Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 66

But If It Didn’t Really Happen, Who Cares?

Whenever I have talked about the story of Jesus and the leper in Mark 1:40-44 on the blog -- most recently a week or so ago -- I have gotten a number of comments from readers that made me realize that I wasn’t being at all clear about what I was talking about. These [...]

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Is Christ *Merely* the “Adopted” Son of God?

If Jesus wasn't God from eternity past, but was "adopted" to be the Son of God at some point of his existence, wouldn't that be a pretty watered-down understanding of his divinity? A lot of people find this kind of "adoptionist" Christology (Christ wasn't "inherently" God but "made" divine by adoption) completely unsatisfying and, [...]

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If Luke Didn’t Originally Have a Birth Story — Then What?

In my previous post, ostensibly on the genealogy of Luke, I pointed out that there are good reasons for thinking that the Gospel originally was published – in a kind of “first edition” – without what are now the first two chapters, so that, after the Preface of 1:1-4, the very beginning was what [...]

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Did Luke Originally Have the Birth Narrative (chapters 1-2)?

In my previous post I pointed out that some scholars, myself included, think that the original Gospel of Luke did not have the birth narrative recounted in chapters 1-2 (the annunciation of Mary's virginal conception, the trip to Bethlehem from Nazareth, the worship of the shepherds, etc. etc.). In this view the Gospel started [...]

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Early Gospels in Circulation: An Even Messier Scenario

When it comes to the early Christian Gospels, most people simply assume that there were four Gospels from the first century (those in the NT), and no others, and that they were written as they are found now, and that they circulated in that form, and that later Gospel writers (say in the second [...]

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Reading the Bible in a Secular Age: Guest Post by Prof. Julius-Kei Kato

I am pleased to publish this guest post by Dr. Julius-Kei Kato, a scholar and professor of New Testament (and other things!) at King’s University College at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, and, luckily for us, a member of the blog.  You can learn more about him here: Dr. Julius-Kei Kato (uwo.ca) Just over a [...]

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The Creation Stories in the Hebrew Bible (outside of Genesis!). A Lecture You May Be Interested In

Are you interested in the Creation account in Genesis 1?  Did you know there are *other* creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible?  Different ones?  Want to hear about them?  And about how they relate to other creation accounts in the ancient world? On October 19, 8:00 pm, my colleague Joseph Lam, professor of Hebrew Bible [...]

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Proposed Solutions For the Four Metaphysical Puzzles Related to Jesus From an Islamic Perspective From Omar Robb

Here is an intriguing look at the life and death of Jesus from a Muslim point of view.  Many of you will not grant the first of these four puzzles, but the others you may not find problematic.  But look at it from a Muslim point of view instead of yours.  How can these puzzles [...]

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The Messy World of the Early Christian Gospels. Who Is Copying What?

Many people who think about how the Gospels circulated in early Christianity have a pretty simple -- or rather, overly simplified (in my view) -- understanding of how it all worked.  I include among those "many people" a number of Gospel experts.  In fact, including a lot of the top experts.  The issue is this: [...]

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Why Would Jesus Get Angry at this Poor Leper?

So far in this thread I have argued that Mark 1:41 originally said that Jesus got angry when the leper asked him to heal him; and I have shown that elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel Jesus gets angry in context involving healing. And so: if Jesus got angry when the leper asked for healing in Mark [...]

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