Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 292

Beginning My Study of the Bible

This thread is becoming a tapestry. Its ultimate goal is to explain why, unlike most scholars, I ended up being able to write trade books and not only scholarly books. I’m taking a rather circuitous route to getting there (to change the metaphor). In my last post I discussed how and why I first became interested in the Bible, back as a fifteen year-old born again Christian.

At that point I became convinced that only Bible-believing Christians (who were, of course, also born again) were the re...

My Original Passion for the Bible

I have been talking about the areas of New Testament studies that were emphasized in my Masters and PhD programs at Princeton Theological Seminary, back in the late 70s and early to mid 80s. It was a long program, even though I sped through it a couple of years faster than most of my colleagues. The Masters program was three years (that is typical for a masters of divinity degree); my PhD was four years (most of my friends took five to seven). That’s full time work, for all those seven years....

Different Ways of Describing the Theology of the New Testament

To return to the current thread: I’ve been discussing why most scholars are not equipped, trained, or inclined to write books for a general audience, and that took me, naturally, to the field of scholarship in which I myself was principally trained, biblical studies. My ultimate point is going be a somewhat ironic one, that precisely because my particular interests were in one of the most highly technical, obtuse, mind-numbingly detailed aspects of New Testament studies, this (strangely) made...

How We’re Doing on the Blog

Time to pause and take the pulse of the blog. I’d like your feedback, if you’d be willing to give it (see below). We’ve been at this for four years and five months now, without a stop in the action. Every week for the entire period I’ve posted 5-6 times, normally about a thousand words a pop. In addition, I have posted numerous videos and audio recording. Every week I now devote one post to answer members’ questions, on the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag. On top of that I approve all the comments th...

My Work as a Historian and Paul in Conflict with the Jerusalem Church: Readers’ Mailbag August 20, 2016

Some people (conservative Christians who don’t like my scholarship) maintain that I’m not a historian, a view I find very odd since virtually all of my scholarship (for well over twenty-five years) is historical. I address the question in this week’s Readers’ Mailbag, along with a question that many readers will find more interesting (since it’s more germane to anything), of whether Paul and the Jerusalem church were on the same page theologically or if there were tensions between them.

If yo...

Video of How Jesus Became God: Part 2 (of 3)

On January 29-31, 2016, Igave three talks atCoral Gables Congregational Church in (surprise) Coral Gables, Florida, all on my book, “How Jesus Became God.” I posted the first of the talks last week. Here now is the second.

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How Jesus Became God -UCC Part 2 of 3:

If you don’t belong yet to the blog, JOIN! You will get lots of posts (5-6 a week), videos, and comments. Tons of stuff, for very little money. And all proceeds go to fight hunger a...

Another Approach to New Testament Theology

There is another aspect of the study of New Testament theology to what I discussed in yesterday’s post. That post was focused on how one “does theology” with the New Testament – that is, how one uses the New Testament texts in such a way as to inform, critique, call into question, authorize, and dialogue with the important intellectual and practical aspects of life as a Christian, both individually and in community. That is the sort of thing theologians do who are interested in the sacred tex...

Studying New Testament Theology

This thread has turned into an explanation of why most New Testament scholars – that is, professional researchers and teachers with a PhD in the field – are not well situated to write books for a general audience. My reflections on that question – once I get around to it – are probably not what one would expect. At least they seem ironic to me. But before going there (in a later post), I should stress that what is true of NT scholars is true of virtually all scholars in virtually all fields o...

Being Trained To Interpret Texts

In some rather surprising and ironic ways, I think my training in a particularly obscure and technical aspect of New Testament studies made me *more* qualified to write books for a general audience than most of my colleagues and peers. Almost everyone I knew in my graduate program was interested almost exclusively in two areas of academic research: exegesis and New Testament theology. I was interested in something that most of them did not care about in the least: textual criticism. Let me ex...

Speaking in Churches as an Agnostic; and Jewish Beliefs about Afterlife. Readers Mailbag August 13, 2016

I will be dealing with two rather wide-ranging questions in this week’s Readers Mailbag: What is it like for me, a public agnostic/atheist, to give a talk to believers in a church? And what did Jews believe about the afterlife in the time of Jesus?

QUESTION:

Dr. Ehrman, do churches hire you to lecture on Christianity knowing that you’re an atheist? Do you ever get tempted to say, “Let’s be honest here. I think all of your cherished religious beliefs are baloney, but I’ll humor you for the n...