Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 312

An Irritating Criticism: My View of Paul’s View of Christ

QUESTION:

Below is one Christian’s comment about your position on Galatians 4:14. How would you respond to this criticism: “The question to ask of this is why make Galatians 4:14, with an interpretation not readily accepted by even non-Christian scholars, the lynchpin? What was it about this verse that made it the focal point, especially when Paul isn’t really making a Christological argument there? Why not statements like Philippians 2 which is quoted? Note also that Philippians ends with ev...

Really??? Stories of Jesus’ Virgin Birth

COMMENT:

When I bring up the possibility that the original Luke did not have the first two chapters which include the virgin birth narrative, Christians say to me: “How could such a new twist to the story of Jesus have developed so soon in the first century if some of Jesus’ family, disciples, and friends were still alive to verify its accuracy? If Jesus had truly been Joseph’s son, wouldn’t SOMEONE have said, “Hey. Wait a minute. Jesus nor his mother ever claimed that he was the virgin-born...

Taking the Pulse of the Blog

The blog has now been in existence three and a half years now, and as I like to do a couple of times a year, I would like to take its pulse, to see if it is still alive and well among us, and to find out what, if anything, we can do to make it better. I don’t think it is sick and in desperate need of hospitalization; in fact, from where I sit, it seems to be doing very well (see below). But I want to know what *you* think, since you’re the ones who matter here. I have some specific questions,...

Is Luke’s Christology Consistent?

Does Luke present a (strictly speaking) consistent view of Jesus throughout his two-volume work of Luke-Acts?

I raise the question because of the textual problem surrounding the voice at Jesus’ baptism. I have been arguing that it is likely that the voice did NOT say “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (as in most manuscripts; this is what it clearly does say in Mark’s version; Matthew has it say something different still); instead it probably said “You are my Son, today I have...

Arguments that Luke Did Not Originally Have the Virgin Birth

In discussing the voice of God at Jesus’ baptism in Luke – where he evidently spoke the words of Psalm 2:7 “You are my Son, today I have begotten you – I have mentioned the possibility that originally Luke’s Gospel did not begin with the account of Jesus’ birth, as found now in chapters 1 and 2. I have broached that topic on the blog before, a couple of years ago (if you want to see that discussion, just search for “Did Luke Originally Have”). But my sense is that most people on the blog eith...

Did Luke’s Gospel Originally Have the Virgin Birth?

I have been discussing the intriguing textual variant found in Luke 3:23, where Jesus is said to be baptized. When he comes out of the water the heavens open up, the Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove, and voice then comes from heaven. But what does the voice say? In most manuscripts the voice says exactly what it does in Mark’s Gospel: “You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.” But in a few ancient witnesses it says something slightly but significantly different: “You ar...

Scribes Who Changed the Voice at Jesus Baptism?

I have been discussing views in the early church that asserted (or were claimed to assert) that Christ was not a divine being by nature, but was only “adopted” to be the Son of God, for example at his resurrection or, more commonly, at his baptism. Some such views were allegedly held by the Jewish-Christian Ebionites and by the Roman-gentile Theodotians. Whether these Christians actually held to such views is a bit difficult to say, since we don’t have any writings from their hands. But it is...

Some Flak (Already!) Over My New Book

This week there was a brief but rather fervid flurry of posts on a Facebook discussion page I belong to over the announcement of my new book, due out March 1. The reason it was brief is that after about twenty or twenty-five rather intense (and some of them rather insulting) posts, the moderator of the list took down the whole discussion. And he was right to do so. The comments had nothing to do with the purpose of the page.

The page is a very useful site for discussing issues related to “New...

Other Christians Who Denied that Christ was Divine by Nature

In my previous post I discussed on group of early Christian “adoptionists” – that is, followers of Christ who maintained that he was not really a divine being (by nature) but was a human who had been “adopted” by God (at his baptism) to be his Son. To be sure, from that point on he was in some sense divine; but he was not born of a virgin and he did not pre-exist his appearance in the world. The group I mentioned yesterday was the Jewish-Christian Ebionites.

There was another group known (or...

Was Christ God? The View of Jewish-Christian Ebionites

We know of several groups and individuals from the first three centuries of Christianity who were known, or at least thought, to support an “adoptionistic” Christology, one that said that Christ was not by nature a divine being but was, instead, a fully and completely human being, one who had been “adopted” by God to be his son (and therefore divine for *that* reason). He was the Son of God, then, by adoption or election, not by nature. He did not pre-exist his birth, and his birth was normal...