Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 277

Does It Mean What It Says? More Problems with the King James

In my previous post I pointed out that the King James Version sometimes uses words and phrases that no longer make sense to most speakers/readers of the English language today. That obviously makes it use complicated. Why would you want to use a study Bible that doesn’t communicate in common English – or in this case, in English that no longer makes sense? I can understand – and heartily support – those who want to read the King James for its sheer beauty and historical significance. But if y...

Problems with the Language of the King James Version

In my Introduction to the New Testament class this semester, I talked on the first day about which Bible translations I would allow students to use for the class. The basic answer: most any modern translation would be fine (though I myself prefer the New Revised Standard Version), but I would not allow paraphrases (which are not actually translations from the original Hebrew and Greek, but are simplifications of previously existing English translations and as a result can be highly interpreti...

How Do We Know What “Most Scholars” Think?

I have received a particularly interesting question that has led to a bit of back and forth between me and a person on the blog. This person pointed out that in my writings I often indicate that a view that I have (e.g., that the Gospel of John was not written by John the son of Zebedee; that the book of Ephesians was not really written by Paul even though the author claims to be Paul; or that the Gospels are all 40-65 years after the death of Jesus, etc.) is held by the majority of scholars....

Leading up to the King James Translation

The King James Version (KJV) is right hailed as one of the great classics – arguably *the* great classic – of English literature. But most people have no idea where it came from and how it came into existence. And so I am going to take a side-path (OK, a tangent) in my thread to devote a few posts to the KJV, also known as the Authorized Version (AV).

To start with, contrary to what a lot of people think, the KJV, which appeared in 1611 under, yup, King James of England, was not the first tra...

Where Did the King James Bible Come From?

What were the King James Bible translators actually translating? You may not have known it from the previous two posts – but that is what I have been getting at, when talking about the first published edition of the Greek New Testament by Erasmus, and the subsequent editions. The King James is deservedly considered of the greatest classics ever produced in the English language. There can be no doubt about its enormous influence on English literature and the English language itself. But as a s...

The First Greek New Testament

In this thread on Bible translation, I have been talking about what it is translators of the New Testament actually translate. In order to answer the question, I have had to explain how we started to get printed editions of the Greek New Testament, including the first to come off the printing press, the Complutensian Polyglot (discussed in yesterday’s post). Today I take the discussion a step further, to talk about the first published (not the first printed!) Greek New Testament. Again, the d...

The Oldest Printed Versions of the Greek New Testament

I have started to explain what it is translators of the New Testament actually translate. They do not translate just one manuscript or another; they translate what they take to be the “original” text as it has been reconstructed by textual specialists (some of whom are the translators themselves). These reconstructions can be found in printed editions of the Greek New Testament.

To make sense of what the translators actually have in front of them when they are translating, I need to give a br...

My Problem(s) With Fundamentalism: A Blast from the Past

What are fundamentalists, and why don’t I like them? Here is a post I published almost exactly four years ago now. My views have not changed!

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QUESTION:

You note that fundamentalism is dangerous and harmful. How do you define fundamentalism and why do you think it’s dangerous?

RESPONSE:

There are of course actual definitions of “fundamentalism” that you can find in scholarship on religion, but I sense that you’re asking mor...

Can Biblical Scholars Be Historians?

Two interesting questions on this week’s Readers Mailbag. If you have a question, just ask away!

QUESTION:

I just had a debate with a Mythicist who had no idea that any biblical scholar could be a historian. I have to admit, I was just as ignorant of this fact until a little less than two years ago. How mainstream is it that biblical scholars are also known as historians? Maybe people think of biblical scholar–historian as two entirely separate entities.

RESPONSE

It’s a good question! I wou...

What Text Are the Translators Translating?

What is it that Bible translators translate when they are translating? Let me focus on the New Testament, my main area of expertise. When a translator wants to make an English version of, say, Mark (what I say about Mark will be true of all the books of the NT), what does she actually translate into English?

Obviously she cannot take Mark’s original manuscript and translate it, since we don’t have it. Or the first copy of the original, or a copy of the copy of the original. We have hundreds o...