman
What does the Bible really say about abortion and your thoughts .
Thanks
I wanted to write a book on that and mentioned it to my wife a month ago, and she said “Oh no you’re not!” But maybe I’ll devote some blog posts to it.
Thank you. The timing would be ideal with what has just occurred. Also you should write that book,,,
Would love for you to devote some posts on the subject of Abortion…
“I do this because I think the fundamentalist understanding of Christianity does a lot of harm and I want people to understand that it’s just not true.” Dr. Ehrman
You are so right, Dr. Ehrman. Here’s an example.
My younger sister, of course, grew up in the same Fundamentalist/Pentecostal home that I did. While I gave up my belief many years ago and she normalized her beliefs for a time in her life, eventually, she embraced fundamentalism in its most extreme form. She died a few weeks ago from colorectal cancer because she rejected medical treatment in favor of faith healing. This faith healer teaches that if you are not healed, it is because you lack “enough” faith. He even makes claims of praying and people being raised from the dead. He has a Large following locally.
What did Paul say in Romans about what would happen to his fellow Jews who did not believe in Jesus and the resurrection?
They were condemned.
My understanding is that Paul spoke and wrote in Greek. Jesus spoke Aramaic I think. How then did Jesus communicate with Paul on the road to Damascus?
Esperanto? 🙂 Seriously, I think the assumption is that Jesus was multi-lingual, as the son of God. Or, rather, probably, that he spoke in Aramaic. According to Acts, Paul was fluent in Aramaic (because it maintains he was trained in Jersualem by the leading rabbi of the day). Historical scholars have long maintained that that is almost certainly not right, the he only knew Greek.
If Paul only knew Greek then how did he communicate with Peter and James unless they knew Greek also?
Presumably a translator. Or lots of signs. And/or badly.