Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 82

Does Understanding “Memory” Have Any Bearing on the Study of the Historical Jesus?

In my earlier posts I began to discuss my book, Jesus Before the Gospels, which deals with how understanding how "memory" works can contribute to our assessment of the Gospels stories about Jesus.   Long before starting the book I had been intrigued the question of how eyewitnesses would have remembered the Jesus' life, and how [...]

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Was Matthew Attacking Paul?

On my podcast this past week (Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman) someone asked me if I thought any of the Gospels of the NT were influenced by Paul.  It's an interesting question that I should post on (my view: Mark, maybe; Luke, unexpectedly and oddly not; John, I doubt it; Matthew?) Ah, Matthew.  As it [...]

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The Road From the “Duo of Philo” to the “Trinity of Nicaea” A Platinum Post by Omar Abur-Robb

I am happy to post this guest post to Platinum members by fellow Platinum member Omar Abdur-Robb.  The trinity is a complicated issue in early Christianity, closely related to Greek philosophical thought (it's not just some idea someone came up with once....).   Here Omar explores a key aspect of how it may have happened. Remember: [...]

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Remembering Columbus, Remembering Christ

In my previous post on Abraham Lincoln I discussed how the collective "memory" of important persons from the past can be distorted.  We as a society "remember" things in certain ways -- e.g., Vietnam; Civil Rights Movement; Elvis; 9/11), -- different groups differently and not always accurately .  Here I give another example, not to [...]

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How Do We “Remember” Lincoln?

In my last post,  I mentioned a phenomenon known as “collective” memory.  It's how groups of people "remember" something in the  past.  This isn't quite the same as how you remember what you did on your last vacation.  It's more like how past events or figures are constructed in the broader "memory" of a society.  [...]

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When I Got Seriously Interested in Memory (at least insofar as I remember)

(Recall: this post came from the past, when I was working on my book about Jesus and Memory, badly titled Jesus Before the Gospels.  I had forgotten about the post till just now!) As I indicated in my previous post, I have long been interested in memory for both personal and professional reasons.  On the [...]

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Did The Twelve Become Only Three? Platinum post by Douglas Wadeson MD

Early Christianity had many stories about the adventures of the Twelve Apostles after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Thomas is tricked into becoming a missionary to India.1 John travels about evangelizing while demonstrating control of bedbugs!2 Andrew was said to travel to the area now known as Ukraine to evangelize there – I’ve [...]

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My Forgotten Book on Memory

Of all the books I've written for a general audience, the one that I think got (by far) less attention than it deserved -- well, OK, less attention that I wanted and hoped (!) -- was Jesus Before the Gospels.  I've long thought I gave it a very bad title.  The book is really about memory [...]

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And Here’s My Final Exam on The Birth of Christianity

Yesterday I posted an old final exam for my course Introduction to the New Testament.  And for your amusement, here is an exam for my course that I taught this semester, called the Birth of Christianity, which covered the developments within Christianity after the New Testament up through the conversion of Constantine. See how you [...]

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Was Jesus a False Prophet?

As many of you know, I started a podcast awhile back, called Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman.  It's not connected with the blog, but it deals with stuff most blog members would be interested in.  (And hey, it's free!  Available both as a podcast on all the main podcast servers and on Youtube.) A new [...]

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