Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 13

Philippians: Who Wrote It, When, and Why?

Now that I have provided a nutshell summary of the letter to the Philippians in my previous post, I can move into the questions of authorship, date, and motivating purpose (who, when, and why). Philippians is almost always considered a Pauline letter, one of the seven “undisputed” epistles.  There seems very little reason to doubt [...]

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Philippians in a Nutshell

In this thread summarizing each book of he New Testament, I come now to the book of Philippians, one of my favorite Pauline epistles since I first started reading the New Testament seriously when I was 17!  The first biblical verse I memorized (apart from the Lord’s Prayer!) was Philippians 1:21:  “For me, to live [...]

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May 2025 Gold Q&A

Dear Gold & Platinum Members, Mark your calendars—our monthly Gold & Platinum member Q&A is here!It’s your chance to ask Bart anything related to the blog’s deep dive into early Christianity. He’ll tackle as many of your questions as possible in an exclusive, hour-long session. This month’s Q&A will be recorded live on Wednesday, May [...]

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Matthew and Mark “At a Glance” with Controversial Questions

It occurred to me that another nice resource for this “Nutshell” Series might be some of the additional materials I present in my New Testament textbook for each of the books I discuss.  Two separate items I provide there are (a) rapid fire summaries of each book that I call “At a Glance” and (b) [...]

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Ephesians: For Further Reading

Here is an annotated list of books on Ephesians, most of them relevant to all the Deutero-Pauline epistles (that is, the letters that are assigned a “secondary” standing in the New Testament collection of Paul’s letters because scholars doubt they were actually composed by Paul himself) with a couple of commentaries specifically on Ephesians.  One [...]

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Some Important Questions From Blog Readers

Here are some questions I have received recently from readers: QUESTION: I’m curious about when Paul’s letter were compiled and by whom? It seems almost miraculous that, in that time period, letters sent to various destinations around the Mediterranean could somehow be gathered up together in one place. What are the earliest fragments or complete [...]

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Does a Different “Writing Style” Show (convincingly?) That Ephesians is a “Forgery”?

When I have talked about the “disputed” Pauline letters, the ones that scholars have argued were not written by Paul (even though the author claims to be Paul), I have pointed out that one reason for thinking so is that the writing style of, say Ephesians, is significantly different from what you find in Paul’s [...]

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Can We Trust You When You Say “Most Scholars” Think Something?

As I've pointed out, most critical scholars do not think that Paul actually wrote the letter to the Ephesians, even though the author claims to be Paul.  We will see that is true for five other Pauline letters.  I should stress: the fact that most critical scholars think something does not mean they are right.  For millenia, [...]

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Ephesians: Who Wrote the Letter, When, and Why?

Now that I have summarized the major themes and emphases of Ephesians (in the previous post), I can move to the issues of who wrote it, when, and why. The “Who” is the big question in this case, with the “when” and “why” depending on our answer. As I indicated in the earlier post, broadly [...]

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Ephesians in a Nutshell

The goal of this long “nutshell” thread on the New Testament is to introduce each of the twenty-seven books and summarize its major themes and emphases; to discuss what we can know about who wrote it, when, and why; to provide suggestions for further reading for anyone who is interested; and to give an additional [...]

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