Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 30

Are there moments when you wonder not just why things are going badly for you, or why they are very badly for others, but more comprehensively about why there needs to be suffering at all?  I certainly have, and I am now doing a thread of posts that explain some of my reflections through excerpts [...]

The post How Can We Imagine That God is Active in Our World? (A genuine, not rhetorical, question) appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Two weeks ago I gave a fundraising webinar for the victims of Hurricane Helene, on the topic:  Why Do Disasters Strike: The Bible’s Views.  In preparing for the talk I decided to re-read the opening section of my book God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question: Why We Suffer (San [...]

The post Hurricanes, Suffering, And My Loss of Faith appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

This will be my final post for now on the Old Testament apocrypha.  In it I discuss the final (and particularly intriguing) book accepted in the Roman Catholic church, and a few others accepted in Orthodox Christian circles. Again this all comes from my textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford, 2018).   2 [...]

The post And Yet Other Apocrypha: 2 Maccabees and Others, Including Psalm 151! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Gold & Platinum Members, Your moment is here—get ready to fire off those questions for the October Gold Q&A! If all goes according to plan, Bart will be recording on October 20 at 7-8pm ET, with the replay dropping later that week. Got something simmering on your mind, or maybe a curiosity brewing? Now’s your [...]

The post October Gold Q&A – Get Your Questions Answered! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In this post I continue discussing the books of the Apocrypha, accepted as part of Scripture by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.  These are important books, historically and culturally – but hardly known among Protestant readers.   Here are three more!  Descriptions are taken from my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction.   The [...]

The post Still More Books of the Apocrypha: Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The OT Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books are truly fascinating, even if not widely read.  Few people outside of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions knows about the first one; the other two here though are better known and, in fact, historically significant. Some descriptions from my book The New Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction. ****************************** The Letter [...]

The post Some More of the OT Apocrypha: the Letter of Jeremiah, Additions to Daniel, and 1 Maccabees ap...

Dear Platinum Members, If you missed the live session of this quarter's Platinum Webinar, fear not. We have recorded the talk and it is now for you to view. Bart covers a lot of fascinating ground in this talk, including: Why this topic is even a question. Context around literacy in ancient societies. What the [...]

The post Platinum Webinar for October: “The Literacy of Jesus: Could the Christian Savior Read and Write?” appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I began to describe the Old Testament Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books.  In the several posts that follow I will describe the ones commonly accepted by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.   These are very interesting books, well worth reading, and, as I've said, canonical Scripture for some parts of the Christian church. My [...]

The post Some of the Old Testament Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, and Additions to Esther appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Lots of people on the blog seem to be really interested in early Christian apocrypha -- other Gospels, Acts, epistles, apocalypses that did not make it into the New Testament.  It's a major area of fascination for me as well.  But many folk talk about them as "the Apocrypha" and probably that's not quite right [...]

The post Introducing the Old Testament Apocrypha appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I pointed out that our earliest list of which books should be considered Christian Scripture (that is, parts of the New Testament), the Muratorian Fragment from the 180s CE, lists the Apocalypse of Peter as a book that was accepted by some Christians.  I've talked about the book on the blog [...]

The post Was the Apocalypse of Peter Originally Considered Part of the New Testament? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.