Loading...Just a reminder, in case you haven’t noticed or don’t remember! I will be doing a new online course on Saturday, November 11: “The Scribal Corruption of Scripture: How the Bible was Changed and Why Readers May Never Know.”
The general topic will sound familiar to many of you — it is the kind of thing I discuss in my book Misquoting Jesus and that I”ve dealt with on the blog at times. But this course will be different. Among other things, it will provide much fuller explanations about:
- How scribal changes affect major issues in understanding the New Tesament
- Why decisoins about the original text are so complicated.
- What motivated scribes to alter the texts in places.
- Whether we can be reasonably sure that we know what an author wrote (the answer here will surprise many of you, in a way that you won’t expect to be surprised)
- How *exactly* do scholars make decisions about what the text said and why a scribe changed it.
In addition, I’ll be discussing a number of textual variants that I’ve never addressed in any context, some of them so tricky that after looking at all the evidence, it’s almost impossible to decide!
As always, this course is not connected to the blog per se. But I mention it here because it’s the sort of thing blog users will be interested in. I hope you can come! For registration and further information, go here: http://www.bartehrman.com/courses
Dr. Ehrman – a small question I’ve had for a while which I can’t find addressed anywhere:
In 1 Corinthians 15.6, Paul claims to know about 500 brothers (and, presumably, sisters) “at the same time.” What gathering of at least 500 people might have possibly been the setting for such a mass vision?
I have no idea. Paul appears to think there was a mass gathering of people who all had the vision. No other ancient source mentions it, and it seems entirely implausible when you just think of the logistics of it. (You might think, e.g., that the book of Acts might mention that one. Or one of the Gospels. Nope)
Will we be able to save this video for future use or is it a one time thing .
It’s yours forever!
Bart. What do you think about Mathew 7:7-8 / Luke 11:9-10 “seek and you will find” passages? Do you believe that this thought/idea is unique to Jesus or was this passage based on an earlier philosophical ideas?
It’s definately a true statement, as everyone sees in the world what they want to see, thus something a philospher would have recognized. I’m wondering, trying to figure out, what statements attributed to Jesus were actually something Jesus might have said and how much was Greek Philosophy injected into the writings.
Good question. I don’t know how widely it could be found as a kind of exhortative proverb.