Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 3

You’re Invited to Bart’s Final Lecture December 7th!

From Jen: You've hopefully heard the big news by now. After more than three decades of teaching, Bart will soon step away from the classroom. (But don't worry, he's not stepping away from the blog!) This December marks his retirement from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where generations of students have sat [...]

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The Book of Revelation: When and Why?

In my previous posts I have given a sketch of what the book of Revelation (AKA the Apocalypse of John) is all about, and discussed who actually wrote it (some fellow named John, but not John the son of Zebedee). Now we can move into the question of when it was written and why.   I [...]

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Q4 2025 Platinum Webinar Announcement

Our final Platinum webinar of the year is almost here. Join Bart for a live discussion on one of the most intriguing questions in early Christianity: how believers understood the promised return of Christ...and what it meant when that return seemed slow to arrive. Topic: The Delay of the Parousia in Early ChristianityExclusive Platinum Webinar [...]

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The Book of Revelation: Who Wrote It?

Now that I have summarized the book of Revelation – it’s not that difficult to follow the basic structure of the narrative -- we get to the thorny questions of who wrote it, when, and why.  In this post we deal with the WHO. The author of Revelation certainly claims to be John (1:1), but [...]

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Why Most People Who Read Revelation Are Wrong About It

I’m going to spend a few posts explaining what the book of “Revelation” is actually “revealing,” but first I want to explain what it is NOT revealing.  It is not revealing what is to happen soon, in our own day, as fundamentalist readers (just about the only ones who read the book in any detail) [...]

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The Book of Revelation in a Nutshell

We are fast approaching the end of this series on “The New Testament in a Nutshell,” in which I explain in summary fashion each book of the Christian (“new”) Scriptures.  As is natural, we end with the final book of the New Testament which, as is also natural, is a detailed account of how the [...]

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Four More Intriguing Topics on the Historical Jesus

The previous post provided a summary of the first four lectures given by internationally known historical Jesus scholars at our New Insights Into the New Testament conference at the end of September  (the summary was produced by Marko Marina, in advance of the lectures). The second day of the conference also had four lectures, by Paula [...]

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Problems with the Gospels: A Primer for the Study of the Historical Jesus (Part 2)

This now is the second part of the Primer on the Historical Jesus prepared by Marko Marina, which deals head on with the hardest question of all: how do scholars deal with the Gospels of the New Testament "critically" (not "criticizing" them but providing an honest assessment of their historical value) Marko provides a very [...]

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A Primer for the Study of the Historical Jesus: Our Non-Gospel Sources

As some of you know, my recording company, Paths in Biblical Studies (PBS) which normally produces online courses (www.bartehrman.com) held its third annual New Insights Into the New Testament (NINT) live/remote/recorded conference last week.  The topic was the Historical Jesus, and we had eight speakers along with a keynote address by Elaine Pagels (you can [...]

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Jude, The Denigration of Angels, and the Followers of Paul

In my previous post I tried to show that the pseudonymous author of the book of Jude appears to be attacking an understanding of the Christian faith endorsed by members of Paul’s churches sometime after his death – that is, he is not attacking Paul head-on, but the views that had developed after Paul’s day [...]

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