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Help Wanted: Join Bart Ehrman Professional Services as a Writer/Editor!
Are you a talented, educated, and skilled writer or editor with a passion for Biblical and Christian studies? We’re excited to announce an opportunity to contribute to bartehrman.com, Bart’s other prominent website with thousands of readers. We’re ramping up our content production and need your expertise! Bartehrman.com serves as Bart’s professional website, offering online courses, books, and the possibility to hire Bart for speaking engagements. In order to drive traffic from Google search, the website also features a blog component where we regularly post articles. Instead of Bart himself, we enlist the expertise of capable and insightful authors like Keith Long. Here’s an example of an article authored by Keith Long: For more examples of the types of articles we publish, please click here. Qualifications Needed: As we explore a wide range of topics related to the New Testament and early Christianity, we’re looking for a writer to take the reins and bring fresh perspectives. You don’t necessarily need a PhD, but some formal education in Biblical or Christian studies is desired. If you have […]
June 21, 2023
Do We Have the Original Text of Philippians?
QUESTIONS: Would you agree that the letter written to the Philippians was an original writing of Paul? Do you agree that the first copy of the letter written by Paul to the Philippians was also an original? Assuming there were errors made by the person(s) who copied the original letter of Paul to the Philippians, would you agree that the first copy even with some errors still had the original context of the first letter. If you do agree, then is it totally accurate to say that we don’t have the original letter of Paul written to the Philippians? Don’t you think that it’s more accurate to state that we do have the original but it has been altered to some degree? Has the letter to the Philippians written by Paul been altered so much that we can’t really know what the original proclaimed? RESPONSE: These are great questions. They have the benefit of making very concrete some of the things that I have said, in general terms, about the textual tradition of the New […]
Tags: original text, Paul, Philippians
June 10, 2014
Am I Converting to Islam?
READER COMMENT: I received a message on Facebook a couple of weeks ago from a person who has been proselytizing to me about the Muslim faith. This has happened a few times with others on your FB page. I guess that’s what they do. Anyway, the other day I asked him if he was on your blog. He responded with a yes. Then he said that we (the members) were going to get a surprise from you soon. I asked him how so, and he said that you would be reverting to the Muslim faith. Apparently, reverting is something like converting according to him. I asked him how he knew this information, and he said a friend of his (a friend that he only knows through FB) that is a neighbor of yours said you were very impressed with the Quran and that you haven’t made it public about reverting, but you would be soon. It took me a couple of days to find out the name of this person who is supposedly your friend, […]
Tags: Islam
January 20, 2016
Are You Willing To Donate Blog Memberships to Those Who Can’t Afford It?
For some years now we have taken Christmas donations to provide a membership to those who would very much want one but cannot afford it. Blog members who want to make it possible donate the fee and we put memberships on offer. It’s a nice holiday tradition. I will post on my social media (Facebook and Twitter) as well as on a public post here, the availability of memberships starting in a couple of days. I will give out as many as we have. Would you like to provide one or more people the opportunity? I get requests *ALL* the time — not just in response to this annual announcement (dozens then) but also throughout the year, often a couple of times a week. Your donation can make it possible. As you know, annual memberships start at $29.95. So let’s think in terms of $30 increments. If you’d like to donate a membership, that would be $30. Three? $90. 827? $24,810. You get the idea. This is a win-win situation. Your donation is completely tax […]
December 4, 2021
The Blog’s TENTH Year Anniversary!! Most-commented Blog Post: #10: My View of Revelation!
Today is the TENTH year anniversary of the blog. We began this venture in April 2012; I wrote my first post on April 3, but we didn’t open up access to the blog until April 18. And it’s been a steady stream ever since. I’ve published 2964 posts since then, over five a week for every week. These posts have received nearly 127,000 comments, and I’ve replied to about 42,000 of them (2/3 are just comments, not asking for replies). As you know, we are celebrating the blog in various ways — principally because it has raised so much for charities helping those in need, raising so far well over $1.5 million, with more every year. Last year we hit $360,000 and are doing better so far this year. So what’s not to celebrate! One way we will be doing so: to celebrate our completion of Year Ten, I will be devoting the next Ten posts to republishing the Ten most commented-on posts from the outset. Of course, posts in recent years are favored by this […]
April 18, 2022
Burials for the Crucified. Most-commented Blog Post: #9
As we celebrate our ten-year anniversary of the blog (April 18) by reposting the ten most commented-on posts, here now is #9: Decent Burials for Crucified Victims in antiquity, with 180 comments. ****************************** Decent Burials for Crucified Victims October 20, 2017 My post a couple of weeks ago about the burial of Jesus (understandably) struck a nerve for some readers; I was just now digging around in the archives, and see that I addressed most of the important issues, head on, in this rather controversial post I made back in 2012. All these years later, I’m still open to being convinced otherwise!!! ****************************** In my previous post I quoted a number of ancient sources that indicated that part of the torture and humiliation of being crucified in antiquity was being left, helpless, exposed not just to the elements but to scavenging birds and other animals. These sources suggest that the normal practice was to leave the victims on the cross to be pecked and gnawed at both before and after death; in some instances […]
April 19, 2022
Why Did Judas Betray Jesus? Most-commented Blog Post: #8
As we celebrate our ten-year anniversary of the blog (April 18) by reposting the ten most commented-on posts, here now is #8, with 187 comments. ****************************** Why Did Judas Iscariot Betray Jesus? June 3, 2018 In this edition of the Readers’ Mailbag I address an interesting and perplexing question about Judas Iscariot: QUESTION You may have mentioned this (I cannot recall) but why did Judas go to the authorities in the first place? RESPONSE I wrestled with this question long and hard while writing my book The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot, which includes a section on what we can know about the historical Judas. In the book I argue that there are some things that we can know with relative certainty about Judas (he was one of the Twelve and was the one who actually betrayed Jesus); other things we can profitably surmise based on our evidence (e.g. what it is Judas betrayed to the authorities – not just Jesus’ whereabouts, I argue); and other things that are almost entirely […]
April 21, 2022
Could Jews Bury Crucified Victims? Most-commented Blog Post: #7
As we celebrate our ten-year anniversary of the blog (April 18) by reposting the ten most commented-on posts, here now is #7, with 198 comments. Let me say that I think this is one of my most important posts in the history of the blog, since it argues against a view that most NT scholars simply assume to be right without ever thinking about it…. ****************************** Did Romans Allow Jews to Bury Crucified Victims? Readers’ Mailbag January 1, 2018 January 1, 2018 Here on the first day of the new year, I was digging around on the blog and I found a post that I *meant* to make a couple of months ago that I never did. Don’t remember why! But here it is. It is from the Readers’ Mailbag, and about a very interesting and controversial issue: would the Romans have allowed anyone to bury Jesus the afternoon on which he was crucified? I think not, even though I’m in the decided minority on that one. Here’s the post: ****************************** QUESTION: […]
April 23, 2022
Are Paul and Jesus on the Same Page? Most-Commented Blog Post: #6
As we celebrate our ten-year anniversary of the blog (April 18) by reposting the ten most commented-on posts, here now is #6, with 200 comments. This one deals with one of THE most significant issues in the study of the New Testament and Early Christianity. Maybe the single most significant. ****************************** Are Paul and Jesus on the Same Page? January 26, 2018 In response to my previous post on the importance of Paul, I have had several people ask me about the relationship between the teachings of Jesus and Paul: are they actually representing the same religion? I dealt with that question some years ago on the blog. Here is the first of two posts on the issue. ****************************** I have spent several posts explicating Paul’s understanding of his gospel, that by Christ’s death and resurrection a person is put into a restored relationship with God. He had several ways of explaining how it worked. But in all of these ways, it was Jesus’ death and resurrection that mattered. It was not keeping the […]
April 24, 2022
The Religion of a Sixteen-Year Old. Most-Commented Blog Post: #5
We are counting down the TOP TEN commented posts in our TEN year venture on the blog. We’ve had a range of topics so far, and here now is Post #5, with 207 comments. ****************************** The Religion of a Sixteen-Year-Old June 1, 2014 I just got home from spending a week in Lawrence Kansas, my home town. As I’ve done now for years, I took my mom fishing in the Ozarks for a few days. She’s 87, and on a walker, but still able to reel them in! I go back to Lawrence probably three or four times a year, and each time it is like going down memory lane. I left there to go to Moody Bible Institute in 1973, when I was all of 17 years old; I still called it home for years, but never lived there full time, not even in the summers usually. I was married and very much on my own only four years later. So my memories of the place are entirely of childhood through high […]
April 26, 2022
A Full Reply to Mythicist Richard Carrier. Most-Commented Blog Post: #4
Here now is my most-commented-from-the-last-ten-years-post #4. It is also by far the longest post I have done in all this time. It addresses an attack on my stupidity and ignorance. I should say at the outset that the one issue/topic I do NOT enjoy going into on the blog these days (for the past three or four years) is the “mythicist” view of Jesus (the idea that Jesus never existed; there never was a Jesus of Nazareth; it’s all made up). The people who hold this view tend to have completely boundless energy and no matter what you say, they keep coming back at you like a terrier. It’s exhausting. And so these days I stay away from it all. Let them get on with it. But it is the topic of one of my books (what was I thinking?), and oh boy did it provoke a response. I thought *Christian fundamentalists* were a hard audience. HA! Welcome to the mythicists. All that is explained in this post, which in the end elicited 207 comments. […]
April 27, 2022
A Revelatory Moment about God: Most-Commented Blog Post: #3
Here now is my #3 all time most commented-on post, coming in at 210 comments. It’s about my religious views as an agnostic. Or an atheist? Or, actually, how should we think about whether we even *could* imagine a God. Read on. ****************************** A Revelatory Moment about “God” January 12, 2020 I had a “revelatory moment” last week that I think may have changed my view about “God” for a very long time – or at least about the existence of superior beings far beyond what we can imagine. As most of you know, I have long been an agnostic-atheist, and as some of you may recall, I define “atheist” differently from most people, at least in relationship to “agnostic.” The word “agnostic” means “don’t know.” Is there a God? I don’t’ know. How could I possibly know? How could you? I know a lot of you do “know” – or think you know. But my view is that if you’re in that boat you “think” there is a God – really, really think […]
April 28, 2022
A Reflection on Easter. My Most-Commented Blog Post: #2
This post appeared on Easter day, four years ago, and received the second-most comments of any that I have done (218 of them). It is, in fact, a reflection on the significance of that holiday and how Christianity itself actually began. ****************************** An Easter Reflection 2018 April 1, 2018 It is highly ironic, but relatively easy, for a historian to argue that Jesus himself did not start Christianity. Christianity, at its heart, is the belief that Jesus’ death and resurrection brought about salvation, and that believing in his death and resurrection will make a person right with God, both now and in the afterlife. Historical scholarship since the nineteenth century has marshaled massive evidence that this is not at all what Jesus himself preached. Yes, it is true that in the Gospels themselves Jesus talks about his coming death and resurrection. And in the last of the Gospels written, John, his message is all about how faith in him can bring eternal life (a message oddly missing in the three earlier Gospels of Matthew, […]
April 30, 2022
Does Isaiah 53 Predict Jesus’ Death and Resurrection? Most-Commented Blog Posts: #1
Here now is THE post that has received the very most comments in the past ten years – 233 – more than any of the 2,965 OTHER posts. And as it turns out, it’s on an unusually important topic, for both Christians and those who want to understand Christians: is Jesus’ death and resurrection predicted in the Hebrew Scriptures? Read on: ****************************** Readers Mailbag: Does Isaiah 53 Predict the Death and Resurrection of Jesus? May 8, 2020 I would like to get back into the practice of devoting one post a week to answering questions raised by blog members. I have a fairly long list of good questions I haven’t been able to get to, so why not just go through them week by week? If you have any pressing questions that are particularly intriguing or perplexing for you about the NT or early Christianity or any related topic, let me know as a comment on a post (any post will do, whether relevant or not). If it’s not something I can address or […]
May 1, 2022
We Need A Volunteer to Record Audio Versions of the Blog Posts. Interested?
As you probably know, we have audio versions of all the blog posts that are available for all Gold and Platinum level members. The audio versions go out on the same day as the written posts themselves. It’s a great benefit (if you’re not Gold level yet: consider it!). But it takes a lot of work by volunteers who are very generous with their time. The volunteers record each post, and they are then produced and published by Ben Porter, Chief Technology Officer (who does all the technology that makes the blog work). We have two volunteers currently alternating in their reading of the posts, and we need to add another in order to keep the operation running smoothly. Would you be interested? To be considered, you would need to fill out a form and then submit an audition recording (all explained in the link below). We are looking for someone with a very good reading voice. The position would take time and commitment, but the position does NOT require a lot of technical expertise. You […]
April 7, 2022
A Christian NDE and the Problem with Being Filthy Rich
I have begun to describe the Acts of Thomas, the account of the apostle Thomas’s missionary journey to take Christianity to India. After the author describes the apostle’s adventures en route to his destination, he gets to the heart of his story – which involves, among other things, an emphasis about what rich folk are supposed to do with their money if they want to be pleasing to God and have eternal life. Again, this description is taken from my book Journeys to Heaven and Hell (Yale University Press, 2022). ****************************** When Thomas arrives in India he is introduced to King Gundaphorus, his new master, who has acquired him for his carpentry skills, which obviously run in the holy family. Gundaphorus wants a new palace in a remote site and Thomas is perfect for the job: he works in wood and stone and has experience constructing regal dwellings. This Act is all about the distinctive kind of building he can make. The apostle draws a design for the structure, the king approves, bestows a hefty […]
June 1, 2022
You Mean Everyone (Except the Truly Destitute) Needs to Give? But How Much?
The Christians who began to say that (unlike in the Roman world) the rich ought to give to the poor did not come up with the idea themselves. As we have seen, they were replicating (in a new form) what was found in the Hebrew Bible as taken up, as one would expect, by the historical Jesus. But the Christians ran with the idea, and that ended up having a lasting effect on all of society and Western culture. The records of earliest Christianity are pretty clear: everyone (not just the rich) needed to give in order to help those who were less fortunate. According to the book of Acts, the members of the first community in Jerusalem sold everything and shared all things in common, so that no one was in need (Acts 2:43-45; 4:32-37). This sounds like Jesus’ own vision, though whether Acts can be trusted to describe social reality soon after Jesus’ death is another question. It is clear, however, that years later the churches of Paul, populated predominantly by those without […]
June 2, 2022
Thomas’s Trip to India and the Problem of Wealth
Some Christian writers thought having lots of money was a very serious problem – both because it made rich folk focus on something other than spiritual realities and because it was not just or godly for some people to be loaded when others were starving. And so we have ancient Christian authors urging the wealthy to give away all their material possessions for a greater good and practice rigorous asceticism. The “good” in this case was very different indeed from what was promoted in the broader Roman world — where what mattered was helping with the city’s finances and assisting those of one’s own family or socio-economic class, in exchange for acquiring a higher personal status — since for Christians involves helping the indigent. But the personal motivation is roughly the same: it is a matter of “working out your salvation.” That is, it is largely about one’s own well-being. Other writers, however, argued that wealth was not itself evil or necessarily a trap, an obstacle to the good and holy life. Righteous people could […]
May 31, 2022
An Interesting Interview on Journeys to Heaven and Hell
I don’t recall ever doing any podcast interviews before on any of my academic books since, well, they are written for scholars rather than the general public and few podcasts target scholars (at least early Christian scholars!) per se. But I’ve had a couple on my recent book Journeys to Heaven and Hell, and I think it’s because the topic really is interesting to more than scholars. Here’s one that helped bring out some of the intriguing material I cover, with an interviewer — Mike Delgado — who both knows his stuff and knows what is interesting. Enjoy!
June 19, 2022