Public Forum Archives - Page 37 of 73 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

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Mark’s Suffering Son of God: A Blast From the Past

In my previous two posts I've pointed out that no one seems to understand who Jesus is in the Gospel of Mark. In this post I want to show how Mark himself understands Jesus. Here is how I discussed the matter several years ago on the blog. ******************************************************************** Jesus The Suffering Son of God Throughout the early portions of Mark's Gospel the reader is given several indications that Jesus will have to die (e.g., 2:20; 3:6). After Peter's confession, however, Jesus begins to be quite explicit about it. Even though he is the Christ, the Son of God -- or rather, because he is -- he must suffer death. Three times Jesus predicts his own impending passion in Jerusalem: he is to be rejected by the Jewish leaders, killed, and then raised from the dead. Strikingly, after each of these "Passion predictions" Mark has placed stories to show that the disciples never do understand what Jesus is talking about. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a member. If you don't belong [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:47:05-04:00November 24th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Jesus in Mark: Who Knew?

In my previous post I pointed out that Jesus' mother (and brothers) don't seem to know who he really is in Mark. This is part of a broader theme distinctive to Mark's Gospel, a theme that is considerably downplayed in the other Gospels (and almost completely done away with in John). Mark wants to emphasize, repeatedly, that no one seemed to understand who Jesus was throughout his entire ministry. Here is what I say on the theme in my textbook on the New Testament, in the chapter on Mark. *************************************************************** Jesus The Misunderstood Son of God One way to establish "misunderstanding" as a Markan theme is to read carefully through the first half of the Gospel and ask, "Who realizes that Jesus is the Son of God?" The answer may come as a bit of a surprise. Clearly God knows that Jesus is his Son, because he himself declares it at the baptism (1:11). And since this declaration comes directly to Jesus ("You are my beloved Son"), the reader can assume that he knows it [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:47:25-04:00November 22nd, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers in Mark

A brief tangent on Mark’s account of Jesus’ rejection in his hometown (Mark 6:1-6), as summarized in my post. As I indicated there, Jesus’ townspeople are incredulous that he can deliver such an impressive address in the synagogue. They ask: “Where did he get such these things? What what is this wisdom that has been given to him? And how can such miracles be worked through his hands? Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Juda and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” In other words: the townsfolk knew of Jesus as an unimpressive member of the community, who worked a day job with his hands (say, a construction worker) – not great miracles (with his hands). And his family was all there. The comments on the family are interesting and have prompted a lot of discussion over the years. To begin with, Jesus is here said to be “the son of Mary.” As frequently noted, that’s a bit odd. Normally ... To read the [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:48:08-04:00November 19th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Jesus Rejected by His Own Townspeople in Mark

I want to show in some depth why I think the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31 does not originally go back to Jesus himself, but is a story that Luke either came up with himself or inherited from the oral tradition. Recall: the rich man feasts sumptuously; Lazarus is impoverished and desperate for the crumbs from the man’s table. They both die. Lazarus is carried by the angels to “Abraham’s bosom” where he is in blessed and satisfied; the rich man is sent off to Hades to be tormented in the flames. When the rich man pleads with Abraham to have Lazarus come and provide him some temporary relief, Abraham indicates it is not possible. When he asks for him to go and warn his five brothers to repent, he is told that there is no point: if the brothers don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen “even if a person is raised from the dead.” The parable is found only in Luke (so it is not [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:48:22-04:00November 17th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Paul’s Exalted Self-Image: The Fulfillment of Ancient Prophecy

I am off today to Boston for a week of various professional activities. Tomorrow morning I will be filming a documentary with an independent film maker on some aspect of the New Testament. After that I’ll be having lunch with about a dozen members of the blog, and then dinner with three or four. Following that, on Friday, I will be giving a talk at the Biblical Archaeology Society FEST (a gathering of interested lay folk to hear lectures by scholars for a couple of days). And then it’s off to my annual professional meeting, with thousands of other biblical scholars from the U.S. and around the world, the Society of Biblical Literature meeting. My talk at the Biblical Archaeology Society will be about Paul and his understanding of his mission. About a year ago I realized something I had never thought of before. Paul actually understood himself, personally, to have been predicted by the prophets of the Old Testament as the fulfillment of God’s plan. Wow. Here is how I have thought about and [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:48:37-04:00November 15th, 2017|Paul and His Letters, Public Forum|

What Is the Original Text of the Gospels?

QUESTION: When it comes to the gospels, how do we define the ‘original text’? Do we define it as the original manuscript that was first penned by the author, or do we define it as the gospels in their most settled canonical form? RESPONSE: As it turns out, this is a complicated and endlessly fascinating question that, so far as I have been able to work out over the past twenty years of thinking about it, has no clear and obvious answer! By way of very simple background for readers not completely on top of the textual situation we are confronting when it comes to the Gospels (or any of the other books of the New Testament) (or of any ancient Christian writings at all) (or, in fact, of any writings of any kind at all that come down to us from antiquity) we do not have the “originals” (however we define that term: see below!). What we have are copies made from copies, which were themselves made from copies. Most of these copies [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:49:05-04:00November 14th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum|

Getting Together and Speaking Gigs

On this post I would like to announce a couple of unusual opportunities for you and me to meet face to face, and to let you know what speaking gigs I’ll be having in the future, as planned so far.. FIRST: I have decided to have a Blog Dinner at a nice restaurant in Durham NC (where I live) with any 3-5 members of the blog who want to come on Thursday December 7. I am keeping the numbers at this level to allow me a chance to talk to everyone there (too large a group and it’s … a large group). It will be organized simply: I’ll book a table and everyone will meet me there. Your only expenses are getting there and paying for your meal. We would talk over the course of drinks and dinner about … anything you’re interested in! Are you interested? This will be strictly first come first served: the first five members to respond are *in*. If there is more interest than that, I may schedule a second [...]

BDEhrman2017-11-12T15:50:10-05:00November 12th, 2017|Public Forum|

Ehrman vs Licona Debate on the Resurrection

On April 16, 2011 I had a kind of radio debate with Mike Licona, a conservative Christian apologist and professor at Houston Baptist University. The venue was the English radio broadcast, "Unbelievable," hosted by moderator Justin Brierley, and the main question under discussion was whether there is "evidence" that Jesus was raised from the dead. Mike had just published his (large) book, called The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach and wanted to talk about it. He is also the author of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. The debate careens among different topics as the conversation escalates into scholarly challenges. Here it is, for your listening pleasure.

BDEhrman2020-04-08T15:27:36-04:00November 10th, 2017|Bart's Debates, Public Forum, Video Media|

Why Do Translators Include Passages They Know Are Not Original?

Based on what I have said about the textual variant of 666 and 616 in the book of Revelation, several readers have asked a distantly related question. Here is how one of them phrased it: QUESTION: If the biblical scholars know with certainty that Mark 16:9-20 and John 7.53-8.11 were added by later scribes, why are they still in the modern bibles, that is, why are they not *completely* removed? I know these verses were removed in the RSV but added back in the NRSV. RESPONSE: This is a great question. On one level it doesn’t make sense. If textual scholars go to all the trouble of trying to figure out what the “original” text of the New Testament was, and they decide that some passages were not originally there in the originals, why do translators (who are often themselves the textual scholars who have made these decisions!) include such passages in their translations? The problem is exacerbated by looking carefully at what translators have done, because strictly speaking they are not consistent. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:49:38-04:00November 8th, 2017|New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum|

666 and Scribal Changes of the Text

I have received a number of queries about my post concerning the recently discovered papyrus P115 which indicates that the number of the Beast (the Antichrist) in Revelation 13 was 616 rather than 666. Some of them I addressed in my post of yesterday. But some readers have inquired about something slightly different: how do discoveries like this affect our translations of the New Testament? Here is one of those questions and my respons. QUESTION: I thought the NIV Bible kept up-to-date with newer papyrus discoveries. Yet, it too shows 666 (and not 616) for REV 13:18. Why might that be? RESPONSE: Ah, good question. When I indicated that the reading 616 is now found in an early manuscript, I did not mean to say that therefore it is more likely to be the reading that the author originally wrote. That is a different question. As is true for a lot of verses in the New Testament, different manuscripts have different wordings for this verse. There are five different forms of the text [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:50:00-04:00November 7th, 2017|New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum, Revelation of John|

More on 666: The Number of the Beast: A Blast from the Past

My post yesterday about manuscripts that give the number of the beast in Rev. 13 as 616 instead of 666 prompted a number of queries. I'll answer a couple of them directly in my next post; but some people emailed me asking me what the number is all about in the first place. I discussed the issue a few years ago on the blog. Here is what I said. ************************************************************* This post will be the culmination of my thread that deals with ancient numerology, especially as it is based on the fact that ancient languages used letters of the alphabets for their numbers, making it possible to add up the numerical equivalent of any word. In this post I will explain how that relates to one of the great mysteries of the Bible, the identification of the Antichrist in the book of Revelation, whose number was 666. Yesterday’s post was meant as background to this brief discussion, and I’d suggest reading it first to make sense of what I’ll say here. I also need to [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:52:20-04:00November 6th, 2017|Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Revelation of John|

Were All Textual Changes Made by Scribes by 300 CE? Readers’ Mailbag November 5, 2017

For today’s Readers’ Mailbag I deal with an interesting and important question about the changes that scribes made in their manuscripts. QUESTION In several of your books you mention that most modifications in the NT manuscripts happened in first 3 centuries. If I’m correct we have no manuscript from 1st century and only few from the 2nd. That means we can say almost nothing about changes during this time. This is however more than half of the “greatest modifications” historical period. RESPONSE This comment is more of a statement than a question, but the question is clearly implied: how do we know (or why do we think) that almost all of the changes in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament as found in later manuscripts were made early in the history of the tradition, in the first three centuries, if we don’t have many manuscripts from that period to prove it? Great question. But with an answer that I think just about every textual scholar agrees with. To begin with: when textual [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-09T13:57:25-04:00November 5th, 2017|Fourth-Century Christianity, New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Did Jesus Mean that Literally? Rewards and Punishments in the Afterlife

I return now to my thread dealing with the teachings about the afterlife in the New Testament. One question that can naturally be asked is whether what is said about the afterlife in this, that, or the other passage is meant to be taken literally. For example, I have discussed the famous passage of the “Sheep and the Goats” in Matthew 25, where the Son of Man at the end of history sits on his throne and divides the nations (or gentiles?) into two groups as a shepherd would separate his sheep and goats. The sheep are given eternal life and the goats are forced to go to eternal punishment. But isn’t this all symbolic? After all, people are said to be farm animals, when in fact people are human. So isn’t the whole thing symbolic? Isn’t it, for example, a kind of parable? I may change my mind on the matter, but my sense at this stage of my thinking is that the passage is not a parable. Here I’ll give several reasons. First [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:52:49-04:00November 3rd, 2017|Afterlife, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Another Translation Project: The Apocryphal Gospels

In my last reposted-post I mentioned that some years after the Apostolic Fathers (after, apparently, I had forgotten all the pain involved), I took on another (very large) translation project, of wider interest to the world at large -- the ancient Gospels that did not make it into the New Testament. Here is how I have described that one, just to finish out the thought. ******************************************************** After having done the Apostolic Fathers in two volumes for the Loeb, I had decided never to do another translation project again. Too hard! But then, forgetting my decision, I thought it would be useful to have a Greek/Latin – English version of the early Christian non-canonical Gospels. And at the urging of the editor at Harvard, submitted a proposal also for the Loeb Classical Library. But the editorial board decided that they did not want to start publishing new editions of Christian texts in the series, since that would detract from its typical focus on Greek and Roman classics. And so I was now interested in a project [...]

BDEhrman2020-11-24T19:22:39-05:00November 1st, 2017|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Public Forum|

The Loeb Apostolic Fathers: The Challenges (Again)

This will be the last of my three blasts from past discussions of my translation of the Apostolic Fathers; in it I explain the difficulties involved in producing a "facing page translation" edition of ancient texts ("facing page" means you have the original language text -- in this case Greek -- on one page and then across from it, on the other page, your English translation) ************************************************************************* To continue my thread about translating the Apostolic Fathers for the Loebs…. So, the editor at Harvard Press, Peg Fulton, asked me if I would be interested in taking on the task of doing a new edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loebs. She wasn’t offering me the opportunity then and there. She was suggesting that I write up a prospectus that she could take to the board of the Loebs, in which I described the need for a new edition and explained how I would go about making one. After I thought about it for a while, and got advice from my friends, I decided to [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:53:25-04:00October 31st, 2017|Book Discussions, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Proto-Orthodox Writers, Public Forum|

The Apostolic Fathers: Serendipity Strikes

In my previous post I blasted from the past about my translation of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classsical Library. That was actually the first of a few posts on the topic, and since I referred to the next ones, I thought I should give them -- at least the one that followed. Here it is. As I point out, in a way it's about how, in a concrete way, life is a series of chances..... ************************************************************** It seems that much that has happened in my professional life has been because of serendipity. Back when I was a believer, we called it Providence. (!) It’s how I got my first job at Rutgers in 1984; how I got my current position at UNC in 1988; how I got asked to write something other than a technical study involving the Greek manuscript tradition of the New Testament – a textbook for undergraduates (in the early 1990s), and thus, in a sense, started my publishing career; how I had my first bestselling book (Misquoting Jesus) become [...]

BDEhrman2021-02-23T01:52:44-05:00October 30th, 2017|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Proto-Orthodox Writers, Public Forum|

Taking the Temperature of the Blog October 2017

It is useful on occasion to step back and take the temperature of the blog, to see how things are going and to consider how they might improve. Do you have suggestions for how to make the blog better and more attractive? What I’m especially interested in are ways to attract more people to join. If you have bright ideas, let me know. I’d say the blog is going extremely well on the whole. What do you think? There seems to be a lot of interaction – I’m getting tons of comments on posts – and membership is staying at a steady state. In terms of numbers, since starting in April 2012, I have made 1616 posts. Now *that* seems like a lot! Because of these large reserves, I am able, about once a week, to post a “blast from the past.” That seems useful to me. Most members now were not reading posts back in 2012 or 2013, and even those who were probably don’t remember these particular posts. Or at least I would [...]

BDEhrman2017-10-29T11:19:17-04:00October 29th, 2017|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Translating the Apostolic Fathers: A Blast from the Past

In my last post I answered a question about whether I would ever publish a translation of the New Testament. (Short answer: almost certainly not!). But I want to take a couple of posts to talk about the work of translation. There is a very big difference between being able to read an ancient text in its ancient language (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Coptic, whatever) and producing a translation of it for publication. You might think that it’s all basically the same thing: if you can read it, you can publish a translation of it. But as it turns out, it’s not that simple. I didn’t realize this for years and years, until I started publishing translations of ancient texts. My first experience was about fifteen years ago now, when I was asked to do a new edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library. Here I’ll give some background on that project and the series it appeared in, and in the next post I’ll talk about the difficulties of producing a translation. FOR [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:53:44-04:00October 27th, 2017|Book Discussions, History of Biblical Scholarship, Proto-Orthodox Writers, Public Forum|

The Sheep and the Goats

Jesus’ teaching about the “separation of the sheep and the goats” is found in only one place in the New Testament, Matthew 25:31-46. It is easily one of my favorite passages of the entire Bible, and as I have pointed out, in my view, it is a teaching of Jesus himself (not something put on his lips by Matthew or by Matthew’s source, M, or by an early Christian story-teller). I think in fact, it well encapsulates Jesus’ entire proclamation. There is a judgment day coming and those who have lived in an upright way, loving others, showing compassion on those in need, helping those in dire straits, will be given an eternal reward; those who fail to live in this way will be severely punished. The passage is sometimes called a “parable,” but I don’t see any strong indication that it is meant to be taken metaphorically. As far as I can tell, it was meant as a literal description of what would happen at the end of this age when the judge of [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:54:02-04:00October 25th, 2017|Afterlife, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Son of Man, Pericopes, and the Complexities of Biblical Scholarship

I realized anew this morning why it is so difficult for scholars of the NT (or the Hebrew Bible) to explain the results of their results of their research to non-scholars. Well, one of the reasons. As is true, I suppose, for most fields of serious intellectual inquiry, the *results* of scholarship are built on other results that are built on other results that are built on… and so it goes. If the scholar explains his findings without explaining the background – the assumptions based on previous findings that are built on the assumptions based on yet previous findings and so on – then it all sounds very arbitrary and rather easily dismissed. That’s why it is so easy for a scholar to give an interpretation of a passage based on a detailed analysis that is itself based on careful research only to have a non-scholar “refute” it simply by quoting a verse from somewhere else. The non-expert simply assumes the scholar doesn’t know about this other verse, or hasn’t thought about it, or taken [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:54:12-04:00October 24th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

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