Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 33

Can We Know What Jesus Said About Himself?

Do we know what Jesus said about himself? Yesterday I started my two-prong argument for why Jesus probably considered himself the messiah.  The first prong is that Jesus must have been called the messiah during his lifetime, or it makes no sense that he would be called messiah after his death. Even if there were [...]

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Take My New Testament Pop Quiz!

A blog member recently asked me if I could post the pop quiz that I used to give t0 my New Testament class on the first day of the semester.  I say "used to" because I have stopped teaching the course, after doing so for 35 years (!), yielding it over to the capable hands [...]

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November Gold Q&A: Ask Your Questions!

Hey Golds and Platinums: Mark your calendars – we've got a monthly Gold Q&A coming up on Sunday November 17th at 7pm Eastern. If you can, join us for the live session—it’s a chance to dive into your burning questions and catch the conversation as it unfolds! Can’t make it live? Not to worry; the [...]

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An Imagined Dialogue for the Dispute Between Paul & Barnabas in Acts Part 3 by Angus Nisbet

Now we come to the third of four posts by Platinum member Angus Nisbet on the dispute between Paul and Barnabas recorded in the book of Acts, where he maintains that Mark (as in John Mark, allegedly the author of the Gospel!) was a spy who ratted Paul out.  And it involves a connection with [...]

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Island Hopping with History: Join Our Greek Odyssey this May!

I will be giving lectures on another glorious tour to some of the Greek Islands this coming May 14-26. This will be fantastic. Some blog members came with me on a similar trip last year, but to different islands. It was life-long-memorable. If it’s humanly possible, think about joining up! Space will be limited – [...]

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Would the Resurrection Make Anyone Believe Jesus Was the Messiah?

I have been talking about the early Christian understandings of Jesus as the messiah.  Not just the messiah, but the “crucified messiah,” a concept that would have seemed not just unusual or bizarre to most Jewish ears in the first century, but absolutely mind-boggling and self-contradictory.  I’ve been arguing that it was precisely the contradictory [...]

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An Imagined Dialogue for the Dispute Between Paul & Barnabas in Acts Part 2 by Angus Nisbet

Here Angus Nisbet continues his discussion of Paul and Barnabas and the dispute they had, where he gets into more fascinating issues, involving what might lie behind the dispute and how non-canonical writings that did not make it into the NT might help us figure it out.  There are some controversial views here.  What do [...]

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A Particular Problem with a Crucified Messiah

In my previous post I started to show that most Jews rejected Christian claims about Jesus because Jesus was just the *opposite* of what the messiah was expected to be.  The messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power who would overthrow God’s enemies and set up a new kingdom on earth in [...]

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Paul and the Crucified Messiah in 1 Corinthians

Historians usually have reasons for what they say; that is, when they make a historical claim, it is almost always based on a close reading of the surviving sources.  When it’s not, they’re just blowin’ smoke.  But if they’re reputable scholars AND are blowin’ smoke – that is, taking a guess –they’ll usually tell you.  [...]

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Why Would A Christian Author Lie About Who He Was?

In my previous post I said a bit about “forgeries” in the NT, that is, books whose authors claimed to be a famous person (Peter, Paul, James, Jude), knowing full well they were someone else.  In the ancient world, these books were called “lies” (pseudoi) or “books inscribed with a lie” (pseudepigrapha).  But why would [...]

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