Loading...This Wednesday (2/17/21) 7:00-8:15 pm I will be holding a live ABA (“Ask Bart Anything”). It will be over Zoom and will be open to anyone on the planet who wants to come.
The format: I will take live questions both orally and through chats. The questions can be on ANY topic that anyone is interested in. If it is something I don’t know anything about (quantum physics or the Ming Dynasty) or that I would rather not talk about (that little incident when I was 16….) I’ll just say so. I will get through as many questions as I can, answering easy ones briefly and taking as long as I need to deal with more complicated ones. My only request will be that questions are direct questions, not lectures, sermons, admonitions, condemnations, expositions of one’s favorite views, or statements of one’s opinions so the rest of the world can hear and convert.
Interested? There is no need to register, no obligation of any kind. And not cost. Free to all. BUT: If you you are willing and able, I would very much appreciate a donation to the blog, every penny of which will go to our charities. Any amount is welcome from $1 to $1 million. But please feel free go to higher. To check out our worthy causes, go here: Charities We Support | The Bart Ehrman Blog .
AND here’s an important additional item. The Highest Donor will be allowed to have a ten-minute one-on-one back-and-forth with me on any questions of interest. If you would like a shot at that, please send an email with your proposed donation to my personal assistant, Diane Pittman, at [email protected]
Whether you bid or not and whether you feel inclined to donate or not, I hope I see a number of you there! This is the link: https://unc.zoohttps://unc.zoom.us/j/91681117055?pwd=OGtvUTcrWEQ1YUc1MFZ3V204OE9Fdz09m.us/j/91681117055
- Bart
That’s probably 7-8:15pm US Eastern time, eh? So 4pm out here in Oakland.
Sorry meanto say that. Yup, EST.
When this kind a thing happen for free again? I will try to donate in the future ,im still student now
You should think about coming to my Sunday lectures. They too are free, with just a request for a donation from those who can afford one.
And my calendar shows Wednesday as being 2/17/21, not 2/15. Given the context here, I wonder for a moment if some earlier calendar of antiquity is involved, but that’s just a moment’s fancy and I’m sure that’s not what’s going on. 🙂 So, Wednesday 2/17/21 7-8:15pm Eastern time?
Scribal corruption of the text, corrected now by a diorthotes. Yup. 2/17/21 EST.
Great initiative! Thank you for hosting this.
Will the session be recorded and posted to e.g. Youtube for those of us who miss it?
We’ll record it, but I don’t know what we’ll be doing with the recording yet, if anything….
Is it possible to contact you to maybe get a copy for personal viewing?
I won’t be giving out personal copies. When the event is over, I’ll be deciding what, if anything, to do with the recording.
Dr Ehrman, Could you comment on rabbinic criticisms about Paul?
Examples:
– Paul “being a Pharisee” but working for a Sadducee persecuting Christians, but Gamliel said not to persecute Christians
– keeping the Law
– changing/ misquoting the OT
I don’t know of any rabbinic writings that mention Paul. IN fact, there aren’t any are there?
Dr Ehrman, I apologize- let me clarify:
I’m not suggesting there are ancient rabbinic writings that mention Paul.
I’m asking your opinion about a particular set of criticisms about Paul.
1. How likely is it true that Paul was really a Pharisee?
Some reasons for doubt are:
– By the time the claim was made that Paul was a student of Gamaliel, Gamaliel was dead.
– Acts 5 shows Gamaliel’s position was to NOT persecute Christians, so why would Paul be working for a Sadducee (the high priest) and persecute Christians?
– Tarsus was hellenistic
– Paul change references from the OT that add a Christological perspective
I think it’s almost certain Paul was a Pharisee. He says so himself (Phil. 3), for no apparent reason other than he’s trying to explain who he is (to pagans who probably didn’t know a Pharisee from an Essene). He says nothing about Gamaliel or Tarsus. I don’t think he knew the one or probably came from the other — they are both data from Acts only.
Dear Bart, this is my first question on the blog regarding monotheism in the NT. Does Paul in Galatians 3-4 believe that the Law was “from angels” and that obeying it was tantamount to angel worship or “stoichea” worship (as in Colossians 2)? Did Paul believe that the same Torah-related angels could rival God or his “firstborn” angel Jesus, by producing unauthorized alternative Gospels (e.g. like our later Mathew) which taught Torah adherence? Do you think that it was the same Paul that wrote those other nice things about the Law in Romans, or his PR scribal team? Thank you.
That appears to be three questions! Or four. 1a. Yes, it came through angels 1b. No obeying it was not necessarily angel worship. 2. NO, they were God’s servants. 3. Same author, different perspective. Some think they can be reconciled, others not.
If my question doesn’t make it through the zoom call- What is your advice for when you struggle with not only intellectual doubts (thinking christianity may still be true), but also with the psychological and emotional effects of leaving this religion in particular?
I have just started this religious inquiry about 7 months ago (Protestant, evangelical background). Thank you Dr. Ehrman.
I discuss that to some extent in two of my books, God’s Problem and Heaven and Hell. It can be very tough, I know from long experience. But the truth, in the end, should only help, not hurt. And for me, over the long haul, changing my views has made my life so much better….
Questions? It’s great that people are still looking for answers. It would be nice to drop them all. As if we have the illusion of having a self, instead of being programmed to be someone, when in reality everyone is nobody.
Thanks Bart. Will attend from UK if I can. I think we are 5hrs ahead, so midnight start. I think a recording for your YouTube channel would be great! (And just to say your YouTube channel hugely appreciated! Please keep loading up whatever is possible! Due to childcare, I was sad to miss recent opportunity to be ‘audience’ for you while you recorded student lectures)
OK, good. Greetings to Oxford from here.
Hi Bart. This is my first time writing in your blog. I was first introduced to your works about two years ago when I started questioning my Christian faith. The first book that I read was” How Jesus Became God”. I must say, it was an eye opener. It has been an emotionally traumatic venture. However, the pursuitof the truth is well worth it for me.
Great!
Hei Bart. I’d love to ask you this question live tomorrow, but I’m in Europe and the time-difference makes it in the middle of the night for me. My question is, do you think John 20:21-23 where Jesus gives his disciples power to forgive or withhold forgiveness for sins, is historical? Also, many commentators connect this verse to the binding/loosing in Matthew 16:18 and 18:18. From my reading the greek text and the examples from the torah, the words actually mean something closer to “allow” and “disallow”, similar to the muslim’s hallal and haram. So it’s not clear that Jesus is talking about forgiveness so much as advice on how to live. And why does Matthew give this power to Peter alone and then 2 chapters later to all Christians, as in John?
No, I don’t think Jesus really, historically, had the power to bestow the Holy Spirit on others.
Perhaps I was unclear. I don’t think that Jesus really had the power to bestow the Holy Spirit on others either. I don’t even know what that would mean. Clearly there is some sort of memory that Jesus did bestow some sort of “mandate” or authority on those he sent out (whether 12 or 70.) My question was whether in your judgement the forgiveness of sins tradition in John has anything to do with the binding/loosing tradition in the synoptics. I don’t think so. But I _definitely_ can see why the emerging Catholic church would want to restrict that power which, in John, is given to all Christians, and limit it to those with apostolic succession, and that connecting those two traditions was a good way to accomplish it. This does not seem, to me, like the historical Jesus. I was wondering how you judge the matter. Is this a creation of the early church? And what historical situation would have provoked such a restriction?
Oh, I see. I think early followers of Jesus wanted to claim they had been given teh same power he had (it’s a big them in John, and inthe book of Acts), and to that extent there would be a connection between the two traditions.
According to F.F.Bruce, in Acts 8:26,29,39 the Holy Spirit is synonymous with the Angel of the Lord. (I might add as another example Acts 10:3-5,19-20.) Could also the descent of the holy spirit in Acts 2:2-4, be understood as an angelic activity considering how elements like wind and fire could be presented as spiritual and angelic in LXX Psalm 104:4 (c.f. Heb.1:7,14)? Some Jewish thinkers like Philo and Josephus seem to have identified the Prophetic Spirit with the Angel of the Lord in the episode of Balaam (Numbers 22:35 & 24:2-4).
I wonder what your thoughts are on the angelomorphic pneumatology in Christianity in antiquity, considering the puzzling hesitation in the first 4 centuries to officially declare the fully divine status of the holy spirit?
I don’t see much evidence of it in early Christianity; the references appear to be more closely related to the “spirit of God” for example in Genesis 1 and elswhere in the OT. My sense is that Christian tehologians of the early centuries were so wrapped up in figuring out the relationship of the Son to the Father that they didn’t have much time leftover yet to think about the Spirit in great detail.
I will be listening in on your live ABA this evening and I want to ask your insight on the following:
“Even as a Christian, I always felt a disconnect between Jesus and Paul. It seems to me that Paul hijacked Jesus’ name to influence his own dogmatic inspirations. Why is it that Paul barely quotes Jesus himself but sticks to a message of the resurrection of the dead? Do you think he was carrying on his Pharisee teachings? I mean. Jesus didn’t preach the resurrection of the dead. Or am I wrong? Secondly, why do you think that Peter ( the rock on which Jesus built his rock on) basically dropped off the ends of the earth in the NT and instead it is dominated by Paul?” I look forward to your response this evening
Johana
I dealt with that in a question last night — don’t know if it was yours. My view is that Peter drops off the earth only in the book of Acts, for whom Paul is the hero because he takes the message to gentiles and Peter is merely the transition. Historically I don’t think it was that way at all. I don’t think Paul was the dominating figure of his generation within Christianity.
pass code?
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The “Ask Bart Anything” zoom is a great idea. And entertaining because it provided information about a multiplicity of subjects. Thanks much.
Thanks for giving us your time tonight, Bart; the Zoom session was interesting from start to finish. (I’ve made a donation as a token of my appreciation.) You should consider doing one of these every couple of months.
I still disagree about the degree of literacy in ancient Israel. I don’t know whether Jesus was literate, but there are too many ostraca, often apparently from everyday people (i.e., not scribes or the like) like merchants and soldiers, for literacy to be as low as 10%. I’m particularly impressed by the abecedary on an Iron Age I (centuries before the time of Jesus) ostracon found at Izbet Sartah. To me, that implies that people were learning to read even in country towns at a very early period. Surely that would have been even more likely in the much more cosmopolitan and sophisticated Late Second Temple era. I suspect we’d have a much more accurate idea if papyrus were more durable in the Judaean climate. (Ordinary folk would not have been able to afford parchment.)
Anyway, thanks again!
You may want to read the Catherine Hezser book I mentioned. The 3% figure comes from M. bar Ilan.
I will if I can find a library copy. The least expensive on Amazon is $112!
Ouch. Try ABE books?
I thought of that. The cheapest copy there is $106 plus $30 shipping from Germany.
Ordered direct from the publisher, it costs €149, plus whatever shipping would add. I suspect there aren’t enough copies out in the world for used copies to drop much in price. They have recently added an ebook edition, but it’s the same price. (Which makes perfect sense in this case; as I, as an editor, can attest.)
However, the good news is that contrary to what WorldCat told me the other day, it IS available at NYPL’s main research library (the one with the lions) on Fifth Avenue. I’m not sure I want to read a whole 557 page book sitting in the library, but at least I can read some selections.