Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 204

Is It Ever Right to Lie? Or Was It? Even in Early Christianity? The Relevance for Forgery.

Is it ever morally acceptable – even desirable – to tell a bald-faced lie?  That was probably a topic covered in your Philosophy 101 course.  At a historian, I’m interested in the question from an ancient perspective.  What did people in antiquity think about it?  In particular Christians.  Did they think – based on the Ten Commandments, say, or the teachings of Jesus, that a person should never lie?  Or were they quite lax on the matter?  Or something in between?

I was actually a bit surpris...

Why It Is Hard To Publish a Translation of an Ancient Text

In my last post, en route to discussing my latest attempt at publishing both a scholarly and a trade book on the same topic, I talked about how I took on the task of doing a new Greek-English edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library.  At the end of the post I indicated that doing that edition was one of the hardest things I have ever done.   There were lots of things that made it very difficult – deciding which form of the Greek text to use for each of the writings incl...

My Speaking Schedule for this Academic Year (so far)

I often get asked where I”m giving a talk next.  I do keep a listing on my website (www.bartdehrman.com), which has other information about my life and activities as well.   But, well, I haven’t been good this year at getting it up to date, until now.  (It was lost in the triage of my life….)  With Steven’s help, it’s now up and up to date.   Here it is, for anyone who’s interested.  And available, as well, even for anyone who is not.

All of these are open to the public (except, well, the two...

Hey! Wanna Go With Me To Rome ?

Here’s an exciting announcement that I’ve been eager to make.  And now I can.   I’ll be taking a group of interested (and interesting) folk on a ten-day trip to Rome and Southern Italy on April 14-24, 2020 (this coming April!); this is tour sponsored by Thalassa Journeys, the group that arranged my (with some other blog members)to Greece and Turkey last year.  It was spectacular.

And this one will be as well.   It is an amazing itinerary, as good as they come.  The theme is “Pagans and Christ...

A Recent Argument that Ancient Pseudepigraphy Was NOT Deceptive (or Meant to Be)

I continue now with the lecture I gave on “forgery” in the ancient world, delivered at a conference in Quebec a couple of weeks ago.  I had planned for this to be the last post, but I will have one more after this, the conclusion of my lecture where I deal with the ancient ethics of lying.  In this one I talk about a brilliant recent attempt to argue that it was not (always) a deceitful practice to claim to be a famous person when writing a work in antiquity.

 

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What Motivated Some Ancient Authors to Lie About Themselves?

I return now to my lecture on ancient Pseudepigraphy, the practice of writing a book falsely claiming to be someone else, a famous person.  I have been arguing that even in the ancient world this was considered to be a form of lying, the use of literary deceit, and authors who were detected doing it were outed and, if any moral judgment was passed, condemned for it.  Today we would call it “forgery,” and the ancient discussions of it were similarly negative.   Here is where I pick up in the l...

My Approaching Birthday

I turn 64 in just under two weeks – October 5.   I have to admit, for most of this past year I’ve had Paul McCartney ringing in my ears, “When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now….   Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64”….

As I get older, I think more and more about what I value in life, often with regrets for not always valuing what I now, at this point, think is truly valuable, but – for years and years – sometimes throwing myself into things that now see...

How Many Books in the New Testament Were Forged?

In response to the lecture on ancient practices of pseudepigraphy (writing in the name of a famous person when, alas, you are actually someone else), I received this important question, getting to the very basics – the heart and soul of the issue for students of early Christianity.

 

QUESTION:

Dr Ehrman I know you have published and spoken on the topic, but would you mind sharing which NT books are pseudepigraphal?

 

RESPONSE

Yes indeed, one of the reasons I’m so interested in this topic is t...

Were Ancient Readers Interested in Detecting Forgeries?

I continue now with my lecture this past week on whether ancient readers and writers considered pseudepigraphic writing – in which an author claimed to be someone else (always someone famous) – was seen as deceitful, a kind of literary lie, and is therefore appropriately, in an ancient context, appropriately considered by thos of us today, “forgery.”  This is Part 2 of 4.

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I do not need to give an extensive account of all the instances o...

My Lecture in Quebec: Did Ancient Authors Try To Deceive Their Readers?

I have decided to go ahead and post the address I gave last week to an academic conference in Quebec on “Pseudepigraphy” in the ancient world.  If you’re not familiar with the term (why would you be??) it refers to a book written by an author who falsely claims to be someone else (like if I wrote a book and claimed to be Stephen King) (which maybe I should do….).   Most scholars seem to think this was an acceptable practice in the ancient world.  I don’t.  My lecture was meant to show why.

Th...