Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 31

The first church father to name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the four Gospels in the New Testament is Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons in Gaul (i.e., the ancient forerunner of Lyon, France), in his five-volume work, "Against Heresies" in 1985 CE.   He spent significant time in Rome itself before his appointment in Gaul, [...]

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If we are talking about the earliest Christian writings -- the subject of my previous three posts -- we naturally want to know when decisions were made about WHEN church father settled on our 27-book canon of the New Testament.  Many people -- including tons of scholars -- set a precise date: 367 CE, in [...]

The post Was the New Testament Canon Really Closed in 367 CE? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

As many of you know, Hurricane Helene swept through the mountains of Western North Carolina over the weekend, leaving significant destruction in its path. On Sunday, we announced a fundraiser to support relief efforts. We're asking for a suggested donation of $50.00, though any amount is appreciated. Those who donate will be invited to attend [...]

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How does one decide which books should belong to a collection of ALL the surviving early Christian writings of the first hundred years of the church?  Here I explain my procedure when producing my set of translations with introductions, The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, 2nd ed. 2004 (Oxford University Press), [...]

The post Finding All the Earliest Christian Texts in One Place appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

How did church leaders decide which books would be included in the New Testament canon?  Why were some let in, but others left out?  Here I continue my discussion as excerpted from the Introduction in my anthology:  The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, 2nd ed. 2004 (Oxford University Press.) ****************************** The [...]

The post Why Were Some of the Earliest Christian Books Left OUT of the NT? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In 1996 I was struck by the thought that it would be really useful for professors of New Testament to have an anthology of ALL the Christian books written in the first century of the religion, not just a translation of the NT itself.  I looked around and couldn’t find one.  I told my editor [...]

The post ALL the Christian Writings of the First Hundred Years appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I’ve recently answered some queries from readers and thought that the questions were too good not to post for all to see.   They are all on different topics, but interesting ones, and they required different lengths of answer.  Here they are, four of them, a blog Q&A.   Question One: I am writing a blog [...]

The post Some Interesting Random Questions appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Dear Platinum Members, Our next Quarterly Platinum Webinar is set for Wednesday, October 9, 2023, at 7:30 pm ET. For this talk, I’ll be tackling a question that has been widely debated among scholars and enthusiasts alike: Could Jesus read and write? While many have pondered this over the years, the scholarly evidence and interpretations [...]

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Do you yourself think there can be empirical proof that Jesus was raised from the dead?  There’s not a right answer – I’m just asking, so you can express your opinion. Last week I held a live Q&A for the Gold Members of the blog (if you’re not familiar with the perks that go along [...]

The post A PROOF of the Resurrection of Jesus. What Do YOU Think? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I think what surprised me the most about the vitriolic response I received from (some) mythicists to my book "Did Jesus Exist" was that when I actually spoke or corresponded with them, it became very clear that many knew almost nothing about the Bible, let alone biblical scholarship. I was at a social event for [...]

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