Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 63

Send in your Questions! November Gold Q&A

Dear Goldies and Plats, It's time for the November Gold Q&A, where I answer your questions--or at least as try to. Send your questions to Ehrmanblog@gmail.com, and Diane will compile and send me the list. Get your question in by Saturday (11/11/) midnight (whenever midnight is in your time zone).  (Sorry 'bout the late notice) [...]

The post Send in your Questions! November Gold Q&A appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Most Famous Non-Canonical Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas

We've talked about Gnosticism and in the previous post I mentioned Gnostic groups connected with "Thomas," allegedly the (twin!) brother of Jesus.  There are a number of writings written in the name of Thomas, the most famous of which is the Gospel of Thomas discovered at Nag Hammadi.  I haven't talked at length about it [...]

The post The Most Famous Non-Canonical Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Thomasine Gnostic Christians, and Sundry Others

In this thread of posts I have been reproducing my comments on Gnosticism from the 2nd edition of my anthology, After the New Testament. In addition to the Sethians and the Valentinians, scholars talk about the school of Thomas and about yet other Gnostic groups that are not easy to identify with any of the [...]

The post Thomasine Gnostic Christians, and Sundry Others appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

October Gold Q&A Video

The post October Gold Q&A Video appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

My New Course: November 11 — The Scribal Corruption of Scripture

Just a reminder, in case you haven't noticed or don't remember!   I will be doing a new online course on Saturday, November 11:  "The Scribal Corruption of Scripture: How the Bible was Changed and Why Readers May Never Know." The general topic will sound familiar to many of you -- it is the kind of [...]

The post My New Course: November 11 — The Scribal Corruption of Scripture appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

A Bizarre Scene in the Gospel of Philip: Jesus Kissing Mary

Did Jesus and Mary Magdalene have an affair? Now that I've mentioned the Gospel of Philip, I can't help but repost a blog from a few years ago, dealing with one of the most intriguing, not to say titillating, passages from this otherwise somewhat obscure Valentinian Gospel. My original post on the topic was in [...]

The post A Bizarre Scene in the Gospel of Philip: Jesus Kissing Mary appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Gospel of Philip: An Example of a Valentinian Gnostic Gospel

In my previous post discussing Valentinian Gnosticism I mentioned an intriguing Valentinian text, the Gospel of Philip.   Now I'd like to explain what it is and give you a bit of the opening section in translation so you can get a taste of it yourself.   I've taken all this from the second edition of my [...]

The post The Gospel of Philip: An Example of a Valentinian Gnostic Gospel appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

A Different Kind of Gnostic: The Valentinians

In my last several posts I've been talking about Sethian Gnostics, beginning with a description of what they believe and then discussing one Sethian text, the Gospel of Judas. Sethians weren't the only kind of Gnostic floating around in the second and third century; there may have been lots of other groups (since we only [...]

The post A Different Kind of Gnostic: The Valentinians appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Check Out This Gnostic Myth from the Gospel of Judas!

A lot of people over the years have told me they are drawn to the Gnostic way of looking at things, but it’s pretty clear they’ve never actually read any Gnostic texts.   Gnosticism is a lot easier to like in the abstract than in the on-the-ground (or out-of-this-world) reality. When scholars typically describe Gnosticism to [...]

The post Check Out This Gnostic Myth from the Gospel of Judas! appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The Gospel of Judas: Here’s a Taste of It

Here is the first bit of the Gospel of Judas from the translation of my colleague Zlatko Pleše in our book The Other Gospels. The first paragraph is the explanation of where we got the text from; then the translation of the opening scene. After this bit here, the Gospel gets very strange, at least [...]

The post The Gospel of Judas: Here’s a Taste of It appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.