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Jesus and Sexual Immorality
Jesus and sexual immorality. I began to discuss yesterday the interesting case that NT scholar Scot McKnight advances for thinking that maybe Jesus *does* speak of same-sex relations in the Gospels. The last (group) of his three references are the ones he thinks are the most likely instances: Matthew 5:32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. The Greek word for “sexual immorality” here is porneia. It is a broad term that probably does mean something like “sexual immorality.” Scot argues that any Jew in the first century who wanted to know what sexual immorality was would automatically think and turn to Leviticus 18, the passage I referred to in an earlier post, a passage that considers sex with certain others is not just inappropriate but an “abomination.” Included in the list is “men with men.” Jesus, therefore, […]
April 13, 2022
The Annual Meeting of Biblical Scholars, and ALL Those Books!!
I decided to look back to what I wrote on this day five years ago, and I started to laugh — it’s *exactly* the same think I was thinking just yesterday, about all the trillions of books that get written about the Bible and the scholars who write them. I’ve decided to re-post it, and simply update it to this very moment. ****************************************************** I’ve had a terrific and interesting first few days at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting here in San Diego. This society comprises professors and other scholars of biblical literature mainly from the U.S., but with attendees from overseas as well. It meets along with the American Academy of Religion, which is the professional society for all professors of religion who are not teachers of biblical studies (so experts in Christianity outside the NT, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, anthropologists of religion, historians of religion, and so on and on). All together it is a very large group. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I think maybe there are 10,000 or 11,000 […]
November 25, 2019
Setting Dates for the Gospels
One of the questions I often get asked on the blog is how we know when the Gospels were written. I’ve answer the question at some length before, and thought it might be useful to answer it again. Here’s what I said years ago, and looking at it, I’d say the same thing again. In fact, I will. Here: **************************************************************************** QUESTION: How are the dates that the Gospels were composed determined? I’ve read that Mark is usually dated to 70 or later because of the reference to the destruction of the temple. Is this the only factor that leads scholars to conclude that it was composed in 70 CE or later or are there other factors? I’ve heard that Luke and Matthew are likewise dated aroun 80-85 CE to give time for Mark to have been in circulation enough to be a source for them. Is this accurate? How is John usually dated to around 95 CE (or whatever the correct period is) since it is usually described as independent of the other Gospels? […]
November 26, 2019
Thanksgiving 2019
Some Thanksgiving ruminations, from where I am here and now. I love holidays. Not everyone does. When I was younger that was always a mystery to me – what’s not to like? But as I get older (and older and older), I get it. Or at least part of it. So many people hate the holidays and the suffering they bring. Bitter and wrenching loneliness when all those around them are enjoying good times with family and friends and they … are not. Or awful memories of holidays past – ugly family blow-ups or ill-timed tragedies. Some of us are among the lucky ones: these are not problems. But that itself is a problem. Why should we have such a self-congratulatory happy, restful, fulfilling time when others….? Also, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized just how fraught just about all our holidays actually are, how, often invisibly, they are so closely connected not with things to celebrate but with real human trauma and tragedy. The Fourth of July. The fireworks are supposed to remind us […]
November 27, 2019
Who Was Jesus?
This is a continuation of a soon-to-be-compiled longer post for broader consumption on the New Testament. Now that I have described what the NT is, how it is structured and organized, and how it has come down to us, I get to one of the key issues: what does the New Testament tell us about the historical figure of Jesus himself? ********************************************** There can be no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth has been the most influential person in the history of the world. The church founded on his name shaped the history of Western Civilization, and over two billion people worship him today. And yet, because of the nature of our sources, it is surprisingly difficult to know what he actually said and did. Jesus is thought to have died around 30 CE. He is not referred to in any Greek or Roman sources of the first century, and only briefly in our major Jewish source of the period, the historian Josephus. The earliest Christian references are from the New Testament, but most of […]
November 29, 2019
Why Don’t You Just Believe?
The following post is for anyone interested. You interested? Join the blog. You get five posts a week, each and every week of the year, on all sorts of intriguing topics connected with the New Testament and Early Christianity. QUESTION: What do you have to lose by having faith and believing that Christ was born supernaturally as a result of a virgin birth to Mary, that Christ performed miracles, that Christ died by crucifixion and came back to life from the dead, and that Christ went back into heaven in a supernatural ascension into heaven? I don’t see any downside. RESPONSE: I get this kind of question on occasion. Usually when someone asks it they tie it to “Pascal’s Wager.” In case you’re not familiar with it, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662 CE), mathematician that he was, thought in terms of percentages and odds. And he applied it in a famous way to the question of belief – in an age when lots of intellectuals in Europe, and people they influenced, were having doubts about […]
December 1, 2019
Is the Bible Inerrant? Guest Post by Mike Licona
This now is the second of three posts by Mike Licona, Associate Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University. Mike has a PhD in New Testament studies and is a committed evangelical apologist, who has written a recent book, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels (Oxford University Press, 2016). He does indeed admit there are differences in the Gospels, which some people would claim are actually contradictions; but he continues to believe the Bible is “inerrant.” What does he mean then? In this clear and lucid post, he explains his views. NOTE: Mike’s first post generated lots of comments, and it was a bit overwhelming. He will be willing to answer questions/comments over the next four days, but not afterward. That in itself is amazingly generous. Please don’t ask tons of questions in one comment — that (I can say from experience) is hard to deal with! Moreover, he and I both know that many people on the blog have a different perspective from his. But please be respectful and courteous, even in your […]
December 2, 2019
Final Tribute To Larry Hurtado
I am sorry to report that my colleague Larry Hurtado, a well-known scholar of the New Testament, author of several influential books, and prominent blogger, has died. Back in July I indicated on the blog that he had become very ill. At the time we thought he had only a few weeks to live. But he soldiered on, and passed away last Monday, November 25. There is a very nice tribute to him by one of his former students at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/november/died-larry-hurtado-new-testament-early-christian-worship.html I decided to repost here what I said in July, both as a tribute to him and to suggest several of his books that you might be interested in reading. Larry was about ten years ahead of me in the field, and had very similar interests to mine, from textual criticism (studying ancient Greek manuscripts) to Christology (understanding how Jesus came to be worshiped as God). A couple of his books are highly technical (as I indicate below); others are completely accessible to the non-academic. You may want to check them out. […]
December 3, 2019
An Older Manuscript Controversy about the Dead Sea Scrolls
I’ve been thinking about controversies over ancient Christian and Jewish manuscripts lately, in connection with the (false) claim that a First Century copy of Mark had been discovered. Browsing around on the blog I saw that I dealt with a completely different manuscript controversy on the blog many years ago, involving the Dead Sea Scrolls. I had forgotten all about it. This one involved a court case and jail time! Here’s what I said: ************************************************************** A few years ago I was asked to give a speech at a museum in Raleigh NC in connection with an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls that had been long in the works and had finally become a reality. I will be the first to admit, I’m not the first person you should think of to give a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s not my field of scholarship. But the lecture was to be one of a series of lectures, and the other lecturers actually were experts, including my colleague Jodi Magness, a world-class archaeologist who […]
December 4, 2019
One of the Blog’s Main Charities: Urban Ministries of Durham
As you know, the overarching purposes of the blog are (1) to communicate broadly, to a reading public, scholarship on the New Testament and Early Christianity (as opposed to most of the material you find on the Internet, which is almost entirely devotional and not based on historical scholarship) and (2) in doing so, to raise money for charity. The latter is what keeps me going. I absolutely love communicating with non-scholars what the scholars are finding about these fundamentally important topics. But my ultimate passion for the blog is to help people in need. Hence the charity aspect. As you know, every penny that comes into the blog from membership fees and from direct donations goes to the charities we support. There are no overhead costs because I pay for the blog myself, as my own contribution. Blog members sometimes indicate they would like to have more information about what those charities are and what they actually do. There are five that receive our support. Three of them are local to me: Urban Ministries […]
December 6, 2019
Does the New Testament Condemn “Homosexuals”?
It is commonly argued that the Bible condemns sexual “perversion” such as gay or lesbian sex. In earlier posts I discussed the relevant passages of the Old Testament, to show that they simply cannot be used in these modern debates, since their very understandings of the phenomena are completely at odds with what people think today (including, most emphatically, the people who appeal to those passages in support of their views). See, for example: https://ehrmanblog.org/are-same-sex-relations-condemned-in-the-old-testament/?highlight=homosexual I should stress there are lots of other activities that are condemned in the Bible all over the map, and these are never a particular emphasis of modern ethical discussion, whether in Christian circles or in society at large. You may be able to deprive gays and lesbians of their civil rights or deny them the ability to serve in the church, based on a couple of passages (almost always misinterpreted) scattered here and there throughout the very large Bible; but what about doing the same for people who are greedy, who get angry, who disobey their parents, who eat […]
December 8, 2019
Are You Willing To Give a Holiday Gift Membership To Someone Who Needs It??
We are five days from Christmas and twelve days from the New Year. At about this time for nearly every December of the blog’s existence I have opened up a holiday giving option that can help out people who really want to be on the blog but cannot afford the membership fees. In most years we we have been able to give out something like 70-80 gift memberships. To qualify to receive one, a person had to send me their contact information and to tell me a bit about their circumstances, why they could not afford membership fees (I don’t pry: I just want a general idea). I provided gift memberships only to people who really needed them. Some of the stories have been heart-breaking. Luckily, virtually everyone who contacted me has been able to be given a gift membership. I will post on my social media (Facebook and Twitter) as well as on a public post here, the availability of memberships. I will give out as many as we have. Would you like to […]
December 20, 2022
Do You Want (and Need) a Free Membership to the Blog? Gift Memberships 2019
Thanks to the incredible ongoing 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, please provide me with the following information: Your first and last name. Why you would like to take advantage of this offer. I don’t need or want a full account of your history or financial affairs, only an idea of why you are not able just now to purchase a membership. Country of citizenship (we’re required, as a non-profit, to ask) Your preferred personal email. Your preferred user […]
December 9, 2019
Why Are Their Differences in the Gospels? Does it Affect Their Inspiration? Guest Post by Mike Licona
This is Mike’s third and final guest post. In the earlier post he explained his views about whether the Bible is inspired by God and is inerrant. He thinks the answers to both are “yes,” though his actual views are not what most people would probably expect. Here now is the third, and critical post, based on the research he did for his 2017 Oxford University Press book, with the same title: Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? I agree with a lot of what Mike writes here. In reading it, I’d suggest you bear in mind his earlier two posts, that he sees the Gospels as inspired and inerrant. Mike has graciously agreed to answer questions you have for him, but only for the next four days! Otherwise this would go on forever. And please, in your questions, do your best to keep them concise and direct, without asking multiple questions at once. Pick the most pressing. And I scarcely need to remind you of that verse in the Ehrman Revised Standard Version: “The […]
December 10, 2019
Update on My Next Book: The Joys of Academic Writing
Last weekend I escaped from all the distractions of daily life in Durham to our mountain retreat in order to write. I’m here in solitude, Sarah is in London for the holidays. I’ll be joining her next week. I have all the amenities of modern life here: but no TV, no neighbors, no noise, no traffic. Writing is very hard under the best of circumstances. But oh boy is it easier in the best of circumstances. Most scholars find it literally impossible to write during the semester. Just can’t do it. You have classes. Class preparation. Students to meet. Departmental meetings. Committee meetings. University commitments. If you have a graduate program there is a constant flow of work: advising, scheduling, working with students on exams, directing master’s theses and PhD dissertations, helping students with pedagogy, counselling them about professionalization, reading their prospective conference papers and articles for publication, oral defenses, reading groups. It’s a lot. Then if you have an active speaking schedule or do other local service commitments… well not much writing gets done. […]
December 12, 2019
Why Would an Agnostic-Atheist Be A Bible Scholar??
Five years ago I received this question. I still hear it! And I would still answer it the same way. A question that makes a lot of sense in one way actually doesn’t make a lot of sense looked at in another way. I suppose a lot of our questions are like that…. Here is the question and response. QUESTION: The one thing that I do not understand about you is that you have stated you have lost your faith. That being said, how do you continue to work in your field? Have you ever wanted to redirect your academic career to study other subjects? RESPONSE: I get this question a lot. On one level I understand it: if I don’t believe in the Bible, why would I dedicate my life to studying it, researching about it, writing about it, and teaching about it? From the perspective of someone who has strong feelings about the Bible – for example, as a believer who holds that the Bible is the word of God or as […]
December 13, 2019
Heaven and Hell in a Nutshell
Heaven and Hell. I’m excited about my next book, being published on March 31, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. It’s already getting good reviews in the trade journals, the publications that announce which books are soon to come out and have experts review them in advance, so those booksellers, book stores, libraries, and so on know whether they want to buy them, and for booksellers and stores, in what quantities. So that’s all good. A while back I decided to try to encapsulate the essence of the book in a short essay, a kind of 2000-word summary of what it’s all about and why it matters. I will give it here, over the course of two posts. Here’s the first half. Ehrman Hell & Heaven The fear of death has been among us for as long as we have had human records, from history’s oldest surviving tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh, to the now final season of the Good Place, soon to enter its own eternal rest. The views of these two […]
December 15, 2019
Heaven and Hell in a Nutshell: Getting into the Kernel
Here is the second and last part of my summary of the heart of my forthcoming book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. It’s not an outline of the chapters, but a summing up of the key issues, flow, and the ultimate “point” of the book. As a tip, I’ve called this little essay (in my own mind): “There Is Nothing To Fear.” ************************************************************************************************ The idea of rewards and punishments eventually found its way into Judaism as well, but not until the very end of the Old Testament period. The book of Daniel was the final writing of the Hebrew Bible. This fictitious account of a pious Hebrew young man, Daniel, presents an alternative Jewish understanding of the world, the nature of reality, and of life beyond, quite unlike the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Scholars have called Daniel’s view “apocalypticism,” from the Greek word “apocalypsis” – which means a “revealing.” Jewish apocalyptic thinkers began to believe that God had “revealed” to them the truth of ultimate reality hidden from all their predecessor, […]
December 16, 2019
UpcomingTours, Lectures, and Book Readings
A number of my upcoming “events” have been more or less finalized (barring natural or national catastrophe, collapse, or cataclysm or, well, catabasis). At the bottom are the currently scheduled book readings/lectures based on my forthcoming Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. Any questions about any of this, let me know. But first: my two international venues. APRIL 14-24, 2020 Tour to Rome!! I’ve mentioned this a couple of times on the blog, most recently here: https://ehrmanblog.org/my-trip-to-rome-interested-in-joining/ This is going to be an amazing trip! But they are ALMOST completely full. So if you think you want to go, better contact them now. Here is the brochure with contact information for the organizers, Thalassa Tours. https://www.thalassajourneys.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Pagans_Christians.pdf April 24-30 Lecture tour in Sweden. This has just been added to my schedule. I will be giving talks at universities in Umeå, Stockholm, and possibly Upsala. Are you in Sweden? Maybe we could meet! THEN, in OCTOBER 2020 October 16-29 Tour to Egypt, sponsored by the University of North Carolina General Alumni Association […]
December 18, 2019
Guided Tours of Heaven and Hell: My Scholarly Book
I mentioned that I have started writing my academic book on the early Christian versions of the guided tours of heaven and hell. This will be very different from the trade book coming out in March — an full eight-chapter scholarly analysis of material that I cover in a very brief overview fashion in one chapter of the trade book. As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, when I get to certain points of my work on a book, I like to produce for myself an account of what it is, where it’s going, how it will be organized, and so on. Now that I’m getting down to actually writing this thing after doing the research for it, I’ve started drafting up my summary of it, to emphasize its interest and importance, and to explain to myself how I’m imagining it working itself out, as a whole and then chapter by chapter. My current understanding of the book is closely related to what I started imagining it to be, nearly three years ago; but it […]
December 19, 2019