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Galatians: For Further Reading

Here is an list of readings on Galatians, most of the books relevant to all the undisputed Pauline epistles, with a couple of commentaries specifically on Galatians.  One benefit of serious commentaries is that they always begin by discussing major critical issues in understanding a book: authorship, date, historical context, major themes, disputed issues, and so on. I devote a fuller discussion of Galatians in my textbook, Bart Ehrman and Hugo Mendez, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2024), ch. 20.  That’s a good place to start for a fuller exposition of what I have given here in my nutshell posts.  If you have an earlier edition of the book, it will be pretty much the same, except for the expanded bibliography. Here is an annotated bibliography of books that will deal with Galatians  ****************************** Aune, David. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987. Includes a superb discussion of the practices of letter writing in Greco-Roman antiquity as the social context [...]

2025-04-23T15:31:08-04:00April 23rd, 2025|Public Forum|

Interpolations and Textual Variants in the New Testament

In my previous post I indicated that among the five letters that may have been cut and pasted together to make up 2 Corinthians is one that some scholars suspect Paul did not write.  If not, how did it get in 2 Corinthians with fragments of letters he did write? To remind you: this is what I said about it there: The paragraph found in 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 seems odd in its context. The verse immediately preceding it (2 Corinthians 6:13) urges the Corinthians to be open to Paul, as does the verse immediately following it (7:2). But the paragraph itself is on an entirely different and unannounced topic: Christians should not associate with nonbelievers. Moreover, there are aspects of this passage that appear unlike anything Paul himself says anywhere else in his writings. Nowhere else, for example, does he call the Devil “Beliar” (v. 15). Has this passage come from some other piece of correspondence (possibly one that Paul didn’t write) and been inserted in the midst of Paul’s warm admonition to [...]

2 Corinthians: For Further Reading

This annotated list of readings on 2 Corinthians will look very familiar to those of you who have looked carefully at the list for 1 Corinthians I gave earlier.  That is because many books deal with both together, either on their own or as a part of a broader discussion of Paul and his letters. I devote a fuller discussion of 2 Corinthians in my textbook, Bart Ehrman and Hugo Mendez, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2024), ch. 20.  That’s a good place to start for a fuller exposition of what I have given here in my nutshell posts.  If you have an earlier edition of the book, it will be pretty much the same, except for the expanded bibliography. Here is an annotated bibliography of books that will deal with 2 Corinthians.  ****************************** Aune, David. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987. Includes a superb discussion of the practices of letter writing in Greco-Roman antiquity as the social context for Paul’s [...]

2025-04-17T23:23:41-04:00April 15th, 2025|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

2 Corinthians in a Nutshell

In this series of posts have been summarizing each book of the New Testament, in canonical sequence, “in a nutshell.”  I have now come to 2 Corinthians, a book less-frequently read and known than 1 Corinthians. Have you read it?  Do you know it?  If so, try to give a summary of it, in one sentence of fifty words.  Here’s my attempt.   In 2 Corinthians Paul explores the history of his checkered relationship with the church in Corinth, recounting both his gratitude that they have turned back to him in friendship and loyalty after earlier having rejected him, and severely upbraiding them for questioning his apostolic authority and following other “super apostles.”   Now I will try to unpack the letter at greater, though still nutshell, length. ****************************** One of the great values of 2 Corinthians is that it allows us to trace in some detail the relationship Paul had over a period of time with his converts who made up the church in Corinth.  The book was written after 1 [...]

2025-04-08T11:23:42-04:00April 12th, 2025|Public Forum|

Questions on Jesus’ Eschatology, Mark’s Accuracy, and Why Genre Matters

Here are some questions I've recently received from blog readers on various intriguing topics, and my responses. QUESTION: Thanks for the extremely helpful distinction between apocalypticism and eschatology. I would appreciate clarification on another distinction, namely the distinction between “consistent” eschatology and the “realized” eschatology promoted by C.H. Dodd. If I understand correctly, the “consistent” eschatology of Schweitzer argues that Jesus’s teaching consistently refers to the Kingdom of God being something that was coming in the future, at the end of time. This contrasts to “realized” eschatology, in which Jesus is understood as saying that the Kingdom of God has been fully realized in the present, through Jesus’s person and ministry, and that no future expectation is required. Am I correct in this understanding? If my understanding is correct, would you agree that the realized eschatology argument seems to be a case of “special pleading,” invoked because the proponents of it don’t like the idea of Jesus getting his apocalyptic eschatology so desperately wrong?! I mean, if many Jewish people at the time of Jesus [...]

2025-04-08T11:14:23-04:00April 10th, 2025|Public Forum|

One of the Most Misunderstood Verses of Paul: Flesh and Blood Will Not Inherit the Kingdom

Now that I've discussed the major themes and emphases of 1 Corinthians, explained when and why Paul wrote it, and given some bibliography to check out if you decided to dig deeper, I'd like to explain the one passage of 1 Corinthians I get asked about more frequently than any other. It involves Paul's view of the future resurrection of the dead.  I have repeatedly stated on the blog that Paul believed that ultimate salvation did not entail dying and your soul going to heaven or hell or any other kind of purely "spiritual" existence, but an actual bodily resurrection that, for the saved, would lead to a bodily existence for all time in the presence of God. How is *that* supposed to work?  And didn’t he say that “flesh and blood” would NOT inherit the kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:50)?  Here I explain how Paul understood it was all to happen. This is taken (slightly edited) from my fuller discussion in my book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, 2020). [...]

2025-04-08T11:08:42-04:00April 9th, 2025|Public Forum|

1 Corinthians: For Further Reading

Since Paul’s letter of 1 Corinthians is so central to the modern study of Paul, most of the scholarly books written about Paul for general audiences will either deal directly with it or be in part based on it. I devote a fuller discussion of 1 Corinthians in my textbook, Bart Ehrman and Hugo Mendez, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2024), ch. 20.  That’s a good place to start for a fuller exposition of what I have given here in my nutshell posts.  If you have an earlier edition of the book, it will be pretty much the same, except for the expanded bibliography. Here is an annotated bibliography of books that will deal with 1 Corinthians, most of them as part of their overall discussion of Paul and his letters.  For direct discussion of 1 Corinthians in particular, see especially the book by Dale Martin (The Corinthian Body) and the two commentaries.  ****************************** Aune, David. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. [...]

2025-04-08T10:58:19-04:00April 8th, 2025|Public Forum|

Do We Have the Lord’s Supper All Wrong? Platinum Post by Douglas Wadeson MD

  Scholars debate whether the apostle Paul invented the Lord’s Supper (aka the Eucharist or Communion) or merely inherited it from earlier disciples.  Here is what he says: For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 Our earliest gospel Mark has Jesus saying, “Take it; this is My body…This is My blood of the covenant…” Mark 14:22, 24 Now, whether Paul was saying that he received this directly from Jesus or merely that it was [...]

2025-04-07T10:21:59-04:00April 7th, 2025|Public Forum|

Help Shape the Future of the Blog!

I have a special request to make of all members of the blog. It won’t cost you a dime, but could help bring in thousands. It involves a bit of participation on your end that should be simple but fruitful. Can you help? Here’s the deal. Those of us who produce the blog (Jen, the whole team of volunteers, and I) are very excited that we are moving into its next phase. The blog has done amazing things till now, as you know: over $3 million raised over its lifetime, $580,000 just this past year. Greater things are ahead, as it just gets better and better. We are confident of that because, as you may also know, we have hired an impressive development team, DesignHammer, to create a new, better, and more creative Blog platform that will allow us to accomplish a lot more and a lot more efficiently. The basics of the blog will be the same – I’ll post 5-6 times a week, members at the silver, gold, or platinum levels will be [...]

2025-04-08T10:50:37-04:00April 4th, 2025|Public Forum|

April 2025 Gold Q&A

Dear Gold & Platinum Members, It’s that time again—your monthly Gold (and Platinum!) member perk: our exclusive Q&A session. You send in the questions—on anything connected to the blog’s focus on early Christianity—and Bart will answer as many as he can in an exclusive hour-long recording. This month’s session will be recorded live on Easter Sunday, April 20 at 2pm Eastern.Can't make it live? The recording will be sent out to all Gold and Platinum members shortly afterward. Yes, Easter Sunday. What better day to explore the history behind the traditions, stories, and texts that shaped it? If you’ve got a question, send it along to our CEO, Jen Olmos, at [email protected] by end of day Thursday, April 17 (whatever time zone you’re in is fine). Zoom link for this session: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84608863838?pwd=ZldMQms81Obf5aMyLu1TwV4NndkbwT.1 Meeting ID: 846 0886 3838 Passcode: 017087 Remember, short, to-the-point questions work best. Questions that are just 1–2 sentences will be given priority Looking forward to another thoughtful round of Q&A.

2025-04-01T15:25:10-04:00April 1st, 2025|Public Forum|

Guest Post by Dr. Paul Fredriksen Part III: The Conversions of “Christianity”

  This is the third and, alas, final post by Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita, at Boston University, on her new book Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years. As you'll see, it is smart, interesting, and accessible.  You can find it most anywhere you buy books. ****************************** Why should it matter, to have a historical grasp of the origins and development of early  Christianities?   For those of us who value history, the answer is obvious: better to have a clear vision of  the past rather than a blurry one. But because we still live with the consequences of events that  happened in the first through fifth centuries, I think that a more adequate understanding of that  past matters. Having a clearer sense of what those events were and were about gives us some  critical purchase on where we find ourselves, now.  Eusebius gave us our first history of the church. The traditional story, hung from his  scaffolding, is still familiar. Jesus, said Eusebius, inaugurated a new religion separate from [...]

2025-04-08T10:42:09-04:00April 1st, 2025|Public Forum|

Guest Post by Dr. Paula Fredriksen Part II: The Politics of Piety

Here now is the second post by Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita, at Boston University, on her new book Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years. As you'll see, it is smart, interesting, and accessible.  You can find it most anywhere you buy books. ****************************** It’s an awkward fact, for those of us who have advanced degrees in the study of ancient  religion, that antiquity had no word for, and arguably no concept of, “religion.” Religio in Latin  meant something like “obligation” or “reverence.” Our modern definition of religion rests on a  foundation set in the Enlightenment. Religion, now, indexes conviction, the intellectual assent  and psychological and emotional commitment to a proposition: one believes “sincerely” or  “strongly.” Distinguished from the secular world, religion is embodied in doctrine-defined  institutions, which one can move into or out of. For all these reasons, modern religion rests  preeminently in the domain of the individual. If we reconfigure our definition to mean “relations between gods and humans,” a stark  contrast jumps out: ancient “religion” was [...]

2025-04-08T10:33:42-04:00March 30th, 2025|Public Forum|

Guest Post by Dr. Paula Fredriksen Part I: Ancient Christianities: Multiplicity, Messy Origins, and “Monotheism” 

I was very excited when I learned that Paula Fredriksen, one of top scholars of early Christianity of our generation, was producing an introduction to the development of Christianity over its first five-hundred years.  I frequently get asked by reader where they can go for an competent and readable overview of the major issues, and, well, there simply has not been a single source to suggest.  Her book came out a few months ago, and it has lived up to its billing.  It's called Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years, and you can get it most anywhere. I've asked Paula to give us some sense of the book, and she has graciously provided three posts on it.  Here is the first.  As you'll see, it is intriguing and not what many readers will expect! ****************************** People often speak of “the triumph of Christianity” as if “Christianity” were one single,  uniform thing from the mission of Jesus on through to the conversion of Constantine – and,  indeed, on into our own day. They see Jesus and [...]

2025-04-08T10:32:16-04:00March 29th, 2025|Public Forum|

Paul’s Letter to the Romans: For Further Reading

Since Paul’s letter to the Romans is so central to the modern study of Paul, most of the scholarly books written about Paul for general audiences will either deal directly with it or be in part based on it.  For a list of some of the best of those, see my previous post (“The Life and Letters of Paul: For Further Reading” (March 16, 2025). I devote a full chapter to Romans in my textbook, Bart Ehrman and Hugo Mendez, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2024), ch. 21.  That’s a good place to start for a fuller exposition of what I have given here in my nutshell posts.  If you have an earlier edition of the book, it will be pretty much the same, except for the expanded bibliography. Here is bibliography based on my seventh and eight editions (combined) of my book: Books about Romans Donfried, Karl P., ed. The Romans Debate, 2nd ed. Peabody, MA: Hendrikson, 1991. A collection [...]

2025-03-24T10:40:29-04:00March 25th, 2025|Public Forum|

Will I See Fido in Heaven? Webinar on the Afterlife of Animals with Me and Barbara Ambros

In case you missed the announcement, I'm doing a one-hour webinar on whether your beloved pet will be joining you in the heavenly realm  when you've both passed of your respective mortal coils.  It's this Sunday, March 23, 1:00, remote.   All info below. It's a fundraiser for my department, to help grad students in their programs to be trained as researchers and teachers.  A worthy cause!  The Robert Miller Fund is one that I myself started some years ago, to provide assistance for grad students needing to present papers at conferences and similar needs.  It's an increasingly important cause for those of us committed the spread of knowledge about religion in the generation to come. Here's the fuller announcement (with video).   Register: https://unc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9Oxg0DBJQ_2WiyHKO7Elsw Donate: https://give.unc.edu/donate?f=105550&p=aasf https://vimeo.com/1063322255/1f0e8c4faa?share=copy Will I See Fido in Heaven? The Afterlife of Animals in Buddhism and Christianity Do our pets go to heaven? Do they have souls? Can we talk about the salvation of a pet? What about reincarnation, can our pets come back as other animals, or even as people? This [...]

2025-03-20T18:00:12-04:00March 21st, 2025|Public Forum|

A Major Milestone on the Blog! $3 Million Donated to Charity!!

We have just passed a major milestone on the blog in its efforts to raise money for charity, and I’d like us all to celebrate it!  (See the Press Release we have just sent out, at the end of this post)  As of this week, for the life of the blog, we have distributed over $3,000,000 (that would be three million dollars!) to our charities helping those I need..  Whoa.  Who woulda thought? I certainly never did.  For those of you who don’t know or at least remember, I started this little venture in April 2012.  At the time, I had no interest in a blog, no desire to do one, and, actually, little idea about what a blog was.  Sounded like an ink stain or swamp or … who knows.  OK, I did know it was something tech-savvy people did, but that was about it.  I had other things to keep me busy. Then out of the blue, a friend, over late night drinks, suggested I do one.  I had an immediate response:  no [...]

2025-03-19T10:23:53-04:00March 20th, 2025|Public Forum|

New Course Announcement: The Other Doubting Thomases

I'm very excited to announce that I will be doing a new course on April 6, on the resurrection narratives of the New Testament, called "The Other Doubting Thomases: Did Jesus's Disciples All Believe in the Resurrection?" The course is not connected to the blog, but may well be of interest to all you blog members!  For more information and registration, go to https://www.bartehrman.com/the-other-doubting-thomases/   Early bird pricing goes till March 23, and note: you can get a blog discount by using the code BLOG 5 Of course everyone assumes the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus did believe in the resurrection, and the New Testament certainly says so in places.  But there are other passages that raise significant questions, that to my knowledge are almost never considered by scholars let alone other readers.  Why is it that even in the passages that describe Jesus' resurrection -- nearly all of them in the Gospels and Acts -- we are told that some of the disciples "doubted."  What was there to doubt?  Especially if Jesus was right in [...]

2025-03-20T22:39:55-04:00March 19th, 2025|Public Forum|

Interested in Visiting the Greek Islands with Me? Spots Still Available!

  In case you didn't catch this the first time, I'd like to invite anyone who is interested and able to come with me on an amazing trip this summer, in just two months. Space is  limited – so if you’re interested, check out the brochure I provide below at the bottom of the post. It will give you all the details you would need to know, and I’m happy to address any questions you have. Here is what I say about the trip in the description. ************************* The Greek Islands are some of my favorite places on earth. I’ve been on a number of occasions, and this Thalassa Journey is taking me there again. Wanna come with me? We will be island-hopping to some of the most scenic sites in the world – stunningly gorgeous landscapes and seascapes, incredibly beautiful villages and towns, museums, monasteries, churches, and archaeological sites: some of the oldest remnants of western civilization. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this trip. Some of the places we’ll be [...]

2025-03-18T07:44:56-04:00March 18th, 2025|Public Forum|

The Life of Paul in a Nutshell

Now that I have provided an overview of the significance of Paul and his letters (my previous post) I can summarize what we can know about his life.  I begin by trying to give a fifty-word version: Paul, originally a zealous Greek-speaking Jew, vigorously opposed early Christians before having a vision of the resurrected Jesus that convinced him that the crucifixion was God’s plan of salvation for both Jew and gentile, leading him to spread his law-free gospel to gentiles in major urban areas of the Mediterranean. Now I can provide a fuller summary of what we can know of Paul’s life. We are fortunate that it is so well documented, with a biographical account in the book of Acts and a collection of seven letters that he himself wrote, in which he occasionally mentions aspects of his past. But there are major difficulties as well.  Because the key aspects of his life were already known among his converts in the churches he founded, in his letters he refers to it only [...]

2025-03-12T10:03:27-04:00March 15th, 2025|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

Personal Update: My Book on the Ethics of Jesus

I am happy to report that I have now, finally, finished my manuscript on the ethics of Jesus and have sent it in to my editor for her to peruse and suggest edits.  Phew!!  This one seems to have been a “Slow Train Coming.”  Huge relief. I’ve changed the title I’ve been giving it for the past couple of years.  I very much liked what I had: “The Origins of Altruism: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West,” but my editors in the end weren’t thrilled with it.  They liked the subtitle, but didn’t think the title was catchy enough.  I disagreed, but eventually (kicking and screaming) came to see their point.  I’d always felt like I’d have to defend it anyway – since the book is emphatic that Jesus did NOT invent altruism!!  But that was part of the catch, I thought.  In any event, even though a lot of people liked it, others were ambivalent. So I’ve changed it.  So far the editors like the new title, but [...]

2025-03-07T11:29:22-05:00March 12th, 2025|Public Forum|
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