Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 29

My books Forged, for normal human beings, and Forgery and Counterforgery, for abnormal scholars, both deal with issues of the authorship of the writings of the New Testament (and other books in early Christianity) and with why there are good reasons for thinking that some of them were forgeries (written in the name of famous people like Paul [...]

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Most Christians turn to the Bible to some degree or another for guidance on their ethical views and perspectives on social agendas.  For those who read it closely, the Bible can be problematic ethically.  Most people realize there is a problem with the endorsement of slavery in the Bible (both Old and New Testaments); few [...]

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One of my personal favorite books (of mine!) is How Jesus Became God.  In my New Testament textbook, The New Testament: A Historical  Introduction, now in its eighth edition with Hugo Mendez, we include a couple of brief discussions of the topic in two of the sidebars.  One of the tricks in writing a textbook [...]

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As many of you know, this past year I published the 8th edition of my textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 2024), but this time, rather than doing it myself, I asked my colleague Hugo Mendez to join me in editing / updating it, and truth be told, [...]

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The Bible is not an answer machine to all your questions (despite what billboards on US I-40 tell me); many of our modern questions are not addressed in the Bible (most of them, in fact: think of the issues people are each others' throats about half the time in our country); the Bible often gives [...]

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Gold & Platinum Members, Thank you so much for submitting your questions and attending the live Q&A yesterday. For those of you who were not able to attend the Q&A live, the replay is ready and available for your viewing. Please find the replay at this link: October 2024 Gold Member Q&A Replay Mark your [...]

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People react lots of different ways when trying to deal with the problem of how there can be so much suffering in a world that is said to be controlled by the almighty God who loves people and wants the best for them.  I decided to write my book God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails [...]

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When teaching undergraduate students about the problem of suffering, I have sometimes found it hard to explain to them why it is a “problem” for those who believe in God.  Many people do not find it an insurmountable problem; many others do.  My concern is far less where someone lines up on that issue than [...]

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Please note: The below course is not affiliated with The Bart Ehrman Blog. We’re sharing it with you because we believe it may be of interest to our members. Thank you for your continued support of the Bart Ehrman Foundation and Blog. *********************************** Hello from Chris Huntley, Did you know that the book of Acts [...]

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The “problem of suffering” is especially a problem in the monotheistic religions.   In ancient Greek and Roman religions, with their many, many gods, it wasn’t an intellectual puzzle.  If there’s suffering, it’s because some or all of the gods are ticked off and out to get you.  There are some bad ones up there as [...]

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