Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 254

Pontius Pilate: A Sensitive Guy….

QUESTION:

Could Pilate have conceded over burial rights also? Granted this may not extend to those accused of treason, but as Pilate did permit some local customs, does this not open up sufficient space for Josephus’ claim over burial rights to be taken seriously?

 

RESPONSE:

This question arose a couple of weeks ago after I had returned briefly to an older conversation about whether Jesus would have been buried on the afternoon he was crucified.  I tried to show that if so, this would have b...

Illuminating Exercises: The Position Paper Assignments for My NT Greek Class

Classes started last week, and for the first time in roughly forever I’m teaching a new course.  I posted the syllabus for my course on the Greek New Testament last week.  Here are the instructions I give the students for writing their weekly position papers.

These are exercises you too might be interested in – they are easily done, but highly illuminating.  Or at least they are meant to be.  Some of them (such as the first) make best sense in the context off a class discussion, where I can p...

Was Paul a Misogynist?

Now I can consider whether Paul himself actually wrote 1 Cor 14:34-35 — a passage that tells women they are not allowed to speak in church — or if it was, instead, inserted into his letter by someone else later.  It’s an important issue: if Paul did write the passage, and if he also wrote 1 Timothy (widely thought to be written by someone else *claiming* to be Paul) then by modern standards, at least, he would not be considered to have a, well, liberated view of women.

I begin with a paragrap...

Paul and His Female Disciple Thecla

I’m in the middle of talking about whether Paul wrote the verses now found in 1 Cor. 14:34-35, or if they were later added to his letter by an editor/scribe.  To make sense of what I have to say next about the issue I need to provide just a bit more background, specifically about a legendary figure well known in the early church, but not widely known about today outside the realm of early Christianity scholarship.  This is a one-time-household-name: Thecla, supposedly a female disciple of Pau...

Paul’s Views of Women

In this week’s mailbag I take up a very interesting question about whether there are other passages in the New Testament that are found in all of our manuscripts but that appear not to have been originally written by the author.  That is, they were (possibly) passages inserted by a later editor, before any of our surviving manuscripts were made, so that they are universally attested, but probably not original.  That is what I argued for 2 Corinthians 6:14 (it’s a standard scholarly view).  An...

Pre-order Triumph of Christianity and Get Some Serious Perks!!

Preorder Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, and get significant perks!

The book will appear in book stores on February 13.  But if you order it online before that, whether a member of the Bart Ehrman Blog or not, you can receive some hefty discounts.

FIRST: anyone who buys the book in advance online (e.g., at Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, or wherever) who is NOT already a member of the Bart Ehrman Blog will be given a FREE one-month trial membership, with full a...

Request for Help! Your Favorite Podcasts.

One month from today — on Feb. 13 — my new book will be published.  As many blog members know, over the years I have written (in broad terms) three kinds of books: academic books for hard hitting scholars in my fields of interest; college-level textbooks for undergraduates; and trade books for a broader audience of interested (and interesting!) people.

This new book The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World will be the thirty-first book I’ve published, my fifteenth...

My Long Favorite Pauline Letter: Philippians

There is one other book in the New Testament that may be a cut-and-paste job, and as it turns out, it is another one of Paul’s letters, Philippians.  Philippians was for a long time my favorite Pauline letter, back in my late teens when I was first starting to read the Bible.  It contains the first verse I ever memorized: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (1:21); and it is the first book that, a couple of years later, I committed completely to memory, word for word.  Little did I...

January Dinner Full!

I’m pleased and sorry to say that the table for the Blog dinner in Naples Florida on January 24 is now full!   Sometimes people cancel, however, so if you would like to be put on a waiting list, I am happy to do that.   I’m looking forward to meeting those who have signed up.  For all others — next time!!

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February Dinner Full!

I’m pleased and sorry to say that the table for the Blog dinner in D.C. on February 9 is now full!   Sometimes people cancel, however, so if you would like to be put on a waiting list, I am happy to do that.   I’m looking forward to meeting those who have signed up.  For all others — next time!!

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