Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 46

Two KINDS of Originals. How Do We Know We Have Either?

I have recently been asked about how we know we have the originals of the books of the Bible.  By that, the questioner meant both how do we know the words we think the authors wrote were actually the words he wrote and how do we know the books we have are in the shape they were when [...]

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A High-level Intellectual with an Infuriating “Solution” to Why There is Suffering

A blog member recently commented on a radio debate I did on the Problem of Suffering many years ago; over the years I've forgotten a lot of my debates -- or at least what actually happened in them -- but not this one.  I found it completely infuriating.  So I thought I would repost it.  [...]

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Did Paul Favor Gender Equality?

In this thread I have been talking about the role of women in the early church, starting with the ministry of Jesus, then in the churches of Paul (the first churches we have any real record of). In this post I continue by reflecting on Paul’s actual *views* of women; this strikes me as a [...]

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Women in the World of Jesus

In my previous point I talked about the traditions that indicated that Jesus associated with women publicly during his ministry – in an attempt to use established historical criteria to know whether the prominence of women in the earliest Christian communities may have had precedence in the life of Jesus himself. What about the contextual [...]

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Reminder! WHY PROPHECY FAILS! Fundraiser for Sudan With James Tabor

If you haven't taken note of this yet, please do!  It's gonna be a really interesting topic.  Here's the original post. ***************** I am very pleased to announce a fund-raiser for the Bart Ehrman blog on MONDAY May 6, a special event in which I interview fellow New Testament scholar and social commentator Dr. James Tabor [...]

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Jesus and Women

In my previous post I tried to show that women – contrary to what one might think – were quite prominent in the ministry and churches established by Paul. One naturally wonders why that might be, given the fact that women came to be silenced in later Christian traditions (continuing on in some rather notable [...]

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Was Paul a Misogynist?

I have recently had some discussions with other scholars about the role of women in the early church.  I've dealt with that issue on the blog before, of course, but now that I look I see that my fullest discussion was a thread from over ten years ago.  Time to do it again!  These posts [...]

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Does My Work on the Historical Jesus Confirm the Quran?

Here is a final post dealing with the Quran.  Well, a post from years ago that dealt with the Quran and two other unrelated issues, in one of those rare moments some years ago where I decided to try a rapid-fire approach to questions I get.  They're all great questions!  Here's the repost: ****************************** Here [...]

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Fundamentalist Christians Are Not the Only Ones to Make Dumb Arguments…

My high school debate colleague (who later became a national debate champion as a sophomore in college...) use to always say:  "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."  Boy did he ever get that right.  Here's another post connected with the Quran.  The post is NOT dealing with anything at all negative with Islam or [...]

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Am I Converting to Islam?

While I"m on the issue of Islam...  Here is a post of a question I still get at times, to my amazement. ****************************** READER COMMENT: I received a message on Facebook a couple of weeks ago from a person who has been proselytizing to me about the Muslim faith. This has happened a few times [...]

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