Apocryphal Gospels Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Another Translation Project: The Apocryphal Gospels

In my last reposted-post I mentioned that some years after the Apostolic Fathers (after, apparently, I had forgotten all the pain involved), I took on another (very large) translation project, of wider interest to the world at large -- the ancient Gospels that did not make it into the New Testament. Here is how I have described that one, just to finish out the thought. ******************************************************** After having done the Apostolic Fathers in two volumes for the Loeb, I had decided never to do another translation project again. Too hard! But then, forgetting my decision, I thought it would be useful to have a Greek/Latin – English version of the early Christian non-canonical Gospels. And at the urging of the editor at Harvard, submitted a proposal also for the Loeb Classical Library. But the editorial board decided that they did not want to start publishing new editions of Christian texts in the series, since that would detract from its typical focus on Greek and Roman classics. And so I was now interested in a project [...]

BDEhrman2020-11-24T19:22:39-05:00November 1st, 2017|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Public Forum|

Upcoming Lectures at the Smithsonian

Now that the government is back in business, the Smithsonian Associates has resumed its work; they sponsor lectures and lecture series in Washington D.C., every week, all the time, and I usually do a day long series of lectures for them once or twice a year, based on a book I have coming out. I’m scheduled for the Spring 2014 in conjunction with my book How Jesus Became God. But I’ll also be doing one this December for the English-only version of the apocryphal Gospels that is to be published by then (edited from the original-language + English version that came out last year; this new one, like the old one, was written, edited, and translated with my colleague at UNC, Zlatko Plese). This first event is scheduled for Saturday Dec. 7; there will be four lectures, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. It’s a killer of a day (for me at least). But anyone in the area should consider attending. You can get further information at their website: http://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/index.aspx The following [...]

BDEhrman2018-01-14T22:57:13-05:00October 25th, 2013|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus|

Introductions to The Lost Gospels

As many of you know, this past year my colleague Zlatko Plese and I published a bilingual edition of the Apocryphal Gospels. Actually, it was quadrilineal. We included all the Gospels of the early centuries (up until the Middle Ages, and some important ones even from then) in Greek, Latin, and Coptic, with the original language on the left side of the page and a new English translation on the right. This past summer, after it came out, I decided that it would be really nice to have an English-only edition of these texts for people (this would be most people) who aren’t interested in seeing what the original languages say. There are about 40 Gospels altogether that we included, with short introductions. To produce the English version we are simply reproducing our translations, with Introductions geared for general readers rather than for scholars. So I’m touching up the introductions to try to get them at the proper reading level/expertise/level of interest. I’d like to get some feedback. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log [...]

BDEhrman2020-11-24T18:58:36-05:00December 29th, 2012|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha|

The Other Gospels and the Birth of Jesus

Right now I have the “other” Gospels on my mind. It’s true, I often have them on my mind, since they have been a focus for a good deal of my research over the past few years, and will continue to be for some years to come. But just now, they are particularly on my mind even though the book I’m currently writing (How Jesus Became God) is about something else. They’re on my mind for three reasons. First, I’ve agreed with Oxford Press, to produce, along with my colleague Zlatko Plese, an English-only edition of The Apocryphal Gospels, which came out in a Greek/Latin/Coptic-English edition last year; this new edition will include only the English translations with new introductions geared for a general audience. So I have to rewrite all the introductions, and the am bound by contract to do it by the end of January. Second, I have agreed to write a brief (2000-word) article for Newsweek this week, to be published in a couple of weeks, about the birth of Jesus, and [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T19:11:19-04:00November 26th, 2012|Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus|

The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations

I mentioned in my previous post that by a matter of serendipity, I decided to produce a bi-lingual edition of the Apocryphal Gospels. My idea was to make available to scholars who wanted easy access to (virtually all) the non-canonical Gospels in the original language a one-volume edition, and to make available to everyone, whether scholars or not, solid and new English translations of all these works. The original idea was to include all the early and important Gospels (up to the Middle Ages) in Greek, Latin, and English. But when I switched publishers to Oxford, I realized that I could do more than that, and decided to include some in Coptic as well. Had I been really ambitious I could have gone for some in other languages, but that would have stretched me too far. The Coptic itself was a stretch. I had read Coptic at a fairly basic level for years, but I was no expert. And so I decided to ask my colleague Zlatko Plese to join me in producing the volume. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T19:13:50-04:00November 9th, 2012|Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

Serendipity 3: The Apocryphal Gospels Volume

I mentioned in previous posts that a good deal of my career has developed because of serendipitous moments. As I look back on it (from this halfway point ), most of the good things that have happened to me seem to have come about by pure chance. Of course, I took advantage of the chances as they came along. But still, no one can deny that a major chunk of life is all by chance. In those two earlier posts, I talked about how my first teaching position at Rutgers was pure chance – a professor of NT there had to take emergency leave in the middle of a semester because her husband had been diagnosed with cancer (and if I had not, as a result, landed that job, I never, ever would have been hired at the University of North Carolina, and could well be pursuing an entirely different career, as a result; I’ll say more of that in another post). And, far less momentously, I discussed in another post how I lucked into [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T19:13:58-04:00November 8th, 2012|Bart’s Biography, Book Discussions, Christian Apocrypha|

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Another Translation Project: The Apocryphal Gospels

Upcoming Lectures at the Smithsonian

Introductions to The Lost Gospels

The Other Gospels and the Birth of Jesus

The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations

Serendipity 3: The Apocryphal Gospels Volume