Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 45

Knowing Paul’s Views of Women…

I recently received this important question from a reader that is closely related to the current thread about whether we have the "original" text of the books of the New Testament. QUESTION: The question was specifically about about women's roles in the church based on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. “Women should be silent in the churches. [...]

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When Does Life Begin? The Status of the Unborn in the Biblical Tradition.

I'm pleased to announce that I will be doing a new two-lecture course on a rather timely topic, When Does Life Begin: The Status of the Unborn in the Biblical Tradition.  The course is not connected with the Blog per se, except insofar as I'm doing it and many of you might be interested.   For more information [...]

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A Major Argument That We Can Be Sure We Have the Original Text

There is one particularly interesting argument sometimes used by those who believe we can know with good certainty what the original text of the New Testament books said.  This is the argument called the “tenacity of the tradition.”  The argument is prefaced on the very interesting phenomenon that whenever papyri manuscripts are discovered – say [...]

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Dubious Arguments That We CAN Get to the “Original Text”

When I have public debates with scholars over whether we can know the original text of the New Testament or not, I stake out the claim that we cannot, and they stake out the claim that we probably can.  Part of my argument is always the one I started to outline in the previous post.  [...]

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Don’t the MOST Manuscripts Show What An Author Wrote?

Suppose you have thousands of manuscripts of a New Testament book and a particular verse is worded in one way in 98% of them but another way in just 2%?  Surely the 98% is right, right?  That was an issue I addressed many years ago on the blog, and to some of you, the answer [...]

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April Gold Q&A Video

It's a little late, but we got it together! https://vimeo.com/945923685/ad96b1385...  

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Even If We Can Imagine an “Original” Text, How Could We Know if We Had It?

Scholars sometimes debate whether we can know that we have reconstructed the original text of the New Testament at every point – or even every important point.  To me the answer was and is self-evidently, no, of course not.  Many of my conservative evangelical critics think that I’m being overly skeptical, that since we have [...]

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Is There an Original Text Even of One of MY Books??

  Here's a way to think about what it can even mean to talk about an "original text," from a post many years ago, published when I was just finishing up one of my books. ****************************** In my debates with other scholars about whether we can know (for certain) (or at they sometimes put it, [...]

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May Gold Q&A: Keep Those (Metaphorical) Cards & Letters Coming!

Gold and Platinum members, Time again for our monthly Gold Q&A. But I can't do it (literally!) without YOU!  Send me your urgent (short, to-the-point) questions on any blog-related topic.  Have you submitted a question in the past that wasn't picked? Feel free to try again. Don't put your question in a Comment, though--send it [...]

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How Can We Even IMAGINE an “Original” Text of the Gospels?

QUESTION: When it comes to the gospels, how do we define the ‘original text’? Do we define it as the original manuscript that was first penned by the author, or do we define it as the gospels in their most settled canonical form?   RESPONSE: As it turns out, this is a complicated and endlessly [...]

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