Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 151

An Interview about Heaven and Hell: American Freethought Podcast

Here is an interview I did about a year ago on the American Freethought Podcast, hosted by John C. Snider.  The focus was on my book on heaven and hell.  Among other things it deals with key questions such as whether the Bible clearly teaches that humans have eternal souls (hey, what else could be [...]

Jesus the Healer: Those Darn Demons. Platinum guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

I'm pleased to be able to begin publishing short thread of posts for Platinum members only, focused on Jesus as a healer.  Our guest poster is Doug Wadeson, himself a medical doctor with (obviously) a lifelong interest in healing but also a keen interest in the historical study of the NT Gospels.  In this series [...]

Is the Book of Revelation a Revised Version of a Non-Christian Apocalypse? Guest Post by James Tabor

Here now is the second guest post by my friend and cross-state colleague, New Testament scholar James Tabor.  Other scholars have suggested Revelation started out as a Jewish text that was later "Christianized" by an editor who produced the version we have today.  Here James embraces that view and mounts an argument for it.  See [...]

Interested in Hearing Three of My Lectures? Jesus according to the Early Christians

Two months ago I did a three-part lecture series on Zoom as a fundraiser to help defray the expenses of the blog.  I recorded the lectures and have now decided to make them available -- still as a fundraiser -- to anyone who would wants to hear them.  For details how to get access to [...]

The Historical Background to the Book of Revelation

Now that I have said something about what's in the book of Revelation and about how we need to study it in light of its literary *genre* ("apocalypse") I can begin to discuss something about its historical context.  As you know, one of the overarching themes of this entire blog is that if you take [...]

Does Revelation Contain an Eyewitness Account of the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius? Guest Post by James Tabor

As I continue to work on my book on Revelation, I thought it might be interesting to ask my friend and fellow NT scholar, James Tabor, who has done guest posts before on the blog, to provide a couple more.  James has written and thought about Revelation for many years, and he has intriguing and [...]

Comments on Blog Comments!

In this post I would like to address some questions I have received about blog “comments” and in so doing reaffirm the blog’s policies and procedures. As all of you know, blog members at the Silver, Gold, or Platinum level are allowed to make comments on posts and respond to comments of others.  The limit [...]

Prophecies and Saints in the Book of Daniel. Platinum Guest Post by Daniel Kohanski

I am very pleased to post this interesting and informed post by Platinum member Daniel Kohanski, on one of the most intriguing books of the entire Bible -- and as he points out, one of the most frequently misunderstood, especially today.  This post is for Platinum Members Only.  Feel free to comment and query! ************************************ [...]

Understanding Revelation: A Sine Qua Non (Overlooked by most readers)

I am at the beginning of my thread on the book of Revelation, and am giving the background necessary to make sense of how I now make sense of the book, which is different from how I've made sense of it most of my life!  But one thing I wholeheartedly agree with myself on from [...]

Metzger, the Squirrel, and Me (…and Jesus).

In my previous post I talked about the locally famous story about (my teacher) Bruce Metzger and the dead (dying?) squirrel.  Here I continue the story to show why in fact is has some relevance to the New Testament! As I indicated, for years friends of mine were eager for me to find out whether [...]