Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 44

Scholars sometimes debate whether we can know that we have reconstructed the original text of the New Testament at every point – or even every important point.  To me the answer was and is self-evidently, no, of course not.  Many of my conservative evangelical critics think that I’m being overly skeptical, that since we have [...]

The post Even If We Can Imagine an “Original” Text, How Could We Know if We Had It? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

  Here's a way to think about what it can even mean to talk about an "original text," from a post many years ago, published when I was just finishing up one of my books. ****************************** In my debates with other scholars about whether we can know (for certain) (or at they sometimes put it, [...]

The post Is There an Original Text Even of One of MY Books?? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Gold and Platinum members, Time again for our monthly Gold Q&A. But I can't do it (literally!) without YOU!  Send me your urgent (short, to-the-point) questions on any blog-related topic.  Have you submitted a question in the past that wasn't picked? Feel free to try again. Don't put your question in a Comment, though--send it [...]

The post May Gold Q&A: Keep Those (Metaphorical) Cards & Letters Coming! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

QUESTION: When it comes to the gospels, how do we define the ‘original text’? Do we define it as the original manuscript that was first penned by the author, or do we define it as the gospels in their most settled canonical form?   RESPONSE: As it turns out, this is a complicated and endlessly [...]

The post How Can We Even IMAGINE an “Original” Text of the Gospels? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I have recently been asked about how we know we have the originals of the books of the Bible.  By that, the questioner meant both how do we know the words we think the authors wrote were actually the words he wrote and how do we know the books we have are in the shape they were when [...]

The post Two KINDS of Originals. How Do We Know We Have Either? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

A blog member recently commented on a radio debate I did on the Problem of Suffering many years ago; over the years I've forgotten a lot of my debates -- or at least what actually happened in them -- but not this one.  I found it completely infuriating.  So I thought I would repost it.  [...]

The post A High-level Intellectual with an Infuriating “Solution” to Why There is Suffering appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In this thread I have been talking about the role of women in the early church, starting with the ministry of Jesus, then in the churches of Paul (the first churches we have any real record of). In this post I continue by reflecting on Paul’s actual *views* of women; this strikes me as a [...]

The post Did Paul Favor Gender Equality? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous point I talked about the traditions that indicated that Jesus associated with women publicly during his ministry – in an attempt to use established historical criteria to know whether the prominence of women in the earliest Christian communities may have had precedence in the life of Jesus himself. What about the contextual [...]

The post Women in the World of Jesus appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

If you haven't taken note of this yet, please do!  It's gonna be a really interesting topic.  Here's the original post. ***************** I am very pleased to announce a fund-raiser for the Bart Ehrman blog on MONDAY May 6, a special event in which I interview fellow New Testament scholar and social commentator Dr. James Tabor [...]

The post Reminder! WHY PROPHECY FAILS! Fundraiser for Sudan With James Tabor appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I tried to show that women – contrary to what one might think – were quite prominent in the ministry and churches established by Paul. One naturally wonders why that might be, given the fact that women came to be silenced in later Christian traditions (continuing on in some rather notable [...]

The post Jesus and Women appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.