Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 150

Fiction and Fact, Legend and History. Is it Either / Or?

This now is the 7th of 10 parts of my interview with Ben Witherington on my book Did Jesus Exist.  Here there are two interesting questions, both focusing on the relationship of legend and history in ancient stories about Jesus.  Part of the question is whether the Gospel writers were simply riffing on (or, more cynically, [...]

Texts and Towns that Allegedly Didn’t Exist (So Did Jesus?)

Here I continue to answer questions from my evangelical colleague in the field, Ben Witherington, as addressed some years ago,  These again deal with the claims of "Mythicists," who insist that there never actually was a man Jesus, but that he is simply made up, a complete myth. One way they support their point is [...]

How Do We Know If Jesus Did Something?

This post continues my 10-part interview with Ben Witherington dealing with "mythicists," those who claim that there never actually *was* a man Jesus, but that he is a complete fabrication, a myth.  In Did Jesus Exist, I try to show why that is simply not true.  But if he did exist, and the Gospels say [...]

Some Key Evidence for Jesus

I continue here with the conversation I had some years ago with evangelical New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, based on my book Did Jesus Exist.  In this post, we start getting into some of the key evidence we have for Jesus, not only to show that he actually existed (uh, yes he did...) but also [...]

Why My Book on Revelation Has Been Different To Write

As many of you know, my next book is on the Revelation of John, to be written not for scholars but for a general audience.   I decided I wanted to write the book maybe four years ago, and my ideas about it have changed significantly since I began to think about it.  Part of that [...]

The Reconstruction of Q: Platinum Guest Post by Steve Sutter

Here is an interesting and informative post on the Q source, provided for us by Steve Sutter. I have been spacing out these Platinum posts, in part because the supply is limited (and the queue almost gone!).   If you have one to submit: go for it!  You can get your ideas out there, people can [...]

What About Other References to Jesus Outside the New Testament?

I continue here with the re-post of an interview from years ago but of ongoing relevance, about how we can know what we know about Jesus.  The interview was with Ben Witherington, a conservative evangelical Christian New Testament scholar, who asked me to respond to a number of questions about my book Did Jesus Exist [...]

Evidence for Jesus Outside the New Testament: Part 2 of My Exchange with Ben Witherington

Nine years ago, Ben Witherington, a conservative evangelical Christian New Testament scholar,  asked me to respond to a number of questions about my book Did Jesus Exist, especially in light of criticism I have received for it (not, for the most part, from committed Christians!).   I am reposting the interview, since it's on such an [...]

Why I Wrote my book Did Jesus Exist? Interview with Evangelical Scholar Ben Witherington

Ever since I started publishing books for non-scholars,  I've been attacked by evangelical Christians for my views of the Bible.  Then, somewhat ironically, about nine years ago I came under attack by the nemeses of evangelical Christians, the "mythicists," who claim that Jesus never existed.  And why did they attack me?  For my views of [...]

How Then Do Most Ancient Manuscripts Get Discovered?

I have been discussing documents from early Christianity that I would very much like to have see with my own eyes.  In my last post I mentioned the fact that documents that *do* tend to be discovered are either copies of books we already have (the Gospel of John, the book of Revelation, etc.) or [...]