Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 16

Help Shape the Future of the Blog!

I have a special request to make of all members of the blog. It won’t cost you a dime, but could help bring in thousands. It involves a bit of participation on your end that should be simple but fruitful. Can you help? Here’s the deal. Those of us who produce the blog (Jen, the [...]

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1 Corinthians in a Nutshell

I continue now in my thread of providing “nutshell” overviews of each of the books of the New Testament by moving on to one of the favorite Pauline letters for many readers, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians Paul deals with a number of ethical issues confronting the Christian community.  Among its [...]

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Two Fundamental Questions: How Do You Date a Manuscript and How Do you Know the Meaning of a Word?

Among the  interesting questions I've received recently from blog readers, two strike me as especially key for understanding how scholars make the claims they do; one of the questions challenges whether I have grounds to make one of the claims I do!  Good questions.  Some grounds (say, of coffee) are better than others.  Here are [...]

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April 2025 Gold Q&A

Dear Gold & Platinum Members, It’s that time again—your monthly Gold (and Platinum!) member perk: our exclusive Q&A session. You send in the questions—on anything connected to the blog’s focus on early Christianity—and Bart will answer as many as he can in an exclusive hour-long recording. This month’s session will be recorded live on Easter [...]

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Guest Post by Dr. Paul Fredriksen Part III: The Conversions of “Christianity”

  This is the third and, alas, final post by Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita, at Boston University, on her new book Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years. As you'll see, it is smart, interesting, and accessible.  You can find it most anywhere you buy books, including Amazon: (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ancient+ch......

Guest Post by Dr. Paula Fredriksen Part II: The Politics of Piety

Here now is the second post by Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita, at Boston University, on her new book Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years. As you'll see, it is smart, interesting, and accessible.  You can find it most anywhere you buy books, including Amazon: (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ancient+ch......

Guest Post by Dr. Paula Fredriksen Part I: Ancient Christianities: Multiplicity, Messy Origins, and “Monotheism”

I was very excited when I learned that Paula Fredriksen, one of top scholars of early Christianity of our generation, was producing an introduction to the development of Christianity over its first five-hundred years.  I frequently get asked by reader where they can go for an competent and readable overview of the major issues, and, [...]

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Paul and Women Apostles

Here now is a final post about an interesting feature of Paul's letter to the Romans.  as you may know, Paul is often considered one of the real misogynists of Christian antiquity.  But I'm not sure that's right.  Most of the antipathy toward his views are based on 1 Timothy 2:11-15, a book he didn't [...]

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The Earliest Understanding of Christ? The Hint in Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Because of the importance of Paul's letter to the Romans, I want to provide a couple of additional reflections on key points in the  letter, one at the very beginning and one at the end, before moving on in this Nutshell Thread to 1 Corinthians. On a number of occasions I have argued on the [...]

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Paul’s Letter to the Romans: For Further Reading

Since Paul’s letter to the Romans is so central to the modern study of Paul, most of the scholarly books written about Paul for general audiences will either deal directly with it or be in part based on it.  For a list of some of the best of those, see my previous post (“The Life [...]

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