Eusebius Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

How Did Judas Iscariot Die? Readers’ Mailbag June 18, 2017

Two questions in this week’s Readers’ mailbag. The first concerns the very strange tradition about how Judas Iscariot actually died, as found in the writings of the early church father Papias; the second is about modern evangelical Christian biblical scholars: how do they deal with the fact that our manuscripts contain so many textual variants? If you have a question, feel free to ask, and I’ll add it to the ever growing mailbag. QUESTION: Papias didn’t think very highly of Judas. I can’t remember exactly what he said, is his version closer to Matthew or Acts? Or a different tradition altogether? RESPONSE: First some background. Papias is one of the fascinating and virtually unknown figures from the early church. He is normally thought to have been writing around 120 or 130 CE. His major work was a five-volume discussion of the teachings of Jesus, called Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord. We very much regret that we no longer have this book – it would have been the first known explanation of/commentary [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T02:13:46-04:00June 18th, 2017|History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

Constantine’s Vision according to Eusebius

In my previous posts I began to talk about the vision(s) that Constantine had that led him to convert. So far I have talked about two accounts, one in the panegyric of 310 CE and the other in the writing, not long after the conversion itself (in 312 CE), of the Christian author Lactantius. The most famous account is found in the only biography of Constantine from the ancient world, the Life of Constantine by Eusebius, the fourth century “Father of Church History” (called this because his other book, Ecclesiastical History, was the first attempt to write a history of Christianity from the time of Jesus down to his own day). The Life of Constantine was published after Constantine’s death in 337 CE, and so it is narrating events that happened earlier – in the case of the conversion, some 25 years earlier. But Eusebius claims that he hear the account from Constantine himself, and that Constantine swore up and down that it was what really happened. This all took place during a military campaign. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:28:56-04:00July 24th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

Constantine Before His Conversion

We have comparatively excellent sources for Constantine’s adult life, including his own writings, laws he enacted, a biography written about him by the fourth-century Christian bishop of Caesarea and “father of church history” Eusebius, and other contemporary reports. But we are handicapped when it comes to his life prior to his accession to the throne, including his religious life. For this we have very slim records. We do know he was born in the northern Balkans, and so it can be assumed that he originally participated in local indigenous religions that would have included such deities as the Thracian rider-gods, divine beings astride horses. As was true of all citizens in the empire, he would also have participated in civic religious festivals, including the cults worshiping the deceased Roman emperors. The Roman army too had its deities of choice, and as a soldier and then commander Constantine would have worshiped these as well. What we don’t know is how well informed he was of Christianity in the years before his conversion. His mother, Helena... THE [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-04T15:24:45-04:00July 19th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

A Radically Different View of Orthodoxy and Heresy

In my last post I started discussing the terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” pointing out that their traditional/etymological meanings are not very helpful for historians. “Orthodoxy” literally means the “right belief” about God, Christ, the world and so. That means it is a theological term about religious truth. But historians are not theologians who can tell you what is theologically true; they are scholars who try to establish what happened in the past. And so how can a historian, acting as a historian, say that one group of believers is right and that another is wrong? The problem with the two terms came to particular expression in a book written in 1934 by a German scholar named Walter Bauer. The book was auf Deutsch, but its English title is Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. For my money, this was the most important book on early Christianity written in the 20th century. It completely revolutionized how we are to understand the theological controversies that were wracking the Christian church in its early years. If you recall, [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T13:34:56-04:00July 3rd, 2015|Book Discussions, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Biblical Scholarship, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

What Are Orthodoxy and Heresy?

In my previous post I began to explain what I meant by the title of my 1993 book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. One of the terms of the title is non-problematic: by “Scripture” I meant specifically the writings of the New Testament. Another term, “corruption,” is a bit trickier, and as I indicated I was using it both in a technical sense to refer to any kind of alteration of a text by a scribe who was copying it (that is what textual critics have traditionally called any change of the text, since for them the most important thing was the “original” text as written by the author) and in an ironic sense because I wanted to talk about changes of the text away from, rather than toward, a possible heretical meaning. And that takes me to the other two terms of importance, “orthodoxy” and “heresy.” These are two much debated terms, and part of the issue has to do with their literal or etymological meaning. In terms of etymology, the word “orthodoxy” comes [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-09T13:50:13-04:00July 2nd, 2015|Book Discussions, Early Christian Doctrine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

Early Christianity in Egypt

About two months ago, in May, I was feeling pretty burned out; I had just finished my manuscript on How Jesus Became God and my brain was reasonably fried. At that point, I had trouble imagining being able to come up with posts for the blog for a while, and so I asked if anyone had any questions they would like to have answered. And so once again I have learned my lesson: Be careful what you ask for! Since then I’ve been answering the questions I received (the long series of posts on Matthew were ultimately from one of the questions). I’m, maybe, half way through the list. And questions keep coming in. So I think what I’m going to TRY to do now is simply answer the remaining ones, one question at a time, one per post (unless I get carried away again, as I did with the Matthew question). Feel free to keep asking questions if there are any that are burning on your brain; but realize that it may take a [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-07T16:37:12-04:00July 9th, 2013|Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Proto-Orthodox Writers, Reader’s Questions, Spread of Christianity|

Why Did “Orthodox” Christianity Win?

QUESTION: What I have been wondering lately is "why" did Christianity win out. There seemed to be much competition in the ancient world between the pagan polytheisms and monotheistic religions. Competition not only between the Jewish religion and Christian religion but within Christianity. I would be interested in why you think the current version of Christianity won out. Was it purely a matter of cultural evolution and this form of Christianity seemed to benefit people the most, easiest to adhere to, most flexible. RESPONSE: In my previous post I tried to deal (briefly!) with the first part of this question: why did Christianity succeed in the first place, so that it eventually became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. In this post I will deal (briefly again!) with the second question: why did a certain form of Christianity – widely labeled “orthodox” – end up triumphing within Christianity, when there were so many other forms of Christianity that were competing for dominance? This too is not at all an easy question, and I have [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-07T14:34:22-04:00June 22nd, 2012|Fourth-Century Christianity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions|

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How Did Judas Iscariot Die? Readers’ Mailbag June 18, 2017

Constantine’s Vision according to Eusebius

Constantine Before His Conversion

A Radically Different View of Orthodoxy and Heresy

What Are Orthodoxy and Heresy?

Early Christianity in Egypt

Why Did “Orthodox” Christianity Win?