Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 112

How Could Jesus Be BOTH Divine and Human at Once? An Intriguing Ancient View

This now is my tenth and final April 18 anniversary post.  The blog started on April 18, 2012, and with this post I will finish all the previous posts from April 18.   This one, from 2021, is especially interesting for anyone intrigued by early Christian attempts to figure out who Christ was.  God?  Human?  Half [...]

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Christians Who Reversed Jesus’ Teachings: Wealth is GOOD!

In this thread I’ve been giving a short history of ancient Christian views of giving to charity – a matter of real interest for the blog itself, but of bigger interest for the world at large.  Surprisingly, before Christianity started to take over the Roman world, no one apart from Jews appeared to think that [...]

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“Redemptive Gifts”: Can Giving to Charity Save Your Soul?

In my previous post I began to show that after Jesus’ death, his followers started to soften his message that it was necessary for his followers to give up all their material goods.  In fact, Christian leaders started seeing the virtue of wealth in their communities and began to claim that wealthy people who gave [...]

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Rescheduled (and RE-scheduled!) Platinum Webinar July 19

It's past time for another Platinum webinar; as you know, this is a four-time a year event, for Platinum Members only.  Apologies for having had to reschedule this one twice--I'll have a few words to say about that during the Zoom. Our topic is TBA. The date:  Tuesday July 19; 7:30-9:00 (EST)  No need to [...]

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July Gold Q&A

Dear Gold Members, These monthly Gold Q&A's have been a lot of fun to do.  Time for another one!  Have a question?  Ask it!  Anything related to the blog! To enter your question on to the list: send it to Diane at ehrmanblog@gmail.com DEADLINE for your question. Saturday July 16, midnight (whenever midnight is where [...]

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Softening Jesus’ Message on Giving up (Literally) Everything

In my previous post I showed that Jesus himself appears to have taught that his disciples (not just one or two of them) had to give up *everything* in order to be his followers.  Most likely this insistence on voluntary poverty was related to his message that the Kingdom of God was to arrive soon, [...]

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Early Christianity and War. Guest Post by Dan Kohanski

As you may know, Platinum level members of the blog are allowed to make guest posts to their fellow Platinum members, and periodically they vote on one to be posted for all blog members.  Here is the most recent winning post, by Dan Kohanski.   (You may want to check out the benefits that accrue to [...]

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Did Jesus Insist on Voluntary Poverty?

I am returning now to my discussion of understandings of wealth and charity in the early Christian tradition, as I think through how I want to draft my prospectus on a book on that topic for my publisher.  If you want to see the earlier posts on views of wealth and giving in the Roman [...]

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Mike Licona’s Response to My Post on Contradictions

Several people alerted me to Mike Licona's response to my post on our debate over a specific contradiction in the Gospels.  I checked it out and thought it would be interesting to get your response before giving my own.  I asked Mike if it was OK to share it on the blog, and yes indeed, [...]

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Does Luke Have Contradictory Views of the Atonement?

I return now to the seemingly simple but inordinately complicated question I received that has led to this short thread over the past week or so on Luke's understanding of why Jesus died.  In the thread so far (in case you haven't read it) I've argued that Luke (author of both the Gospel and Acts) [...]

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