Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 179

Apology to the Blog

I need to apologize to blog members.  Yesterday I posted a link to the Christian ministry that deals with people with disabilities, and I have received a complaint that the link includes a statement of faith that forcefully condemns gay sex and gay marriage.  By posting the link it may appear that I and/or the blog, concur, support, or even accept any such view.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m afraid I did not do due diligence by reading through the doctrinal statement before posti...

The Wheelchair Charity Mentioned by Robin Jones

A number of people have asked how they could get more information and make a donation to the ministry that Robin Jones mentioned in her post.  Recall, the name of the organization is Joni and Friends International (JAF).   The ministry that collects and distributes wheel chairs for those in desperate need of them is called Wheels for the World (W4W).

You can check it out at www.joniandfriends.org

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What Is Gnosticism?

I have been talking about how I came to learn about the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, the most significant Christian document discovered in modern times (since the 1940s).  Now I want to explain what the Gospel is.  I have just called it a “Gnostic” Gospel, and so to begin I need to say something about what Christian Gnosticism was.  It is a fascinating topic, but widely misunderstood.

The reading-public-at-large was *somewhat* introduced to it in the 1950s with the publication of the Gospel of Thoma...

Evangelicals Who Make the World A Better Place. Guest Post by Robin Jones

One of my biggest complaints against a lot of deeply committed evangelical Christians I know, and know about, is that they don’t live and act like Christians. They go to battle for issues not even addressed in their own Scriptures as if they were the most important things in the mind of God, and they completely ignore the moral imperatives Jesus himself did promote: active concern and love for those who are in need, whether they are of our own ethnic background, gender, country, socio-economic c...

A Very Odd Story about the Baby Jesus

Over the past few days I have been working on my syllabus for the graduate seminar I will be teaching this term, on Early Christian Apocrypha — that is, other Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses that did not become part of the New Testament.  As chance would have it, I was also just now browsing through some old blog posts, and came across this one, posted on this date seven years ago.  It is about one of the most historically influential and downright interesting Gospels from outside the N...

When Paul Says “Israel” Does He Mean “The Jews”? Guest Post by Jason Staples

Last week I posted the first of three interesting discussions by my erstwhile student Jason Staples, PhD in New Testament, currently teaching at North Carolina State University.  Here is the second post, with an even more challenging thesis that runs counter to what scholars have long said, but for which he makes a compelling case.  His fuller discussion will be found in the book he has coming out from Cambridge Press at the end of the year.

 

Jason will be happy to address your comments and que...

Seeing the Gospel of Judas for the First Time

In a couple of posts last week I talked about how I came to learn about the discovery of the Gospel of Judas through a phone call from a representative of National Geographic who wanted me to be on the team that established its authenticity, back in the fall of 2004.  I let her know that I wouldn’t be of any use in authenticating the thing, but I could talk about its historical significance.  I had agreed to find a Coptologist to come along to Switzerland and she was to find a scientist to perfo...

Why Do Are So Many Textual Critics Evangelicals? Readers’ Mailbag.

Here’s a good question about why so many New Testament textual critics (those who study the manuscripts of the New Testament) are evangelical Christians.

 

QUESTION:

Bart, is it fair to say that many textual critics chose their field of expertise out of a passion to find out just what did God really say? I’ve no axe to grind here, just wondering what you’ve observed working with so many in the discipline. It’s definitely something I considered ever since a street preacher pointed out my shiny ne...

Did Paul Really Think “All Israel Will Be Saved”? Guest Post by Jason Staples

One of the most thorough dissertations I’ve directed in recent years was by Jason Staples, called “Reconstituting Israel: Restoration Eschatology in Early Judaism and Paul’s Gentile Mission.”  It might be difficult for a lay person to figure out what it’s about from the title, but it was on a really significant topic that I think most any reader of the New Testament would see is important.  It involves the Apostle Paul’s views of Jews, Judaism, and the nation of Israel.

 

The goal of the dissert...

When I Learned the Gospel of Judas Had Been Discovered

As I said in my last post, after receiving an out-of-the-blue query about the Gospel of Judas I looked it up to refresh my memory: it was allegedly a book used by a group of Gnostics named the Cainites, a book that told the story of Jesus from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, his betrayer – not in order to malign Judas but, evidently, to celebrate his deed, since it was (somehow) to Jesus’ advantage.

Soon after reading up on the Gospel (there was very little to read about it, since we didn’t h...