Page 89 – The Bart Ehrman Blog

Could Jesus Read?

Here’s a question I have gotten repeatedly over the years: Could Jesus read? I received a form of the question in a comment recently: QUESTION: My question is: Could Jesus read? I thought I had read in your books or heard in one of your videos that you thought he, along with his immediate followers, were illiterate. But recently in one of your Sunday lectures you either stated or implied that he could actually read, and at least some of the instances in the gospels where he was reading from “the scrolls” were likely true. Please straighten me out on this topic. RESPONSE: I’ll begin with something that I've talked about on the blog several times before literacy in Roman Palestine. The reality is that the vast majority of people then and there could not read or write. This comes as a surprise to many people who have heard the modern myth that all boys in Palestine went to Hebrew school and became literate there. Turns out, that’s not true. This is a rather important [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:19-04:00April 20th, 2021|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

How Could Christ Be Both God and a Human — At Once? The Unusual View of Origen

In this long thread on the Trinity I have been trying to explain how Christians came to the view that Jesus was God but that he was separate from God the Father – that both were God, but they were two different persons, and yet there was only one God. I will have far less to say about the Spirit, since he/she/it got added to the mix more or less because Christ was already in it, as we will see. So far I have taken us up to the early third century, where one view had come to be widely rejected even though earlier it had been prominent: that Jesus actually *was* God the Father, come in the flesh (often called “modalism”). Now I want to look at a more sophisticated way of understanding the relationship of Christ to the Father. This one comes in the writings of Origen, one of the truly important Christian thinkers of the first three Christian centuries. Origen came from Alexandria and was exceptionally learned and unbelievably prolific. According to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:20-04:00April 18th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

Nope Jesus is Not Yahweh
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Nope Jesus is Not Yahweh

Early Christian Doctrine, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Nope Jesus is Not Yahweh

In my last post, I pointed out that some conservative evangelical Christians (maybe others? These are the ones I know about) claim that Jesus, in the Bible, is actually to be understood as Yahweh. Jesus is not Yahweh, and in this post, I want to explain why. Again, if someone knows better than I do, let me know. But I’ve never even heard the claim (let alone a discussion of it) until very recently. I wonder if there are any early Christian theologians who have this view. Or even later ones, prior to recent times? It is not the view of traditional Christian theology, at least as I learned it once upon a time. It was certainly not the view of the earliest Christians and is not a view set forth in the Bible. The Bible, of course, does not have the Trinity, but when Christianity formulated the doctrine of the trinity, the Father was Yahweh, and Christ was his son. At least that’s what Christians who read their Old Testament said. Of course, the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:19-04:00April 17th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Paul’s Community at Corinth

By far Paul's fullest discussion of the Spirit in the life of the Christian community comes to us in 1 Corinthians 12-14. To make sense of that discussion, I need to say something about the letter of 1 Corinthians in general, and the community to which it is addressed. Here is the introduction to the letter I give in my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford University Press): **************************** Corinth was a large and prosperous city south of Thessalonica, in the Roman province of Achaia, of which it was the capital. Located on the isthmus dividing the northern and southern parts of modern-day Greece, it was a major center of trade and communication, served by two major ports within walking distance. The city was destroyed in 146 b.c.e. by the Romans but was refounded a century later as a Roman colony. In Paul’s time, it was a cosmopolitan place, the home of a wide range of religious and philosophical movements. Corinth is perhaps best remembered today [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:49-04:00April 16th, 2021|Public Forum|

Is Jesus Yahweh?

Increasingly over the past couple of years I have heard people say that Christians think that Jesus is Yahweh. I suppose some do (in fact I’ve come to learn that some absolutely do). But I don’t think that’s what Christians have typically though over the years/centuries. I’ll be devoting two posts to the matter. First some background. In the Hebrew Bible, there are various ways authors refer to God, just as people today speaking English might say God, the Almighty, the Creator, The Sovereign of all, The Lord God Almighty, or if you’re into 60s and 70s theology, the Ultimate Ground of our being – all to refer to the same divine entity. In Hebrew the basic term for “God” is “El” or “Elohim.” The latter is the plural and is the much more common term. It is much debated why the plural is used; no Jewish or critical Christian scholar, I should stress, thinks that it is because ancient Israelites thought of God as a trinity. More likely it is a plural of majesty, elevating [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:19-04:00April 15th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

How Yahweh of the Israelites Became God of All: Platinum Guest Post by Dan Kohanski

I am pleased to be able to post a guest post by Platinum member Dan Kohanski. As you can see from the title, it's an intriguing and, well, rather world-shattering/history-changing topic! Please feel free to make comments: the post is for and to Platinum members only. And if you have a post you want to submit, send it along! It can be on any topic related to what we do on the blog. **************************** The early Israelites were polytheists — worshippers of many gods — just as all the nations of the Ancient Near East were, though their pantheon may have been smaller than some. We know of El, Yahweh, Astarte (Asherah), and Baal for certain. Possibly the oldest god in the Israelite pantheon was El — the very name "Israel" can be translated as "he who strives with (the god) El."[1] Belief in the god Yahweh — who would eventually become the only god of the Israelites — may have originated in Edom or Seir to the southeast of Canaan. Sometime early on, El [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:34-04:00April 14th, 2021|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

Two More Live Lectures this Sunday!

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BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:34-04:00April 14th, 2021|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Jews and Christians in Antiquity|

Fifty Ways to Forge a Gospel

You may already know New Testament scholar and blog member James McGrath. James is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, with many academic interests similar to mine. Six years ago we were both at a conference at York University (Toronto) that was dealing with ancient Christian apocrypha. I gave a talk on pseudepigraphy in the antiquity, in which I argued that it was not an acceptable practice to write a text claiming to be a famous person (when you were someone else). In the modern world we call that a "forgery"; I argued that in the ancient world they also used negative terms for it and consistently disparaged the practice (contrary to what you often hear). After my talk, James happened to be sitting across from me, and he suggested that one could write a (Paul Simon imitation) song "Fifty Ways to Forge a Gospel." I laughed and didn't think he was serious. He was. And he did. And now he's not [...]

admin2025-07-16T17:36:02-04:00April 14th, 2021|Public Forum|

Was Marcion a Gnostic?

A number of readers have asked the same question based on my posts on Marcion: Was Marcion a Gnostic? Here’s one reader’s way of asking it, and my response. QUESTION: Marcion’s “previously unknown God” of Jesus vs Israel’s creator sounds a bit like some of the gnostic beliefs, particularly Jesus coming from the realm of Barbelo in the gospel of Judas. Was Marion an early Christian Gnostic? RESPONSE: Marcion was sometimes considered a Gnostic by ancient heresiologists (“heresy-hunters”), such as Irenaeus; and in modern times scholars used to consider him a Gnostic, or at least Gnostic-like. And one can see why. Like Gnostics, Marcion had more than one God, the Creator was not good, and part of the goal of the religion was to escape his clutches. But there are a lot more differences than similarities between them; the differences are so numerous and deep, that scholars simply don’t think of Marcion as a Gnostic these days. Was Marcion a Gnostic? I won’t review Marcion’s teachings at length here: for more information see these earlier [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:19-04:00April 13th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

The Earliest Views of the Trinity (Long after the New Testament)

In the previous post we saw how two important church fathers attacked the “modalist” view of the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, which claimed they were *one* person who relates to creation and humans in three different ways, with three modes of existence. God is both the Father of the Son and the Son of the Father. Depending on how old you are, you may remember the song, “I’m My Own Grandpa.” (If not, look it up; it’s a scream.) As in the song, it gets confusing. This modalist view came to be rejected by the likes of Hippolytus of Rome and Tertullian of Carthage. But what did they put in its place? How did *they* understand the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit, if they wanted to insist that all three were God but there was only one God? Enter the doctrine of the Trinity. These relatively early thinkers did not have the fully developed view of the Trinity that came later, as we will see. But [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:19-04:00April 11th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

How Can the Father and the Son Be the SAME? Can Your Father Also Be Your Son?

In my previous post I summarized the view that God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit were actually one and the same – that they were three ways of God relating to the creation and the people who inhabit it – just as I am only one person but am both a father and a son and a brother, depending on whom I am relating to. That view has been given various names among historians of theology; here I am calling it “modalist” – God is one person who has three different modes of existence and ways of relating. Here I continue by discussing how the view came to be attacked by others. Again, this is based on the fuller discussion in my book How Jesus Became God. The attackers were fighting an uphill battle. As we have seen that the view was widely accepted at the end of the second and beginning of the third, even though it came to be rejected as a heresy. Two of the main opponents [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:18-04:00April 10th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

Are God and Christ the SAME Person?

In this thread on where the Trinity came from, I have been focusing on early Christology – the understandings of who Christ was. My reason for that is simple. The issue of the Trinity arose only because Christians said more than one being was God but that there was only one God. The “other” being at the outset, of course, was Christ. After his death his followers called him God. The Trinity doctrine, as I will now start to explain in greater detail, emerged by the problems that then arose: two beings who are God, but only one God. I will be getting to the Spirit later, but frankly there is not as much to say there. First I need to keep going on the idea of Jesus being God and God being God. The question that naturally arose among the Christians was how that could be the case: how could *BOTH* of them be God? In what sense? That’s an issue I dealt with in my book How Jesus Became God. Here I’ll provide some of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:18-04:00April 8th, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Heresy and Orthodoxy|

Two Live Lectures This Sunday, On Hot Topics

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BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:34-04:00April 7th, 2021|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

The Importance of What Is Lost: Paul’s Letters

In a previous post I began to answer the question of which lost books of early Christianity I would most like to have discovered, and I started my answer with the earliest writings of which we are familiar, the letters of Paul, most of which (presumably) have been lost. I would love for us to find some of them. I doubt if we ever will, but who knows? Maybe someone will announce that one is to be published later this year! Seriously, we would all love to have more letters from Paul, and not merely for sentimental reasons (Oh, wouldn’t that be *nice*?). Paul is without a doubt the most important figure in the Christian tradition next to Jesus himself. His writings have served as a basis for Christian ethical and theological thought for centuries. And yet we know so little about what he thought and taught. When people read Paul’s letters, they frequently neglect to realize that these are all “occasional” writings. By that I do not mean that Paul occasionally wrote letters, but [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:18-04:00April 7th, 2021|Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

When Belief Dies Guest Post by Sam Devis!
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When Belief Dies Guest Post by Sam Devis!

Public Forum

When Belief Dies Guest Post by Sam Devis!

My previous post was an interview with Sam Devis for his podcast "When Belief Dies." Sam is an active volunteer on the blog and has an interesting background. I thought it would be interesting to have him write up an explanation of why he does this podcast, where it comes from, and how he personally relates to it. As you can no doubt guess, he is indeed one for whom belief has died. Here is what he has to say: Sam Devis: When Belief Dies Bart has asked me to share a bit of my story in the hope that it casts a useful light on what I post on my blog, and why I started my podcast ‘When Belief Dies’. Essentially, I want to have honest conversations on faith, religion, and life. It kind of seems ironic to me that I am going to do this, as I am not sure I know ‘who I am’ most of the time. I will do my best to tell my story well. I was raised in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:18-04:00April 6th, 2021|Public Forum|

Did the Disciples See Jesus Raised from the Dead?

On this Easter Sunday I would like to explain what I think led to the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead. A lot of readers over the years have not liked my answer (readers on wide ends of the spectrum): I think some (a few) of the disciples had visions of Jesus. That is, they saw him, or thought they saw him -- which for them would have been the same thing. I dealt with the matter in my book God's Problem, and responded to a question on the blog about it a long time ago. Here it is. QUESTION: 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 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:04-04:00April 4th, 2021|Book Discussions, Historical Jesus|

How The Afterlife Changed After Jesus’ Life

Easter celebrates the greatest irony of the Christian religion: those who worship Jesus do not believe what he taught but what his followers taught about him after his death. That is especially true about one key question the Christian faith addresses: what does it mean to be saved after we die? Around the world today, billions of Christians believe that Jesus died and then on Easter, was raised from the dead and taken up to heaven to live with God. As a corollary, they believe that when they die, they too will go to live with God. That is not at all what Jesus thought. Jesus did not believe a person’s soul would live on after death, either to experience bliss in the presence of God above, or to be tormented for sins in the fires of hell below. Jesus did not believe the soul would go anywhere after death. As a Jew of the first century he did not think the soul could exist outside the body. Christians two thousand years later do not [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:18-04:00April 3rd, 2021|Early Christian Doctrine, Historical Jesus|

A Probing Interview on “When Belief Dies Podcast”

One of the readers for the audio versions of my daily blog posts is Sam Devis, who also runs a podcast called "When Belief Dies," dealing with lots of intriguing issues connected with "faith, religion, and life." Check out the podcast site (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/when-belief-dies/id1516058806) ; he's had some terrific guests on, and is an extremely thoughtful interviewer. Sam asked me to do an interview, and I thought that the questions and issues were particularly penetrating. See what you think. Here it is.

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:05-04:00April 1st, 2021|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum|

Were Jesus and Christ Two Different Beings?

As we have seen, the New Testament in places seems to indicate that of Christ was a human being who, in some sense, had been adopted by God and so made into the Son of God, a divine being. There were groups of Christians who continued to believe that for centuries. (Some still do!) Others had an opposite view, that Christ was completely God, so much so that he was not actually ever a full flesh-and-blood human being. There were lots of variations within these views, and there were other views as well, including one I call “separationism.” A separationist view is especially prominent among certain groups of early Christian Gnostics. (For a basic introduction to what Gnostics were all about, check out the lecture in the previous post OR do a word search for “Gnosticism” on the blog). Here is what I say about separationist Christologies view in my book How Jesus Became God, using as an example one of the most fascinating Gnostic writings to come down to us from antiquity, The Coptic [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:05-04:00March 31st, 2021|Christian Apocrypha, Early Christian Doctrine, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

What Is Gnosticism? A Video Introduction

I am in the midst of a thread describing different views of Christ found among early Christian groups of the second century: some Christians thought Jesus was human but not divine; others that he was divine but not human; others (the side that ended up winning the debates) that he was somehow both (that may seem common sense today, but it did not to many of Jesus' followers in the second century!). I haven't begun yet to describe how that final view came about, and before doing so I need to explain a view different from all of these, one that maintained that Jesus Christ was actually *two* beings: one human and the other divine -- distinct from one another, but temporarily united for Jesus' ministry. It's unusual, and not a view you find in a lot of pews these days. To make sense of how the view worked and why people held it, I have to put it in a broader context. There were a number of Christian groups who held the view, most [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:18-04:00March 30th, 2021|Heresy and Orthodoxy|

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