Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 190

Paul the Misogynist? The Alternative Perspective

Based on what I said in previous posts, from Pauls own (authentic) letters, his attitude toward women in the church may seem inconsistent, or at least ambivalent.  Women could participate in his churches as ministers, prophets, and even apostles.  But they were to maintain their social status as women and not appear to be like men.  This apparent ambivalence led to a very interesting historical result.  When the dispute over the role of women in the church later came to a head, both sides...

Paul the Feminist? The Thecla Legends

Im in the middle of talking about whether Paul wrote the verses now found in 1 Cor. 14:34-35, or if they were a later interpolation into his letters (that is, an insertion that ended up in every single one of our manuscripts)  Its an important issue.  This is the passage where Paul sternly tells women that they are NOT to speak in church.   They cant only not be *leaders*.  They cant *talk*.

Wow.  OK, then.  Did Paul really write that?  Im going to be arguing he did not, that its an...

Paul and the Status of Women

In this thread Ive been talking about how scholars decide if a passage that is found in *some* New Testament manuscripts but missing from *others* was actually written by the author or not (such as the account of Jesus sweating blood in Luke 22:43-44:  was it really an original part of the Gospel or was it something a scribe added?)   It is a complicated process of decision, involving examining the surviving manuscripts (i.e. external evidence), figuring out if the passage fits well with the...

Thanks to those who volunteered!

Many thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out with the transition to the new blog site.  The response was overwhelming.   I now have more than I need and have contacted them about further instructions.  But there will almost certainly be more needs down the line, as we try to grow this thing and develop more outreach.  When that happens, I will let you know about other opportunities to help out.

Speaking of outreach: if you know anyone who is interested in the sorts of things the blog...

You Lost Me On Hello. A Plea for Expertise

For the past several weeks we have seen more than ever why we need experts.  It is absolutely fine to have uninformed opinions.  We all have thousands of them.   But we should no mistake our uninformed opinions for knowledge.  And real knowledge takes expertise, and expertise takes years and years of training and hard work.  It doesnt come from watching the news or reading a few articles and then making up your mind.  Since we ourselves cannot be expert in everything, we have to decide...

I Need a Volunteer!

As some/many/all? of you know, we are getting ready to relaunch the blog with a completely new rebuild that Steven Ray, my able and talented assistant for all these years, has designed after he had come up with the original one eight years ago.  He has been keeping the old one going with bailing wire and duct tape.  The new one looks *great*.  We hope to roll it out soon.   And Ill explain it all to you even sooner, before it happens.  I think youre going to agree, it is terrific.

Before we...

Jesus “Sweating Blood”: Which Text Would *Scribes* Have Preferred?

Ive been discussing the kinds of evidence that textual critics appeal to in order to make a decision concerning what an author originally wrote, when there are two or more different forms of the text that is, where a verse or passage is worded in different ways in different manuscripts.  And I have been using the passage found (only) in (some manuscripts of) Luke of Jesus bloody sweat as an example.  In my previous post I discussed one kind of internal evidence.    Remember: external...

Smithsonian

Those of you who were planning to go have probably been notified, but in any event: The Smithsonian lectures on Heaven and Hell scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday March 14) have now been cancelled.

Keep safe!

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Lecture Cancellations and Non-Cancellations (so far)

I hope all of you are well and staying away from viruses.  As it turns out, just now Im reading On the Beach, a fantastic 1957 novel set in 1963 about what happens after the war, when the northern hemisphere has destroyed itself with a massive nuclear exchange, and the people of Melbourne are waiting as the radiation cloud is slowly heading their way over the course of months, with nothing to stop it.  (Im reading novels like this, and watching comparable films, as Im thinking about my next...

Did Jesus Sweat Blood? “Intrinsic” Evidence for Textual Variants

In yesterday’s post I mentioned some of the kinds of “external” evidence that textual scholars look at when trying to establish the “original” text of a document (that is, the wording of the text as the author originally wrote it) when different manuscripts have different wordings for this or that passage. In this post I’ll talk about one kind of “internal” evidence that is used to assist in making this kind of decision. With internal evidence, instead of looking at what the *attestation* of...