Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 201

Sex and Gender in the Ancient World

Most people agree that there are parts of the Bible that are not applicable today.  We don’t normally execute people for being witches or for disobeying parents anymore (at least in the U.S.).  But what about same-sex relations?  Are the Bible’s injunctions still applicable about *that*?  It turns out the issues that are involved are different from those surrounding witches and rowdy kids, and n ways most people wouldn’t suspect.

It’s not as easy to explain why, and so I’ve been laying the background...

Why I’m To Be Pitied for Being the Wrong *Kind* of Fundamentalist!

I was browsing though old posts from five years ago, and came across this one I had forgotten all about.  You’ll see I got a bit feisty here, but it sounds like I was having fun.  Well, in a way.  The whole thing really is a bit aggravating.

*****************************************************************

Several readers of this blog have pointed me to an article in the conservative journal First Things;  the article (a review of a book by the  evangelical scholar Craig Blomberg) was written by Louis Markos, an English professor at Houston Baptist University.  The ti...

Christian Pastors Who Have Lost Their Faith

You may not know this, but if you’re in a Christian church – whether it’s a traditional Roman Catholic church, Episcopalian, Southern Baptist, Independent-Bible-Thumping-Fire-and Brimstone-Fundamentalist – your priest/pastor may be losing his/her faith, or already lost it.  And yet still be in the pulpit.  There are some times when you might suspect something was up.  Other times, you’d have no clue.

I’ve been there, on both sides of that equation.  I won’t talk about the loss of faith on the part...

Women Are To Be Silent and Submissive!

Yesterday I started this thread on the understanding of sex and gender in the ancient world by pointing out how the entire Bible starts, with the creation of the world and both men and women, the woman being created “out of” the man – so that she was secondary to him, dependent on him for her existence, and brought into the world both to keep him from being lonely and to help him out.  For most feminists, this would not seem like a very good start.

The story of women in the Bible is long and comple...

Why Women Are To Be Subservient to Men

This past Friday I gave a talk at a Pride Event in Chapel Hill, in connection with our Homecoming for alumni interested in LGBTQ issues (we beat Duke the next day in one of the weirdest final five minutes of a football game I’ve ever seen).   The title of the talk was “Sex and Gender in the Bible” and the overarching questions were “what does the Bible actually say?” and “how much of it is relevant to a modern situation?”

The questions matter because the Bible, in many ways and in many passages, does no...

What Does the Name Judas “Iscariot” Mean?

I received a number of questions about Judas Iscariot from my recent post.   I had dealt with many of these within living memory on the blog, but given their frequency, I think I should deal with them again.  Here is one of the most frequent:

QUESTION:

I read somewhere that “Iscariot” was a version of “Judas the Sicarii” which as it was handed down orally got altered. Is there any truth to this?

RESPONSE:

Behind this question is a bit of rare historical knowledge.  In Jesus’ day there was a group of Jewish insurrectionists...

Video Debate with Peter Williams: Can We Trust the Gospels

This was a video debate I did last summer in London with British Biblical scholar Peter Williams.  Peter has been a friend for a long time, and is a real expert on the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.   He is also a committed evangelical Christian who does not believe there are mistakes in the Gospels.  I so disagree with that.  We had a debate about it on the Christian Radio program “Unbelievable” under their new series “The Big Conversation” Season 2-Episode 3, hosted by Justin Brierley.

I...

The Quest for the Historical … Judas Iscariot

I occasionally (in fact, just last week) get asked if I think Judas Iscariot was a real person or a fictional character, wholly made up.  I have a definite view about that.  Real person.  Actually one of Jesus’ disciples.  And the one who betrayed him to the authorities leading to his arrest and crucifixion.

But what makes me think so?  I talked a bit about the “Quest of the Historical Judas” in a chapter of my book on the recent discovery of the Gnostic “Gospel of Judas,” a highly intriguing text that e...

Can My Undergraduate Students Continue Believing the Bible is Inerrant?

Since my conference in Chicago last weekend I’ve been thinking a lot about the theologically conservative folk who really believe there can be no mistakes in the Bible.  And just now browsing through some posts five years ago, I see someone raised a very interesting question about it, in relationship to my teaching at UNC.  Here’s the question and my response.  I would still answer the same way today!

 

QUESTION:

Do you ever get a student in your class who doggedly insists upon the inerrancy of the Bible? If...

Who Would Invent the Story of Women at the Tomb??

Who in the ancient world would ever try to *prove* the resurrection by making up a story that women, in particular, discovered Jesus’ empty tomb?   Weren’t women seen as complete unreliable witnesses?  Their testimony never even accepted in a court of law?  If someone want to prove that Jesus had been raised — and that therefore the tomb was empty — they would have invented *men* at the tomb (reliable witnesses) rather than *women* (untrustworthy).  Right?

I’ve been asked this question several time...