Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 14

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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Christ’s Prexistence in Galatians (Was Jesus an Angel?)

I've been posting on Paul's letter the Galatians, and thought that I might point out a way that the letter completely changed my understanding of Paul, years ago now when I was doing research for my book  How Jesus Became God. I have to admit, that for many years I was puzzled by Paul's Christology--his [...]

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How Do We Know the Chronology of Paul’s Life and Letters?

In this nutshell series on the books of the New Testament, I've been discussing, in part, when each of Paul's letters were written, and some readers have wanted to know, well, how we know?  What kind of evidence do scholars look for? It seems like that ought to be an easy question to answer, a [...]

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Key Questions about Paul

I continue to receive very good questions from blog readers and would like to devote a couple of posts to ones that I get repeatedly (in different words) for broader distribution.  Here are three I've received recently and my posted responses to them, all on the apostle Paul. QUESTION:  [This one will be about whether [...]

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Is Paul One of Matthew’s Enemies?

In this "nutshell" series summarizing each book of the New Testament, I have now done both Matthew (the first book, canonically) and Galatians (the ninth). If you've paid heed to both sets of posts (or as I say to my students, "If you've been awake and sober this semester....") you will notice they have, well, [...]

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Galatians: For Further Reading

Here is an list of readings on Galatians, most of the books relevant to all the undisputed Pauline epistles, with a couple of commentaries specifically on Galatians.  One benefit of serious commentaries is that they always begin by discussing major critical issues in understanding a book: authorship, date, historical context, major themes, disputed issues, and [...]

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Galatians: Who, When, and Why?

My previous post summarized the overarching message of the letter to the Galatians; in this one I can dig a bit deeper into the historical issues of authorship, date, and occasion. Like Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians, there is little doubt among scholars that Paul wrote Galatians.  It is characteristically his theme, theological outlook, [...]

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Galatians in a Nutshell

Galatians in a Nutshell   Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of the most important and intriguing books of the New Testament, in parts not difficult to understand and in other parts densely packed with meaning, and therefore heavily disputed (check out Galatians 2:17-19 or 3:19-20 some time; if you think either is obvious, [...]

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Proof that Luke Used Matthew? And Interpolations in Luke about the Virgin Birth.

I continue to get terrific questions from readers.  Here are two rather tough ones on the Gospel of Luke, with my responses.   QUESTION: This is a question of whether there is some good evidence that Luke used Matthew (rather than both of them using the hypothetical Q source.) How do you explain the fact [...]

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Interpolations and Textual Variants in the New Testament

In my previous post I indicated that among the five letters that may have been cut and pasted together to make up 2 Corinthians is one that some scholars suspect Paul did not write.  If not, how did it get in 2 Corinthians with fragments of letters he did write? To remind you: this is [...]

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