Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 117

Does Wealth Make You More … Virtuous?

I have been explaining that among those few people who thought having substantial wealth was a “problem” in the Greek and Romans worlds – that is, the few philosophers who thought about the issue (since for most people getting lots of money was precisely not a problem!) – the issue was never that it just [...]

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The Critique of the “Very Reverend Robert Barron”

I am celebrating the ten year anniversary of the blog (April 18, 2022) by reposting the ten previous posts made on April 18 of each year.  I am now up to 2014.  On that day I posted a response to someone's critique of my then just published How Jesus Became God.  I was a bit [...]

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The Critique of the “Very Reverent Robert Barron”

I am celebrating the ten year anniversary of the blog (April 18, 2022) by reposting the ten previous posts made on April 18 of each year.  I am now up to 2014.  On that day I posted a response to someone's critique of my then just published How Jesus Became God.  I was a bit [...]

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The Problem with “Time Management”

I’ve been thinking a lot about time management lately, but decidedly not in the way most people do.   Most people (at least the ones I know) want to figure out how to become more efficient with their time, how to get more done, how to get more focused.  That’s the very LAST thing I need. [...]

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Early Christianity and War. Platinum Guest Post by Daniel Kohanski

I am pleased to publish a new guest post by Platinum member Dan Kohanski, for all you Platinums.  Here Dan treats a perennially important topic: how ancient people (including biblical authors) understood the legitimacy of war, particularly in light of their specific historical and cultural contexts.   Dan will be happy to address questions and comments. [...]

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Fabulously Rich But Not Attached to the Lucre (?)

In the previous post I talked about how and why ancient Cynics condemned wealth – as in fact they condemned anything that a person had and considered important to their happiness and wellbeing.  If wellbeing resides in things you possess, they can be taken away from you, leading to misery.  And so, the key to [...]

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The Ancient Argument for Getting Rid of All Your Wealth

I now begin a series of posts on the “problem of wealth” in the ancient world -- that is, the problems posed by wealth, as identified by a number of elite authors, both pagan (Greek and Roman) and Christian.  The particular *problem* was understood differently between these two camps, but both camps had extremists, who [...]

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Did Christians Invent Charity?

I have now decided (I think) that my next book will be about how Christianity revolutionized the world in a way that most of us would agree is particularly good, even though most do not realize it was a specifically Christian accomplishment.  It has to do with wealth and giving to charity. Jesus himself said [...]

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Reflections on Teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill

In celebration of our tenth year anniversary on April 18, I'm publishing all the posts from previous years on April 18.  It's a random collection.  Here's the second in the series, from 2013; it's a self-congratulatory one (!)  that I was using to explain the different kinds of colleges/universities around the country (in later posts [...]

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My Next Three Books!

I have three books I’d like to write and need to decide which to do first.  I also have have a larger book project as well, an academic book, but that will be a different story for a different day.  For now, I’ve settled on these three for a general audience.  (One of them I’ve [...]

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