Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 300

Christians and their Exaggerated Numbers

I have started discussing the fascinating article by Keith Hopkins, “Christian Number and Its Implications” (see my post of two days ago). After discussing some of the problems with knowing how to “count” Christians (i.e., who counts as a Christian), he reflects for a bit on the problems presented to us by our sources of information. The basic problem is that our sources don’t *give* us much information! No one from the early Christian church was a statistician and no one kept records of how...

Trolling Advice!

Dear Readers and Fans of the Blog:

I have gotten a number of comments/complaints about trolling and thought I should just tell you my policy in case you think I should change it. I have two competing principles that I try to keep in balance on the blog. On one hand, I want readers to say what they really, genuinely think and to have a chance, then, to air their views. On the other hand, I don’t want simply to post snide comments by people trolling. And so the rather informal policy I’ve adopt...

Help!!

Is anyone on the blog a professional mathematician or statistician? (I’m not looking for someone who’s good with numbers but with someone who makes a living out of it.) If so, and you’d be willing to help me out with a question that probably any sophomore in high school could handle, could you send me a private email at behrman@email.unc.edu ?

Who Counts as a Christian?

To start on my reflections on the rise and spread of Christianity, it might be useful to talk for a while about a particular article that has been highly influential both for my own thinking and more broadly in the contemporary discussion among scholars. The article was written by a prominent and deservedly acclaimed British historian, Keith Hopkins, a long-time professor at Cambridge University. It was called “Christian Number and Its Implication,” and it appeared in the Journal of Early Chr...

My Progress on the Book

I’m at one of my favorite points in the writing process for my next book. Maybe it’s not right to say I’m at a point in the “writing,” since I haven’t written a word yet and won’t be writing a word for a while. But writing is so much more than actually hammering out words on a keyboard. The huge bulk of the work involves doing the research. And I’m at one of my favorite points just now, the long transition period between one phase of reading and another, preparatory to the writing itself.

I’v...

My Trip to Athens

About fourteen years ago, my son Derek graduated from high school, and I told him that for his graduation present I would take him anywhere in the world for two weeks. I gave his sister Kelly the same deal two years earlier and she chose Ireland. Derek decided on Greece.

At first I was impressed with the sophistication of his choice. Later I realized that what he really wanted to do was to head to a Greek island and hang out on the nude beaches.

So I struck a deal with him. We’d spend a week...

Life After Death in Rome, and other Questions. Readers’ Mailbag May 6, 2016

In this week’s Readers Mailbag I address three rather divergent questions, one on ancient tombstone inscriptions that indicate that many people in the ancient world did not believe in an afterlife, one on the Temptation narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and one on the process of having a book edited in preparation for publication. If you have a question you would like me to address, just ask – and I’ll add it to the list!

QUESTION:

I’m curious…what sort of “inscriptional evidenc...

The Conversion of Constantine and Beyond

I am now nearly finished discussing the Prospectus that I floated before several publishers this past summer for my new book The Triumph of Christianity. My original idea, as you will see below, was to start with the earliest disciples of Jesus, right after his death, who came to think he had been raised from the dead – I’m happy to call them the “first Christians,” even though a lot of scholars object to calling anyone “Christian” until much later; I just don’t have those qualms – and to dis...

Final Exam for New Testament Class (2016)

Let’s see how you do on my Final Exam! Yesterday I gave the final for my Introduction to the New Testament class. Here it is. My sense is that as for every course, unless you actually take it, even if you know a good bit about the subject matter, it would be very hard to do well on the final, since, well, the final is geared specifically to the course. But some of this is more or less “common knowledge” for those well versed in the field.

The exam had three sections that were equally weighted...

Why Christianity Succeeded

I have been laying out the Prospectus for my proposed book The Triumph of Christianity that I circulated to several publishers last summer, and I am now at the very heart of the matter, the explanation (as I saw it then) for why Christianity succeeded so massively in the Empire during its first three centuries. Here is what I said:

******************************************************************

There were two key factors specific to Christianity that facilitated the growth of the Christian...