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In my previous post I started explaining that if you were to read 1 Peter, and didn't see his name as the first word, you would probably never suspect it was written by Jesus' disciple; on the contrary, it sounds a lot like something Paul wold have written.  (All this is taken, in edited form, [...]

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Why does the “Peter” of 1 Peter sound like Paul but not Peter? This is at the heart of the question of why a pseudonymous author who was claiming to be Peter would have written this particular letter.   It’s a perplexing matter in part because nothing much about 1 Peter sounds like what we would [...]

The post Why Does the Author of 1 Peter Sound Like Paul Instead of Peter? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

When it comes to the question of whether Peter, the disciple of Jesus, was likely to have written 1 Peter, as I indicated in my previous post, a major issue to consider is the fact that in antiquity MOST people could not read, let alone write, let alone compose a sentence, let along a five-page [...]

The post Did The Apostle Peter Write 1 Peter? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Now that I have laid out the major themes and emphases of 1 Peter in my previous post, I can move on to the questions of who wrote it, when, and why.  The final issue in some ways is easiest, at least when it comes to the overarching purpose of the letter.  As we have [...]

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As you know, the Platinum Members of the blog are invited to submit their own posts to be considered for publication on the blog. After we've published four of these posts, Platinum members are asked to vote for one to be published to the entire blog. Today, we have a post for you from Platinum [...]

The post The Death and Afterlife of Jesus: A Historical Reconstruction Part I – by Mark Reichert (Platinum Member Winner) appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The book of 1 Peter is a kind of circular letter written in the name of the apostle Peter to “the exiles of the Dispersion” in several of the provinces of Asia Minor: “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1:1).  The author addresses his readers by calling them “exiles” (1:1) and “aliens” (2:11). Most scholars [...]

The post 1 Peter in a Nutshell appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the relationship of AI to human consciousness.  I'm obviously not an an expert, but hey, at least I can think.  Can AI think?  That, of course, is a major question constantly being raised.  And one on which almost everyone seems to have an opinion.  (In contrast to, [...]

The post Am I? AI? What do you think? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Platinum Members: You’re InvitedJoin Bart for our next Platinum-Only Webinar on Tuesday, September 9 at 7:00 PM ET. This quarter’s topic is a big one:Biblical Explanations for SufferingWhy does suffering exist, and how did early Christians attempt to explain it? Bart will explore the range of answers offered in the Bible and what they reveal [...]

The post Q3 2025 Platinum Webinar – September 9th appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous three posts I’ve argued that the author of the book of James really does want his audience to think he is “James, the brother of Jesus,” but that in fact he was someone else.  In modern parlance, that means the book is a “forgery.”  Ancient Greek did not use the English word [...]

The post Why Would Someone Forge the Letter of James? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here I conclude my string of posts dealing with whether James the brother of Jesus wrote the book of James as the book itself implicitly claims.  Again this is taken from my more academic study Forgery and Counterforgery, but I've edited it a bit for an audience of regular folk instead of irregular scholars. In my [...]

The post Why James Did Not Write James appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.