Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 139

Should You Give Up All Your Possessions to Be Happy? The Ancient Cynic View

In my forthcoming book Journeys to Heaven and Hell (Yale University Press; due out in April) I will be devoting a chapter to discussing how tours of the afterlife functioned sometimes in order to promote certain ethical views.  If you know what life after death is really like, it can be incentive for how you [...]

Announcement: Did the Christmas Story Really Happen? Upcoming All-Day Event! (VIDEO)

 Christmas is upon us already, and I have decided to do a tis-the-season all-day webinar on Sunday, December 5:  “Did the Christmas Story Really Happen?”  The webinar will not be connected with the blog per se, except to the extent that I’ll be doing it and that some of you might be interested in [...]

Jesus the First-Century Tea Partier

This is the final post I made years ago on Bill O'Reilly's bestselling book (listed as nonfiction) about Jesus. ****************************** I have decided not to provide a full and detailed review of O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus.  It doesn’t really deserve it, and it mainly contains more of what I have indicated before – on which see [...]

Really Riled By O’Reilly

Here I continue my rather, uh, aggressive critique of Bill O'Reilly's Killing Jesus. ****************************** OK, I know I promised to read and review Killing Jesus.  But I’m not sure I can do it.  It’s just so aggravating. Pointing out its flaws is like shooting fish in a barrel.  I’ll make one general comment in this post [...]

Want to Come With Me on a Cruise in the Adriatic??

In February I announced that I would be doing a cruise along the west coast of Croatia in the summer.  The trip was then cancelled as things were looking very bad indeed for international travel.  Now they are so much better.   I’ve traveled overseas several times since getting vaccinated without a single problem.  And the [...]

Killing Jesus Is Killing Me……

Here is my second post on Bill O'Reilly's Killing Jesus from many years ago.   As you'll see, I was no happier about the book once I started reading it than when I was anticipating doing so.  But here at least I give some reasons that show my fears were starting to be confirmed.  Confirmation bias?  [...]

Bill O’Reilly, Expert on the Historical Jesus!

Since I posted a bit on my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium,  several people have asked me if I've ever written an evaluation of Bill O’Reilly’s blockbuster hit, Killing Jesus.  It turns out, I did so, here on the blog, right after it came out in 2013.  I call it a blockbuster because [...]

God’s Mercy and Justice: The Opening of a Chapter in Journeys to Heaven and Hell

Do the early Christians think God is more just and determined to punish or more merciful and determined to forgive? I deal with the matter in one of the chapters in my next scholarly book,  Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition, coming out in April with Yale [...]

Gold Q&A for November!

Dear Gold Members, The time has rolled onward and here we are again.   Time to enjoy one of the perks of your elevated status as a gold member of the blog:  Our monthly Gold Q&A, for gold members only.   You provide written questions, I answer as many as I can, and I release the audio [...]

Time Magazine Cover Story on Lost Christianities. Kind Of….

When I wrote a post about Lost Christianities yesterday, a funny anecdote occurred to me and I wondered if I had ever written a post on it.  Yup, in 2012!  It's worth repeating.  It has to do with Time Magazine (though it starts with Newsweek).  This was back when people used to actually get these [...]