Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 120

Apologies to Gold/Platinum Members!

I need to apologize for being late on the Gold Q&A this month.   I"ve been in Italy the past two weeks giving lectures for a tour group; I had hoped to be able to squeeze in a recording of the Q&A while there, but the trip had me running from dawn to dark. I've just [...]

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A Lively Interview on my New Book “Journeys”

I've done a number of interviews over the years for my trade books (for general audiences), but almost NEVER for one of my academic books.  But here is one, on my recent book Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition.   The book is geared to academics (as you'd see [...]

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Concerns for the Poor in the Jewish Tradition

I have begun to contrast the Christian views of wealth and the need for the rich to help the poor with typical pagan views that placed almost no emphasis on helping those in need.  It is impossible to understand the Christian emphasis on almsgiving without situating it in its originating context – the Jewish tradition, [...]

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What the Earliest *Christians* Thought About Wealth

So far I have been discussing why “wealth” was sometimes seen as a problem by moral philosophers in the Greek and Roman worlds.  People who either have or want to have huge amounts of money are neglecting what they really need for ultimate happiness.  And money can corrupt morals, making one greedy, rapacious, and inclined [...]

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Shouldn’t the Upper Classes Help the … Upper Classes?

In my previous post I talked about the widespread sense in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds that the affluent should give away some of their money.   But to whom/what did they give it and for what reasons? The basic answer involves an entire system of giving that is now widely known as “euergetism.”  The [...]

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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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