Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 117

What’s the Point? Hey, *IS* There a Point? The Book of Ecclesiastes

In my previous post I began talking about the distinctive views of the book of Ecclesiastes, one of the real gems of the Hebrew Bible, a book that refuses to accept easy answers or blithe truisms about life, but faces reality head on.   No matter what we do or how we try to explain it [...]

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Digging Deep into Afterlife Journeys

I don't recall *ever* having a podcast interview in which I was asked to go down seriously into the weeds of my scholarship as found in one of my scholarly books.  But that happened in this interview, done on June 14, for the Christian Humanist Podcast.  It's a serious podcast, where the perspective is Christian [...]

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Blog Dinner. London. Tuesday, July 12. Interested?

We had to cancel the last proposed London blog dinner because of the rail strike, but now I'd like to make a second go of it, if anyone's interested.   Possibly a pint in advance.  Are you in the vicinity?  Interested?    If we can get 3-4 (and no more than 7) people together, I'd be [...]

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A Skeptical View of Life … From the Bible!

To celebrate the tenth-year anniversary of the blog on this past April 18, I've been posting all the previous April 18 posts.  This one is from 2020; in it I discuss one of my favorite books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes.  The post was originally part of a series of posts on "Wisdom Literature" in the [...]

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Yeah, Those Are Contradictions. My Response to Firth.

Matthew Firth came up with interesting responses to my examples of contradictions in the Gospels (in the previous post); here now I try to show how his explanations simply don't work. ****************************** Thanks, Matt, for your thoughtful comments on the four contradictions I discussed in my opening post.  I agree – this form of debate [...]

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There Are No Contradictions in the Gospels! The Response by Matthew Firth

As promised, this is Matthew Firth's (2019) response to my post (the previous one) in which I try to show several places in the Gospels that contain contradictions.  Firth does not see a contradiction in any of the five examples I cited, and explains why, contrary to first appearance, the accounts are completely in line [...]

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Onan the Barbarian: How an obscure Bible character affected reproductive rights. Platinum Guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

I'm pleased to post this intriguing contribution by your fellow Platinum member and Medical-Doctor- Not-Afraid-to-Talk-About-Onanism-In-a-Public-Forum Doug Wadeson.  Hey, it saves *me* the inconvenience of having to post on it! Seriously, it's a very interesting discussion.  Doug will be happy to address your questions and comments. I hope you too will consider submitting a post!  If [...]

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Gospel Contradictions: My Debate with Rev. Matthew Firth

To celebrate our 10th year anniversary from April 18, I'm reposting all my previous (ten) April 18 blog posts.  Now I'm up to 2019.  In that year I agreed to do a blog debate with a fellow named Matthew Firth, an Anglican rector who studied theology at Oxford University.  Firth had challenged me to a [...]

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Gold members Q&A for June

Dear Gold Members, It's that time again.  Time for the Gold Q&A for June -- a perk of your membership!  Do you have any questions you'd like to ask, on anything related to the blog?  Ask away, and I'll do my best to answer. To get your question on the list: zap a note to [...]

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Check Out this Play in NYC!!

Are you in NYC or at least planning to be in October or November?   There is a new play called “The Unbelieving” that you should check out!  It is a dramatization of a real-life phenomenon that most people don’t know about: pastors who have left the faith but are still active in ministry. There’s more [...]

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