Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 105

New Testament Manuscripts: Good News and Bad News

In my previous post I started talking about the different kinds of manuscripts of the New Testament we have.  I now want to give some more information about these manuscripts and how they can help us figure out what the authors of the NT originally wrote (and why they pose problems for us to that [...]

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On a couple of personal notes…

These aren't related to the blog per se, but, well, to me.  In case you're interested.... 1. As many of you know, I'm starting a podcast, Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman.  In fact, it's starting tomorrow.  We will be debuting with two episodes, the first that explain the title and a bit of why we [...]

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Is it Possible Jesus Didn’t Teach the Golden Rule?

Did Jesus actually teach the Golden Rule?  Or was it foisted on his lips after his death by later followers? I have already written a couple of posts on the Golden Rule in the two places it occurs in the New Testament, Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31 (see: Little-Known Aspects of The Golden Rule as Found [...]

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The Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament

I have begun to explain the field of “textual criticism,” the academic discipline that tries to establish what an author actually wrote if you don’t have his original but only copies made from later times. In this post I begin to summarize some of the most important information about the textual “witnesses” to the text [...]

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The Strange World of Textual Criticism

I've been asked a good bit lately by readers of the blog and random emailers how we can know, or if we can know, what the authors of the New Testament actually wrote -- if we don't have their original copies.  By far my best selling book (Misquoting Jesus) is about that, as is my [...]

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Did Jesus Give the Sermon on the Mount?

Did Jesus actually say the Golden Rule as found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7; the saying is in Matt. 7:12).  I have talked about the Sermon and why it is so important for Matthew’s Gospel (in the previous post: https://ehrmanblog.org/little-known-a...) and now it is time to say something controversial about it.  I [...]

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Can’t We Just Get Rid of Some of the Books of the Bible?

Here's an interesting question I received from a blog reader long ago! QUESTION: Given the criteria used to determine what would go on to constitute the New Testament canon, how is it that Hebrews and the book of Revelation remain part of the canon? I understand that Christians came to believe that they were authored [...]

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Armageddon in Biden and the Bible

On Thursday October 6, President Biden made an unusually scary statement, in response to Putin’s threat of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine:  "We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis."  He then added: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical [...]

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Little Known Aspects of The Golden Rule as Found in the Sermon on the Mount

Possibly the best-known teaching of Jesus is the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  Many people would consider this the very core of Jesus’ teaching, the one line that sums up his entire message about how people ought to behave and live their lives.  And so it probably [...]

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Little Known Aspects of The Golden Rule as found in the Sermon on the Mount

Possibly the best-known teaching of Jesus is the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  Many people would consider this the very core of Jesus’ teaching, the one line that sums up his entire message about how people ought to behave and live their lives.  And so it probably [...]

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