Loading...Here on the last day of 2025 it is time to write my annual Blog-Year-in-Review post. This year I have been helped considerably in the task by our fantastically gifted and efficient CEO, Jen (Olmos), whom many of you have had contact with over the course of your (and her) time with us. Jen has been the greatest gift to the blog since we started in 2012, and has eased my workload significantly. Among a zillion other things, she dug out all the data for me and has summarized our most important accomplishments. As you’ll see, well done us!
As y’all know, over the course of its thirteen years the Blog has had two major objectives, to spread knowledge of biblical (and related scholarship) more broadly among non-scholars and to raise money for charity doing it. I’m more or less responsible for the scholarship and all YOU, the paying members and donors, are responsible for the funds, and Jen and our generous team of volunteers makes it all happen and keeps it all running.
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Happy New Year, Bart.
I’ve got up to 2020 in reading your past blog entries. In January 2020 you talk about writing a graphic novel textbook on the NT.
Did anything ever come of that?
Sorry, I shouldn’t have written “kings” since there hadn’t been a king in Rome for centuries! What I meant is that even though Nero is clearly the major opponent of parts of the book, there are solid reasons for thinking it was written long after his death, probably near the end of the first century in the reign of Domitian. One important factor is that Rome is identified as “Babylon,” the city in Israelite history that destroyed the first temple and Jersualem itself (586 BCE); the term indicates that “Babylon” as re-appeared, that is, that there is now another city (Rome) that has destroyed the temple and Jerusalem itself, in the now past (the events of 70 CE, six years after Nero’s death).
Dr. Ehrman, thank you for providing this valuable resource at such affordable prices. It was good to get to meet you, Jen, and Heather at the blog dinner in Chapel Hill…definitely one of the highlights of 2025 for me. I look forward to 2026, and hope it brings an abundance of peace, happiness, and fulfillment to all.
Thanks! That was a terrific event!
Good morning Professor Ehrman and congratulations on your well deserved retirement. In the Gospel of Matthew, the “Great Commission” verse 19 Jesus tells the disciples to take the gospel to the Gentiles and “teaching them to observe (obey) all that I have commanded of you”. Now I could make a long list of all of the things Jesus taught or commanded of his disciples to do in the Gospel of Matthew one of which would be how important it was for the disciples to keep the law (better than the Pharisees). And in 5:19 Jesus says “Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and “teaches them” shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Could one not make the argument that Jesus is saying for the disciples to teach the Gentiles to keep the law as well? It does not say to teach the Gentiles all I have commanded of you except that part about the law.
Yes, that’s an argument that many people do make. Then the question is, What does Matthew mean by “keeping the law”?
A thought: Matthew’s narrator is indeed encouraging disciples to “keep the law,” but here’s what I think that means, and, hopefully, as I’ve learned from Bart (and Dom Crossan and Marcus Borg and even Tom Wright) I’m appropriately using the Matthean Jesus to reach the following conclusion. The keys I think, are two–the six antitheses in Ch. 5 of the Sermon on the Mount calling for a righteousness exceeding that of the Mosaic law and thereby pushing (my words, not Matthew’s) the law somewhat to the curb. The second is in Matthew’s editing of his Markan source as he relays the Greatest Commandment conversation in ch. 22. The addition of v. 40 makes it clear (to me) that ALL the law is viewed through the lens/filter of love. In summary, the Great Commission: Teach them to obey all I have taught you to obey, which is to love God and neighbor.
Very proud for you!
Clarissima Jen, Femina Optima!
Prof Ehrman, do you foresee your relationship to the Blog changing substantially post retirement?
I would find it interesting if at some point you spent a post or two discussing the Internet – what it does well, its limitations, how it affected your approach to teaching, your relationship with your students, etc. (I’m the same age as you and we are probably the last generation that will be able to provide an experiential before/after perspective so i would appreciate yours.)
Thanks
We are now oging to start working more diligently on expanding and improving the blog, so as to raise more funds for charity. But I don’t see my relationship with the blog changing.
To live, to laugh, to leave a legacy. I love the way you’ve achieved all three. Thank you and all the best to you and yours (family, work, blog, life, etc) for the coming year.
Over 2 billion dollars to charity. If there were a heaven, Michael himself should come for you at the end of your days.
A blog search turned up nothing, so just asking: have you read Catherine Nixey’s book “Heretic”? If so, what did you think of it?
I’m afraid I haven’t.
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman and happy new year.
I am aware of your views that the idea that your soul goes to heaven and hell is not in the Old Testament.
What do you think of this verse? It seems to imply otherwise.
Thanks.
Job 19:25-27
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
It is a notoriously difficult passage to translate and hotly debated among Hebrew Bible scholars. The most common view (among experts) appears to be that it is referring not to redeemer in the afterlife but to an advocate for Job who will make his case before God so that God will allow him to explain himself (as happens, more or less, at the end of the poetic section of the book). You might be interested in getting a good, critical, Study Bible to explain hard verses like this, e.g., the Harper Collins Study Bible.
Hello Bart Erhman
Were tomb stories popular in Jesus times?
I’m not sure what you mean by tomb stories. There certainly were lots of stories of th eliving visiting tombs and sometimes finding there things they didn’t expect!
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
Do other scholars also support the view that Jesus did not preach hell?
If by that you mean “the place souls go after death for punishment,” then yes, many do.disabledupes{a1b1c29a597763ee3146031c4fc13b64}disabledupes
I wrote (first comment on Dec 31)
“I’ve got up to 2020 in reading your past blog entries. In January 2020 you talk about writing a graphic novel textbook on the NT.
Did anything ever come of that?”
and you replied, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have written “kings” ….”
I don’t think you meant that in response to my message. So, did you ever write a graphic novel textbook?
Thanks,
Lucinda
Nope, it got back-burnered and simmered to nothing….
Thanks for your reply, Bart.
I envision a graphic novel textbook collaboration with Paul Ens (Paulogia)? :-). (assuming he isn’t ferociously busy as well!)