Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 17

In broad terms, there were two major kinds of Christology in the early church.  One of them could be called an "incarnation" Christology, since it maintains that Christ was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, as explicitly stated in John 1:1-18 and Philippians 2:6-11.  That's the view, of course, that most Christians have [...]

The post Did Jesus BECOME the Son of God? The Christology of Acts appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Now that I’ve devoted two posts to the major sine qua non of the book of Acts – one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why, I can provide some suggestions for further reading, important works written by scholars for non-scholars.   I have [...]

The post The Acts of the Apostles: For Further Reading appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Now that I have discussed the major themes and emphases of the Acts of the Apostles, I can summarize what (I think) we can know about its author, when he wrote, and why. As I’ve indicated, Acts is the second volume of a two-volume work by the anonynmous author of the Gospel of Luke.  In [...]

The post The Acts of the Apostles: Who Wrote It, When, and Why? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Acts in a Nutshell The book of Acts is a truly important book for anyone interested in knowing how Christianity began:  it is our only narrative of the spread of the faith in its first thirty years. Acts is a relatively long book – about the size of its companion volume the Gospel of Luke [...]

The post The Book of Acts in a Nutshell appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The intriguing questions keep coming.  Here are some more that I've received.  And BTW, if you're not a Gold Member on the blog you might consider moving up to that level: one of the perks is that I do a live Q&A every month with Gold Members, which is recorded and then distributed to them.  [...]

The post More Interesting Questions from Blog Readers appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

It has just occurred to me (duh) that some blog readers who are enjoying these "In a Nutshell" posts on the books of the New Testament may like to see a more extended exposition of the various issues I address, and I've devoted entire lectures courses for some of these books (and will be doing [...]

The post The Gospel of Matthew. Are You Interested in a More Extended Discussion? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I don’t think you can disprove the existence of God.  And I don’t think you can prove it.  There are some things that by their very nature are not susceptible of proof, at least at this stage of our knowledge, including some things that theoretically exist or not.  If you want to insist that one [...]

The post The God Hypothesis. What Do You Think? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

So far in this thread on “The New Testament in a Nutshell” I’ve covered the four Gospels, each in four posts.  The first always begins with a 50-sentence summary of the major themes and emphases of the book.  In this post I want to make things easily accessible for anyone interested in the broad similarities [...]

The post All Four Gospels in One Nutshell appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I've discussed how John differs strikingly from the Synoptics, especially considering the stories and sayings/discourses in each.  I've also indicated that they differ strikingly even when they tell the same *kind* of story, but I haven't been able to illustrate that yet.  Here is one of my favorite examples. How does Jesus raise from the [...]

The post John Versus the Synoptics: How Does Jesus Raise the Dead? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have devoted two posts to major features of the Gospel of John, one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why. Now I can provide some suggestions for further reading, important works written by scholars for non-scholars.   The list is annotated to give [...]

The post The Gospel of John: For Your Further Reading appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.