Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 24

Here now is the third of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. ****************************** As we move to the Christmas season, I thought it would be interesting to post some extracts on one of the most popular Gospels in the Middle Ages, an account of [...]

The post Twelve Days of Christmas Day 3: A Different Account of Joseph and Mary! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here now is the second of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. *********************** Once more the season is come upon us. At its heart stands a tale of two-thousand year vintage, the Christmas story. Or perhaps we should say the Christmas myth. When Post-Enlightenment [...]

The post Twelve Days of Christmas Day 2: The Myth of the First Christmas appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I’m happy to announce another trip I’ll be doing come summertime, June 5 - 14, 2025, a cruise that goes from Athens to Venice.  Wanna come?  It’s an unusually good itinerary to some incredible spots, and I’ll be lecturing and hanging out with everyone who comes. The brochure for the trip is below, and here [...]

The post A Cruise This Summer: From Athens to Venice. Interested? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Twelve Days of Christmas!  I’d like to honor the tradition by giving twelve of my favorite Christmas-themed posts over lo these many years the blog has been in existence.  I am not ranking them in any particular way as a countdown to my #1 favorite, much as the famous English Christmas Carol itself.  Speaking [...]

The post Twelve Days of Christmas Day 1: From a Historical View appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

It's amazing how much fraud goes on in the study of ancient manuscripts, sometimes to the tune of millions of dollars, often, these days, oddly, in highly religious circles.  Here's the final part of my discussion of fraud connected with New Testament fragments from about five and a half years ago (May, 2020). ****************************** An [...]

The post The Hobby Lobby, the Museum of the Bible, and Incredible Academic Fraud appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Several people have asked about what ever happened to that so-called first-century copy of the Gospel of Mark that I mentioned in my just-finished post on mummy-masks.  I explained what happened when the mystery finally got solved about five years ago.  Here's what I said then.  (It gets even more bizarre later, as I'll explain [...]

The post The Low-Down on That First-Century Gospel of Mark appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

OK, I am at the tail end of this thread on mummy masks and the alleged discovery of a first-century fragment of Mark’s Gospel.   This thread was first posted in 2015.  Here is how I ended it then. But I did want to provide access to an interesting article and penetrating set of questions on [...]

The post Final Reflections on Mummy Masks and Manuscripts appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

  In our age of the superiority of non-expertise, occasionally an authority speaks out who reveals the truth.  Here is a case in point, when a true expert on ancient papyri explains what's going on with those mummy masks I've mentioned in earlier posts. Again, this is from 2015; things have changed in terms of [...]

The post A True Expert Speaks About Mummy Masks and Papyri appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

As you may know, the Bart Ehrman Foundation and Blog are embarking on our first-ever annual appeal in support of the incredible work done by Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD). For years, the blog has been a steadfast supporter of UMD, an organization dedicated to providing essential services such as food, shelter, and hope to [...]

The post Annual Appeal 2024: Behind the Mission Pt. 1 appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here is my second re-post from 2015 about destroying ancient mummy masks in hopes of finding manuscripts. In yesterday’s post I cited an article by Mary-Ann Russo that explained the situation about the mummy masks that were being destroyed in order to acquire papyrus fragments of the New Testament.  The scholar mainly cited in that [...]

The post Can We Defend Destroying Mummy Masks? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.