Page 82 – The Bart Ehrman Blog

Jesus’s Apocalyptic View of Destruction

In my book on Revelation I am planning to contrast the violence and wrath of God there with what we find in the teachings of Jesus. It would be easy but too simplistic to paint an obvious contrast: unlike John (the author of Revelation) Jesus believed in love and so was opposed to violence. It is certainly true that he was, at least on one level (as we'll see). Jesus did not only think his followers should not be violent against one another, but also not against their enemies, not even the Romans. But the same can probably be said about the book of Revelation. It also does not urge the followers of Jesus to engage in violence. The massive destructions that take place on earth in the book are sent from heaven. And Jesus too thought a massive destruction was to be sent from heaven. So, well, what’s the difference? That will be the complicated issue. To understand the views of destruction of both Jesus and the prophet John, I need to situate them [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00September 9th, 2021|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Revelation of John|

Bruce Metzger and My Strange Dissertation Defense

Here I continue with another reminiscence of my interactions and relationship with my mentor, the great textual scholar Bruce Metzger. This one has always struck me as a bit humorous. *************************** In almost (but not absolutely) all PhD programs in this country, the doctoral candidate has do an “oral defense” of the dissertation. If s/he successfully defends, the PhD is then granted. Here at UNC, the defense is conducted in front of the five-person dissertation committee, all of them experts on one or another aspect of the work. Everyone on the committee has carefully read the dissertation, and the defense is designed to see if, well, the thesis is defensible. In other words, faculty members do not hold back but probe deeply into the work to see if there are any flaws in it. If a student fails the defense, s/he has to revise the dissertation and try again. Even if it is considered passable, revisions of some sort are often considered necessary. If you're interested in the blog, why not join? It costs [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 8th, 2021|Public Forum|

Weird (But Common) Ways To Read the Bible

It constantly amazes me that so many people who believe the Bible never read it. My undergraduate students (to this day) have read the Harry Potter books. But when I ask if they have read the entire Bible, the answer is almost always no. And yet most of them will say the Bible comes from God. So I ask them: “I can understand why you’d want to read a book by J. K. Rowling, but if GOD wrote a book wouldn’t you want to see what he had to say?” My puzzlement is old news to long-term blog members – I've talked about it before. But here’s something else that I find puzzling: Why do people who do read the Bible read it in such an unusual way? If I want to read a short story by Mark Twain, O. Henry, or (to pick one of my modern favorites) William Trevor, I do so after having some idea of where he was from and when he was writing, and then I start with the first [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 7th, 2021|Reflections and Ruminations|

MORE Assignments on the Birth of Christianity

Here now are the other position paper assignments for "The Birth of Christianity." See which of them you'd like to take on in your spare time! Recitation Six: Perpetua and Felicitas Read carefully the account of the Martyrdom of Perpectua and Felicitas (ANT 47-55), several times, until you can remember the significant incidents in good detail. For the recitation, you should think about ALL of the following issues. For your position paper you are to discuss just ONE of them, whichever one you find most intriguing. From an outsider’s perspective it may seem very strange, unsettling, and perplexing that such a brilliant, insightful, apparently wealthy, young mother would be so eager to leave this world through a violent death. How can you explain it, from Perpetua’s own perspective? Is this world really such a terrible place (for her)? Discuss Perpetua’s treatment of her father. Do you see him as a sympathetic figure? Does she seem rude and uncaring to him? How do you explain that? Choose either the vision of Perpetua in ch. 4 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 5th, 2021|Teaching Christianity|

Student Papers for “The Birth of Christianity”

If you checked out my syllabus for my undergraduate course this semester, you will have noticed that every week each student is to write a two-page "position paper" on an assigned topic, something of intrigue that, for this class, will involve texts and issues they have probably never addressed or even heard of, even though if they were raised as church-going Christians. I certainly hadn't when I was their age.... Here are the instructions I give for the papers; you obviously couldn't do the papers without reading the assignments, but you can get an idea here what they would be studying. (The abbreviation ANT is for their textbook, the reader I edited called After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity 100-300 CE). INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSITION PAPERS Welcome to instructions for your weekly bit of recitation fun: the position papers! For basic instructions, otherwise known as absolute sine qua non (purpose, length, grading, etc.), see the syllabus. But do remember: these are to be two-pages, double-spaced, and turned in before the recitation itself. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 4th, 2021|Teaching Christianity|

Was Paul Really at Odds with Peter and James? Guest Post by Richard Fellows

Those of you who read the comments on my posts know that my thread on Cephas and Peter elicited some very interesting responses. One person in particular who who took me on leveled some very learned and detailed critiques. It made my day(s)! Richard Fellows is an unusual person, not to mention blog member. He is trained in a different field (Physics at Cambridge university) and works as an engineer, but he has published a number of articles in academic journals on the New Testament. Now THAT doesn't happen very often. In fact, I don't think I know of anyone else who has pulled it off (though I know a lot who have tried and a lot more who have wanted to). Academic journals are very demanding, whatever field you're in, and without training, well.... But Richard has done it and is still doing it (he has another article coming out). His special interests are the apostle Paul and those associated with him, including Peter (whom he, like most other sentient beings, except me on [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 2nd, 2021|Paul and His Letters|

Pop Quiz on Early Christianity

For just about all of my undergraduate classes, I begin the semester, on the first day, after explaining the course, by giving students a pop quiz. In my New Testament classes, students are often surprised at how little they know. "Hey, I went to Sunday School my entire life! Why don't I know this stuff?" Yeah, good question. But this semester, as I indicated in my previous post, I'm teaching a course on "The Birth of Christianity," which focuses on the period just after the New Testament up through Constantine. For *this* class students come in *knowing* that they don't know much of anything. No matter: I give them a quiz anyway! (It's not graded.) Since I haven't taught the class in 25 years, I had to come up with a new quiz (having no idea if I even did one before) . Here it is. How well can you do? I'll be discussing answers in subsequent posts (I give the quiz, in part, to discuss the answers with students as a way of introducing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00September 1st, 2021|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), History of Christianity (100-300CE), Teaching Christianity|

My Syllabus for “The Birth of Christianity”

Classes have now started at UNC, and I'm back in the classroom. Last year it was all remote teaching (NOT fun for anyone, though my classes were terrific); this year we are starting out live, and desperately hoping we will be able to continue that way. For me, the most exciting part of the semester is that I"m teaching a course that I literally have not taught in 25 years. There's lots of reasons for that -- among other things, I ended up having to teach other things and other colleagues came into the department who could and wanted to teach it. But the course is more closely related to my research over these past 25 years than even my New Testament classes: this one deals with Christianity in the second and third centuries, and it is called "The Birth of Christianity." Here is the syllabus for it! Reli 208 The Birth of Christianity Fall 2021 Instructor: Bart Ehrman Teaching Assistants: Benjamin Sheppard and Thomas Waldrupe Course Description and Objectives For most [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00August 31st, 2021|Teaching Christianity|

Platinum apologies: the LINK for the webinar

As a number of you pointed out, I rather inconveniently didn't include the link to our webinar in my post announcing the link to our webinar. Details. I've updated the post, but in case you're reading this one instead, here it is: https://youtu.be/ygmkj5OZXZA

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00August 31st, 2021|Public Forum|

Recording of our Platinum Webinar: History of Biblical Scholarship

Thanks to those of you who made it to the Platinum webinar on Saturday, on "The History of Biblical Scholarship." I enjoyed it very much -- I've never talked to a public audience about that. There's a lot more to be said, obviously, but I did try to hit the major points! If you weren't there, or even if you were, here's the talk. https://youtu.be/ygmkj5OZXZA To relieve your concerns, the talk itself doesn't go as long as the recording! A good chunk of it was Q&A. Watch as much or as little or as none as you like! I appreciate how you've been involved on the blog as Platinum members. If we can improve your experience, please let me know. Bart

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:08-04:00August 29th, 2021|Public Forum|

Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.
Gallery
Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.

I have been discussing the wrath of God in the Old Testament and have mentioned a point that here that I want to reemphasize, a point rarely observed by Bible readers (in fact I think I didn’t take much notice of it until recently). In the Bible God sometimes punishes people because they misbehave toward others – kill, exploit, oppress, and so on; other times he punishes them because they do not worship him properly or at all. This is a difference worth considering because it goes to the heart of a fundamental matter: is God more worried about how people treat one another or about what they believe and do in relationship to him? Is it all about him, or is it all about our fellow humans? Most Christians, I suppose, would say “both”! But it’s interesting that different parts of the Bible tend to focus on one or the other, sometimes exclusively. I have talked, e.g., about the prophet Amos, who predicted the coming destruction of Israel because the elite among them had [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 29th, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Bruce Metzger and Me: Reminiscences on my Dissertation

I have been enjoying reposting these reminiscences of my relationship with Bruce Metzger, widely seen as the most learned and important textual scholar in North America in the 20th century. I was privileged to study with him and honored to be his final student. Here I reflect on his supervision of my dissertation. Different dissertation advisors have different approaches to supervising a dissertation. Some are extremely hands on, to the point of working over every thought and every sentence. Not too many are like that, because if they were, they would never do anything else with their life. Plus, the idea is for the student to figure it out and get good at it. That takes some trial and error. Other advisors go for the big picture and like to talk over the big ideas. Others basically don’t give a rip how the dissertation is coming along – they want to see it at the end, and when it’s done, they’ll tell the student whether it’s good enough or not. Others … well, there are [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 28th, 2021|New Testament Manuscripts, Reflections and Ruminations|

On Giving. Platinum Guest Post by Judith Coyle

I am unusually pleased to be able to publish this guest post by Judith Coyle, one of the most faithfully and deeply committed members of the blog. Here is her lovely, heart-felt offering, for Platinum members only. ******************************** Even though I am outspokenly adamant against even a thought of trying to make this absolutely perfect blog better, there is no denying now it is indeed better. It offers far more than I could have imagined!. There is a feature left behind though that I miss very much : for those of us who are already members, that invitation in red to join the blog, giving its purpose and assuring us every penny goes to charity, (part way through each post) is no longer there. In those invitations. Professor Ehrman managed to come up with something original and often hilarious to keep us focused on the blog's purpose of providing the means for helping those less fortunate. (Note: the red invitation still does show up for non-members reading the post, who are then not able to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00August 26th, 2021|Public Forum|

Reminder: Fund Raiser for Afghanistan on Sunday

In case you didn't notice or inadvertently dropped it from memory or ... whatever: I'd like to remind you about the fundraiser this Sunday (August 29). I hope you can come! Here's the announcement: ********************* Whatever our political positions, most of us are distraught about the situation in Afghanistan. It will almost certainly get worse. As a result of the crisis, relief agencies there are under enormous pressure, more than in a very long time. One of the charities supported by the blog is Doctors Without Borders, one of the truly great organizations in our world. They are staying in Afghanistan for now (and hopefully for a long time) and their hands are incredibly full. Naturally, they are desperate for additional resources (just look them up in relation to the situation there, and you can get some reports). We will be doing a blog fund-raiser for Afghanistan relief, this Sunday. I will be giving a lecture and we will be taking voluntary donations of any amount, in hopes of raising substantial funds. Every donation will [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00August 26th, 2021|Public Forum|

Sin and Divine Punishment As a Dominant Theme of Scripture

In this discussion of God’s wrath, I want to emphasize that it is not an isolated view of this or that biblical author in the Hebrew Bible. It is a highly pervasive view. God punishes those who disobey him, and he destroys anyone who might lead his people astray into disobedience. Here is how I talk about God’s active role in suffering in my book’s God’s Problem (Harper One, 2008) ****************************** The thematic idea that God punishes disobedience drives the narrative of all five books of the Pentateuch. In some ways it comes to a climax in the final book, Deuteronomy. The title of this book literally means “Second Law”; in fact it is not a second law that is given in the book – instead, the book describes the second time the Law was given to the children of Israel by the prophet Moses. The way the narrative sequence works is this. In the book of Exodus God saved Israel from its slavery in Egypt and miraculously allowed it to escape the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 26th, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Israel’s Conquest of the Promised Land: Did Any of That Happen?

I have been discussing the book of Joshua and its descriptions of violence inflicted on others on orders of the God of Israel -- massive military campaigns and massacres (is there any reason NOT to call it a genocide of the inhabitants of Canaan?). I have wanted to cover this material as background to the New Testament book of Revelation, where the slaughter is even more full scale. One of my points is that the contrast between the “God of wrath” in the OT and the “God of love” in the NT does not really hold up, especially in view of the New Testament’s final book; another will be that the devastation of Revelation is indeed consistent with a common motif of Scripture. I will be getting to that later, and emphasizing it, since at the same time it is inconsistent with another motif of Scripture. But first I want to address a question lots of people typically have about these stories of the Conquest of Canaan in the book of Joshua. Did any of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 25th, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Destroy More Others! The Israelites’ Conquest of the City Ai

In my previous post on the narratives of the Old Testament, I talked about God’s complete intolerance with the “other” – the non-Israelite who might influence his people to worship other gods and not obey his laws. The other had to be destroyed in order to preserve the purity of his people. It did not matter if some, many, or most of these others were decent, loving human beings who cared for their children and did acts of kindness, doing the best to help others and be good people. They were to be destroyed. Every one of them in the city of Jericho: man, woman, child, and, well, the animals for good measure. The taking of Jericho is the first major battle of the book, and others follow suit. To illustrate, here is the one that comes next, less known to Bible readers today but equally instructive (and gruesome) (and with an interesting military tactic). Again, this come from my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford University Press). ****************************** The [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 24th, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Fund Raiser for Afghanistan: This Sunday!

Whatever our political positions, most of us are distraught about the situation in Afghanistan. It will almost certainly get worse. As a result of the crisis, relief agencies there are under enormous pressure, more than in a very long time. One of the charities supported by the blog is Doctors Without Borders, one of the truly great organizations in our world. They are staying in Afghanistan for now (and hopefully for a long time) and their hands are incredibly full. Naturally, they are desperate for additional resources (just look them up in relation to the situation there, and you can get some reports). We will be doing a blog fund-raiser for Afghanistan relief, this Sunday. I will be giving a lecture and we will be taking voluntary donations of any amount, in hopes of raising substantial funds. Every donation will go in toto directly to Doctors without Borders. The lecture is blog-related rather than crisis-related, since that is what I know about and is also why most of you are here. It's an intriguing topic, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:07-04:00August 23rd, 2021|Public Forum|

God’s Destruction of the “Other”: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho

In this thread I have been discussing the wrath of God as manifest in the writings of the Old Testament, in preparation for a later discussion of the divine judgments meted out in the New Testament book of Revelation. In a number of Old Testament narratives God asserts his raw divine power not because he is angry at the disobedience of his people but because he does not want them to be corrupted by outsiders, the “Others” who will lead them astray. In one sense I suppose God could be said to be angry with these outsiders, but it is a little difficult to see why, since he has not revealed himself to them and they are simply worshiping the gods they and their ancestors have worshiped from time immemorial. But in any event, the outsiders need to be destroyed to prevent them from badly affecting the Israelites. Nowhere is this theme played out more consistently and graphically than in the book of Joshua, the sixth book of the Hebrew Bible (right after the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 22nd, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

What Do YOU Think? A Matter of Life and Death

A NEW BLOG FEATURE! I’ve decided to try something new on the blog today. I’d like *your* view about something, your honest opinion based on serious expertise or complete non-expertise. For this new feature, which I’m calling “What Do You Think?”, I will NOT be responding to comments/questions, I’ll simply be posting them, without making a reply, comment, question, or anything else to, so you can express yourself and have others can see your views. (As always, I will not be posting comments that are rude to others or irrelevant to the question – for example, castigations of particular politicians that many but not all of us may despise, on one side of the political chasm facing us or the other. [!]) Others of course can comment on your comment as they choose -- and I hope they do. I'll be listening in. For my own fun, education, and edification! If this turns out to be a nice feature for the blog, I’ll do it again later. Here is the issue that I would like [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:54:53-04:00August 21st, 2021|Public Forum|

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