Bart D. Ehrman's Blog

The previous post provided a summary of the first four lectures given by internationally known historical Jesus scholars at our New Insights Into the New Testament conference at the end of September  (the summary was produced by Marko Marina, in advance of the lectures). The second day of the conference also had four lectures, by Paula [...]

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This now is the second part of the Primer on the Historical Jesus prepared by Marko Marina, which deals head on with the hardest question of all: how do scholars deal with the Gospels of the New Testament "critically" (not "criticizing" them but providing an honest assessment of their historical value) Marko provides a very [...]

The post Problems with the Gospels: A Primer for the Study of the Historical Jesus (Part 2) appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

As some of you know, my recording company, Paths in Biblical Studies (PBS) which normally produces online courses (www.bartehrman.com) held its third annual New Insights Into the New Testament (NINT) live/remote/recorded conference last week.  The topic was the Historical Jesus, and we had eight speakers along with a keynote address by Elaine Pagels (you can [...]

The post A Primer for the Study of the Historical Jesus: Our Non-Gospel Sources appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I tried to show that the pseudonymous author of the book of Jude appears to be attacking an understanding of the Christian faith endorsed by members of Paul’s churches sometime after his death – that is, he is not attacking Paul head-on, but the views that had developed after Paul’s day [...]

The post Jude, The Denigration of Angels, and the Followers of Paul appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

The previous two posts explained why scholars have such difficulty using the Gospels as historical sources, as explained by early Christianity scholar Marko Marina (see more about him here: https://tragoviproslosti.eu/about-me/).  This primer was mean to set the stage for the eight lectures given by a range of internationally known historical Jesus scholars at our New Insights [...]

The post Four Intriguing Topics in the Study of the Historical Jesus appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Today I'm celebrating one of those birthdays that ends in a zero. Yes, October 5th marks my 70th spin around the sun.  Ouch.  Or... Yay! For reasons that escape me, people keep insisting that reaching such an age is an accomplishment. Personally, I think of it more as an accident, but an accident worth marking [...]

The post Seventy Years on This Planet and One Fundraiser: You’re Invited appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous two posts I’ve tried to show why the short letter of Jude appears to be forged in the name of Jesus’s own brother Jude.  That naturally leads to the question of why someone would do that – not just in general (why write a forgery!):  there were lots of early Christian forgeries, [...]

The post Does Jude Attack Pauline Christians? appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

It's that time again, Gold & Platinum Members! Our October Gold Q&A is scheduled for Saturday October 25th at 3pm Eastern. You know the drill. Submit your burning questions for Bart to ehrmanblog@gmail.com by the end of the day Thursday October 23rd. Jen will compile them and hand them off to Bart, who will do his [...]

The post October 2025 Gold Q&A Announcement appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my previous post I bean to describe the Jewish apocryphal book 1 Enoch, the only apocryphon clearly quoted in the New Testament, and apparently quoted as an authoritative Scripture (Jude 14-15).  Here I pick up where I left off, describing what the opening section of the book, the “Book of the Watchers” is all [...]

The post Unpacking 1 Enoch, the Apocryphal Writing Quoted by Jude appeared first on The Bart Ehrman Blog.

In my posts on Jude (In a Nutshell) I pointed out that the book quotes the apocryyphal Jewish writing known as 1 Enoch.  Many of you will not be intimately familiar with this intriguing book, so I thought I should spend a couple of posts explaining what it is. I have taken the following from [...]

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