Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 32

Still More Books of the Apocrypha: Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch

In this post I continue discussing the books of the Apocrypha, accepted as part of Scripture by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.  These are important books, historically and culturally – but hardly known among Protestant readers.   Here are three more!  Descriptions are taken from my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction.   The [...]

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Some More of the OT Apocrypha: the Letter of Jeremiah, Additions to Daniel, and 1 Maccabees

The OT Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books are truly fascinating, even if not widely read.  Few people outside of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions knows about the first one; the other two here though are better known and, in fact, historically significant. Some descriptions from my book The New Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction. ****************************** The Letter [...]

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Platinum Webinar for October: “The Literacy of Jesus: Could the Christian Savior Read and Write?”

Dear Platinum Members, If you missed the live session of this quarter's Platinum Webinar, fear not. We have recorded the talk and it is now for you to view. Bart covers a lot of fascinating ground in this talk, including: Why this topic is even a question. Context around literacy in ancient societies. What the [...]

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Some of the Old Testament Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, and Additions to Esther

In my previous post I began to describe the Old Testament Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books.  In the several posts that follow I will describe the ones commonly accepted by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.   These are very interesting books, well worth reading, and, as I've said, canonical Scripture for some parts of the Christian church. My [...]

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Introducing the Old Testament Apocrypha

Lots of people on the blog seem to be really interested in early Christian apocrypha -- other Gospels, Acts, epistles, apocalypses that did not make it into the New Testament.  It's a major area of fascination for me as well.  But many folk talk about them as "the Apocrypha" and probably that's not quite right [...]

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Was the Apocalypse of Peter Originally Considered Part of the New Testament?

In my previous post I pointed out that our earliest list of which books should be considered Christian Scripture (that is, parts of the New Testament), the Muratorian Fragment from the 180s CE, lists the Apocalypse of Peter as a book that was accepted by some Christians.  I've talked about the book on the blog [...]

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The First Ancient Christian List of the Books (allegedly) of the New Testament

The first church father to name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the four Gospels in the New Testament is Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons in Gaul (i.e., the ancient forerunner of Lyon, France), in his five-volume work, "Against Heresies" in 1985 CE.   He spent significant time in Rome itself before his appointment in Gaul, [...]

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Was the New Testament Canon Really Closed in 367 CE?

If we are talking about the earliest Christian writings -- the subject of my previous three posts -- we naturally want to know when decisions were made about WHEN church father settled on our 27-book canon of the New Testament.  Many people -- including tons of scholars -- set a precise date: 367 CE, in [...]

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Special Webinar Announcement: Hurricane Helene Fundraiser

As many of you know, Hurricane Helene swept through the mountains of Western North Carolina over the weekend, leaving significant destruction in its path. On Sunday, we announced a fundraiser to support relief efforts. We're asking for a suggested donation of $50.00, though any amount is appreciated. Those who donate will be invited to attend [...]

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Finding All the Earliest Christian Texts in One Place

How does one decide which books should belong to a collection of ALL the surviving early Christian writings of the first hundred years of the church?  Here I explain my procedure when producing my set of translations with introductions, The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, 2nd ed. 2004 (Oxford University Press), [...]

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