Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 161

The Divine Realm in Antiquity (Appropriately: A Pyramid!)

In my previous posts I have been insisting that if one wants to say that “Jesus is God” according to an early Christian text, one has to ask “in what *sense* is he God?  Now is a good time for me to lay out how I understand ancient people understood the divine realm.  It was [...]

Apologies about the Comments!

Many apologies to Silver, Gold, and Platinum members.  We are having a technical difficulty with comments on posts.  Ugh.  But we're on it and will soon get it resolved.

Christian Attitudes toward War, Through the Ages: Platinum Post by Dan Kohanski

I am very pleased to have this interesting post on an unusually important topic for Platinum Members, produced by one of your own, Dan Kohanski.   He tells me that the post has been adapted from part of a chapter, "When God Goes to War," in a book he is working on about the impact of [...]

A New Live Lecture This Sunday! How Do We Know about the Historical Jesus? Sources and Methods

This Sunday, March 7,  I will be giving one more live Zoom lecture  for anyone who wants to come.   (Just one this week because of a quirk in the UNC schedule.) (A quirk for which I'm grateful!)  It will be recorded for my undergraduate course on the New Testament and there will be a 30-minute [...]

The Stories We Tell: Guest Post by Robin Jones

As many of you know, a few months ago I invited my long time friend and erstwhile fellow-student at Moody Bible Institute, Robin Jones, to write a some posts for the blog.  Robin continues to be an evangelical Christian and is deeply committed to important social issues that I think just about all of us [...]

In What SENSE is Jesus “God” in Matthew, Mark, and Luke? My Change of Mind

In yesterday’s post I pointed out that if one asks about an early Christian text: “Does it portray Jesus as God,” then almost always if the answer is Yes (which it usually is), it has to be qualified: “Yes, in *some sense*. “ And the question is always, in *what* sense? The reason I stress [...]

What Did Ancient People Think It Meant To Call Someone God?

In the current threat I am building up to the question of where the Trinity came from.  It was not the original Christian teaching.  How then did it emerge as the "orthodox" view? I have started with the key issue, which is complicated enough on its own terms.  How, why, and when did the followers [...]

Wanna Go to Croatia with Me?

I recently announced a tour I will be doing – Covid permitting – to Rome and Southern Italy this coming June.  (See it here, with a brochure:  https://ehrmanblog.org/interested-in-...)  On the tour I’ll be giving lectures and hanging out for the ten days with everyone else; it should be great fun.  For the sites we [...]

More Live Lectures this Sunday: The Gospel of John and Early Christian Gnosticism!

This Sunday I will be giving two more live Zoom lectures on the Gospels to anyone who wants to come. They will be recorded for my undergraduate course on the New Testament.  There will be a 30-minute Q & A to follow the second one. There is no charge per se, but I would like [...]

An Intriguing but Most Peculiar Book! Guest Post by Kristin Swenson

A new book has just come out that many of you will be very interested in.  It is called A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible (Oxford University Press), by Kristin Swenson.  I did not know Kristin until I learned of the book, some months before it was published.  The publisher asked [...]