Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 34

Can We Get Rid of Our Presuppositions?

Here's a set of questions I get asked a lot, expressed here with particular clarity by someone on the blog a while back. QUESTION: What are presuppositions? Why do we all have them? And how do we make sure we have the right ones, or at least good ones. Having come out of Fundamentalist circles [...]

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Jesus, the Law, and a New Covenant (Lecture)

  For some reason I don't understand (maybe someone can explain it to me), one of the most frequently watched lectures I've ever given was on "Jesus, the Law, and the New Covenant."   This was keynote address for the Mendenhall Symposium, in honor of the eminent scholar of the Hebrew Bible, George Mendenhall, on October [...]

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Why Don’t Pastors Teach What They Know about the Bible?

That's the KEY question I address in my book Jesus Interrupted (2010).  Here is an excerpt from the Intro where I press it head on : ****************************** One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it [...]

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New Insights Into Paul! Conference this Weekend! Wanna Come??

I’ve been excited about this coming weekend’s conference (New Insights into the New Testament) for eight months now.  If you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance. You can sign up here:  https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insigh... This annual conference is not directly connected with the blog per se, except to the extent that I do both and both [...]

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Major Contradictions (and Other Problems) in the Old Testament

In my previous posts I've dealt with some of the critical problems with the New Testament that many students have to grapple with (often for the first time) when they take seminary courses on biblical studies during their ministerial training.  One of the big questions I address in my book Jesus Interrupted (HarperOne, 2009) is why [...]

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Critical Problems With the Bible, in a Nutshell

What's it like for a devoted seminary student to be confronted with critical problems of the Bible for the first time?  Here I continue the discussion with an excerpt from my book Jesus Interrupted (HarperOne, 2009). ****************************** For students who come into seminary with a view that the Bible is completely, absolutely, one hundred percent without [...]

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What Seminarians Learn About the Bible (Often to Their Surprise)

In this post I explain how prospective pastors and teachers beginning work in seminaries and divinity schools start learning things about the Bible they never would have imagined – or if they did imagine it was only to reject out of hand.  As with the previous post, this is an excerpt from the first chapter [...]

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Jesus Interrupted: My Most Thorough Explanation of Critical Scholarship on the New Testament

What do professional scholars know about the Bible, what do religious professionals (ministers, e.g.) learn about it in seminary/divinity school, and why don't they (usually/normally/ever) tell their congregations about it?  That is the topic of my book Jesus Interrupted (Harper One, 2009).  I consider it my most thorough overview of the range of problems found in [...]

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How Many of Those Early Christians Could Read?

How many Christians by near the end of the New Testament period – say, 100 CE – could read and write?   In his intriguing article “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Roman historian Keith Hopkins tries to come up with some ballpark figures. As you may recall, he is assuming that there were Christian churches in [...]

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Special Gold Members Event: A Live AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Hey Gold Members, I much regret that we did not get a July Gold Q&A out (there were scheduling and sundry other issues), and I want to make up the loss by doing a special event on the evening of Monday September 16, at 8:00-9:00, Eastern Time, a Live GOLD-ONLY Q&A.  You ask the questions, [...]

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