Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 129

Don’t Forget! Ask Bart Anything: Sunday!!

Please remember our fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders (MUCH in need of support just now in particular!).  It's your chance to ask me questions and my chance to desperately think of answers.    ALSO: I will have a one-one-one after the event with the highest bidder!  And bids are due TONIGHT.   See details here: https://ehrmanblog.org/ask-bart-anyth... [...]

Sting and Thomas. Guest Post by Evyatar Marienberg

Here now is the second post on Sting and the New Testament by my colleague Evyatar Marienberg.  To learn more about Evyatar and his book on Sting (Sting and Religion: The Catholic-Shaped Imagination of a Rock Icon, Cascade Books / Wipf & Stock, Oregon 2021) see yesterday's post. ***************** Those who checked the Wikipedia’s page [...]

Sting and Pilate. Guest Post by Evyatar Marienberg

One of my interesting and unusually wide-ranging colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC is Evyatar Marienberg, trained in orthodox circles in Haifa, PhD from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, expert in Rabbinic Judaism, author of a textbook on Roman Catholicism, and, most recently, a study of  Sting and [...]

Forgery for a Scholarly Audience

I have been doing a few posts on the difference between popular writing (for a trade book) and scholarly writing (for an academic book).  In my last post I reproduced the introduction to my book Forged: Why The Biblical Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (popular book published by HarperOne); here, by way of [...]

Forgery for a General Audience

Last week I tried to show the contrast between my trade books for general audiences and my academic books for scholars, by posting the very beginning of my book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, a tradebook, 2020) and the beginning of my book Jouneys to Heaven and Hell in the Early [...]

Ask Bart Anything! Blog Event March 6

On Sunday March 6, 4:00 - 5:15 EST we are holding a blog event which will be a two-way affair: I will have the pleasure of trying to answer questions participants have and participants will have the pleasure of stumping me with questions I can't answer.  And a good time will be had by all! [...]

How Would We Know If We Found an “Original” Manuscript?

A reader recently asked a question I had dealt with on the blog many years ago.   When originally asked it, I responded by saying I had never thought about it before. (!)  Below is the question and my initial reflections.  My views haven’t matured much during the past seven years (and they ain't the only [...]

Platinum Webinar! March 8. Why Is the Apocalypse of Peter Not in the New Testament?

It's time for another Platinum webinar; as you know, this is a four-time a year event, for Platinum Members only.  I'm devoting this one to a question that almost none of you will have asked yourselves -- one of those questions you don't realize is amazingly interesting until you realize the issues!   Why is the [...]

What If Damascus Was In Arabia? Solving a Dilemma in the Life of Paul. Platinum Guest Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller

One of the unusually puzzling comments Paul makes about his life comes in Galatians where he says that right after he had his vision of Christ and converted he went to "Arabia" and spent three years there.  For many years I thought he meant he was out meditating in the desert someplace.  Then I came [...]

Must Jesus Divide Families? Guest post by Douglas Wadeson

As you know, Platinum members on the blog are allowed to compose blog posts for one another, and I choose one every month or so to publish on the blog at large.   Here is a particularly interesting one by blog member Doug Wadeson, based on a careful and interesting reading of the Gospels.  It's dealing [...]