Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 74

Reminder: Why I’m Not a Christian — tomorrow!

In case you missed this -- I'll be doing a FREE four-lecture course tomorrow (with long Q&A) on "Why I Am Not A Christian."  In it I will talk about my faith journey not for the sake of autobiography per se, but to explain one story of a person who came no longer to believe [...]

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Back to Whether Jesus Was Really Given a Decent Burial

Was Jesus actually given a decent burial the afternoon he was crucified?  Almost every Christian in the known universe, and almost all New Testament scholars, don't ask the question and if they do they don't ask it seriously:  of *course* he was.  Just read the Gospels!  Why wouldn't he be? For years now I've taken [...]

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Is the USA the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation? Slavic Views of the Apocalypse. Guest Post by Mikhail Abakumov

A few months ago I was invited to do a remote interview with a podcaster from Ukraine, Mikhail Abakumov, who has emigrated to Poland because of the war.  Mikhail is a Christian scholar, working with Ukranian refugees, and writing a dissertation on the famous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famous for being involved with, and eventually [...]

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Male Superiority in Antiquity

Why did ancient Greeks and Romans think that "men" were inherently superior to "women"?  Many people (and entire cultures) think that still today, of course, but for now I ain't goin' there.  I'm interested in understanding this understanding in the ancient world out of which Christianity grew, on the assumption that modern ideas have been [...]

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More on Love: Why Were Greek Men Especially Attracted to Prepubescent Boys?

What is it with Greek pederasty?  How could this be a thing, the widely accepted practice in classical Athens (at least) of an adult man taking an adolescent boy under his wing and into his bed, providing an education into the culture, social world, and politics of the city in exchange for sexual favors? I’ve [...]

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An Important Difference in John–a Platinum Post by Ryan Fleming

How different is John from the Synoptics?  You may you think you know the answer, but this thoughtful post by platinum blog member Ryan Fleming should surely make you think.  And it all leads to a rather startling question at the end.  So what do you think?   ****************************** The partial narrative in the Gospel [...]

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The Narrow Road to … Hell? Guest Post by Glenn Siepert

A final guest post from Glenn Siepert, on his recent book! ****************************** Here's my last post about my book, "Emerging From the Rubble" - a reflection on Matthew 7:13-14. If you've read the posts, thank you. As you can imagine, this book means the world to me. And if you find yourself navigating through your [...]

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Radiocarbon Dating of the Qur’an. Has It Solved the Problem? Guest Post by Stephen Shoemaker

This is an unusually important post on how to solve the problem of the date of the Qur'an, by my colleague Stephen Shoemaker, connected with his earlier scintillating discussion based on his recent book Creating the Qur'an, which you can check out here: Amazon.com: Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study eBook : Shoemaker, Stephen J.: [...]

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Questions about Dating the Gospels

How do we know when the Gospels were written?  I have recently received two questions about this matter on the blog (from two different people, within minutes of each other!); I answered the questions as usual in the Comment section, but thought the issues were important enough to present as a post as well, both [...]

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Our Inner Herod. Guest Post by Glenn Siepert

Here is a second post from blog member and blog volunteer Glenn Siepert.  Lucky us, it includes an extract from his new book.  Enjoy! ****************************** Our Inner Herod In my last post I shared the background of my book, Emerging From the Rubble and over the next couple of posts I want to share some excerpts [...]

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