Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 41

Gold and Platinum members, Time again for our monthly Gold Q&A. Is there something in the New Testament that puzzles you or doesn't make sense (imagine that!)? Put it in a (short, to-the-point) question and send it to Diane at  [email protected]. DEADLINE: Please get your question in by Thursday next week (06/24/2024) at midnight (whenever [...]

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It's time again for Platinum members to vote for a Platinum post to be published to the whole blog (exciting!). Here are links to the posts, in case you want to refresh your memory--then vote! Does God Have Chromosomes? by Doug Wadeson, MD Atonement Doctrine by Manuel Fiadeiro Did People Have Time for [...]

The post Platinums! Time to Upvote a Platinum Post! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

To put an end to this thread on the textual variants of the New Testament, and whether they matter, and thought that it might be good to give an alternative perspective that I first posted, well, ten years ago.  Earlier than that, on January 3rd, 2009,  Peter J. Williams and I appeared as guests on  [...]

The post A Debate with Peter Williams on Textual Variants appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In this thread I am discussing why it matters that there are so many variants in our surviving manuscripts of the New Testament.  It does not matter because there are any “fundamental Christian doctrines” at stake, per se, but for other reasons.  As I sketched in my previous post, it should matter for anyone who [...]

The post Why Textual Variants Matter Even for Those Who Do NOT Think the Bible is Infallible appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I began a discussion of why textual variants (that is, different wordings of the verses of the NT) found in the manuscripts might matter to someone other than a specialist who spends his or her life studying such things.  Most of the hundreds of thousands of variations are of very little [...]

The post Why Bible-Believing Christians Care About Textual Variants appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I've been providing a thread on the issue of why it's so hard to know if we have an "original" text of any of the writings of the New Testament, both because some of the books are cut-and-pasted versions of earlier texts and because we don't have any of the originals of the texts but [...]

The post If Textual Variants Don’t Change Any Key Doctrines — Then Who Cares? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I'm pleased to publish three posts by guest blogger David Litwa, one of the most prolific scholars of New Testament and Early Christianity over the past ten years.  David was a graduate student at Duke some years ago and took a couple of my PhD seminars over at UNC.  He is now at Boston College.  [...]

The post A Bizarre “Gnostic” Religion: The Naassenes – Guest Post by Dr. David Litwa appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In trying to figure out what it even means to talk about the “original” text of Philippians (was it what Paul meant to dictate?  Was it what he did dictate, if it was different from what he intended? Was it what the scribe wrote even if it was different from what Paul dictated?  Was it [...]

The post Serious Hypothetical (And Realistically Possible) Problems With Copies of Paul’s Letters appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have been talking about the problems in knowing what the “original” text of Philippians is.  Even with the following brief review, the comments I will be making in this post will, frankly, probably not make much sense if you do not refresh your memory from my previous two posts.   Here I will be picking [...]

The post Even More Snarly Problems If Paul Dictated His Letters appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have been asked to comment on whether we can get back to the “original” text of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, and I have begun to discuss the problems not just of getting *back* to the original, but also of knowing even what the original *was*.   In my previous post I pointed out the [...]

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