Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 19

More Interesting Questions from Blog Readers

The intriguing questions keep coming.  Here are some more that I've received.  And BTW, if you're not a Gold Member on the blog you might consider moving up to that level: one of the perks is that I do a live Q&A every month with Gold Members, which is recorded and then distributed to them.  [...]

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The Gospel of Matthew. Are You Interested in a More Extended Discussion?

It has just occurred to me (duh) that some blog readers who are enjoying these "In a Nutshell" posts on the books of the New Testament may like to see a more extended exposition of the various issues I address, and I've devoted entire lectures courses for some of these books (and will be doing [...]

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The God Hypothesis. What Do You Think?

I don’t think you can disprove the existence of God.  And I don’t think you can prove it.  There are some things that by their very nature are not susceptible of proof, at least at this stage of our knowledge, including some things that theoretically exist or not.  If you want to insist that one [...]

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All Four Gospels in One Nutshell

So far in this thread on “The New Testament in a Nutshell” I’ve covered the four Gospels, each in four posts.  The first always begins with a 50-sentence summary of the major themes and emphases of the book.  In this post I want to make things easily accessible for anyone interested in the broad similarities [...]

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John Versus the Synoptics: How Does Jesus Raise the Dead?

I've discussed how John differs strikingly from the Synoptics, especially considering the stories and sayings/discourses in each.  I've also indicated that they differ strikingly even when they tell the same *kind* of story, but I haven't been able to illustrate that yet.  Here is one of my favorite examples. How does Jesus raise from the [...]

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The Gospel of John: For Your Further Reading

I have devoted two posts to major features of the Gospel of John, one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why. Now I can provide some suggestions for further reading, important works written by scholars for non-scholars.   The list is annotated to give [...]

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The Gospel of John: Who Wrote It, When, and Why?

Now that I’ve summarized the major themes and emphases of the Gospel of John, I can turn to the historical questions of who wrote it, when, and why.  In this case, the biggest mystery is Who? To start with, the Gospel is anonymous – the author chose never to name himself.  The first author to [...]

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The Gospel of John in a Nutshell

What is the Gospel of John all about, in a nutshell?  It’s worth knowing:  John continues to be one of the favorite books of the Bible and is the (only) source of many of the well-known sayings of Jesus: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in [...]

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Some Intriguing Questions from Readers 2/2025

Here are some interesting readers’ questions I’ve received that I think would be of some interest to other blog members, along with my answers which may or may not be of interest!   QUESTION I often find that historians of early Christianity use the terms “historical Jesus/Paul/whoever” and “real Jesus/Paul/whoever” somewhat interchangeably, which I don’t [...]

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Did Jesus Have a Near-Death Experience? – Platinum Post by Douglas Wadeson MD

There have been books written and at least one movie I know of that are based on the idea of near-death experiences.  An NDE is an episode in which a person suffers some significant medical problem, like a heart attack or a drowning, and almost dies and has some sort of out-of-body experience or vision [...]

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