What exactly is the New Testament? If someone standing behind you in a long line in the grocery store should lean over and out of the blue ask:  “Hey, can you tell me what the New Testament is”, what would you say? (This happens to you every day, right?)  This person wants it in one sentence.  Well – come up with something.  What would you say?  (Try to formulate something before reading any further.) I’m not sure what I would say, but I would have a ton of options in my head, depending on what I thought she wanted really to know and on what kind of mood I was in (probably a foul one, if I’m in a long line).   But among the options, here would be a relatively decent one: “The New Testament is the collection of twenty-seven books thought to be written by the apostles of Jesus that came to be considered Christian Scripture.” If she wants either clarification or more information, I or you could go from there. [...]

In case you didn't see the announcement the first time!  There are still some seats that can be filled for my blog dinner this week in Tampa, if you're interested.  Here is the original post:   I will be in Tampa next week and would like to do a Blog Dinner on Friday, January 17, with any blog members who happen to be around or can, well, get around.  Probably around 6:30 or so for drinks to start (for whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger), and location TBD. You interested?  I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7.   For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest.  Whatever you exgest is free. If you're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment.  Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!    

Most readers of the blog are interested – either passionately, intently, deeply, moderately, or somewhat – in, well, the New Testament.  But many do not actually know much about it as a whole.  You may well be the exception!  But hey, all of you are exceptional. My view is that anyone who claims to be a New Testament aficionado should be familiar with the basic contents of each book and know the essential facts about it – both its major themes / emphases and its basic historical context – when it was written, by whom, and for what reason. On the most basic level, that would mean being able to state what any of the 27 books is about in ONE SENTENCE.  How many of you can summarize the major themes and emphases of the Gospel of Luke in one sentence?  Or, well, 2 Thessalonians?  1 Peter?   Ephesians?  My guess is: very few indeed.  Or how many can explain what we know about the author of any of these books (without looking it up!)? Exactly. [...]

Most of my textbook approaches the New Testament from a historical and traditional literary point of view.  But there are many other approaches that one can take to the Bible or any other writing.  In recent decades other theoretical forms of analysis have developed and fruitfully employed by scholars. I decided to say something about these theoretical approaches in my book so students would be informed about them, even though I do not employ them in the book itself.  Since critical theory is not my long suit, I asked my then graduate student and now Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Tech, Shaily Patel (who is deeply familiar with various kinds of theoretical discourse) to write up a short summary for me. Here is the Excursus she produced, now in the textbook. ******************************   Methods of Ideological Criticism By Shaily Patel So far in this book, we have examined a number of different critical methods for studying the writings of the New Testament, all of them firmly committed to a traditional [...]

In my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (now in the 8th ed., co-authored with Hugo Mendez), another feature I rather like are several "excursuses" on key issues I chose not to deal with in the text itself.  A couple of these were written by other scholars in the field, including this important one on Digital Bibles by my friend and occasional blog-contributor Jeff Siker. Jeff is on the blog, and will be willing to answer any questions you have. ****************************** The changing technology of writing and reading has always played a major role in the transmission and interpretation of the New Testament; from papyrus rolls to parchment codices to Gutenberg’s printing press; and, finally, to our modern digital age. We are still learning how a digital screen, rather than a printed book, affects the way we read and understand. This applies to the Bible more than any other book, since no other has held (and continues to hold) the special place of the Bible within Christian tradition and Western [...]

I will be in Tampa next week and would like to do a Blog Dinner on Friday, January 17, with any blog members who happen to be around or can, well, get around.  Probably around 6:30 or so for drinks to start (for whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger), and location TBD. You interested?  I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7.   For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest.  Whatever you exgest is free. If you're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment.  Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!    

I’ve received a number of interesting and important questions from readers over the past couple of weeks, and would like to devote a couple of posts to airing my answers to everyone.   QUESTION: I have a question for Bart. Every year right before Christmas we get numerous claims that Jesus was a Palestinian or a Palestinian Jew. As far as I know it’s not true but if you have academic evidence it’s true I will change my mind.   RESPONSE: It's a tricky business.  The areas of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea were together renamed "Palestine" in 135 CE.  In Jesus' day they were called by their separate names.  They were not called "Israel."  In two of the Gospels, Jesus is born in Bethlehem of Judea; does that make him a Judean?  Normally yes.  But he is raised and ministers in Galilee. Does that make him a Galilean?  Normally yes.  Today we usually refer to both areas as Israel, as it was originally called.  Should he be called an Israelite?  That term was [...]

Last week, the final two reprints of my favorite "Posts of Christmas Past" reproduced an article I had written over a decade ago for Newsweek about the Christmas stories of the New Testament.  I received a good bit of blow-back from the article itself, from various directions; that led me to write post explaining my views of a broader issue.  Is there anything to appreciate from a narrative that "didn't happen that way" or that we simply don't believe?  Here is what I wrote. ****************************** When the editor at Newsweek asked me if I would be willing to write an article on the birth of Jesus, I was hesitant and wrote him back asking if he was sure he really wanted me to do it.  I told him that I seem to be incapable of writing anything that doesn’t stir up controversy.  It must be in my blood.  Still, he said that they knew about my work and were not afraid of controversy, and they did indeed want an article from me. What’s [...]

2024 has been a remarkable year for the Blog.  We have set a record for the amount of money we raised and donated to our charities; we have hired a highly skilled CEO who has taken charge and already made vast improvements, and we have chosen a design company to come up with a whole new platform (Blog 3) that will revolutionize how we do things. Details to follow.  But first let me say I am especially pleased that we have succeeded in pursuing the original goals of the blog (in some ways, better than ever).    Namely: (1) To spread and propagate real knowledge about the historical Jesus, the New Testament, and the history and literature of Christianity over its first four centuries or so, and in doing so to generate more interest, dispel more ignorance, and encourage more thinking on religious, historical, and literary issues that are of particularly keen interest to the two billion Christians in the world and also of keen interest to the billions of others who are not believers but [...]

The End is Near!  At least the End of 2024…. We are trying very hard to make this the most momentous year of the Blog’s existence (we started in 2012) -- and by that I mean the one that exceeds all others in our primary mission, to raise funds for charities that help those among us who are in desperate need. For the occasoin I want to make a direct end-of-the-year-giving ultimate year-end-appeal, connected with our already-announced Year-End Appeal (Special Webinar Announcement: Ehrman Blog Annual Appeal).  Many of us make a last-day yearly donation somewhere or another (I’m thinkin’… taxes….).  And here in These Last Days I am happy to announce that the Blog has just received a matching grant offer. An anonymous donor has agreed to chip in $5000 if we can match the funds between now and midnight December 31.  All donations will go toward the match.  How's 'bout it?  Can you chip something in, like $5 / $50 / $500 / or, hey, if the powers of the universe move you, $5000? Every [...]

Now that Christmas has ended it is a good time to reflect more broadly on the difference between reading the Christmas story, and in fact, the Bible as a whole, for its religious significance -- which, of course, is how and why most people read it in the first place -- and trying to consider it historically.  Is there any easy way to make the distinction? Here’s how I explain the difference at the at the beginning of my textbook on the Bible, to explain the difference between a theological (or confessional) approach to the Bible and a historical approach. ***************************** EXCURSUS Most of the people who are deeply interested in the Bible in modern American culture are committed Jews or Christians who have been taught that this is a book of sacred texts, Scripture, unlike other books.  For many of these – especially many Christian believers – the Bible is the inspired word of God.  In communities of faith that hold such views, the Bible is usually studied not from a historical perspective by [...]

Here now is the eleventh of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. ****************************** I mentioned in my previous post that in 2012 I was asked to write an article on Newsweek about the Christmas story.  Before it appeared I posted it on the blog; here it is in full (at least as I sent it in to the magazine), in two parts. Here is the first half: This past September, Harvard University professor Karen King unveiled a newly discovered Gospel fragment that she entitled “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”  This wisp of a papyrus has stirred up a hornet’s nest and raised anew questions about what we can know about the historical Jesus of Nazareth, and about whether there are other Gospels outside the New Testament that can contribute valuable information. Few questions could be more timely, here in the season that celebrates Jesus’ birth. The fragment is just a scrap – the size of a credit card – written in Coptic, the language of [...]

Here now is the tenth of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. ****************************** Browsing through holiday-season blogs from previous eras, I came across my first small thread on Christmas from exactly six years ago.  I had forgotten about this.  Some of the material has shown up occasionally in the intervening years, but maybe it’s a good time to repost a bit of it.  Here is the first: an account of what we can, and cannot, know about Jesus’ birth.  Bethlehem?  Virgin?  Date?   Or even … year? I have decided to provide a series of posts related to the stories of Christmas in the New Testament. This first post more or less states some of the basic information that most readers know, but that it’s worth while stressing as a kind of ground clearing exercise. To begin with, we are extremely limited in our sources when it comes to knowing anything at all about the birth of Jesus. In fact, at the end of the [...]

Here now is the ninth of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. This one comes from 2018. ****************************** Let’s explore the key contradiction in the Birth Narratives of Jesus. Several readers have asked about my comment that Matthew and Luke appear to contradict each other in their birth narratives, especially when Matthew indicates that Jesus’ family fled to Egypt after his birth but Luke claims they went straight back to Nazareth, a month later.   I’ve posted on this issue several times over the years on the blog, but maybe a refresher would be helpful for those with questions.  Here is how I explain the matter in my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, slightly edited.  (See especially my final point.) Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels that narrate the events of Jesus’ birth (in both Mark and John, Jesus makes his first appearance as an adult).  What is striking – and what most readers have never noticed – is that the [...]

Here now is the eighth of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. This one is from 2014. ****************************** A few days ago I raised the question of why anyone should think that you have to believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be a Christian.  The reality is, of course, that many Christians do not believe in it, but recognize that it is a story meant to convey an important theological point – a point that could be true whether or not the story happened – that Jesus was uniquely special in this world, not like us other humans, but in some sense the unique Son of God.   Just as the moral of a fairy tale is valid (or not) independent of whether the tale happened, so too with stories like this in the Gospels, whether you choose to call them myths (in a non-derogatory sense), legends, tales, or simply “stories intending to convey a theological truth.” It is interesting, and not often noted, that [...]

Here now is the seventh of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. ****************************** As I’ve indicated, it is only Matthew and Luke that tell the tales of the infancy narrative, and the annual “Christmas Pageant” that so many of us grew up seeing is in fact a conflation of the two accounts, making one mega-account out of two that are so different up and down the line. And so, the Annunciation to Mary is in Luke, the dream of Joseph in Matthew; the shepherds are in Luke, the wise men in Matthew; the trip to Bethlehem is in Luke, the Flight to Egypt is in Matthew, and so forth and so on. You can compare them yourself, up and down the line, and see the differences. In this post I want to focus on Luke’s account. Then I will look at Matthew’s. And then I will compare the two in a couple of key points in order to show that the differences between [...]

Here now is the sixth of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. ****************************** QUESTION: My Bible group had a good time yesterday comparing Matthew's and Luke’s accounts of the Christmas story. One question that came up was why would Matthew relate the story of the Magi?   RESPONSE Ah, it’s a great question and – as it turns out – an important one for understanding the Gospel of Matthew.   The story is found only in this Gospel (But this time of year, who can keep ones mind from jumping to:  “We Three Kings of Orient Are….”), and it is  filled with intriguing conundra. For example, why would pagan astrologers from the East be interested in knowing where the King of Israel was born and come to worship him?  Were they doing this for all babies who were bound to become kings of foreign countries?  How does a star lead them to Jerusalem and then disappear and then reappear and lead the Magi not just [...]