Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 25

Is it OK to destroy ancient mummy masks in hopes of finding yet something more valuable out of them? I have just returned from my annual professional meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, where thousands of biblical scholars come to read academic papers to one another, sit on panels to review books or discuss [...]

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I have received some more interesting questions in the comment section of the blog, and thought I should published them more broadly, along with my responses.  Here goes!   Question: What are your views on what Jesus is communicating in the ‘Whose Son Is the Messiah?’ story in the synoptics where Jesus references Psalm 110:1. [...]

The post Readers’ Questions and My Responses (11/2024) appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

As the holiday season begins, we want to share an opportunity to make a meaningful impact in the lives of those who need it most. Take a listen to this message from Bart to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLeX5... This December, the Bart Ehrman Foundation is launching our first-ever Annual Appeal to raise funds for [...]

The post Special Webinar Announcement: Ehrman Blog Annual Appeal appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In previous posts I have discussed the different Jewish sects that we know about from the first century, at the dawn of Christianity (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Fourth Philosophy).  In the post I indicated that (a) there were different understandings of the afterlife among them, but (b) there was a belief in a future resurrection of [...]

The post Jewish Disagreements About the Afterlife: Pharisees and Sadducees appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I talked about two of the known Jewish sects from the days of Jesus in Palestine.  The idea that there are specifically four sects comes to us from the late-first-century Jewish historian Josephus, whose many volumes of writings (e.g., on the Jewish War and on Jewish Antiquities – the latter a [...]

The post Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus: The Essenes and the Fourth Philosophy appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I am in a short thread discussing Judaism just before and at the time of Jesus.  In that connections, I often get asked about the different Jewish sects in the period. So I'll devote two posts to the question, lifting the discussion from my textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian [...]

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I often get asked about what Judaism was like in the time before and up to Jesus.  It's a vital question, since whatever else you might want to say about Jesus, he was definitely Jewish and the Judaism he was born into, raised in, and accepted was the Judaism of his time (not medieval and [...]

The post Judaism 200 Years Before Jesus: The Maccabean Revolt appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

How can you be satisfied and content with life?  Even when it seems rotten on the whole?  With this post I conclude my thread on the ancient Stoic view of life and how to live it. Thus, Stoics understood that the way to live – and to live with eudaimonia (recall: that means a kind [...]

The post How to be Content with Life Even When It’s Rotten: The Stoic View appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here I continue trying to explain the ancient philosophy of Stoicism, and to show how it related to their views of ethics – especially with respect to questions of altruism. It is a little difficult for many moderns to get their minds around the Stoic idea that “reason” is a divine quality that infuses the [...]

The post How Not To Be Bothered When Bad Things Happen: The Stoics appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

From my earlier posts on altruism in the ancient world before Christianity, a number of blog readers have asked me to say some things specifically about ancient Stoics.  Didn’t they urge altruistic behavior?  Once again, the answer is, well, yes and no.  This will take several posts to explain. Stoicism was by far the most [...]

The post Does this World Make Any Sense? The Ancient Stoics appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.