Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 18

Now that I’ve summarized the major themes and emphases of the Gospel of John, I can turn to the historical questions of who wrote it, when, and why.  In this case, the biggest mystery is Who? To start with, the Gospel is anonymous – the author chose never to name himself.  The first author to [...]

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What is the Gospel of John all about, in a nutshell?  It’s worth knowing:  John continues to be one of the favorite books of the Bible and is the (only) source of many of the well-known sayings of Jesus: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in [...]

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Here are some interesting readers’ questions I’ve received that I think would be of some interest to other blog members, along with my answers which may or may not be of interest!   QUESTION I often find that historians of early Christianity use the terms “historical Jesus/Paul/whoever” and “real Jesus/Paul/whoever” somewhat interchangeably, which I don’t [...]

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There have been books written and at least one movie I know of that are based on the idea of near-death experiences.  An NDE is an episode in which a person suffers some significant medical problem, like a heart attack or a drowning, and almost dies and has some sort of out-of-body experience or vision [...]

The post Did Jesus Have a Near-Death Experience? – Platinum Post by Douglas Wadeson MD appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have now finished my short thread on the Synoptic Problem and here would like to provide some guidelines for additional reading for anyone who, well, just can’t get enough!  These are books written by experts dealing with various aspects of the problem and its solution; I’ve indicated which ones are most suitable for beginners [...]

The post For Further Reading on the Synoptic Problem and Its Possible Solutions appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

We have seen that most scholars agree that the problem of the close similarities and striking differences among our Synoptic Gospels -- the "Synoptic Problem" -- is best solved by thinking that Mark was copied (to a greater or lesser extent) by both Matthew and Luke, the view called "Markan Priority."  The majority continues to [...]

The post Other Sources for Matthew and Luke: M and L! And Who CARES? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Platinum blog members, it's time for our Quarterly Platinum Webinar! Mark your calendars – the live lecture will take place on Wednesday March 5th at 7:00pm Eastern. As always, if you are not able to attend live, the lecture will be recorded and distributed via email after the event. The topic for this quarter's lecture [...]

The post Q1 Platinum Webinar: The Mystery of the Beloved Disciple appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Platinum blog members, it's time for our Quarterly Platinum Webinar! Mark your calendars – the live lecture will take place on Wednesday March 5th at 7:00pm Eastern. As always, if you are not able to attend live, the lecture will be recorded and distributed via email after the event. The topic for this quarter's lecture [...]

The post Q1 Platinum Webinar: The Mystery of the Beloved Disciples appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I gave a simplified illustration to show why it is problematic to get rid of the Q source (the hypothetical  collection of sayings found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark).  Having this hypothetical source does not actually complicate the solution of the Synoptic Problem, it makes the solution [...]

The post Evidence for Q: The Sequence of the Sayings appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Why should we think there was a Q, the hypothetical document that contained principally sayings of Jesus, that was (according to this hypothesis) used by Matthew and Luke (but not by Mark) in constructing their Gospels? It is an issue because if Matthew and Luke both used Mark, as almost everyone agrees (for reasons I [...]

The post An Argument for Q: The Hypothetical Source That Seems to Have Existed appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.