Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 38

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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The Quest for the Historical Paul: Sorting Through Our Sources (Part 2) by Dr. James Tabor

Here we have Part 2 of James Tabor's explanation of how and what we can know about the life and letters of Paul, in anticipation of the upcoming conference, designed for folks like you, non-scholars interested in what lifelong experts in the study of the New Testament say about it.  James will be one of [...]

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The Quest for the Historical Paul: Sorting Through Our Sources (Part 1). Guest Post by James Tabor

As you know, I hope, I will be sponsoring an upcoming conference for non-scholars, on the Apostle Paul soon, Sept. 21-22 (see https://www.bartehrman.com/new-insigh... ).  We will have ten high-level Pauline scholars each give a 50-minute lecture with Q&A, dealing with various issues connected with Pauline studies.   This is gonna be a good'un. In preparation for it, [...]

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The Next Ten Commandments Platinum Guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD

Here's another guest post by Platinum member Doug Wadeson, who once again brings out some startling issue just from what the Bible says that most people don't see, or at least blithely ignore.  What do you think? If you like Doug's work (I do!), he has started a new blog, that he describes as providing [...]

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How Strikingly Few Early Churches Were There? How Amazingly Many Christian Letters?

In his important and stimulating article, “Christian Number and Its Implications,” Roman historian Keith Hopkins next begins to think about the implications about the size of the Christian church at different periods.  One point to emphasize is that there was not simply one church.  There were lots of churches in lots of places, and it [...]

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