Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 286

Misquoting Jesus Interview C-SPAN

Here’s an old interview, way back in October 15, 2006, on my book, “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.” The Interview was done in Bryant Park in New York City during the New York Times Great Read in the park, with C-SPAN2 Book TV. (Ten years ago now! See what a Spring Chicken I look??? Ah to be young again….)

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Does Paul Know that Judas Betrayed Jesus?

QUESTION:

In your list of the things Paul tells us about the historical Jesus (he was born of a woman, he was a Jew, he had brothers, he had twelve disciples, etc.) one thing you seem to have left out was the fact that he was “betrayed” on the night he had the last supper. 1 Corinthians 11:23 says

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is...

Mythicists and the Crucified Messiah

In my previous post I explained what ancient Jews who were expecting the messiah were expecting. I do not want to give the impression (one widely held today) that most Jews *were* expecting a messiah. My sense is that most ancient Jews didn’t spend much time thinking about the matter, any more than most Jews today do. But for those who did expect a messiah, there were certain expectations. In this post I want to explain why those expectations relate to the question about whether Jesus existed...

Mythicists, Jesus, and the Messiah

I am now able to finish off this thread dealing with my debate with Robert Price on whether Jesus existed. I have already laid out most of the arguments that I gave during my 30-minute presentation at the debate. As I did in that talk, I now would like to set forth the argument that seems to me to be one of the most convincing of all.

Mythicists say that the early Christians invented historical man Jesus, that there never was such a real person. I think that view runs smack up against a brick...

What Is Gnosticism? A Blast from the Past

From time to time I get asked about Gnosticism. What was it exactly? I deal with the issue in a number of my books, as you may know. Here is a summary statement that I published a couple of years ago on this date, based on my rewriting of the section on Gnosticism in my undergraduate textbook, The New Testamen: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.

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Major Views of Various Gnostic Groups

Despite the many dif...

What If the Mythicists Were Right: Mailbag November 6, 2016

QUESTION:

It must be difficult going into these types of debates knowing that if Robert Price is actually right, your entire career would be pointless and irrelevant. I certainly don’t believe this, but it must have crossed your mind before?

RESPONSE:

This question arose from the debate I had a couple of weeks ago with Robert Price, on whether Jesus existed. Price argued, as you know, that there never was a historical man Jesus, but that the earliest “Christians” believed in a cosmic Christ,...

Carrier and James the Brother of Jesus

I hope I am not beating a dead horse by going at some length into this discussion of James, the brother of Jesus, in response to the Mythicists, who have a very real stake indeed in saying that he wasn’t really Jesus’ brother, since that would mean Jesus existed. I’m pursuing the matter in part because it is such a key issue and as well to show that it would be possible to argue to all eternity with Mythicists on point after point after point. Some of them are truly inexhaustible. If I wanted...

James the Brother of the Lord

In my previous post explaining why I think the Mythicist position – that there never was a man Jesus – is simply untenable, I pointed out that among the things Paul says, none is more specifically relevant than the fact that he indicates that he was personally acquainted with Jesus’ own brother James (along with Jesus’ disciples Peter and John).

When Paul mentions knowing and spending time with James, it is decidedly not in order to prove that he knew him. The comments he makes are completely...

Paul’s Acquaintances: Jesus’ Disciples and Brother

I have pointed out that the information provided us by Paul shows that he, at least, understood Jesus to have been a real flesh-and-blood human being (even while acknowledging that he was also a divine being). He really was born, was a Jew, had brothers, and so on. The reason all this matters is that many Mythicists claim that Paul thought no such thing, that for him Christ was a cosmic being, not a human being, and that he had been crucified in outer space by demonic powers. I don’t think a...

Paul and the Historical Jesus

In this thread I have been talking about what I discussed in my thirty-minute presentation at the Mythicist Milwaukee conference, in my debate with Robert Price. After pointing out a couple of problems with typical Mythicist arguments I devoted the bulk of my time to laying out the positive evidence for my view that whatever else you might want to say about him, Jesus of Nazareth certainly existed as a real human being. In my last post I stressed the value of the Gospels, and their written an...