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And an Ancient Christian Deceived Deceiver (i.e. Forger)
In a previous post I talked about a forger from the ancient Greek world who was duped by another forger who intentionally tried to deceive him (with remarkable success and to his great chagrin). As it turns out we have comparable instances within early Christianity, as I discuss in my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford University Press). Here’s what I say there, edited a bit: ****************************** This ironic phenomenon of a deceiver being deceived has rough parallels in the Christian tradition. One case to consider is the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, a so-called “church order” allegedly written by none other than the apostles of Jesus (hence its name), but in reality produced by someone simply claiming to be the apostolic band, living three hundred years after they had been laid to rest in their respective tombs. This book is patched-together composite of three earlier writings that we still have, the third-century Didascalia Apostolorum, which makes up books 1-6 of the text; the Didache (one of the Apostolic Fathers), which is found in book […]
February 14, 2026
Yet More: A Christian Forger Who Warns Against Reading Forgeries!
Here is my second post dealing with a highly ironic early Christian text, which tells its readers not to be led astray by authors forging books in the names of the apostles, even though this book itself is forged in the names of the apostles. This again is taken from my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford Press), edited a bit. ****************************** The alleged authors of the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions– the apostles of Christ, including Paul and James — explicitly claim that the books of the New Testament were theirs: διαθήκης (8.47.85). And so the author gives a list of which books those are, a list that includes all of the books that eventually became the New Testament, with the exception of the book of Revelation. Strikingly, after listing the Gospels and the letters of Paul, James, John, Jude, and Peter, the author indicates that the New Testament is also to include the his own book, the Apostolic Constitutions themselves! But the author of the Apostolic Constitutions is not only a deceiver; he is also […]
February 15, 2026
Should You Say It Like You Mean It? Those Inoffensive Critical Scholars…
Yesterday I was listening to my weekly Misquoting Jesus Podcast (I do that each week to make sure I didn’t make any egregious mistakes in the interview) (I did make a couple, as usual, but so it goes…) and was struck by how, at the end, I described the topic for our next podcast: why “Luke has gotten rid of the idea that ‘Jesus died for your sins.’” I had forgotten I put it that way, and when I heard it said out loud, head-on and clear-as-day, I realized I had never heard anyone put it that way before. And that struck me as interesting – especially because it is what most of my classmates in my PhD program at Princeton Seminary also were taught and thought but they never said/say it this way. What did/do they say instead? The said/say what we learned from our teachers, a far more innocuous way of putting it: “Luke doesn’t have a theology of the cross.” What that means (as my peers and teachers knew) is that Luke […]
February 17, 2026
Should You “Give It All Away”? The Views of Wealth in the Shepherd of Hermas
In my previous post on the Shepherd of Hermas (in a nutshell) I talked about some of its major themes and characteristics. It’s a long book with lots of parables and moral injunctions; one of its major themes has to do with charitable giving, how important it is that those in the church with resources should share with those in need. Jesus himself told his followers to “sell everything and give to the poor.” A century or so later, Hermas had a different view — related, but much softened from Jesus’s radical demand. Here’s how I talk about it in my book Love Thy Stranger (coming out soon: pre-orders available on Amazon or wherever). ******************************* The idea that Christians should give of their resources generously is one of the major themes of the second-century apocalypse known as the Shepherd of Hermas, a book sometimes considered canonical Scripture in the first four centuries.[i] Hermas instructs his Christian readers to give “simply to all those in need, not wavering about to whom you should give or […]
February 12, 2026
The Controversy Over Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke (Did He Speak of Dying “For you”?)
In my previous post I pointed out that scholars have often claimed that Luke has gotten rid of the idea that Jesus “died for your sins.” That will seem counter-intuitive to, well, everyone on the planet, and some astute and learned Bible readers will point out that Luke explicitly does indeed have Jesus talk about his death “for you” in Luke, at his Last supper. I indicated that there’s a textual problem with the verse (it’s not in our oldest and best manuscripts). Years ago I dealt with the problem on the blog. I deal with it again here — over the course of a couple of posts. The issue is focused on the wording of Luke 22:19-20. Here is the form of the text as found in most of the manuscripts. (I have put verse numbers in the appropriate places)
February 18, 2026
Has Luke Gotten Rid of the Idea That Jesus Died for Your Sins?
In my previous post I tried to argue that the longer version of the account of Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke could have been created by a scribe who wanted to make the passage sound more like what is familiar from Matthew, Mark, and John, and to stress the point made in those other accounts as well, that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood are what bring redemption. The passage, as you recall, reads like this: 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he took) the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood that is shed for you. 21 […]
February 19, 2026
If It Wasn’t “For Your Sins” Why Did Jesus Die (according to Luke)?
I have been dealing with the question of Jesus’ death in the Gospel of Luke and have been arguing that Luke does not appear to have understood Jesus’ death to be an atonement for sins. He has eliminated the several indications from his source, the Gospel of Mark, that Jesus’ death was an atonement, and he never indicates in either his Gospel or the book of Acts that Jesus died “for” you or “for” others or “for” anyone. Then why did Jesus die? It is clear that Luke thought that Jesus had to die. For Luke it was all part of God’s plan. But why? What is the theological meaning of Jesus’ death for Luke, if it was not a sacrifice that brought about a right standing before God (which is what the term “atonement” means)? You get the clearest view of Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ death from
February 21, 2026
A Sign From God? Mormon Missionaries and Me
When I was a conservative evangelical teenager, I very much believed that God not only did miracles but gave us signs to show us the truth and save us from error. The most amazing (and funniest) sign I received was in the summer of 1975, while painting my house. I was home from my second year at Moody Bible Institute and was doing odd jobs here and there to pay for school, and my parents needed the house painted. I hate(d) painting, but I like(d) being able to earn my keep, so I went for it. To make sense of the sign, some background: one of my classes at Moody that year had been on the Christian “cults” – that is the Christian groups that evangelicals considered to be so far out there that they weren’t only non-Christian (like those Catholics and Greek Orthodox) but were dangerous to society and the well-being of the human race. These included such nefarious apostates as
February 22, 2026
What’s Actually *in* the Shepherd of Hermas?
In my earlier Nutshell post on the Shepherd of Hermas, I indicated what it was and what it was about, but I didn’t actually summarize what it said. I can do that here, by excerpting part of the Introduction I give in my bi-lingual edition (i.e., the Greek on one side of the page and my English translation on the facing page) in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 2004). ****************************** The Shepherd recounts a series of revelations and direct angelic communications to a prophet named Hermas, a Christian from early to mid second-century Rome. Like other ancient apocalypses, the book is ultimately concerned to reveal the divine truths that affect earthly realities, and to that extent there is some focus on the future course of human events, especially a time of tribulation that Christians will experience before the end of the age, soon to arrive. But even more the book deals with problems of Christian existence in the here and now, especially the problems of sin and repentance, of Christians remaining faithful […]
February 24, 2026
Who Wrote the Shepherd of Hermas, and When?
Here now is a final post on the early Christian text known as the Shepherd of Hermas, considering what we can know about who wrote it and when — important issues since a number of church fathers early on thought it should be included in the New Testament. (It is actually found as one of the books of the New Testament in our oldest complete copy of the NT, Codex Sinaiticus, around 375 CE) Here is what I say about such things in the Introduction to my edition of the Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 2004). ****************************** The Shepherd of Hermas was one of the most popular books of early Christianity. Judging from the surviving manuscript remains, it was copied and read more widely in the second and third centuries than any other non-canonical book, even more than many of the books that later came to be included in the New Testament. … It is difficult to say much about the author’s identity apart from
February 25, 2026
Interesting Questions from Readers (Including on the Consistency of Mark and the Reality of Suffering)
Here are some of the intriguing questions I’ve received recently, and my attempts to answer, on the consistency of Mark’s Gospel, scribal changes of 1 Corinthians, the problem of suffering, and how to study the NT without knowing Greek. QUESTION: Mark has his Jesus explaining and predicting that he will be betrayed, handed over to his enemies, greatly suffer and be killed. And he tells his disciples several times that all these things must come to pass. But then when Jesus is handed over, suffers and is rejected Mark has him cry out “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!” Whether this is a reference to Daniel or not, Mark clearly seems to be portraying Jesus as having genuinely felt forsaken and abandoned. But how can he when he knew this was all going to happen and that it was necessary to fulfill God’s will? Was Mark just hoping we’d forget about an earlier part of his story? Was he making a point other than Jesus psychological state? Was the climax of his story more important to […]
February 26, 2026
What Are the Chances? The Logic of “Intelligent Design”
Does the reality of “life” (living creatures) require “intelligent design” (since life cannot emerge from non-life)? Some random thoughts of a complete non-expert in any of the requisite fields: chemistry, biology, statistics, and, well, others. But I’d be interested in your thoughts. I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, 2.0. I had read the first edition that came out in 2003 and was mesmerized by it. This one is even better. He’s a genius at taking something complicated and explaining it in terms that even science neanderthals like me can understand (I’ve loved everything of his I’ve read, I A Walk in the Woods, which is hilarious, Home, and The Body). One chapter in Short History is on the “The Rise of Life” (how life came out of non-life). The science shows how incredibly unlikely it is for life to have emerged on the planet, given what it takes not just to generate amino acids but even more to get them to form proteins, etc. etc. But not impossible. In fact,
February 28, 2026
The Earliest Christian Apologist: Quadratus in a Nutshell
There are lots of Christian apologists among us today, who defend the Christian faith on rational grounds rather than purely theological, arguing not only that it is not intellectually problematic but that in fact there are “proofs” that it is true. The Greek word “apologia” literally means “defense,” rather than, well, “saying you’re sorry”; it is used not only for religious “defenses” but also to refer to the arguments of a defendant in a court case, most famously for the stunning account of the trial of Socrates written by Plato, and simply called “The Apology.” I don’t recall ever hearing one of our modern apologists refer to their ancient forebears, but the academic study of ancient Christian apology is very interesting indeed. I took a PhD seminar in my grad program (we started by translating Plato’s Apology. Terrific!) and have been interested in it ever since. Among the most famous ancient apologists are Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen, authors very much worth reading and studying. Few people, however, have ever heard of the very first […]
March 1, 2026
Blog Dinner in Charlottesville, VA on March 21. You Interested?
I’m gonna be in Charlottesville VA on Saturday March 21 to give a talk at the Virginia Festival of the Book for my then-about-to-be-released Love They Stranger. I’d love to have a blog dinner with any blog folk who happen to be around or, well, can get around. I’ll probably start around 6:30 or so for drinks with whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger, with dinner at 7:15 or so. Location TBD. You interested? I’ll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7. For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest. (Whatever you exgest is free.) If you’re interested, do NOT reply here as a comment. Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!
February 23, 2026
Announcing the “Sponsor a Stranger” Campaign
As many of you know, my new book, Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West, will be published on March 24th. I have spent the last few years immersed in researching a profound shift that occurred in antiquity. In the Greco-Roman world, ethical obligations were largely confined to one’s family, friends, and local community. The idea that you had a moral duty to help those in need who were not part of your family or circle of friends or potential friends, regardless of ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, or anything else, was simply not on the radar screen. That changed with the teachings of Jesus and the subsequent spread of the early Christian movement, which introduced to the world the revolutionary concept that everyone, regardless of their origin or status, is deserving of care, compassion, medical attention, and the resources to survive.. To celebrate the release of this book, I wanted to do something that takes this historical concept and puts it into immediate, tangible practice. Today, we […]
March 2, 2026
Papias in a Nutshell. An Important Figure Among the Apostolic Fathers
In this nutshell series on the Apostolic Fathers, I now come to the intriguing, mysterious, and controversial figure of Papias (pronounced: PAY-pee-us), writing sometime in the early second century. We don’t have his writings, only quotations of them in later church fathers; but he has become an object of attention because he appears to verify at a very early date that Matthew the tax collector really was the author of the Matthew and Mark, the companion of Peter, really did compose the Gospel of Mark. Are those claims certain or even probable? Before addressing the issue, here, in this post, I’ll provide a nutshell overview of Papias himself and his most famous work, excerpted from the Introduction from my book The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 2003). ****************************** Papias is first referred to by Irenaeus, and then by Eusebius, as an important figure in the early Christian movement of the second century (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5.33.4; Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.39). Tradition holds that he personally knew the disciple John, the son of Zebedee, […]
March 3, 2026
Does Papias Provide Us Direct Access to the Teachings of the Apostles?
In my previous post I gave a short introduction to Papias, one of the Apostolic Fathers, and the one — oddly enough (since we don’t have any of his writings, just some quotations of them) — that has garnered the most attention among New Testament scholars over the past some decades. Especially those interested in the question of who wrote our Gospels. More than anything, biblical scholars have latched onto Papias because it is widely thought that
March 4, 2026
Is Papias Generally Trustworthy?
In my previous post I stressed that, contrary to what you sometimes may have heard or possibly will hear, Papias is not a direct witness to what the apostles of Jesus were saying. That is an important point because Papias gives a testimony that is often taken as hard proof that the second Gospel of the NT was written by Mark, the companion of Peter, and that the first Gospel was really and truly written by Matthew, the disciple of Jesus. If these claims were right, they would be highly significant. Matthew would have been written by someone who was there to see these things happen; and Mark’s account would be based on arguably the most important witness to Jesus’ life.. Here is what Papias says.
March 5, 2026
Free Live Debate on the Resurrection (March 2)
In case you’re interested! I am doing a live debate with Jonathan Sheffield, an Anglican Autodidact, on the resurrection of Jesus. March 2 (tomorrow, as of this writing), 8:00 pm. Eastern Time. You’re welcome to come. Hey, it’s free! And surely worth every penny you’ll be paying for it. Feel free to comment (here on the blog) on what you see if you see any of it! Here is the brief promo add and link. Live Debate: Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (Live Debate on FACTS Podcast, with Bart Ehrman and Jonathan Sheffield) Did Jesus rise from the dead? This debate focuses on the historical evidence surrounding the resurrection, examining early testimony, eyewitness claims, the empty tomb, and the origins of resurrection belief. Don’t miss this free event! Watch the Live Debate
March 1, 2026
How Important Actually Was Paul (When Alive and After)?
How influential, actually, was Paul in his day? And how much of what we read about him (and allegedly by him) in the New Testament is accurate and how much is slanted in one way or the other. Indeed, how about later times? How was he (mis)remembered? Just now I am in the process of preparing the third edition of my college textbook on the entire Bible — Genesis to Revelation, including the “Old Testament Apocrypha. I have asked Joel Baden of Yale University to co-edit it with me; he’s taking care of the Hebrew Bible parts and I the New Testament. That means I need to read through the whole thing again, of course, and, frankly, it is not generally exciting reading your own prose from some years ago. BUT, pleasure does come from reading bits that you think are especially interesting, and I had that experience this morning, and thought I could share it with y’all here on the blog.
March 8, 2026