Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 43

How many of the early Christian writings consist of scissors-and-paste jobs, where later editors cut up earlier writings and stitched them together into one continuous work, so that what we have now are not the originals but only the final edited version?  Are there books like that, for example, in the New Testament?  In my [...]

The post Is Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians Actually TWO Letters? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Is it possible that some of the writings of the New Testament are cut-and-paste jobs, where several writings have been combined together, instead of one writing done by one author at one time?  I decided to get to this question by referring to another early Christian writing, outside the New Testament, for which this is [...]

The post Three Early Christian Writings Spliced Together Into One: The Didache appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

  I have been doing a thread in response to a reader who asked how we know we have the originals of the books of the Bible.  On one hand, the question involves how we know the words the authors originally wrote.  I've been dealing with that question over a number of posts.  But the [...]

The post An Important Early Christian Writing appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I began to address the question of whether we have the original text of 1 Cor. 14:34-35, where Paul tells women that they must be silent in the churches. I first had to show that the similar passage of 1 Tim. 10-15 is not by Paul, because 1 Timothy itself was [...]

The post The Silencing of Women: 1 Cor. 14:34-35 as an Interpolation appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I recently received this important question from a reader that is closely related to the current thread about whether we have the "original" text of the books of the New Testament. QUESTION: The question was specifically about about women's roles in the church based on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. “Women should be silent in the churches. [...]

The post Knowing Paul’s Views of Women… appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I'm pleased to announce that I will be doing a new two-lecture course on a rather timely topic, When Does Life Begin: The Status of the Unborn in the Biblical Tradition.  The course is not connected with the Blog per se, except insofar as I'm doing it and many of you might be interested.   For more information [...]

The post When Does Life Begin? The Status of the Unborn in the Biblical Tradition. appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

There is one particularly interesting argument sometimes used by those who believe we can know with good certainty what the original text of the New Testament books said.  This is the argument called the “tenacity of the tradition.”  The argument is prefaced on the very interesting phenomenon that whenever papyri manuscripts are discovered – say [...]

The post A Major Argument That We Can Be Sure We Have the Original Text appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

When I have public debates with scholars over whether we can know the original text of the New Testament or not, I stake out the claim that we cannot, and they stake out the claim that we probably can.  Part of my argument is always the one I started to outline in the previous post.  [...]

The post Dubious Arguments That We CAN Get to the “Original Text” appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Suppose you have thousands of manuscripts of a New Testament book and a particular verse is worded in one way in 98% of them but another way in just 2%?  Surely the 98% is right, right?  That was an issue I addressed many years ago on the blog, and to some of you, the answer [...]

The post Don’t the MOST Manuscripts Show What An Author Wrote? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

It's a little late, but we got it together! https://vimeo.com/945923685/ad96b1385...  

The post April Gold Q&A Video appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.