Public Forum Archives - Page 63 of 72 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Bart’s Public Blog that provides membership samples.

About the Blog: Charities and Improvements

This post is about the blog itself, dealing with the question of which charities it supports (in reply to numerous requests) mentioning several of improvements we have made in response to requests that I have received. First, philanthropy. As I think everyone on the blog knows, all the member fees and all the donations (which you should feel free to begin or continue to make!) go to charity. I don’t keep a dime for myself and I pay for the upkeep, maintenance, and support for the blog (it’s not as cheap as one might imagine….) (or at least as I did) out of my own pocket. But I’m happy to do it – it’s a fantastic cause. Several people have pointed out to me that my *explanation* about the charity aspect of the blog on the Philanthropy page on is fairly pathetic. It doesn’t even indicate which charities the blog supports. That’s a problem. And so it’s time to rectify it. All the moneys collected by the blog go into the Bart Ehrman Foundation, and [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:00:50-05:00March 22nd, 2015|Public Forum|

Quickly on the Blog

This won't be full post, as I'm taking the day off. But I did want to thank everyone who responded to my question about how the blog was going. If you haven't responded yet, feel free to do so! I do want to hear from you. There were two comments that have recurred repeatedly that I want to deal with. Lots of people have expressed a wish that there was a search function for the blog. And, well, there is! If you'll go the upper right side of your screen on any post, you'll see a magnifying glass. Click that. You can search for anything you like. Others have said that they would like a topical catalogue of posts. There is a *rough* one that is indeed always available, as you'll see by going to the Member Landing Page or by clicking on Latest Posts. Topics are broad: Greco-Roman Religions; New Testament Gospels; Paul and Pauline Letters; etc. If you are interested in a different, more specific topic, just search for [...]

BDEhrman2015-03-15T16:05:42-04:00March 15th, 2015|Public Forum|

Taking the Temperature of the Blog

I would like to take a brief pause to take the temperature of the blog and to get some feedback from you about how you think it’s going. There are some general issues and one specific concern. If you’re not interested in responding to the general questions, please do skip to the end, to the specific concern, and weigh in with your opinion. FIRST, THE GENERAL ISSUES. The blog continues to grow and to raise significant money for charity – which, as you know, is its raison d’être. Of course I enjoy communicating information, knowledge, views, theories, opinions, and perspectives on early Christianity – from the historical Jesus to the writings of Paul to the early Gospels to the formation of the New Testament canon to the surviving manuscripts to the early Christian apocrypha to, well, to on and on and on. And for users of the blog, *this* is the ultimate point. I blog, you pay, we donate, and everyone’s happy. But that happiness is rooted in how well the communication is going. And [...]

BDEhrman2015-03-14T12:51:22-04:00March 14th, 2015|Public Forum|

My Debate with Dan Wallace: Is the Original NT Lost?

On February 1st, 2012 I had a public debate with Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary. The event was sponsored by The Ehrman Project, which, despite its name, is something I've never had anything to do with (I believe it is now defunct); it is/was an attempt by conservative Christians to debunk what I have written and taught (and thought, and thought about thinking). We held the event on my turf, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Memorial Hall Performing Arts Theater. It was a large and responsive crowd. As you might expect, I argue that even though we have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament, we do not have many *early* ones -- and hardly any *really* early ones. That is why we can not (always? ever?) know with absolute certainty what the authors of the New Testament originally said. That matters for lots of reasons, one of which is that fundamentalist Christians but their faith in the very words of the Bible. [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:02:39-05:00March 7th, 2015|New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum, Video Media|

On Debating a Fundamentalist

READER COMMENT: I just came across a post by Kyle Butt regarding your debate with him in 2014: http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=4844 He accuses you of “deception” and dishonesty. He says it is not credible that you spent much time writing books and going to debates, if it weren’t for the motive of convincing and persuading people that the Christian God doesn’t exist. He names you as someone who “has done as much or more than any single individual in modern times to destroy the Christian faith of literally thousands of people, young and old alike, across the globe.” RESPONSE: Wow. I didn’t know about Mr. Butt’s post. It is virtually beyond belief. If it weren’t so outrageously funny, I would find it completely outrageous. But look – maybe he doesn’t mean it seriously? I mean, his rhetoric certainly seems serious. But to say that I have “done as much or more than any single individual in modern times to destroy the Christian faith of literally thousands of people, young and old alike, across the globe” – [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:04:43-05:00February 21st, 2015|Bart's Critics, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Debates For A Price

QUESTION: Robert M. Price posted on his FB wall a few weeks ago that he was considering starting a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to debate Ehrman. Looks like things might be going ahead? Ehrman said on 'The Skeptic Fence' podcast a few months back that he'd be OK with debating Price. Reading between the lines, it looks like that they may made some sort of verbal agreement? Dr. Ehrman, are you aware of this challenge?? RESPONSE: Ha! No, I’m afraid we haven’t made any kind of arrangement – Bob hasn’t said anything to me about this. But before pursuing the matter, I should probably provide a little bit of background and context. For those of you who don’t know, Robert Price is a mythicist, one of those small minority of human beings who does not think Jesus actually existed. In their opinion it is not simply that there are lots of myths and legends told about Jesus that are not historical; it is instead that the man himself never lived. This is a [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:06:17-05:00February 14th, 2015|Mythicism, Public Forum|

Three Murders in Chapel Hill

As probably all of you know, we have experienced a heart-wrenching tragedy here in Chapel Hill, as three young, happy, and good Muslim students were murdered on Tuesday, point-blank, in their home. The issue is tangential to the topics I normally deal with on the blog, but I did want to take time out to reflect a bit on what has happened. On Wednesday I did something that I’ve never done before in my 30 years of university teaching. I blew off the lecture for the day and discussed the issue with my class of 240 students – giving them my thoughts about the matter, having one of my teaching assistants, a graduate student who is an expert in Islam, say a few words from his perspective, and, mainly, letting the undergraduate students emote and express their views and concerns and ask questions. For many of the students it was a welcome catharsis. The big issue that is being posed in the newspapers – at least the local ones (less so the national ones, and [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:06:26-05:00February 13th, 2015|Public Forum, Religion in the News|

My UNC Seminar Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be doing an all-day seminar at UNC for the Program in the Humanities and Human Values. This is a terrific organization on campus. Among other things, it puts on weekend seminars -- usually Friday afternoon/evening; Saturday morning -- that involve four faculty lectures on a set topic. Scheduling was such that we decided to put all four lectures on a Saturday this time. I've done these things for 25 years, and love them. *Most* of the time the program chooses a topic and has four different professors from UNC (and occasionally one from Duke or another school nearby) each giving a lecture, and then at the end the four doing a kind of brief panel discussion of each other's papers. For some years now I've not done those, but have done a four-lecture seminar on some topic or other on my own. That will be the case tomorrow. There will be about 130 people there, all adults, many of them senior citizens but younger folk (i.e., my age. Or [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:07:21-05:00February 6th, 2015|Christian Apocrypha, Public Forum|

Talks at the Smithsonian, March 21

My friends at the Biblical Archaeology Society sent this around to some people on their mailing list, announcing my talks on March 21 in Washington DC – talks not for them (the Biblical Archaeology Society) but for the Smithsonian. Here is the announcement, with the blurb and description of the talks. Maybe some of you can come! *********************************************** If you plan to be in Washington DC during March you might try to catch his lectures while you are here. To register for his appearance at the Smithsonian in Washington DC All-Day Seminar Great Controversies in Early Christianity: The Life and Death of Jesus: Saturday, March 21, 2015 - 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. : http://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=230583. If you are a registered member of the Smithsonian the cost is $90.00 else the cost for Gen. Admission will be $130.00. Description of lectures Jesus of Nazareth is perennially in the news. Over the course of the past year, two books about his life and death became No. 1 New York Times bestsellers: Zealot by Reza Aslan and Killing Jesus [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:08:37-05:00January 28th, 2015|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum|

Defending Myself

Several times a week I get emails from people who ask what it’s like to be the subject of such vitriolic attack by those who don’t agree with my views. Or they express regret and sorrow that I am so often or viciously attacked. Or they want me to stand up for myself and reply to my attackers. Almost always, when I get one of these emails, I think to myself: Am I being attacked by someone??? Huh. *That’s* interesting. The reality is that for the most part I’m blissfully unaware of assaults on my views (or character). I suppose that is mainly because I don’t search around on the Internet to see who is saying what about me. I do know that fundamentalists and lots of conservative evangelicals think that if I’m not the devil incarnate, that at least I’m one of his more academic henchmen. And I know that the attacks by these conservative Christians pale in comparison with the attacks by the mythicists, who can’t think I’m an incarnation of Satan since [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T11:10:51-05:00January 11th, 2015|Bart's Critics, Public Forum|

The Blog Year in Review: 2014

And so, we have come to the end of another year. Most of us will spend at least a bit of time just now reflecting on our lives and our past year. I’d like to take a minute to reflect, as well, on the year we’ve had on the blog. My sense is that the blog has been and still is going strong. This past year I have made something like 300 separate posts – so nearly six a week. Almost always these posts are around 1000 words – sometimes more, but rarely less. Most of the posts are written fresh every day, though often I do post something of relevance that I have previously published. I’m starting to find that I want to post on something that I’ve already posted on, but by and large I have resisted the urge. I do think, though, as time goes on, that it won’t matter much if I cover similar ground to what I dealt with, say, two years ago. There are people who join the blog [...]

BDEhrman2014-12-31T18:00:28-05:00December 31st, 2014|Public Forum|

Giving Ideas

This post is about two “Gift Ideas” for this Season of Gifts. First: Holiday Giving! Most of us at this time of year are involved in giving and receiving. And most of us spend a good deal of time scratching our heads trying to figure out what we can give a person – a family member, a friend, a neighbor, a colleague, a boss, a secretary, a baby-sitter, a pet-sitter, a teacher, a golf coach, a knitting club member, a favorite person, a whatever. Here’s an idea. Why not give a gift subscription to the Bart Ehrman Blog? It’s dead easy to do, and odds are, the person doesn’t have one! All you need to do is go to the site at https://ehrmanblog.org/ and on the right side of the screen click on “Gift Subscriptions”. There may be lots of people you can think of who would enjoy having full access to the blog. So give several. Give many. Give many thousands. You’ll make people happy, you’ll make yourself happy, you’ll make me happy, you’ll [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-29T16:39:43-04:00December 14th, 2014|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

Like many of us at this time of year, I am looking at my life and thinking how incredibly thankful I am for all the good things I have: a beautiful, brilliant, humane, and loving wife; a fantastic, interesting, and caring son and daughter; the two best grandchildren the world has ever seen; a teaching position I absolutely love and thrive on; chances to do what I really want to do with my so-called free time – reading and writing; good health; good friends who, like me, love good food, good drink, and good conversation about important things; and, well, lots of other things. When I first became an agnostic, I had a problem with thankfulness. I felt very thankful (though, frankly, times were hard: divorce, money issues, familial and life uncertainties) . But it seemed weird to feel thankful. I had always thought of thankfulness to be something you have *toward* somebody. When you say thank you, you say thank you precisely to someone. But who was I to thank for the good things [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-09T16:08:39-05:00December 12th, 2014|Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Do You Need A Free Membership?

Thanks to the incredible generosity of members of the blog, I am happy to announce that there are a limited number of free one-year memberships available. These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year. I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment. Send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected]. In your email, let me know your situation (why you would like to take advantage of this offer) and provide me with the following information: 1) Your first and last name. 2) Your preferred personal email. 3) Your preferred user name (no spaces). 4) Your preferred password (should be 8 or more characters, no spaces). The donors will remain anonymous, but here let me publicly extend my heartfelt thanks for such [...]

BDEhrman2014-12-06T21:07:07-05:00December 6th, 2014|Public Forum|

Gift Memberships on the Blog 2014

‘Tis the season! It’s hard to believe, but the holidays are upon us again. And I want to open up a holiday giving option that can help out people who really want to be on the blog but cannot afford the membership fees. As many of you know, last year, thanks to a number of generous donors, we pulled this off in a big way. It happened in two stages. Two anonymous donors had provided some funds to pay for memberships for a few people who wanted to be on the blog but because of personal circumstances, could not afford the membership fees. I put out the offer on my Facebook page, asking if anyone was in that boat, and within twenty minutes I had thirty requests –all from people who were eager to join but simply did not have the means to do so otherwise. I had to shut down the offer nearly as soon as I made it. This made me suspect that there were a lot more people out there like [...]

BDEhrman2014-12-06T21:03:49-05:00December 6th, 2014|Public Forum|

Do Textual Variants Really Matter for Anything?

QUESTION: I got the impression (I can’t remember where or if you said this… or if Bruce Metzger said it) that no significant Christian doctrine is threatened by text critical issues… and so, if that is the case, who cares if, in Mark 4: 18, Jesus spoke of the “illusion” of wealth or the “love” of wealth. I mean, who cares other than textual critics and Bible translators? RESPONSE: This is a very good question, and one that I get a lot. I’ve given an answer to it before on the blog, but since it periodically reappears, I thought that maybe I should give it another shot. The first thing to emphasize is a point that I repeatedly make and that many people seem never to notice that I make (especially my fundamentalist friends who very much object to my views about textual criticism): of the many hundreds of thousands of textual variants that we have among our manuscripts, most of them are completely unimportant and insignificant and don’t matter for twit. Why should [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T14:17:54-04:00November 29th, 2014|History of Christianity (100-300CE), New Testament Manuscripts, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Why Don’t You Believe Like Your Teacher, Dr. Metzger?

QUESTION: Dr. Ehrman just out of curiosity, why do people pit you against your teacher Dr. Bruce Metzger? Did Metzger also find the construction of the originals impossible due to the late manuscript attestation and the inability to know what the original looked like? Or did your teacher, Dr. Metzger, disagree and hold to biblical inerrancy? RESPONSE: It’s a very good question and it has a very straightforward answer. The people who do this are all, to my knowledge, conservative evangelical Christians who find it upsetting over two of the things that I say: (1) that I am now no longer a believer because I do not think the Christian faith can adequately explain how a good and powerful God can be in control of this world when there is so much senseless pain, misery, and suffering in it and, completely unrelatedly (2) that since we do not have lots of early manuscripts of the New Testament (let alone the originals) there are places where we cannot know for sure what the authors originally wrote. [...]

BDEhrman2022-06-12T20:09:38-04:00November 23rd, 2014|Bart’s Biography, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

The Year’s Society of Biblical Literature Meeting

This coming week, on Thursday, I head off to the annual Society of Biblical Literature, which this year is being held in San Diego. I’m not sure if I’ve discussed the meeting on the blog before. It is the main professional meeting that I go to every year; it’s always held the weekend before Thanksgiving (well, Saturday through Tuesday). I go on Thursday evenings because I always have a commitment there first thing Friday morning. The SBL is a learned society for all professors of biblical studies – and graduate students and others academically committed to the field. It’s not a really a conference that layfolk would or should be interested in. It is a group of serious scholars talking serious scholarship using serious scholarly jargon based on scholarly assumptions. Not fit for normal human consumption. When I say a “group,” that makes it sound rather small, like a couple of dozen people. And it’s not actually that kind of group. It’s a group of many thousands. The Society meets at the same time, in [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-14T10:22:02-05:00November 15th, 2014|History of Biblical Scholarship, Public Forum|

A Newly Discovered Gospel? Was Jesus Married with Children???

I have been repeatedly asked about the brand new news story, that a new Gospel has been discovered that shows that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had children. If this sounds like (bad) fiction to you (think Da Vinci Code) (or for movies: think “Last Temptation of Christ”), it is. The claim is completely bogus. This “new” Gospel is not a Gospel, but a text that scholars have known for roughly forever. It’s not a Christian text (ostensibly). It’s about Joseph (as in the Old Testament) and his wife Asenath. Rather than explaining why the new claims about this text are not worth taking seriously (no scholar will), instead of explaining the whole situation myself, I give you a post made by Bob Cargill, assistant professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Iowa. I reproduce his post here with Bob’s permission. It’s a bit long for this blog, but I thought you should get the whole shooting match before you. *************************************************************** Review of “The Lost Gospel” by [...]

BDEhrman2017-12-14T10:24:19-05:00November 12th, 2014|Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Discussion Forum (Please read to the end)

I am happy to say that the membership forum – where people can interact with each others’ ideas, thoughts, claims, arguments, and perspectives directly, without any interference from me – is going very well. We started off slowing, with just a couple of people posting questions, comments, and responses. It slowly has been building. And it is getting to be more and more every day. I want to encourage you to consider contributing – and to tell others about it as a way to increase membership on the blog. (As you know, blog membership is, for me, what this entire enterprise is about, because I do the blog as a way of raising money for charity. As far as I’m concerned, the more money raised, the better we’re doing. Please encourage friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, and others to join!) It is very easy to participate in the Forum. Simply click the tab from the homepage that says, yes, “Membership Forum.” And go from there. To this point the posts and responses have followed [...]

BDEhrman2014-11-07T07:24:06-05:00November 5th, 2014|Public Forum|

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