Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 57

Still Spots Open: Blog Dinner in Wichita KS, this Thursday Feb. 22

In case you happen to be in striking distance of Wichita KS this week, and missed my announcement: there are still a couple of spots open for the blog dinner this coming Thursday (Feb. 22).  Here's my original announcement.  If you can come, let me know! *********************** I'm will be in Wichita Kansas to give [...]

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Proof That Historical Narratives (not just myths) Constantly Change in Oral Cultures

I have been discussing some of the many problems with assuming that oral traditions are passed along intact, without significant change, in oral cultures.  In graduate school we all learned that they are and did, so that, for example, the fact that we might have a saying of Jesus or story about him in a [...]

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When is “The Same” Memory/Tradition/Story Not Actually “The Same”?

Do we mean the same thing by “the same” that people in oral cultures do? Here I pick up on my discussion of oral cultures; in the previous post I talked about how Milman Parry began to study one such culture, and his discoveries were starting.  Professional memorizers/reciters would claim that various performances of the [...]

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How Do We Know About Oral Cultures? By Starting Where You’d Never Suspect!

How do oral cultures “work”?  How do they pass along their traditions?  How accurately?  And why did scholars first get interested in the question.  Not at ALL in the way that you might think! Here’s how I discuss the matter in my book Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne, 2017). The Beginning of [...]

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Do People in Oral Cultures Have Better Memories?

Do people in oral cultures “remember” things better, and work hard to memorize what they learn? The other night I was hanging out with a friend and she started talking (in a context unrelated to the New Testament) about how oral (non-literate) cultures always worked so hard to preserve their communal memories of the past, [...]

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Were Matthew and Luke Plagiarists?

Were Matthew and Luke plagiarists?  They copied word-for-word passages from Mark, without any indication that they were using someone else’s work.  Today that will get you fired (or, say, removed from the presidency of an Ivy League school).  But what about in the ancient world? Here I continue here with my discussion of plagiarism in [...]

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Blog Dinner Wichita Kansas, Feb. 22. Interested??

I'm will be in Wichita Kansas to give some talks at the Plymouth Congregational Church (plymouth-church.net) on February 23-25, and have decided to come a day early in case anyone wants to do dinner with me on Thursday Feb. 22.    Anyone want to come?   It's a chance to shoot the breeze with others about [...]

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February Gold Q&A: Ask Away!

Hey Gold and Platinum members, I'd like us to get ahead of schedule for the February Gold Q&A; my plan is to record it some time this coming weekend, to be published early next week. If you have a question -- most anything related to the blog -- send it along!  To do so, do [...]

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Plagiarism! Was It Condemned in the Ancient World? (Is Matthew Guilty of It?)

Just over a week ago I did an eight-lecture on-line course on the Gospel of Matthew, not connected with the blog but with BECO (Bart Ehrman Courses Online); you can find out more about that here: The Genius of Matthew.  Someone who came to the course asked me an intriguing question:  if it’s true that [...]

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Gospel Thrillers Part III by Andrew Jacobs

In this third and final post on his new book Gospel Thrillers, Andrew Jacobs moves into where the rubber meets my (our) road: how these novels really do seem like real life when you think about Bible scholarship and the real discoveries (or discoveries *claimed* to have been made, by bona fide scholars) of new [...]

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