Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 303

Christ as Son of God in Mark’s Gospel

In my previous post I indicated that by the early fourth century, the debates over Christ’s divine nature had become extraordinarily sophisticated and complex (though not as sophisticated and complex as in the two centuries to follow!). At the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE the question was over whether Christ, the God who created the world, was a subordinate divinity to God the Father, one who came into being at some point in time, or if, instead, he was just as eternal, just as powerful, and j...

My Debate with Michael Bird Feb. 12 , 2016

As many of you know, this past weekend (February 12-13, 2016) I met with Australian New Testament scholar Michael F. Bird at the 2016 Greer-Heard Point Counter Point Forum on for a two part debate. The event was held atthe Leavell College Chapel at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. A question and answer session followed the debate. The subject of the debate was focused on my book.How Jesus Became God.Michael was the editor of the “response” book, produced by a group of evangelical...

Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: February 18, 2016

Here is the weekly Readers’ Mailbag, three questions this time – one about my alleged “support of Islam against Christianity,” one about why we think the NT Gospels were originally written in Greek, and one about what I mean when I talk about the views held by the majority of “critical” scholars (as opposed to what other kind of scholar?)?

Feel free to ask questions you have; some I will not be able to get to (either because I don’t know the answer or because the answer is a one-liner instea...

The Controversies about Christ: Arius and Alexander

As I mentioned in the last post, in my debate this past Friday at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, I was trying to sketch out how it was that the early Christians came to think that Christ was God. I decided in the debate *not* to start at the beginning, for example, with the teachings of Jesus, his understandings of himself, the views of his disciples and so on. Instead, in order to set up a key contrast, I started at the end (well, one of the ends) of the Christological conflic...

The Son of God, the Council of Nicea, and the Da Vinci Code

In my main lecture during the debate this past weekend, I decided to develop in short order the case that I make in my book How Jesus Became God for how, well, Jesus became God. (!) But I chose to do it differently from how I do it in the book, at least in terms of rhetorical strategy. I chose to start at the *end* of the development (it’s actually nowhere near the end – since Christological arguments continued on for centuries – but it was one sensible ending points), with the controversies...

My Debate This Past Weekend

I just returned yesterday from a two-day event in New Orleans involving a public debate with an Australian New Testament scholar named Michael Bird. To explain the situation, I need to give some background. As most readers on the blog know, a couple of years ago I published my book How Jesus Became God. This was my attempt to show how it is that the man Jesus, an apocalyptic preacher from a remote area of rural Galilee, came to be considered the second member of the Trinity, God the creator,...

Drew Marshall Show – How Jesus Became God

On May 17th, 2014 I appeared on The Drew Marshall Show with Professor Natalie Evans from University of Waterloo.. The broadcast was recorded from the studio of CJYE based in Oakville, Ontario Canada.

Drew Marshall begins the show by discussing my spiritual journey initially and then focusing on his latest book “How Jesus Became God.”

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Weekly Readers Mailbag: February 13, 2016

Time for the weekly mailbag. This week I’m dealing with only one question; I want to give a more elaborate answer than usual since it relates so closely to my forthcoming book Jesus Before the Gospels. Here’s the question:

QUESTION:

Dr. Ehrman, as you mention we tend to remember events that carry a large emotional impact (e.g. 9/11, Kennedy assassination, etc.) but, in turn, we tend to easily forget the more banal and mundane events in life (e.g. what we ate for breakfast three days ago, th...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements 2016

A couple of people have asked me about my upcoming speaking schedule, so I thought I would post it here. I have broken it down into two separate lists. The first are my book readings to promote Jesus Before the Gospels, the book being published on March 1. Most authors no longer do big book tours, since they rarely generate much by way of sales; and most authors are oh so glad not to be doing these any more (they sound glamorous, but they oh-so-are-not). So my book readings involve just the...

On the Accuracy of Oral Traditions

I have announced on the blog that my new book, Jesus Before the Gospels, will be available March 1. The book is about how the stories of Jesus were passed along by word of mouth for several decades before being written, and about how modern studies of both memory and oral cultures can help us understand what probably happened to the traditions as they circulated orally from one person to another over all those years.

In reaction to a previous post on the topic, a reader made the following int...