Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 28

Hey Golds and Platinums: Mark your calendars – we've got a monthly Gold Q&A coming up on Sunday November 17th at 7pm Eastern. If you can, join us for the live session—it’s a chance to dive into your burning questions and catch the conversation as it unfolds! Can’t make it live? Not to worry; the [...]

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Now we come to the third of four posts by Platinum member Angus Nisbet on the dispute between Paul and Barnabas recorded in the book of Acts, where he maintains that Mark (as in John Mark, allegedly the author of the Gospel!) was a spy who ratted Paul out.  And it involves a connection with [...]

The post An Imagined Dialogue for the Dispute Between Paul & Barnabas in Acts Part 3 by Angus Nisbet appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I will be giving lectures on another glorious tour to some of the Greek Islands this coming May 14-26. This will be fantastic. Some blog members came with me on a similar trip last year, but to different islands. It was life-long-memorable. If it’s humanly possible, think about joining up! Space will be limited – [...]

The post Island Hopping with History: Join Our Greek Odyssey this May! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have been talking about the early Christian understandings of Jesus as the messiah.  Not just the messiah, but the “crucified messiah,” a concept that would have seemed not just unusual or bizarre to most Jewish ears in the first century, but absolutely mind-boggling and self-contradictory.  I’ve been arguing that it was precisely the contradictory [...]

The post Would the Resurrection Make Anyone Believe Jesus Was the Messiah? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here Angus Nisbet continues his discussion of Paul and Barnabas and the dispute they had, where he gets into more fascinating issues, involving what might lie behind the dispute and how non-canonical writings that did not make it into the NT might help us figure it out.  There are some controversial views here.  What do [...]

The post An Imagined Dialogue for the Dispute Between Paul & Barnabas in Acts Part 2 by Angus Nisbet appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I started to show that most Jews rejected Christian claims about Jesus because Jesus was just the *opposite* of what the messiah was expected to be.  The messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power who would overthrow God’s enemies and set up a new kingdom on earth in [...]

The post A Particular Problem with a Crucified Messiah appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Historians usually have reasons for what they say; that is, when they make a historical claim, it is almost always based on a close reading of the surviving sources.  When it’s not, they’re just blowin’ smoke.  But if they’re reputable scholars AND are blowin’ smoke – that is, taking a guess –they’ll usually tell you.  [...]

The post Paul and the Crucified Messiah in 1 Corinthians appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I said a bit about “forgeries” in the NT, that is, books whose authors claimed to be a famous person (Peter, Paul, James, Jude), knowing full well they were someone else.  In the ancient world, these books were called “lies” (pseudoi) or “books inscribed with a lie” (pseudepigrapha).  But why would [...]

The post Why Would A Christian Author Lie About Who He Was? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In these massively troubling times (no need for me to itemize the issues) and the incredibly disturbing bifurcation of opinions, views, and perspectives, where very few people have even the slightest interest in listening to someone on "the other side," there is at least one thing that virtually everyone agrees on:  these are massively troubling [...]

The post Blog Etiquette in These Troubling Times! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here is the first of a four-post thread for Platinum members by long-standing Platinum member Angus Nisbet.  It is a terrifically imaginative discussion of Paul and Barnabas (focused on the book of Acts) that touches on a wide range of issues that we deal with a lot on the blog -- Paul's conflict wiht other [...]

The post An Imagined Dialogue for the Dispute Between Paul & Barnabas in Acts Part I by Angus Nisbet appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.