Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 152

Blog Zoom Lecture This Saturday: Jesus as a Young Boy!

This Saturday at 3:00 I will be giving a fund-raising lecture for the blog on Gospel stories about Jesus as a boy, both as found in the New Testament (there's not much said about it there) and from outside in the terrifically interesting "Infancy Gospels."  Now here are accounts you didn't hear in Sunday School. [...]

The Spirit in the Life of Jesus

I have pointed out that the earliest Christians believed they were living at the end of time and that in fulfillment of the promises of Scripture, especially in the Old Testament prophet Joel, they (or at least many of them) believed God had sent his Spirit to guide and direct them in these final days [...]

The Holy Spirit in Charge of the Church (?)

In my earlier posts I started to show the early Christians believed that because they were living at the very end of time.  This was an interim period between the time when the resurrection of the dead began with Jesus being raised and was soon to culminate with the general resurrection, in which all who [...]

Platinum Webinar! Just for You Platinums….

It's time for another Platinum webinar; as you know, this is a four-time year event, and our last was at the end of January.  So time to go again.  I"m going to schedule in for a Sunday evening this time, to see how it flies.  One week from today, Sunday June 6, 7:00 - 8:15 [...]

What About Authors Who “Just Want to Sell Books”?

I was looking through some old posts from years ago, and came across this one, which continues to be an issue for me.  It's the kind of thing I continue to hear on occasion, and so I thought maybe it was worth approaching again. Sometimes I hear someone criticize me, or another author, by saying [...]

The Coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost

In a previous post I discussed the prophet Joel, who used a disaster that had struck as the occasion to make his proclamation about the will of God.  A horrible plague of locusts had hit the land of Judah that had decimated the crops and food supply; Joel proclaimed that it was a warning from [...]

What We Know Today About Religions and the Afterlife (in the US): Platinum Guest Post by Sharon Friedman

I am pleased to be able to publish this Guest Post by one of our Platinum members Sharon Friedman.  Sharon has been a blog member for some five years.   Here is an intriguing post with some statistics to make you ponder and reflect on a topic near and dear to many of us. If you [...]

Are There Actually Five Letters in 2 Corinthians (so that it is 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 Corinthians?)

In my previous post I tried to show why most critical scholars think that the letter of 2 Corinthians is actually two different letters that have been spliced together.  When I was back in graduate school, I learned – to my surprise – that there were scholars who thought that in fact 2 Corinthians was [...]

Several Letters in One? What about Second Corinthians?

In recent posts I've been talking about 1 Corinthians and its understanding of the Christian community in the important city of Corinth.  We know about the community because of Paul's letters written to it.  In the New Testament of course, we have 1 and 2 Corinthians.  (OUTSIDE the New Testament we have 3 Corinthians!  It [...]

The Coming of the Spirit at the End of Time

Even though the Spirit of God shows up here and there throughout the Old Testament, starting of course already in Genesis 1:2, continuing on occasion through the narratives and in the prophets, it is not really a central narrational or theological theme.  That contrasts with the New Testament.  Here the Spirit of God is enormously [...]