Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 256

Is the Didache One Document or Three?

I have been discussing the interesting and important early Christian document called the Didache.  Yesterday I gave a translation of its first part, the “two ways” or the “two paths” section.  After that the topic and tone of the book changes, as it starts to talk about how Christian baptism and eucharist should be celebrated.  It ends on a completely different note, with a one-chapter description of the coming apocalypse.  Scholars have asked whether the book as we now have it was actually c...

The Ethical Teachings of the Didache

We have been talking about the Didache on the blog, and it occurred to me that it might be useful to post part of its text, so readers can see what we’re talking about.  The book has several discrete parts: it begins with a discussion of the “two ways” – one that leads to life and one to death.  This is a set of ethical instructions for Christians.  As you’ll see, the author appears to have taken materials from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and various other passages chiefly from Matthew...

What Is the Didache?

In the recent exchange that I posted on the blog (dealing with the existence of Q) the document known as the Didache was mentioned – especially by guest contributor Alan Garrow, who thinks that the Didache was a source used by the authors of Matthew and Luke.  I think even Alan will agree that this is a highly anomalous view; I don’t know of any other scholar who accepts it (though if Alan knows of any who do, I’m sure he can tell us in a comment).  The Didache is almost always assumed to hav...

Blog Christmas Gift Idea #2: Gift Subscriptions

Just one week before Christmas!!   Are you searching for that perfect gift for someone you know and love?  Or at least know?   Something that would be highly meaningful on the one hand, but dead-easy to give on the other?  I have the perfect suggestion:  A GIFT MEMBERSHIP FOR THE BLOG!!

On the landing page, at www.ehrmanblog.org, there is a bright link that allows you to give someone else a one-year membership.  It looks like this:

Just click it and give it!  Easy as that.  What  fantastic g...

Blog Christmas Gift Idea #1! Free Memberships Still Available!

Do you OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW want a free one-year subscription to the blog (because, for various reasons, you, or the one you know, cannot afford it)?   I STILL HAVE FREE MEMBERSHIPS TO GIVE OUT.   Please ask or encourage someone you know to ask.

Here is the original announcement from a couple of weeks ago, with instructions about how to obtain one.

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Thanks to the incredible generosity of members of the blog, I am happy to announce th...

Managing the Time! Readers’ Mailbag December 17, 2017

In this weeks’ Readers’ Mailbag I will be dealing with a personal question, one that I get a good bit (twice this week!).   Here is how it came to me from one blog-member

 

QUESTION:

You should once write an article on time management. Unless you sleep only 2 hours a day, I can’t imagine how you manage to publish lengthy posts, answer all comment questions every day, read lectures at the university(including all the academic responsibilities there: quizzes, exams etc.), read books/papers (bot...

A Final Statement on a Different Approach to the Synoptic Problem: Evan Powell

OK, this will be the last post in this current thread involving the Synoptic Problem.  Some of you will be glad to know that this one is written not at the scholarly but for normal human beings (as opposed to abnormal academics….).   It should be very accessible.   It is written by the blog-member who started this whole thing off with a challenge, Evan Powell.  Thanks to all the participants in the back and forth – Evan, Allan Garrow, and Mark Goodacre.  I don’t know about you, but I think it...

Brief Reply to Garrow

I’m taking the day off from the blog (a vacation day!), but received this comment from Mark Goodacre and didn’t want it to be lost in the comment section, as I think it is important.  (And for balance, I will indeed be posting, later,  blog-member Evan’s assessment of the whole thing, since he started it!).  Here is Mark’s response to what Alan Garrow’s post.

 

Many thanks to Dr Garrow for his interesting response. I should point out, though, that this does not respond to my point, which is n...

Back Again: Did Matthew Use Luke? Alan Garrow’s Reply to Mark Goodacre

As you know, I agreed to allow Mark Goodacre to respond to Alan Garrow’s unusual view of how to explain the “Synoptic Problem,” as part of the $1000 challenge by blog-participant Evan.  Some of you enjoyed going down into the weeds yesterday with Mark; today I post Alan Garrow’s reply to Mark’s Response, and if you like the weeds, here are some more!  If nothing else, these posts show why it is hard to make scholarship simple and accessible to the non-expert, without simplifying it out of rec...

Did Matthew Copy Luke? Mark Goodacre’s Rebuttal

Here now is Mark Goodacre’s response to Alan Garrow’s attempt to show that the author of Matthew had access to and used the Gospel of Luke in constructing his own account of Jesus’ life.   This kind of argument, to carry any weight, has to get down into the weeds a bit.  So brace yourself!   I consider it a compelling response.

Many thanks to Evan for issuing this challenge and for making such a generous donation to the blog.   And many thanks as well to Mark Goodacre, who could resist dealin...