Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 37

What were the key issues, controversies, developments, and concerns of the Christiani communities of the first three centuries?   These are the topics considered in my book After the New Testament:  A Reader in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed, 2015). In the previous post I explained that the book is a collection of most of [...]

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What happened in early Christianity just *after* the period of the New Testament?  It's an unknown period for most people, but of vital importance for anyone interested in the Christian religion.  For the next three posts I'll explain by discussing my book devoted to the topic, After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity [...]

The post My Most Helpful Book? After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here again, from years ago, some reflections on the importance of having a first-century manuscript -- even if it DID NOT change much of anything we think or know. ******************** In several posts I have been emphasizing – possibly over-emphasizing – that if a first-century fragment of the Gospel of Mark does ever get published, [...]

The post Not a Game-Changer? Why I’d Still Be Thrilled to Have a First-Century Gospel Fragment appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Here I give a post from 2015, some three years after it was announced that we now have a first-century fragmentary  copy of Mark.  At this point we still had not SEEN the manuscript and no one would give us any reliable information about it.  And I began to wonder, how much difference would it [...]

The post How Would a First-Century Fragment of the Gospels Actually Change What We Know/Think? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I will continue here with select reposts of the first-century copy of Mark fiasco, in light of my recent interview in the topic and my now renewed interest in the issues involved.  (See the previous posts if you're not aware of the claims from 12 years ago that one had been discovered.) I personally think [...]

The post Would It Matter if We DID Have a First-Century Manuscript of Mark? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post -- originally put up on the blog in April 2012 -- I explained how in a debate I had in February of that year, evangelical New Testament scholar and textual critic Dan Wallace to my surprise (shock!) announced that now for the first time we actually have a copy of the [...]

The post More on the Initial Debacle on First-Century Mark (in relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls) appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

No time to wait!  If you haven't signed up for the course on Jesus' Parables, you should maybe reflect a bit on Matthew 25:1-13. Well, not exactly.  If you don't come live, you can purchase the course as a recording.  But if you do come live you'll get the recording for life, and why not [...]

The post The Parables! Have You Signed up for the Course? (This weekend!) appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

This morning I had a long interview with BBC4 (radio) in London about a new book that is coming out by renowned expert in ancient manuscripts (mainly classical) Roberta Mazza, that deals at length with the debacle over the alleged first-century copy of the Gospel of Mark.  It was a debacle because it was based [...]

The post The Debacle Over the First-Century Copy of Mark appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

If only one form of early Christianity won the contest for domination, what were the results -- what the gains and losses from that "triumph"?  And what would have happened to world history if things had gone in another direction?  This is my third and final post on my book Lost Christianities, taken from its Introduction [...]

The post What If Another Christianity Had Won? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I discussed the wide variety of early Christianities and their ranging views.  Here I consider some aspects of the Scriptures known and used by these various groups.  Again, this comes from the Introduction to my book Lost Christianities (Oxford Press, 2003). ****************************** The Lost Scriptures The Gospels that came to be included [...]

The post More Lost Christianities appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.