Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 373

Jesus and Marriage: An Actual Argument!

So far I have pointed out that it is flat-out wrong to say that every Jewish man in the first century was married and was expected to be married. It is not only demographically impossible (there were not enough women to go around) but we know of Jewish men from the time of Jesus who were not married and were proud of it. Strikingly, they, like him, were apocalyptically minded Jews – such as the Essenes and the apostle Paul. I have also argued that whatever Mary Magdalene was to Jesus, she was...

Jesus and Marriage: An Actual Argument! (For Members)

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Jesus and Mary Magdalene

I pointed out in my last post that most people simply assume that Jesus was not married because there is no mention of his wife in any of our sources, or any mention that he ever had a wife. And so it is assumed that he did not have one. As Karen King pointed out in our discussion the other night at the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, that is an argument from silence, and as such is not a very strong one – since, among other things, none of these sources indica...

Jesus and Mary Magdalene (For Members)

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Was Jesus Married?

I am en route just now, back from Las Vegas, where I participated in a discussion with two other scholars at the Black Mountain Institute on the question “Would It Matter If Jesus Were Married?” The Black Mountain Institute is part of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV); it sponsors events having to do with literature and history. Usually these involve two or more scholars, on stage, on chairs, with a moderator, discussing a topic of mutual interest. The moderator last night was Caro...

Was Jesus Married? (For members)

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Historical Certainty and Jesus

QUESTION(S):

Evidently the “Q” source is quite authentic, but why? And, other sources of Jesus’ sayings may be related to oral traditions and even to early church teachings that were fed back into the Gospels and are less authentic….

I find it hard to accept that what we have in the New Testament is the authentic material was actually said and done by Jesus (in the strict historic sense).

You said that the statement about Jesus relating to God’s Kingdom on earth and who was to rule and that Jesu...

Historical Certainty and Jesus (For members)

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Ramtha Again: The Question-Answer Session

Here is the second part of my talk at the Ramtha School of Enlightenment. It is a question-answer session that I had with the attendees, and for my money, it was the best, most interesting part of the evening. Since we had abundant time — well over an hour — I was able to give the questions full, drawn out answers, virtually mini-lectures in themselves, on an enormous range of issues that came up. The questions dealt with intriguing topics on the whole. Many of my answers are not what the que...

The Jesus Seminar and John the Baptist

QUESTION:

Does the Jesus Seminar also reject the claim that the Baptist was an apocalypticist?

RESPONSE:

This is a great question, and I’m afraid I don’t know the definitive answer – in part because the Jesus Seminar did not have one and only one view on many topics. The Seminar was made up of a group of scholars who got together twice a year to discuss which aspects of the traditions found in the Gospels (mainly the canonical Gospels along with the Gospel of Thomas) were more likely to be authe...