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The Heretic Marcion and Forgeries of Pauline Letters
If Christians made up stories about Paul, did they also make up writings allegedly by Paul? My two previous posts were about fabricated narratives connected with Paul both from outside the New Testament and in the NT book of Acts. After posting, I realized that after lo these many years, I’ve never discussed at any length the related topic, non-canonical Pauline forgeries, writings that claim to be written by Paul but were definitely not. I leave out of consideration here the six “disputed” Pauline epistles of the New Testament – Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. There are very good reasons for thinking none of these were written by Paul either (they all, of course, explicitly claim to be), but I’ve dealt with those before (see What about Forgeries IN the New Testament? Is it Possible?, Forgeries in the Name of Paul, Pauline Forgeries: 2 Thessalonians as a Test Case, for example) and will no doubt do so again. Here I’m interested in less familiar writings. You probably know
March 3, 2024
Archaeology in the Time of Jesus! New Course March 2-3!!
If you’re interested in what archaeology can tell us about the world in which Jesus lived, moved, and had his being — you need to check out the course on offer this weekend, March 2-3, by world-class archaeologist Jodi Magness, my colleague at UNC and one of the leading experts on the archaeology of ancient Israel. Jodi will be giving four lectures on key topics of interest, two on Saturday and two on Sunday, with a live Q&A each day. I will be M-C’ing the event, and can’t wait. If you want o check it out, click on this link. https://ehrman.thrivecart.com/timeofjesus And if you want more information before checking it out, here’s a quick synopsis of what Jodi will be covering: Lecture 1: Jesus in Galilee Although the Gospel accounts focus on Jesus’s final days in Jerusalem, he spent most of his life in Galilee. What does archaeology tell us about the villages and towns of Galilee in the time of Jesus? In this lecture, we survey archaeological remains in the hamlet of Nazareth; […]
February 27, 2024
The Two Gods of Marcion and the Forgeries in the Name of Paul
Here I continue my discussion of Marcion, the arch-heretic of the second century, whose followers forged writings in the name of Paul to support their view that the God of the Old Testament was not the God of Jesus and Paul. Recall: Marcion argued that the God of the Old Testament was the Jewish God who created this world, chose Israel to be his people, and then gave them his law. He was a just, wrathful God: not evil, just ruthlessly judicial. The God of Jesus, on the other hand, was a God of love, mercy, and forgiveness. This good God, superior to the God of the Jews, sent Jesus into the world in order to die for the sins of others, to save people from the wrathful God of the Old Testament. Salvation comes, then, by believing in Jesus’ death. To prove his point, Marcion pointed out the contradictions between the Old Testament God and the God of Jesus. The God of the Old Testament sent his prophets, one of whom was Elisha. One […]
March 5, 2024
Paul’s *THIRD* Letter to the Corinthians? A Very Interesting Forgery
Even though we don’t have the forgeries of Pauline letters connected with Marcion (they’ve all been lost or destroyed by orthodox Christians), we have other letters forged in Paul’s name that appear to be opposing Marcion (you don’t need to read the previous posts to make sense of this one; but if you want to learn more about Marcion — see the two posts preceding). These surviving letters are forgeries written to oppose forgeries, an orthodox attempt to fight fire with fire. One of the most interesting is Paul’s alleged Third Letter to the Corinthians! Here’s what I say about it in my book Forged (HarperOne, 2011). ****************************** Third Corinthians It was quite common for “orthodox” Christians (that is, Christians who accepted the theological views that eventually became widely accepted throughout Christianity) to charge “heretics” (those who taught “false teachings”) with forging documents in the names of the apostles in order to support their views. We will see much more of this phenomenon in chapter five. The Gospel of Peter, for example, was charged with […]
March 6, 2024
Did Paul Exchange Letters with the Greatest Roman Philosopher of His Day??
I’ve mentioned several non-canonical letters forged in Paul’s name connected with the views of the second-century heretic Marcion. There are other letters out there that also (falsely) claim to be written by Paul but that were not forged in order to support or attack a particular heretical view in Paul’s name. That is almost certainly the case with a set of letters that were accepted as authentically Paul’s (though never accepted as canonical) for many centuries, down until relatively modern times: Paul’s correspondence with the great philosopher (and personal tutor and advisor to the emperor Nero). Here’s what I say about these letters in my book Forged (HarperOne, 2011). (If you want a more thorough analysis of these, and all the Pauline forgeries I’m mentioning in these posts, I get gratifyingly down in the weeds at good length in my academic book, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics) ****************************** The Letters of Paul and Seneca A completely different agenda is found in a much later forgery of Pauline letters […]
March 9, 2024
Paul’s Letter to the … Laodiceans? Long Thought to be Part of the New Testament!
One of the most intriguing letters forged in the name of Paul is his alleged letter to the Laodiceans. As you’ll see, it’s intriguing both because some Christian churches accepted it as part of the New Testament for centuries and because scholars have never been able to figure out why a forger bothered to write it. I have a theory about that though, which I laid out in my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford University Press, 2013), from which I have taken this discussion. (I’ve edited it a bit to get rid of the weeds; here I explain the issues and my argument in accessible terms). ****************************** The Letter to the Laodiceans The Letter of “Paul” to the Laodiceans is a pastiche of Pauline phrases with no obvious theme or purpose. Apart from the opening line, drawn from Gal. 1:1, the borrowings are almost exclusively from Philippians. About a tenth of the letter represents “filler” provided by the author, which is also without character or color. Scholars have long vied with one another to see […]
March 7, 2024
Is There Any Point Doing a Public Debate?
I’m contemplating doing another debate for BECO (Bart Ehrman Courses Online; you can see the various courses on my website: http://www.bartehrman.com). It won’t be just like the last one, on whether historians can “prove” that Jesus was raised from the dead, since that one was, well, seven hours! (https://www.bartehrman.com/did-the-resurrection-of-jesus-really-happen-bart-ehrman-mike-licona-debate/). But if I do it, it would be on something equally interesting. While pondering doing it, I remembered that long ago on the blog I talked about the value (or lack of value) of public debates, in relation to one of the exercises I do in my undergradaute classroom. I looked it over and thought it might be good to run the thread again. Here’s the first one, on … whether there is really any point in doing them… ************************* As most readers of the blog know, I do a good number of public debates, almost always (I’m trying to think if there is an exception!) with conservative Christians or fundamentalists who think that my views are dangerous to the good Christians of their communities and […]
March 10, 2024
What is the Book of Acts About?
To understand a debate about whether the book of Acts is historical, I first have to explain — by way or reminder or by way of … minder — what the book of Acts is actually about. After this post I’ll lay out how I debate (with myself) whether what it says can actually be seen as historically accurate. The first four books of the NT are Gospels, followed then by the book of Acts. The Gospels each, in their own way, present accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The book of Acts picks up where the Gospels drop off, by describing the activities of Jesus’ disciples after he is raised from the dead and then ascended into heaven. One key fact to bear in mind is that the author of Acts also wrote the Gospel of Luke. There really should be little debate about that (although as with every historical claim, there is *always* some debate!). You can see for yourself just by reading the first few verses of Luke and then reading […]
March 12, 2024
Important Literary Features of the Book of Acts
I am in the middle of a thread dealing with debates over the New Testament book of Acts, the first account that we have of the history of the Christian church at its very beginnings – starting with the events happening right after the resurrection of Jesus and covering the spread of the Christian faith through the Roman world up until the time Paul reached the city of Rome, presumably in the early 60s CE. And so this is an account of the first three decades of Christianity. It’s the only one we have of this period. That’s one reason it is so important to know if it’s historically reliable or not – if it’s not, we have very restricted access to what was happening in these most critical years of the early Christian movement. Before I discuss the issue of Acts’ historically reliability
March 13, 2024
Who Cares if the Book of Acts is Historical??
The debate over the historical accuracy of the book of Acts is important, in no small measure because – as I have pointed out already – it provides us our one and only narrative of what was happening among the followers of Jesus in the years immediately after his death. This is the key, formative period in the formation of Christianity. How did it start as a religion? Acts is our only surviving historical account. But is it an accurate history? The first thing to stress is that Acts – like all histories – is
March 14, 2024
Arguments for “Historical Accuracy” That Are All Smoke and Mirrors.
In my next post I will be staking out the “negative” side on the debate I had with myself in class, arguing against the resolution, Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable. I have already made the affirmative case; in the negative I will argue that the book is not reliable (that first speech was a set speech, prepared without reference to anything the affirmative side said). I will then give a negative refutation of the affirmative’s first speech, and I will end with an affirmative rebuttal of the negative’s two speeches. Before I do all that, however,
March 17, 2024
The Book of Acts is NOT RELIABLE! The Negative Case
I have already devoted to a post to argue the AFFIRMATIVE side to the debate resolution: “Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable” (see the post two days ago, and for an entire post devoted to showing a major irrelevancy in the affirmative case, see the one from three days ago). In this post I will lay out the NEGATIVE case, as well as I can in this amount of space, arguing that Acts is NOT reliable. Again, I am not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with this argument; I’m giving it as I would in a debate. ****************************** The New Testament book of Acts is not historically reliable. Before showing that to be the case, I want to make two preliminary remarks, both of them related to the question of what it means for an ostensibly historical account (a narrative of what allegedly happened in the past) to be reliable. First, when readers today want to know whether the book of Acts is reliable, they mean that they want to know whether the events […]
March 20, 2024
The Book of Acts IS HISTORICAL! The Affirmative Argument
I am ready now to explain how I did the debate with myself in front of my undergraduate class on the resolution, Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable. As always happens in a debate, the Affirmative side goes first and gives a prepared speech. In arguing for the affirmative, I made the following points (Note: I’m not saying I personally agree with these points, just as I’m not going to be saying that I agreed with the Negative points. I’m simply making the best case I can for both positions.): THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don’t belong yet, JOIN! 100% of membership fees go directly to charity!
March 16, 2024
Is the Book of Acts Historically Reliable? The Negative REBUTTAL of the Affirmative Case
What follows is the “negative rebuttal” of the speech given by the “first affirmative” in its support of the resolution, “Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable.” If you need to refresh yourself on what the affirmative team argued, you can find it on the March 16 post, here: The Book of Acts IS HISTORICAL! The Affirmative Argument. In the first negative speech (yesterday’s post) the negative team argued its case, without direct reference to the affirmative side. This, now, is the negative response to what the affirmative said (the next post in the thread will be the affirmative rebuttal to the negative side) (recall: this was a debate I staged with myself in front of my New Testament class. I didn’t read this speech: I winged it. But this is the essence of what I argued, on the negative side against the affirmative) ****************************** If you choose to go point by point through the affirmative team’s case that the book of Acts is historically reliable, you will find that they have advanced their […]
March 21, 2024
Is the Book of Acts Reliable? The Affirmative REBUTTAL of the Negative Case
I have been discussing the debate that I had with myself in front of my New Testament class on the resolution, Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable. So far I have indicated what the Affirmative side argued in favor of the resolution; what the Negative side argued against the resolution; and what the Negative side said in its rebuttal to the first Affirmative speech. NOW, at last, I can indicate what the Affirmative side said in its rebuttal to the two Negative speeches. You can find the posts here: the affirmative speech arguing Acts is indeed reliable; the negative speech arguing that it is not; the negative rebuttal of what the affirmative side said Recall: in this post I’m not indicating what I really think; I’m indicating what I would argue if this were the side I was required to argue (and what I did argue in class). Here it is: ****************************** Despite what the negative side has maintained, we remain convinced that the New Testament book of Acts is historically reliable.
March 23, 2024
A Self-Evaluation of My Self-Debate: Is the Book of Acts Historically Reliable?
I have now completed my posts on the debate I had with myself in front of my New Testament class on the question of whether the New Testament book of Acts is historically reliable. If you want to see the whole debate, just read the posts in sequence: the affirmative speech arguing Acts is indeed reliable; the negative speech arguing that it is not; the negative rebuttal of what the affirmative side said; and finally the affirmative rebuttal of what the negative side said. In class I delivered the speeches one after the other. When “affirmative” I was wearing a sport coat, but no cap; when “negative” I was wearing a baseball cap but no sport coat – just so students would remember that it was a “different” speaker speaking. I have pointed out on the blog before that even though I do a lot of public debates, I often find them more than a little frustrating and frequently (in fact, almost always) ask myself, in the course of the debate, why I’m doing this […]
March 24, 2024
Dealing With Reviews of My Books By People Who (Apparently) Haven’t Read Them
As I am inching closer to writing my next book, on how the ethics of Jesus transformed the moral conscience of the West, I have started thinking, possibly not unnaturally, about how some of my earlier books were critiqued in published reviews. I really don’t mind if someone understands what I write and has reasoned disagreements with it; and I’m happy to make vigorous counter-arguments in response. But unless the reviewer misrepresents what I say, I’m generally not irritated. I do get irritated, though, by reviewers who go for the jugular without seriously understanding (or caring) what I actually say. Or possibly knowing what I say? I sometimes genuinely do wonder if the reviewer actually bothered to read the book. In that context, I suddenly remembered that ten years ago I did a couple of blog posts after a reader alerted me to a published review of my book How Jesus Became God, by the Very Reverend Robert Barren. When I read the review I was a bit, well, outraged. I wrote two posts on […]
March 28, 2024
Making the Gospels Say What You WANT Them To Say
Here is the second post on the Very Reverend Robert Barron’s curious critiques of my book How Jesus Became God. I will not be doing a point-by-point assessment of everything he says; I frankly found none of his criticisms very convincing, largely because, as I indicated in the previous post, he does not appear to have read my book very carefully, but at best skimmed it to find what he was expecting to find. But I thought I would deal at least with his opening counter-argument, over whether Jesus saw himself or proclaimed himself to be God. Here is what he says. Ehrman’s major argument
March 30, 2024
What Did Paul’s Christian Enemies Write About Him?
In my upcoming course I’ll be talking about whether Peter and Paul were at odds. That might seem like a strange and implausible idea to some people. But from a historical perspective, there is nothing at all unlikely about it. We know that Paul had enemies (among the Christians!) all over the place. Some of these anti-Pauline Christians were surely authors. It would be absolutely fantastic if we were to discover some of the letters of Paul’s opponents. Let me put this into a wider historical context. In BROAD terms Paul appears to have agreed in major ways with those who were followers of Jesus before him. I get asked all the time if I think that Paul is the true founder of Christianity and whether we should call it Paulinanity instead of Christianity (and related questions). My answer is decidedly NO. One reason that seems obvious to me, but not apparently to everyone, is that Paul did not himself invent Christianity. He inherited it. It is difficult to establish a firm chronology of Paul’s […]
March 26, 2024
Announcing a FREE Course! “Did Peter Hate Paul?”
I am very pleased to announce a free, two-lecture course that I’ll be doing on March 30, 2-4pm EST, called Did Peter Hate Paul? Check it out: bartehrman.com/peterandpaul This is part of my now two-year-old venture, Bart Ehrman Courses Online, which is not directly connected with the Blog, though it is indirectly connected to it by virtue of the facts that (a) these online courses cover the kinds of things y’all are almost certainly interested in (since you are, after all, members of a blog that deals with them all the time) and (b) I do ’em both. You can find a full list of all my courses at Online Courses by Dr. Bart Ehrman – 10% Off First Course! And note: you can get a discount on every course by using the code BLOG5 But no discount needed this time! Unlike most of my online courses, though, this one is FREE. Wanna come? You can join me live, no cost, for the two lectures, to be followed by a live Q&A. By coming, you’ll […]
March 19, 2024