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Did People Have Time for Jesus? – Guest Post from Platinum Member Doug Wadeson, MD.

There is nothing better than a guest blog post that flat-out disagrees with me!  And here we have one.  Is it plausible that Jesus could have had large crowds gathering together to hear his preaching in rural Galilee?  I say: Not really.   Platinum blog member Doug Wadeson says: Oh yes! As you may know, blog members on the Platinum Tier are allowed to write posts for other Platinum members.  (Nice perk!  If you’re not a platinum member: take a look at it and see if you’re interested.  Just click JOIN [even if you belong already] and scroll to Platinum Tier and see).  Every few weeks other Platinum members vote on which recent Platinum post should be posted on the blog at large.  Doug’s won the prize.   Here’s his post.  What do you think?   ****************************** On those few occasions when I have challenged something Dr. Ehrman has said he can usually shoot me down pretty quickly based on his range and depth of knowledge.  But I am going to try again. Dr. Ehrman has suggested […]

• Public Forum

July 3, 2024

The Quest for the Historical Paul: Sorting Through Our Sources (Part 1). Guest Post by James Tabor

As you know, I hope, I will be sponsoring an upcoming conference for non-scholars, on the Apostle Paul soon, Sept. 21-22 (see https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insights-into-the-new-testament-conference-2024 ).  We will have ten high-level Pauline scholars each give a 50-minute lecture with Q&A, dealing with various issues connected with Pauline studies.   This is gonna be a good’un. In preparation for it, I’ve asked James Tabor, one of the ten presenters at the conference, to give us a couple of preliminary posts here on the blog, dealing with some of the fundamental issues that scholars deal with, all centered on “how can we know” about what Paul really said and did?  Turns out, it’s not simple. ****************************** What can we reliably know about Paul and how can we know it?  As is the case with Jesus this is not an easy question. Historians have been involved in what has been called the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” for the past one hundred and seventy-five years, evaluating and sifting through our sources, trying to determine what we can reliably say about him.[1] As […]

• Paul and His Letters
• Public Forum

September 7, 2024

The Quest for the Historical Paul: Sorting Through Our Sources (Part 2) by Dr. James Tabor

Here we have Part 2 of James Tabor’s explanation of how and what we can know about the life and letters of Paul, in anticipation of the upcoming conference, designed for folks like you, non-scholars interested in what lifelong experts in the study of the New Testament say about it.  James will be one of the ten presenters at the conference.  If you haven’t already, check it out:  New Insights into the New Testament 2024. ****************************** The book of Acts provides the following independent biographical information not found in the seven genuine letters: Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul and he was born in Tarsus, a city in the Roman province of Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor or present-day Turkey (Acts 9:11, 30; 11:25; 21:39; 22:3) He came from a family of Pharisees and was educated in Jerusalem under the most famous Rabbi of the time, Gamaliel.  He also had a sister and a nephew that lived in Jerusalem in the 60s A.D. (Acts 22:3; 23:16) He was born a Roman citizen, which means his father […]

• Paul and His Letters
• Public Forum

September 8, 2024

Paul and the Anachronistic Origins of Early Christianity – Part 1 by Dr. Robyn Faith Walsh

I am happy to publish two guest posts by Robyn Faith Walsh, Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Miami, based on her book The Origins of Christian History. She stakes out some controversial claims here about the Gospels, contrary to what you often hear.  What do you think? ****************************** Studies on the so-called origins and development of the Jesus Movement largely focus on the figure of Jesus, his teachings, and biography. This is evident in

• Canonical Gospels
• Paul and His Letters
• Public Forum

September 21, 2024

Paul and the Anachronistic Origins of Early Christianity – Part 2 by Dr. Robyn Faith Walsh

Here is the second post by Robyn Faith Walsh, challenging what the majority of scholars think and teach about the relationship of Paul and the Gospels, and the implications for early Christianity.  Again, this is related to her book, which you can find here: The Origins of Early Christian Literature. ****************************** Paul makes sense as a “source” for the gospel writers for several reasons. The first relates to literary practices and social context: given what we know about the processes of ancient authors, it is likely that the gospel writers would have sought out any available material about the Christ movement as they created their works. And the only available writings that we know existed before the gospels are Paul’s letters; that some of these letters even survive to the degree that we have them suggests they were circulated and/or known in some measure.

• Canonical Gospels
• Paul and His Letters
• Public Forum

September 22, 2024

Fifty Ways to Forge a Gospel

    Last month I attended a small conference on the early Christian apocrypha (that is, the Gospels, epistles, Acts, and Apocalypses from early Christianity that were not accepted into the canon of Scripture) at York University in Toronto.   The special topic for the conference was the use of forgery in early Christianity, and I was asked to give the keynote address. This is a topic, of course, I have been long interested in.   I spent several years working on my (rather long) scholarly monograph on the topic: Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics; and in the process or writing that book for fellow academics, I wrote a shorter and simpler account for popular audiences: Forged:  Writing in the Name of God.  Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. Among other things, in my talk I stressed that people in the ancient world considered forgery to be an act of literary deceit, a form of lying.  I really don’t think there should be much question […]

• Forgery in Antiquity
• Public Forum

Tags: forgery

November 22, 2015

Interested in Going to Rome with Me?

• Public Forum

February 19, 2021

My Response To Conservative Critics. An Interview on the MythVision Podcast

Derek Mythvision Podcast Last month I did a long and detailed interview with Derek Lambert, the person who started and runs an interesting podcast called MythVision Podcast.  Derek is unusually well informed about the New Testament and he has deep and penetrating questions about my positions/views in some of my popular books, especially in light of what a very conservative evangelical apologist John McLatchie has been saying about my, well, sloppy ignorance.  I had never heard of McLatchie before, but that’s not unusual.  There are over two billion Christians in the world and I’ve never heard of most of them.  Still, not that many of them assault my intelligence without telling me directly (e.g. in an email) that I’m an idiot. Still, maybe he’s right about everything.  That’s the nice thing about human intelligence.  You yourself have it, and you can make up your own mind.   In any event, here’s the interview.  The bit with McLatchie kicks in part way through, but the whole thing is about important topics that I’ve dealt with in my […]

• Public Forum

June 5, 2021

An Unusual Interview with an Ex-Muslim, Informed, Atheist

Now *this* isn’t the kind of interview I get asked to do every day!  Hanny Seylim is a former Muslim who split his time growing up between Egypt and Ireland (a parent from each) and now lives in Melbourne.  For his podcast, Critical Faculty, he interviews all sorts of critical thinkers in numerous different fields (physics to NT!).  Hanny knows a *lot* about early Christianity and wanted to interview me about my work.  I think this one is unusually good.  Enjoy!  

• Public Forum

June 27, 2021

Did you know that Gold Members can get the full audio feed in their favorite Podcast Player?

Most of you probably know that gold members have access to the audio version of each post, but did you know that gold members can subscribe directly to the feed in their favorite podcast player? This is a convenient way to keep up with the blog.  Your podcast app will notify you when there are new posts available, and it can be set to automatically download them for later listening such as in the car or while out for a walk.  It will keep track of which posts you have listened to already so you can easily find new content. If you are interested in trying it out, first make sure you are a subscriber at the Gold (or Platinum) level.  Then, just follow the instructions here!:  How to Subscribe to the Bart Ehrman Audio Feed  

• Public Forum

January 6, 2022