Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 82

Were Jesus’ Most Amazing Deeds the Ones Most Likely to be Remembered?

Here I continue thinking about memory in relation to Jesus by dealing with an obvious objection to the idea that Jesus' followers, and those who heard the stories about him, were prone to misremember what they saw and heard -- these were SPECTACULAR events.  Aren't spectacular events and stories far more likely to be remembered [...]

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Vote for Your Favorite Platinum Post

  Hey Platinum Members, Time to vote on your favorite platinum guest post from relatively recent times.  Here are four to choose from, all of them interesting and important!  Pick one and name your preference, not as a comment here but by letting Diane know at ehrmanblog@gmail.com   She'll tally the votes and then we'll annouce [...]

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Eyewitness Testimony: The Importance of Actual Expertise

It is flat-out amazing to me how many New Testament scholars talk about the importance of eyewitness testimony to the life of Jesus without having read a single piece of scholarship on what experts know about eyewitness testimony.  Some (well-known) scholars in recent years have written entire books on the topic, basing their views on [...]

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Eyewitnesses and Guaranteed Accuracy

In my book Jesus Before the Gospels, I discuss how “memories” of a famous person based on eyewitness testimony can be easily distorted.  Among other examples I use, is a famous miracle-working holy-person from outside the Christian tradition that is in many ways strikingly similar to the situation with Jesus (there are obviously big differences [...]

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“You Have Heard His Blasphemy!” But Did They? A Platinum post by Daniel Kohanski

Today we have a well-researched Platinum post by Dan Kohanski. He makes a good case! ****************************** “You Have Heard His Blasphemy!” Said the High Priest—But Did They? The trial of Jesus as described in the gospel of Mark, and particularly the part where the high priest charges Jesus with blasphemy, is one of the most [...]

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Being Realistic about How Stories about Jesus Spread before the Gospels

In my previous post I showed how Christian missionaries – the vast majority of them not companions of Jesus or eyewitnesses to his life – were telling stories about Jesus as they moved around in the empire spreading the gospel in the early decades, before the Gospels were written (think Paul and his missionary companions, [...]

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Who Was Spreading the Stories about Jesus Before the Gospels?

Here I continue my reflections on how stories about Jesus were floating around the Mediterranean world *before* the Gospel writers wrote their accounts (based on these stories).  I pick up here with the final paragraph of yesterday's post, again taken from my book Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne, 2016). ****************************** In other words, a story does [...]

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The 3rd Rail – A Critique of Jesus. Platinum Post by Steve Clark

A Platinum post for Platinum members from Platinum member Steve Clark: ****************************** It was a cold winter morning, the exciting music of the 1970’s was in my head. I was learning to play guitar and learning to be cool. Mostly failing at both but kept trying. What else was a young man to do in [...]

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Jesus, Eyewitnesses, and Stories Floating Around….

I return now to questions about how early Christians “remembered” Jesus as they told and retold stories about him.   People often claim that the Gospels must be accurate because they are based on eyewitness testimony that was carefully guarded to ensure its accuracy.  But let’s think about that for a bit in realistic terms.  Here [...]

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May Gold Q&A Video

Folks, our May Gold Q&A ended up in two parts. Make sure you scroll down to see Part 2:  

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