Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 15

Interesting Questions from Readers

Here are three interesting questions I've recently received, and my attempts to answer....   QUESTION: I’ve been wondering about the passage in Romans where Paul expresses his fear about returning to Jerusalem on account of opposition because he wanted to take the money that he raised there before leaving for Spain. I used to couple [...]

The post Interesting Questions from Readers appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Colossians: For Further Reading

Here is an annotated list of books on Colossians, 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 Colossians.  One [...]

The post Colossians: For Further Reading appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Book of Acts “At a Glance” and Controversial Questions

In addition to my nutshell summaries of each book of the New Testament, I have been providing a post that gives additional materials I present in my New Testament textbook.  These are (a) rapid fire summaries of each book that I call “At a Glance” and (b) a set of study questions that challenge students [...]

The post The Book of Acts “At a Glance” and Controversial Questions appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Did Paul Write That Letter? Getting Into the Weeds…

A few days ago I published a post trying to show why many critical scholars do not think Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians even though its author claims to be Paul.  It's pretty easy to put the matter in simple, easy-to-understand terms for non-experts: all you have to say is that hte writing [...]

The post Did Paul Write That Letter? Getting Into the Weeds… appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Letter to the Colossians: Who, When, and Why?

Now that I have summarized the major themes and emphases of Colossians, I can talk about who wrote it, when, and why.   The book, as we have seen, claims to be written by Paul.  But there are good reasons for doubting it. In a number of ways, this letter does look very much like [...]

The post The Letter to the Colossians: Who, When, and Why? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Letter to the Colossians, in a Nutshell

We continue in this series that explains each book of the New Testament “in a nutshell” by turning to the letter to the Colossians.  This is a book that claims to be written by Paul, but as we will see in the next post, there are very good reasons for thinking Paul himself did not [...]

The post The Letter to the Colossians, in a Nutshell appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Some Interesting Questions of the Week

I've started posting questions and responses from readers.  Here's another set of particularly good ones.   QUESTION: I recently read your book Jesus Interrupted and have become interested in your work. In it you discussed the potential forgeries contained in the Pauline letters and New Testament but it didn’t seem to mention much about the [...]

The post Some Interesting Questions of the Week appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

How Athens Made Me Rethink….

I am in Athens just now, heading out on a tour giving lectures on ancient Greek philosophers in relation to the teachings of Jesus and Paul.  I came over a couple of days before the tour to spend some time looking around on my own, and had a lovely afternoon at the fantastic Acropolis Museum. [...]

The post How Athens Made Me Rethink…. appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Some Intriguing Questions about Paul’s Letters

QUESTION: I was wondering how scholars look at situations like Galatians 2:6-10 , specially the part of the text that states “they added nothing to my message” or “all they asked is we should continue remembering the poor”. My primary question is do scholars like yourself believe that the early disciples & James/Jerusalem Church saw [...]

The post Some Intriguing Questions about Paul’s Letters appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Is the “Christ Poem” of Philippians Really a Poem? When Did Jesus Really Become “Equal” With God?

This is my second and final post on the "Christ-poem" of Philippians 2.   Many years ago when I talked about the poem, a reader (who apparently knew Greek!) objected that the poetic lines I suggested don't actually work. Below I'll give his question and my response.  But then I'll move on to an even more [...]

The post Is the “Christ Poem” of Philippians Really a Poem? When Did Jesus Really Become “Equal” With God? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.