Bart D. Ehrman's Blog, page 91

Can We Know Anything About Judas Iscariot?

 I get asked about Judas Iscariot far more than any of the other disciples, even the ones who are completely central to Jesus' life and ministry (Peter, James, and John).  I guess that's because he is seen as, ultimately, more crucial to the story of Jesus.  The betrayer.  Without him, no arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  [...]

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How Theologians and Historians Approach the Same Bible Differently. Guest Post by Daniel Kohanski

I am very pleased to announce that a scholar of religion who is also a log-term blog member, Dan Kohanski, has just published an intriguing book of direct relevance to what we do here on the blog (A God of Our Invention: How Religion Shaped the Western World).  When I got the book I realized [...]

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Do You Want to Discuss the Movie Tár with World-Renowned Conductor Gisele Ben-Dor? Blog Fundraiser for Earthquake Victims in Turkey/Syria

We are all devastated by the ongoing reports of casualties from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.  I would like to have a blog fundraiser for funds for Doctors without Borders, one of our regular charities, who is actively on the ground dealing with the crisis. This unusually special event will be February 22, 7:30-9:00 [...]

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Why Do Muslims Deny that Jesus Was Crucified? Platinum Guest Post by Imran M. Usmani

I am very pleased to publish this learned and intriguing discussion of the one verse in the Qur'an that appears to deny that Jesus was crucified.  That is the standard Muslim view today -- but is it right?  Is that what the verse really says? Our guest poster is Imran M. Usmani and as you [...]

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An Intriguing Anti-Jewish Variant: Did Jesus Pray “Father forgive them”?

In my previous post I pointed out that scribes appear to have changed their texts of the New Testament in ways that reflected the rising anti-Jewish sentiment of the early Christian centuries.  For me, by a wide margin, the most intriguing example of this is the prayer Jesus makes from the cross in Luke's Gospel [...]

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Anti-Jewish Alterations of the New Testament Writings?

In my previous post I pointed out that scribes sometimes changed the manuscripts of the New Testament in order to make them more theologically "orthodox," that is, more in line with theological views of (most of) the scribes who were copying the texts in the second and third centuries.  Five points I would like to [...]

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New Testament Manuscripts That Reveal Later Theological Controversies

In my previous post I started to explain how the manuscripts of the New Testament can help us reconstruct not only the “original” texts that the author wrote but also, when looked at in a different way, what was happening in the worlds of the scribes who changed them.  In this post I deal with [...]

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My New Online Course on the Gospel of Mark!

In case you haven't heard, I will be doing a live, eight-lecture online course on the Gospel of Mark on Feb. 18-19.  The course is not connected with the blog -- it is part of my separate venture for a series I'm publishing called How Scholars Read the Bible.  But I mention here because some [...]

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New Testament Manuscripts as Windows into Early Christian History

My recent post asking whether the Gospels can be seen as anti-Jewish generated a number of comments and questions, one of which was whether scribes who copied the texts of the New Testament ever made them *more* anti-Jewish than they originally were.  The answer to that is Yes.  I have a student just now who [...]

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February Gold Q&A: Go for the Gold!

It is time to schedule the Gold Q&A for February.   For me to provide the A's you need to provide the Q's.  What are you interested in?  It can be about most anything related to the blog in one way or another. I'm more likely to answer questions that are relatively short and to the [...]

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