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I hope everyone had a fulfilling (and fillingful) Thanksgiving!
Now it is time to answer some questions I have received over the past couple of weeks, in short rapid-fire order. If you have a question you would like me to address, please ask it in a comment to this post. I am keeping a list and deal with the questions, weekly, more or less in the order in which I receive them. And I’m running low on questions! So ask away!
QUESTION: Why do you think Jesus remained single his whole life? Could that have been part of the reason he was seen as a divine being? Ordinary people marry, not highly esteemed divine beings?
RESPONSE: That’s an interesting hypothesis, but I don’t think it is “it.” Let me start with the necessary preliminary: I do indeed think that Jesus was, in fact, unmarried. People have disputed that (most notably that inestimable authority on ancient Christianity, Dan Brown, in the Da Vinci Code!) but the evidence is very strong. I have dealt with some of it on the blog before in two different posts, and so do not need to do that again here. See: https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-married-members/ and https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-marriage-actual-argument/
There were as many reasons for people not to be married in antiquity as there are today. Sometimes…
THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don’t belong yet, JOIN!!! It doesn’t cost much, and it feels so good!!!
Great post!
Did your research and writing of your forthcoming “Jesus before the Gospels” book result in any major changes in your positions and/or understanding of Jesus and/or earliest Christianity? Did you have any unexpected “ah ha!” moments in relation to the historical Jesus, the NT, and early Christianity or were you just writing about what you knew for years?
Some! I may talk more about the book as we get closer to the time of its publications. (Here’s one thing: I came to question whether Jesus was really known as an exorcist and healer during his lifetime; I’m very much in the minority on that one!!)
Interesting! Would like to hear your reasons for questioning that. The origin of the miracle/healing stories has perplexed me and how they emerged is not really addressed in recent scholarship that I have found on the topic. I’ve been trying to find a good academic article in a journal on this topic – not much out there, apart from asking whether a particular pericope or episode in the gospel is historical, but that doesn’t really address the larger question.
Yes, I’ll probably be talking about it later on the blog. Most scholars assume the stories originated…. in the life of Jesus!
You’re such a tease!
What? No ‘Jesus the Magician?’ This is going too far. Next you’ll be telling us that he didn’t look like Max von Sydow.
Here’s a great resource for the third questioner… http://www.csntm.org/manuscript
Wow! Thanks, toejam!
Is there any ring of historicity to Mary M being the one who found the empty tomb? I know you’ve said it’s more likely he was left on the cross to be devoured by scavengers, but having women find him seems an odd choice. What do you think it says about the status of women when Jesus was alive?
I have a discussion of this in my book How Jesus Became God. I don’t think Mary discovered the empty tomb because I don’t think there *was* an empty tomb. But who would have come up with the story of the women? That’s what I address in the book.
The second link on Jesus and marriage is missing the members only content? Had it been accidentally deleted?
Sorry, wrong link. Should be to the members only version: https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-marriage-actual-argument-members/
I just read a post from 2012 about Dan Wallace’s claim about a first-century fragment of Mark. Has anything ever come if it? Has the fragment been made available to the scholarly community? Was the book about the fragment published? Does Wallace continue to claim it is an earth shaking find?
No, it hasn’t been published yet. And Dan isn’t saying much about it these days to my knowledge. But I expect it will appear sometime in the next year or so.
Scientists also have visions, of course. George Ellery Hale, the astronomer who developed the Mt. Palomar Observatory, claimed to have visions of a ‘demon’ (sometimes described as an elf) who advised him on his work. He didn’t necessarily believe the demon really existed (it’s a bit unclear, and we can’t ask him now), but he saw it, and had conversations with it. There were factors in his life at the time that could explain this, since he was in poor health, and under a great deal of stress. Many other instances exist.
I always liked what Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan said, when told the voices she heard came from her imagination. “Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.”
If you believe God ultimately created everything, then you believe he created the temporal lobe of the human brain, which is the apparent source of our visions. A person who only believes in what can be touched, itemized, quantified, documented, will not, as a general rule, be a very creative person. Without visions, there can be no visionaries. And without visionaries, where would we be now? I’d say caves, except cave paintings show they were there as well.
1. I do think it’s possible that Paul’s conversion (perhaps stimulated by some flickering light and leading to his falling down unconscious) was secondary to a seizure.
2. I think many near death experiences are so similar (seeing a light at the end of a tunnel; hovering above looking at yourself) that this suggests some common etiology such as oxygen deprivation to a particular part of the brain.
3. I know several people who basically know all of the historical material about which you write and who still conclude that they experience Jesus in their daily lives in a very personal way so all of the historical evidence is completely unpersuasive to them. Freud would probably have attributed this to wish fulfillment..
Dr. Ehrman,
As per the first question, I’m one of those people who strongly suspects that Jesus might have been gay. When we look at many historical figures who were life-long celibates, there’s often strong indications that they were homosexual (e.g. Leonardo daVinci, Isaac Newton, Sappho, Susan B. Anthony, et al.), and when scientists look at rates of homosexuality, not only among human populations but within all mammalian populations, they find a consistent 3 to 5% are homosexual. So it’s not far-fetched to assume that there were gays and lesbians living in first century Galilee.
Moreover, there’s a strong correlation between rates of homosexuality and religious monastics (look at the research on rates of lesbianism in convents, for example), which further suggests that the percentage of gay men who enter the clergy or monasteries is even higher than that of the general population (possibly as high as 50%), because in a society where homosexuals are anathema, the monastic life becomes more appealing and, in the mind of the homosexual, offers an avenue to “pray away the gay”. If you add the stigma and shame associated with homosexuality within Judeo-christian societies, it would make sense that these men–unable to deal with their sexual urges, because homosexuality is biologically hardwired into them–seek a more religious life than normal, simply as a way to assuage the shame they must feel from their sexual desires.
The way Jesus is described to act within the gospel narratives, therefore, strongly implies that he was seeking refuge in religion and possibly asceticism in order to manage his inner turmoil of being a gay man in a society that treats homosexuality as not only dirty and shameful but sinful and evil. There are passages that hint at this inner turmoil. Here are the more salient:
–Matt. 19:12: “For there are eunuchs who were born that way…” Jesus may be refering to men who were born without genitalia, but it’s much more likely that he’s refering to men who were born gay, ergo, they have no desire to sleep with women! But how would Jesus know that gay men are born gay unless Jesus, himself, knows what it’s like to be born gay?? On a scale of 1 to 10, I think this passage is a 9 in favor of Jesus having been born gay.
–Gospel of Thomas 22: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female”. This passage isn’t as much of a slamdunk as the previous, but, to me, this notion of making no distinction between male and female smacks of shame-ridden gay men wanting to be assuaged of their conflicting desires, and a world without gender would be a solution to that problem. I should add that his strongly suggests that not only Jesus but many of Christianity’s early followers may have suffered from such shame of having a sexual-orientation counter to social expectations, just like Medieval monks and nuns.
So I’m curious where you stand on this hypothesis, Dr. Ehrman.
I should add that I, personally, don’t think homosexuality is something a person should feel shameful about. I’m merely talking about the cultural milieu in which Jesus lived and learned.
My view is that there simply is no way to know. I wish there were!
Jesus may simply not have cared that much about sex, which is ironic, given how obsessed so many Christians have been with it. The statement about eunuchs is self-evidently not mean to be taken literally (you’re missing his point), and some people are, in fact, born with ambiguous genitalia, as we have all heard much about in recent years. Maybe Jesus knew of someone from his community who was born that way–obviously he knew about male homosexuality, since it’s condemned in Leviticus. Everyone would have known about it, and we don’t know that much about how people in ancient times explained it–they certainly didn’t use dumbed-down Freudian theories. You’re confusing modern homophobia with what existed back then.
He never condemned homosexuality (merely sex outside marriage, in any form, and that rarely), nor did he condemn the woman taken in adultery (assuming that’s really a story from his life, but obviously whoever added it to the gospel record believed it expressed his forgiving attitude towards sexual sin). He really spends almost no time talking about sex.
He may in fact have believed sex (of any kind) would not exist in the Kingdom. That was a belief common to many later apocalyptic Christian cults, such as the Shakers. And there were many later Christian holy men, such as Peter of Alcantara, and St. John of the Cross, who were, like Jesus, unusual for the high degree of respect and equality they gave to women–because they simply saw human beings as fellow souls, and the bodily parts didn’t matter. Souls, to a true mystic, have no gender. We’re all equal before God.
If Jesus never told anyone he was gay, and if he was not known to have sex with men, then in what meaningful sense can you possibly say “Jesus was gay?” And if you think that ‘proving’ it would end homophobia among Christians–wrong. Homophobia doesn’t exist because of religious beliefs. There are many homophobes who are atheists.
I’m afraid that second link (“An Actual Argument”) goes to a logged-out view of the blog post.
Sorry, wrong link. Should be to the members only version: https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-marriage-actual-argument-members/
hello Bart
I have read that some scholars believe that Matthew 28:19 The so-called Great Commission to be baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is NOT Scriptura . so what is your opinion about it
thanks
I’d be more comfortable thinking it was not originally in Matthew if there were a manuscript lacking it.
hello Bart
thank you for the reply . we can conclude that they lied when they said : Bart Ehrman, a noted textual critic who is neither a Christian nor a trinitarian (in fact, he describes himself as an agnostic) agrees that the long form of the verse is original.
http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/12794/was-the-text-of-matthew-2819-changed
Why does God seem to think that the only way for him to be satisfied that the price to be paid for humanity’s sins can only be the sacrifice of Himself (through the death of his only Son)? To whom does God have to answer in order to insure that Justice is done? Could he not just forgive those who humbly ask for it? Is this not just a human invention based on the notion that only a divine sacrifice could possibly atone for the enormity of humanity’s sinfulness? Can’t God be the judge of that? Where does God say otherwise?
I deal with this issue briefly in this post: https://ehrmanblog.org/readers-mailbag-november-13-2015/
Specifically for Didymus the Blind, what were you working from? Microfilm?
His writings were published and I was working from the hard copies of his Greek text. (There weren’t any English translations available)
Re: 2nd question: Yes. Epilepsy. Per previous comments, cannot be proven but lotsa speculation. MUCH scholarly research concerning Dostoyevsky (“A happiness unthinkable in the normal state and unimaginable for anyone who hasn’t experienced it… I am then in perfect harmony with myself and the entire universe…”) and his temporal lobe epilepsy and Paul and his (conjectured) temporal lobe epilepsy.
Fits of rapture. Ananthaswamy, Anil. New Scientist, 1/25/2014, Vol. 221, Issue 2953
Hey Bart 🙂
Your link to your post on the argument for Jesus being unmarried was to the truncated non-members post. Here’s the link to the for members post: https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-marriage-actual-argument-members/.
Many, many thanks! 🙂
And yes, when I was in junior high, a girl in our Methodist Sunday school class told us very matter of factly one morning that one afternoon that week when she had come home from school she had found Jesus sitting on her bed in her room. I don’t believe that Jesus was in fact sitting on her bed that afternoon. I don’t believe that this young Christian was lying to us. And, I don’t believe that she was any less sane than many other perfectly ordinary eighth grade girls. She just had a vision. People do that sometimes, it seems to me.
Thanks, Bart. 🙂
Prof. Ehrman, this question is for the Readers’ Mailbag:
When did scribes start dividing NT manuscripts into chapters and verses? As I understand it, early manuscripts did not even have punctuation marks. A related question is: did early Christians always read these texts/books, either by themselves or to a congregation, from beginning to end in one sitting? I imagine it would be very difficult to find specific passages without chapters and verses.
OK, it is added!
Doctor Ehrman
when mark uses meta for jesus’ “after 3 days…”
does the “after” imply resurrection on the 4 day ?
would this contradict the claim that it was resurrection ON the 3rd day in the other synoptics?
is it possible mark contradicted himself because elsewhere he implies resurrection ON the 3rd day?
if you can please clarify use of “meta” in mark
Yes, META with the accusative means “after.” It is usually thought that any part of a day counts as a full day, so that Sunday would be after three days; but I’m not sure the math actually works.
i don’t understand some of your reply doc
” but I’m not sure the math actually works.”
so sunday cannot be after 3 days, for the maths to work out it has to be after sunday?
Yes, that’s how I would do the math as well.
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven.” I assume the corinthians knew he was talking about himself?
I would also like to say mystical and transcendent experiences are actually quite normal for humans given the right circumstances. It’s just difficult to obtain these circumstances. And they are very real. In fact neuroscience experiments suggest they might be even more real than everyday experiences. This doesn’t mean someone physically goes to the third heaven, but as far as the brain is concerned it is absolutely real. You just have to realise that the definition of “real” is not as simple as we tend to think.
While reviewing debates and lectures on the historical Jesus I happened to stumble upon a number of debates by the so-called “mythicists.” I was immediately taken back by the ire you seemed to have generated among some of their proponents. Everyone seems to try and “one-up” each other by calling your critique into question (it’s humorous, actually.) What in hell did you do to these people to solicit such wrath?
I argued that Jesus really existed! Shameful!
And what makes you think “the man” Paul said was ‘taken up’ was himself? (This recalls the misidentified “the man that bears me” in the Gospel of Judas.) Check the timing. I think you’ll find he was with James “fourteen years” earlier.
I read the links you posted which brought another question to mind. Jesus said there would be no marriage in heaven. Do you know how/where that idea originated?
Possibly with *him*! I don’t really know.
This is something I’ve hesitated to mention. But when someone else was willing to post so much speculation about homosexuality…
A few months ago, it was reported that surgeons in South Africa had made the first successful transplant of a penis. My immediate reaction was, “Yikes! I hope *that* isn’t needed often!” But as I read on, I learned that it *is* needed often in South Africa, because some tribal groups practice circumcision, and infections result in an unfortunate number of males losing their penises.
I couldn’t help wondering whether that might have been true among ancient Jews as well. Not speculating specifically about Jesus; but *if* they had more men leading celibate “spiritual” lives than other contemporary cultures, might that have been a contributing factor? And also, might it have been a factor in their having no problem with God’s promised “Kingdom” not including *sex*?
Is there any evidence to suggest that the writings of Mark or even Matthew reported by Papias might be Q, L or M?
No, no evidence one way or the other.
I just watched a documentary that touched on the subject of obe’s, visions, precognition, etc…subjects that I find fascinating. I think it’s pretty good at explaining how a person can have an authentic spiritual experience, such as Paul and his vision but also be subject to physical issues like having a seizure that results in an obe.
Documentary –Mind Science; We Are All Vibrational Beings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQNWDV2R-bI
I think this is the same documentary that mentions Jimmy Carter finding a missing plane through a woman who used a clairvoyant technique called remote viewing. The story for that–http://www.gq.com/story/jimmy-carter-ted-kennedy-ufo-republicans
This is the problem I have with scientists and their experiments–when it comes to obe’s, many scientists state they are the result of stressful events, seizures, headaches, being asleep, on the verge of sleep or awake, or just being relaxed. So, anytime then?!? The experiments that I found, Ehrsson and Blanke to name a couple, did not answer the question of whether a person’s consciousness is truly outside of his body during an obe. If his consciousness is outside of his body, then he should be able to prove it somehow. To me, that is the real question that should be answered. Blanke focused on seizure-prone patients while Ehrsson’s subjects were healthy, but he was more concerned with having people feel like they had a third arm, feeling as though they were being stabbed, or jumping into a tiny barbie doll. So, yes, science can recreate an obe, but so what? Scientists also created splenda that makes food and drinks taste sweet (and calorie-free, yes!), but it’s still not sugar. Nothing is quite like sugar or that authentic experience such as Paul’s vision.
Another study that skeptics sometimes bring up in discussions is an article by Dean Mobbs and Caroline Watts called “There is Nothing Paranormal About Near Death Experiences.” What bothers me about this is that Caroline Watts admitted in an interview with Alex Tsakiris that the paper was meant to be “a provocative piece” and “It’s not claiming to be balanced.” I thought this science stuff was supposed to be truthful not meant to be provocative.
My overall point is that scientific studies can be misconstrued, scientists can be quirky in their views, and everybody is right in their own eyes. Sean Carroll is an avid atheist and well-known physicist, yet believes (according to livescience) we could all end up becoming disembodied brains. It’s impossible to be made from the dust of the ground as the bible states but stardust–why yes! Read physicscentral for that one. Paul was miraculously transported from one place to another. Well, no, that was made up apparently, but teletransportation (see discover magazine) for the future–yes!
In a round-about way, science says we can’t have any spiritual experiences until they say so and rename them with scientifiky jargon that fits into a measurement that can be repeated in experiments! This world is just completely absurd.
Here is a potential mailbag question: What motivated the selection of December 25 for Christmas? I’ve heard the Saturnalia theory, but I’ve also heard, that it was chosen to be nine months after Good Friday on the theory Jesus was confirmed and crucified on the same date, with Saturnalia simply acting as a “tug” to increase its festiveness the same way Christmas does today with Hanukkah.
Yeah, it’s a great question but I don’t have a great answer. I’ve heard both things as well, but don’t have any special insight one way or the other!
About Dec. 25 for Christmas: I’ve always understood the explanation to be that it’s connected with the winter solstice (days will thereafter grow longer)…and the feast of John the Baptist is connected with the *summer* solstice (“he will increase, and I must decrease”). The two feasts “balance” one another. Each of them is a week before the “Kalends” of the next month – Christmas Dec. 25, and the feast of John the Baptist June 24, because June has only 30 days.
Interesting. I’d never heard that.
I read some time ago, maybe last December, that there may be a theological reason for celebrating the birth of Jesus on Dec 25. Some early Christians thought Jesus was conceived and crucified (or was it raised?) on the same day of the year. My question: did the writer of either infancy narrative in Matthew or Luke insert any details that would indicate a particular time of year and, if so, why might they have done so?
I’m afraid they don’t!
A comment for the mailbag. Bart Ehrman is mentioned (and quoted) in this recent short video by Frank Turek, co-author of “I Don’t Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST,” and broadcaster Hank Hanegraaff. Bart is described as an enemy of the faith of many young Christian evangelical students at Chapel Hill. http://www.equip.org/video/a-problem-of-morality/ Bart, you’re famous worldwide! … On another note, please describe the historical evolution of your book “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.” Just the well-selected title sounds somewhat disconcerting to the evangelical public.
Sorry Bart, here’s the longer 5-minute video clip that mentions you. http://www.equip.org/video/the-importance-of-apologetics-with-frank-turek/
Yeah, the thing is, there aren’t any young evangelicals who are required to take any of my classes. If they do so it’s because they’ve wanted to. On Orthodox Corruption — that’s what I talked about from April – October on the blog!!!
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
Forgive me, but this is a personal question regarding your own story as having evolved from somewhat of a fundamentalist Christian to your current thoughts about Christianity. I understand if you don’t want to respond. When you first began to see that maybe some of your assumptions about the Gospels and the Jesus story were questionable given the data before you (I guess during your work toward a PhD?), how did that make you feel? Was this upsetting to you at all given your solid beliefs at the time? I have friends who avoid reading anything about Tom Brady’s Deflategate scandal because they don’t want to be confronted with actual facts. He’s their football God! So…I was curious how the facts affected you over time and throughout the course of your studies. Thanks!
Very upsetting to me. I’ll add this to the list of things to talk about!
Bart, I am surprised at your comments about near death experiences. If you were writing in the 1960’s or 1970’s that would be one thing. But at this point these experiences have been scientifically verified in so many different ways, and the literature about them is so vast, that it is precisely the scientific mind that accepts the idea. And it is the mind that works with older notions of what science can and cannot consider possible that rejects it. (The first people to put out books on past-life regressions and near-death experiences were psychiatrists, not mystics.)
Have you read any of the many books written by scientist–yes, scientists–on the subject? I consider myself quite scientific in my thinking and I have come around on this point because of the overwhelming evidence.
(That people see Jesus bathed in light does not prove Jesus nor does it show that these experiences do not reflect something real. It simply means that Spirit appears to each of us using symbols we recognize, and for most Christians that would be Jesus. When atheists have these kind of experiences, Spirit appears to them simply as a loving light.)
I personally have no use for Paul. And not everybody who claims to have seen this or that is reliable. But to dismiss *all* such experiences seems out of touch with what science is proving these days.
Uzi Weingarten
I”m afraid we disagree on that. If these things were scientifically proven, the vast majority of scholars would be believers. But no more are they now than 30 years ago!!!
Hi Bart,
Being raised Episcopalian, I assume you were baptized as an infant by sprinkling or pouring water over your head?
During your fundamentalist/evangelical period, did you have a 2nd baptism by immersion? Some of my fundamentalist friends think sprinkling doesn’t count.
And when/why do you think sprinkling evolved from the original emersion method?
I’ve read many of your books, but I don’t recall this topic being covered.
Yup, I got baptized a second time. I’ll add this to the mailbag.
I think so too. If millions of people suddenly have a mass vision of Jesus coming on the clouds, then what?
Then good for them!!
Bart,
Here’s a mailbag question:
I expect that many of us participate in the blog because we are exploring the “chinks in the armor”, or also have abandoned it as a result of all the chinks. I have enjoyed the explanations of your journey in your books and the blog, and your pursuit of the truth as a “modern, Western, skeptical, agnostic, rationalist”.
If it’s not too far afield from CIA, and it is the Big Question (right?), do you favor any alternate explanation of creation? Does the rationalist embrace the spark in the primordial soup that somehow ignites life, or does the use of the agnostic label suggest some continuing wonder about about a creator, intelligent design, Deism, etc.?
Enquiring minds want to know. 🙂
Best,
Matt
OK, I’ll add it to the list!
I second that question….I mean, Christianity has been my whole life, where does one go from there?
When someone claims to have visions, etc., how are we to determine if the person is a mystic or it the person has a physical or mental disorder that causes him/her to have these visions? I’m sure that some people have lied about having visions also.
I know we live in a different time now but we would not call someone claiming to have visions now a mystic. We would say that the person has a problem and needs medical or mental help.
Do current day mystics in the U.S. claim to have visions? Don’t they claim that Jesus never existed?
I’m afraid in most cases there is absolutely no way to determine if a person in the past had a disorder of some kind. But yes, mystics today certainly have visions.
Does that include mystics such as Richard Carrier and Robert Price?
Ha!
Prof. Ehrman, I’m still trying to catch up to what you actually believe. I’ve watched some of your debates on YouTube, I’m reading one of your books and I’m going through some of these blogs. I see here that you believe Jesus actually existed. Sometimes you sound like any normal Christian discussing the life of Jesus, but other times you sound almost atheist. I’ve heard it said that Jesus was either Lord, a lunatic, or a liar. Where would you stand on this?
I’ve blogged on that a number of times. Search for lunatic and you’ll see the post(s). I am personally an agnostic, though I started out as a committed evangelical Christian. I tell the story in a number of books, such as Jesus Interrupted and God’s Problem
Quick question, I’m in the middle of “Jesus, Interrupted” (which is very interesting, eye opening, controversial, mind changing, tell your friends about, etc) which book would you suggest as next?
Depends what you’re most interested in! The problem of suffering for those who believe (then God’s Problem), the fact we don’t have the original texts of any of the writings of the NT (then Misquoting Jesus), the question whether the Bible’s authors are who they are commonly thought to be (then Forged), the question of how the man Jesus came to be thought to be God (then How Jesus Became God), etc.!
I’m most interested in…. Exactly what ancient writings about any god CAN we trust to be reliable and trustworthy that hasn’t been forged or dreamed up or misquoted and that hasn’t changed dramatically from being recopied a thousand times and that is NOT from a lunatic or a liar? I’m wondering, is there anything like discernment or best judgement from multiple scholars or even intuition or conviction or just plain common sense when looking at all these ancient manuscripts and even taking into account archaeology to think that just maybe some of this stuff might be for real? I mean as an agnostic, you don’t really know if there’s a God or not. Let’s say that if there really was, doesn’t the manuscripts from the ancient Jewish writings and later Christian writings make more sense to “what this is all about” than anything else out there? I mean if there was really a God, wouldn’t he appeal to what is already in our heart, our understanding?
I’d say MOST religious people are neither lunatics nor liars…