Page 188 – The Bart Ehrman Blog

Did Disciples Have Visions of Jesus?

I am ready and willing to begin answering questions readers have about my book How Jesus Became God. So feel free to ask away. Here is a good one I received today. QUESTION: I have enjoyed reading your interesting and thought provoking books, Jesus Interrupted and Forged. At the moment I am reading How Jesus Became God and would like to comment on some of the content of Chapter 5. To that point in the book, it seems to me you have been very careful to avoid speculation, but it seems to me that the application of your usual standards may have lapsed somewhat in regard to the visions of Jesus after the crucifixion. Specifically, what evidence do we have, apart from the Gospels, that any of Jesus' disciples actually had visions of Jesus after his death? Certainly, at some point in early Christianity, the story of the visions became part of the lore, but as you have pointed out in previous parts of the book, the oral recounting of the stories was subject [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:59-04:00April 15th, 2014|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus as God in the Synoptics

This, I believe, will be my final post on an issue that changed my mind about while doing the research for How Jesus Became God. This last one is a big one – for me, at least. And it’s not one that I develop at length in the book in any one place, since it covers a span of material. Here’s the deal: Until a year ago I would have said – and frequently did say, in the classroom, in public lectures, and in my writings – that Jesus is portrayed as God in the Gospel of John but not, definitely not, in the other Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I would point out that only in John did Jesus say such things as “Before Abraham, I am” (8:58; taking upon himself the name of God, as given to Moses in Exodus 3); his Jewish opponents knew full well what he was saying: they take up stones to stone him. Later he says “I and the Father are one” (10:30) Again, the Jews break [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:59-04:00April 13th, 2014|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels|

Interview with Trinities.org on How Jesus Became God

I won't be posting every single interview I do for How Jesus Became God (you will be glad to know); but different interviewers are asking different kinds of questions, and so a range of them doesn't seem to be out of line. The one here is for a podcast called Trinities, hosted and produced by a fellow named Dale Tuggy. Dale is not completely sympathetic with all my views in the book, which makes the interview a bit more interesting from ones that simply lob me softballs. The interview took place on April 7, and happened over the phone. Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:47-04:00April 12th, 2014|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Video Media|

Christ as an Angel in Paul

I continue here with another post about something that I learned about or changed my mind about while writing How Jesus Became God. I have to admit, that for many years I was puzzled by the apostle Paul – specifically his Christology. All the various things he said about Christ didn’t seem to add up to a coherent whole to me, even though I thought and thought and thought about it. But I finally found the piece that, when added to the puzzle, made it all fit together. I think now I can make sense of every Christological statement in Paul’s letters. This not because I myself finally figured it out. It’s because I finally read some discussions that actually made sense, and saw that they are almost certainly right. Here’s what I say about it in the book. It’s a result that I would have found very surprising just two years ago. ********************************************************* Many people no doubt have the same experience I do on occasion, of reading something numerous times, over and over, and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:25:30-04:00April 10th, 2014|Book Discussions, Paul and His Letters|

The Disciples who Doubted the Resurrection

In this post I continue discussing some of the issues that I learned about for the first time, or changed my mind about, while writing How Jesus Became God. This post is about an issue that I figured out (for myself) for the first time; I don’t know that other scholars have pointed this out in quite the same way. (Or if they do, I’ve forgotten about it.) It is about the tradition scattered throughout the Gospels that the disciples “doubted” that Jesus was raised even when they had clear evidence that he had been – namely, that he was standing right in front of them. How do we explain this doubt tradition? ************************************************** In considering the significance of the visions of Jesus, a key question immediately comes to the fore that in my judgment has not been given its full due by most scholars investigating the issue. Why do we have such a strong and pervasive tradition that some of the disciples doubted the resurrection, even though Jesus appeared to them? If Jesus came [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:47-04:00April 9th, 2014|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels|

Why I’m Obsessed with Jesus

There is a relatively new online journal, “On Faith,” that is top-of-the line and very interesting. A couple of days ago they published a short article that I wrote, in connection with How Jesus Became God; I called the article “Why I Am Obsessed with Jesus.” It contains some views you will have seen from me before, and some others. Here is the article as I sent it to them. (The full link to the online version in the journal comes at the end). ********************************************************** I finally figured out why I’m so obsessed with Jesus. It makes sense that Jesus mattered to me when I was young. I was raised in a Christian household, we went to church, we revered the Bible, and Jesus was God. It makes sense that Jesus mattered to me as a late teenager, when I had a born-again experience and became a conservative evangelical. (What I converted from to “become a Christian” continues to puzzle me.) At that point Jesus became not only my Lord and Savior, but also my [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:47-04:00April 8th, 2014|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations|

Media: How Jesus became God – Ehrman vs Gathercole Pt 2

Here is the second part of my radio "debate" (rather, exchange of views) with Simon Gathercole. To refresh your memory (or in case you didn't see the earlier post with the first part), Simon is a Senior Lecturer in New Testament at Cambridge University. He is a serious and well-known scholar, and also happens to be an evangelical Christian. We disagree on a lot of things, but we are civil about our disagreements, and I respect his opinions even though I disagree heartily with many of them -- especially on the topic at hand! This part of the program focuses more on Paul than on the Gospels. Again, this was recorded for, played on, the program called "Unbelievable" for Christian Premier Radio in the UK (headquarters in London), hosted and moderated by Justin Brierley. Brought to you in association with www.reasons.org. Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:47-04:00April 8th, 2014|Bart's Debates, Canonical Gospels, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum, Video Media|

Fresh Air with Terry Gross and the Dish Book Club with Andrew Sullivan

I mentioned in an earlier post that the only way a trade book begins to sell well is if it gets media attention. It is really, really hard to get media attention, and there’s very little that an author can personally do about it. Authors have publicists (at the publisher) who try to get attention in print, radio, and TV; that’s what they do for a living, they do it all the time, they have the necessary contacts, and the know-how, and the experience, and so on. But at the end of the day, it is always a matter of whether a journal, newspaper, radio program, TV show etc. is interested, and wants to do a piece on the book. Every author wants a part of the action, and there’s only so much action to go around. And sometimes, from the author’s point of view, it seems like a very frustrating crapshoot indeed. With that said, I’m happy to announce that I have recorded an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, which will be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:47-04:00April 7th, 2014|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

Women at the Tomb

Here I’ll continue my thread on topics that I changed my mind about or came to see in doing my research for How Jesus Became God. One of the most important things I changed my mind about was the idea that Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty three days after his death. When I was a Christian, of course I thought that was the case. But even when I had become an agnostic I thought it was probably a historical tradition: it’s found in all four Gospels, for example, and the fact that the stories indicate precisely it was *women* who found the tomb did not seem like something Christians would want to make up. (And so, as an agnostic, I had to come up with alternative explanations for why the tomb was empty. But…) I changed my mind. Most of my change came from my investigation of Roman practices of crucifixion. As it turns out, standard policy appears to have been to have left the bodies of corpses on the crosses to decompose, as part [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00April 5th, 2014|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Public Forum, Women in Early Christianity|

The God Augustus

Yesterday I started a thread dealing with things that I learn, discovered, or changed my mind about in the course of doing the research on How Jesus Became God. This then is the second post on the topic. In this instance I was struck with a blinding realization of something that I guess I knew for a long time, but it had never nailed me between the eyes before. Once it did, it completely changed how I decided to write the book. Fundamentally changed it. I realized – duh!!! – that the environment within which Christians were calling Jesus God was *everything*, not just a minor side note (as it is often treated by NT scholars). This realization assaulted me one day when I was minding my own business, snooping around an archaeological site in Turkey. Here’s the story as I tell it in the book, at the beginning of chapter 2. ********************************************************** When I first started my teaching career in the mid 1980s I was offered an adjunct position at Rutgers University. My teaching [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00April 4th, 2014|Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

Jesus as the Adopted Son of God

I would like to devote several posts – maybe half a dozen – to issues that I deal with in How Jesus Became God that represent new insights that I had while doing the research. In most instances these are changes in what I used to think. (Scholars who never change their minds about something are the ones you the ones you need to look out for!) I’ve never written a trade book where that was the case before (although it happens all the time in doing a serious research monograph). By my count, this is the thirteenth trade book I’ve written, and in virtually every case (I can’t think of an exception) my research either was almost completely done before I even proposed writing the book (e.g., for my book on the Da Vinci Code, or for Misquoting Jesus) or the research simply rounded out what I pretty much already thought (e.g., Lost Christianities or Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene). These books, in other words, are different from scholarly books entirely because of the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00April 3rd, 2014|Book Discussions|

Why It Matters

In my recent Huffington Post article I try to explain why it *matters* that the early followers of Jesus began calling him God, and I try to make the case that it matters not only for Christians (most of whom think Jesus *is* God, so that the development of that doctrine is obviously important) but for all of us, Christian or non-Christian, who are interested in the history of our civilization. My statement to that end has been misunderstood by several, maybe lots (?), of readers, and I need to explain what I mean and do not mean. Here is what I say in the article: FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for membership options. If you don't belong yet, NOW'S YOUR CHANCE!!! How did that happen? How did we get from a Jewish apocalyptic preacher -- who ended up on the wrong side of the law and was crucified for his efforts -- to the Creator of all things and All-powerful Lord? How did Jesus become [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00April 2nd, 2014|Book Discussions, Reader’s Questions|

Radio Debate on How Jesus became God: Part 1

As is my wont, I was in England for Spring Break, and while there I was invited to participate in a radio program devoted to my book How Jesus Became God (as I've indicated before on the blog). The program was set up to be a radio "debate," or, well, "friendly exchange of ideas" (it was the latter more than the former) between me and Simon J. Gathercole, who is a Senior Lecturer in New Testament at Cambridge University. Simon is one of the five contributors to the response book How God Became Jesus. He is a bona fide and serious New Testament scholar, whom I respect and with whom I heartily disagree on many many issues! :-) The program was "Unbelievable," a weekly program on UK Premier Christian Radio hosted by moderator Justin Brierley, a bright and interesting fellow, not a scholar but well acquainted with scholarship. He, like Simon, is a reasonably, but reasonable, conservative Christian. The "debate" involved two segments, both taped on March 29th, 2014. The following is the first of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00April 1st, 2014|Bart's Debates, Canonical Gospels, Paul and His Letters, Public Forum, Video Media|

Article in the Huffington Post

The Huffington Post has just published an article that I wrote introducing How Jesus Became God. (Link below) Here’s the article as I wrote it and sent it in. I’ve written several others that I will be providing as well, as soon as they are available in their various venues, plus anything else of related interest. **************************************************************** Jesus was a lower-class preacher from Galilee, who, in good apocalyptic fashion, proclaimed that the end of history as he knew it was going to come to a crashing end, within his own generation. God was soon to intervene in the course of worldly affairs to overthrow the forces of evil and set up a utopian kingdom on earth. And he would be the king. It didn’t happen. Instead of being involved with the destruction of God’s enemies, Jesus was unceremoniously crushed by them: arrested, tried, humiliated, tortured, and publicly executed. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. If you don't belong yet, GET WITH IT!!! And yet, remarkably, soon afterwards his followers began [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00March 31st, 2014|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Religion in the News|

Scholars and Popular Audiences

On the heels of the publication of How Jesus Became God, written for a broad, general audience, rather than for scholars, and in light of my previous post in which I indicated that some scholars are very sniffy about this kind of publication and think that it is “only” a popular kind of book, I was going to devote this post to my view of scholars in relationship to popular, trade books. As I was outlining my points in my head, I realized, Wait a second! I’ve said all this before. Not on the blog. But in a very different context indeed. In 2011 at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature there was a very large session devoted to such things. The panel presenting papers was John Dominic Crossan, Amy Jill Levine, N. T. Wright, and me. The audience was all biblical scholars, maybe a thousand of them? The following is what I said in my talk about scholars publishing for a popular audience. ****************************************************************** We as biblical scholars need to be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00March 29th, 2014|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Why Sell Books?

In a previous post I dealt with the question of How Books Sell, and tried to explain that trade books that make it big, if they make it big, do so by receiving substantial media attention. When Reza Aslan had that immortal (not to say immoral) interview on FOX, it sealed the deal. His book went up to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list – every author’s dream. Without the interview, it wouldn’t have happened. In this post I want to deal with a correlative question that may have been on precisely no one’s mind: Why Sell Books? Well, it’s on my mind, anyway. And it’s on my mind because invariably when a scholar publishes a book for a popular audience, his/her colleagues (some of them) in the field get all sniffy and huffy about it. What you often hear them say (when they don’t know you’re listening) is: “Oh, he just wants to sell books!” You’d think I’d be ready for this by now, but I’m flabbergasted every time it happens, still. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00March 27th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Book Discussions|

My First Radio Interview on How Jesus Became God

I am lined up to do a number of interviews for the new book, and here is the first, with a program called Interfaith Voices, hosted by Mareen Fiedler. Interfaith Voices is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality, and plays on WAMU 88.5 FM in Washington, DC. The following is an interview taped on March 20th, 2014. She titles the radio program, "The Debate over the Divinity of Jesus" while referencing my latest book "How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee." She asks good, perceptive questions that allow me to talk about key aspects of my thesis in the book. The interview will provide a good overview of what you'll find in it, once you get your grubby paws on it (now that my grubby paws are off it). Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00March 26th, 2014|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Video Media|

How Books Are Sold

How Jesus Became God is released tomorrow. So I’m pumped. This is the most exciting time for an author of a trade book (written for a general audience). It’s always great, of course, beginning the research on a new project; and it’s always fantastic, if nerve wracking, to begin the writing; of course it’s always a huge relief to finish the book and send it off to the publisher. But the most exciting time is when the book is just about to be released. Outside of my small little world of trade book authors, the whole process is not well known. At least, it was not known to me, even as a widely published scholar, before I went into this world. In fact, it took a couple of trade books before I started understanding this world. One thing that I completely misunderstood, as a scholar just starting to write books for a general audience, was what it was that created sales. At first I thought that if you wrote a good book, it would sell [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:46-04:00March 25th, 2014|Book Discussions|

How Jesus Became God!!

It is time – well past time, some of you may think – for a new thread. And one is oh-so-ready-to-hand. My new book, How Jesus Became God, will be released on Tuesday (March 25). I am unusually eager for that to happen. I’ve never had a trade book (i.e., written for a popular audience) that I’ve been as invested in. Many of my other ones have done well, and I’ve been proud of each and every one of them (they’re like your children – you love each of them dearly and deeply ….). But this is that one that I think is the really important one – in its way, more important than Misquoting Jesus, and all the rest. That’s because the question it’s dealing with is really BIG, in my opinion. It may sound a bit outlandish, crazy, or over the top, but I think a case can be made that the question of how Jesus became God is one of the most important questions for the history of Western Civilization. OK, that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:45-04:00March 23rd, 2014|Book Discussions, Memory Studies, Public Forum|

John from a Socio-Historical Perspective

Now that I have explained what the socio-historical method is in general terms (in my previous post) I can go on to show how it can be applied to a particular Gospel, in this case, the Gospel of John. Again, none of this is new and fresh scholarship that I myself came up with; two of the real pioneers of this method were two of the greats of New Testament interpretation in the latter part of the twentieth century, both of whom, remarkably, taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York (taught, in fact, some of my good friends!), the Protestant scholar J. Louis Martyn, and the Roman Catholic scholar, Raymond Brown. Their views ended up being a more or less consensus position for many years, and continues to be prominent among teachers of the NT still today. **************************************************************** The Gospel of John from a Socio-Historical Perspective The place to begin is by examining the different thematic emphases evident in different stories, which ultimately may derive from different sources, and to consider the kinds of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:24:45-04:00March 22nd, 2014|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

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