Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 308

Christians, Muslims, and God: Wheaton College in the News

I am sure that many of you have heard of the recent incident involving Christianity and Islam at Wheaton College, my alma mater, an evangelical liberal arts college outside of Chicago. Several readers have asked me about it. Here is a typical query:

QUERY:

Wheaton College was in the news this past week. Apparently one of the professors was suspended because she claimed that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Also, she wore a hijab to show solidarity with Muslims. You can read more a...

Jesus the Suffering Messiah

In a previous post I tried to show how the belief in Jesus’ resurrection completely altered the disciples’ perspective on who Jesus was. During his lifetime they thought he would be the future king of Israel; when he was crucified they realized they were wrong; when they then came to believe he had been raised they realized that they had been right, but in a way they did not at the time think. Jesus, for them, now that they believed he was raised, was far more than a human king. He was a divi...

Readers’ Mailbag December 18, 2015

It is time for my weekly Readers’ Mailbag. If you too have a question you would like me to address – on much of anything at all! – let me know, either by sending me an email or by commenting on this post. I’ll be dealing with two questions today, one on dealing with where apocalyptic views came from, the other with my personal experience as a born-again Christian who had been raised Episcopalian.

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The Resurrection of the Son of God

I’m in the midst of the most entangled thread I have yet produced in my well-over-three-years of doing the blog. It started with orthodox scribes who were altering their texts of Scripture (specifically Luke 22; this was part of a thread I began in April! I’ll get back to it….) and it has now managed by a number of intricate twists, turns, and interweavings to end up at the resurrection of Jesus.

I have been arguing that the resurrection radically changed the disciple’ understanding of the be...

Did Some Disciples Not Believe in the Resurrection?

In my previous post I pointed out that we simply don’t know how many of Jesus’ disciples came to believe that he was raised from the dead. In my view there is actually some *evidence* that some of them never did believe it. I lay the evidence out in my book How Jesus Became God. It has to do with the fact that there is such a strong tradition of “doubt” in the resurrection among Jesus’ followers. Here is how I lay out the evidence there.

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Were the Disciples Martyred for Believing in the Resurrection?

Over the past few years I’ve wondered how many of the disciples of Jesus came to believe that he had been raised from the dead. The traditional answer is that all eleven of them (the twelve minus Judas, who hanged himself before it happened) did, along with a handful of women, among them Mary Magdalene. I suppose that’s probably right, but I’m not *completely* sure.

In the end, I’m afraid we simply don’t know. The problem is that our sources – even the ones completely favorable to the earthly...

Ehrman-Bass Debate Did the Historical Jesus Claim to be Divine

OnSeptember 18th, 2015 I had a debate with Justin Bass on the question “Did the Historical Jesus Really Claim to Be God?” As you might imagine, I argued that the answer is “Decidedly No.” He argued “Decidedly Yes.” The debate was held at the Collin College Preston Ridge Conference Center in Frisco, TX. The event was hosted by “1042 Church” http://www.1042church.com where Justin Bass is the lead pastor.

Most of the audience came from members of Justin’s congregation and friends they brought. I...

Readers’ Mailbag December 11, 2015

Time again for my weekly Readers’ Mailbag. I have three questions to deal with today, one that is substantive and about the New Testament, one about my personal life as an evangelical turned agnostic, and one about my views of the beginnings of life! Quite a mix.

As questions occur to you, please feel free to ask, either in a comment on this post or in an email. If it’s something I can handle, I will add your question to the list.

QUESTION: You have pointed out that Jesus was rejected by his...

Does Paul Know about Judas Iscariot?

In my previous post I indicated that Paul shows no evidence of knowing about the tradition that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. In fact, one passage may suggest that he actually did not know about it. I’ll get to that in a second.

First I need to stress that we really don’t have any way of know most of what Paul knew, or thought he knew, about Jesus’ life. He tells us so very little. As I have mentioned on the blog before, scholars have had long and hard debates about why Paul says so little a...

The Reversal of the Disciples’ Decisive Disconfirmation

In my previous post I argued that the crucifixion of Jesus, rather than being the fulfilment of his own and his disciples’ hopes, was the utter and virtually irrefutable destruction of them. He, and they, had expected that God would intervene in the course of history to bring his good kingdom on earth, destroying the forces of evils – including the ruling powers of the present – and installing Jesus and his followers as rulers of the new order. Jesus would be the messiah and his followers wou...