Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 173

Are the Gospels Right? Did Pilate Really Release a Prisoner at Passover?

This now is number eight of my favorite posts from the past.   Often I deal with issues in the New Testament that in my judgment cannot be historically accurate.  One of these, to the surprise of many readers, is the familiar story of what allegedly happened at the trial of Jesus according to the Gospels: [...]

Where Did the Idea of a “Suffering Messiah” Come From?

This now is a seventh favorite post from years past.  As you know, I frequently simply write posts on questions readers have raised.  For understanding Christianity, here is one of the most important of all.  Christians maintain that the messiah had to suffer and die for the sins of the world.  Jews do not understand [...]

How Hard It is To Become an Agnostic….

When the new blog site launched a week ago I decided to start off with five of my favorite posts from each of the first five years of the blog.  And then someone asked me: why just the first five?  Why not the more recent four?  And I replied:  I don’t know – I didn’t [...]

Did Jesus’ Disciple John Write the Gospel of “John”?

This is the fifth of my FIVE FAVORITES -- reposts of blog posts from years ago, in part to celebrate the new launch of the blog and in part to encapsulate some of the kinds of posts that can be found in the archives.  The archives go back to April 2012, and are easily searched.  [...]

How Were the Gnostic Gospels Discovered?

This now is the fourth of  FIVE FAVORITES with which I'm beginning the new launch of our blog site, one from our fourth year of operation 2015.  I am trying to pick different kinds of posts and even though I am not saying these are my all-time favorites of all, they certainly are posts (from [...]

How Do Popular Books Get Their Titles?

This now is the third of my series of FIVE FAVORITES from blog posts in previous years; this one is taken from 2014. ************************************************************************** How do trade books -- written for a general audience -- get their titles?  There's not an easy answer to that.  Most scholarly books are simply given a title by the [...]

My Privileged View of Suffering

To celebrate the launch of our new blog site I am starting by posting Five Favorites from years gone by, one post from each of the blog's first five years, 2012-16.  Here is one I've chosen from 2013.  One of the issues I sometimes address on the blog when I'm not talking directly about the [...]

Welcome to the New Blog Site!

I am so pleased that we have now launched the new Bart Ehrman Blog site. It was many, many months in the making, and many thanks to my assistant Steven Ray who conceived, designed, and implemented it. I hope you agree that it has a great new look.

There are several features that you may find very useful.

As you will see, many of the old features are the same. You will still receive five posts a week and you will still be able to access archives going back to April 2012. There is a lot of informati...

The Original Blog Post!! Misquoting Misquoting Jesus!

As you can see, we have now launched our new version of the blog, very new and much improved.  I’ve decided to start our new life together by returning to the beginning.  Over the next week I will  be posting five of my favorite posts from years past, one from each of the first five years of the blog.

Here is the very first post I made.  Looking back, to me it looks a bit, well, feisty.  I was a bit more cantankerous and, uh, defensive in those days.  Nonetheless, I agree with just about everyth...

Who Would Die for a Lie?

OK, here’s another weird blog coincidence that happened 94 seconds ago.  A few days ago I posted on the issue of why someone would invent a story of women finding the empty tomb (since women were “seen as unreliable”: if you invented a story, wouldn’t it be *men* who found it?).  I got a lot of responses, including several that more or less openly mocked me for thinking the disciples made up the story of the resurrection.  The typical line I got was something like “Yeah, right Ehrman: all those ...