Dear professor Ehrman, thank you for all the great vids you release. I am subscribed to your channel and enjoy them a lot. I admire your commitment to communicate your work to lay audiences. This is often not appreciated in the scientific community. I, however, think it is crucial that the wider public can follow scientific progress. If they can't, their support for science may go away. Best regards, Diedert
Anyone who feels they must believe something, no matter how outlandish, implausible, or invalid, should be suspected of succumbing to ulterior motives, and the possibility of surrendering to irrational fear.
Assumptions are even made in science constantly. I'd love if @Bart D. Ehram would post the links to the scientific works he cites in Yugoslavia, Rwanda on the oral transmission of legends (Telephone game).
This believer enjoys the writings of Bart Ehrman. I also find it ironic that he came off as a bit more of a believer than Bishop John Shelby Spong, during his critique of Spong. Spong's claim was that absolutely nothing in the Gospel of John are things that the historical Jesus said. Ehrman said that he wouldn't go that far and that there might have been a few things. The other place is where Ehrman seems to be more of the viewpoint that the gospels were written as researched (for that time and culture) writings, while Spong gave the idea that they were written for liturgical purposes.
Im addressing My Reluctant Theology here that I think Bshp Spong is on the right track when he says the gospels were rewritten and retold for liturgical purposes, that factual history must give way to theology for ecclesial purposes. So, the drama in the gospels, especially the last three days, are theological reconstructions for dramatic liturgical effect to promote the Roman Catholic Church's underlying theme that Jesus is the incarnate Son of the Triune God.
I think that what professor Ehrman says about oral history applies to the origin of the Qur'an as well. How grateful I am to live in a free society where religious dogma can be challenged.
Sunyata Exactly, Mohamed got so many things wrong, for example he thought that Mary, the mother of Jesus was also the sister of Moses. Mohamed was simply a bronze aged Joseph Smith, it's just Muslims are not free enough to understand this.
The idea of "memories" and "oral tradition" about Jesus cannot possibly be right, because Paul (c.50 CE) has no knowledge, much less "memory" of the basic teachings of Jesus. In Romans 13:6-7 he addresses a controversy as to whether Christians should pay taxes to Rome, evidently unaware of the fact that Jesus had already ruled on the matter in his famous aphorism to “render unto Caesar” (Mark 12:14-17). In Romans 8:26 Paul says: “For we do not know how to pray as we ought…”, yet according to Luke (11:1), the disciples had specifically asked Jesus how to pray, and had been taught this through the Lord’s Prayer. It is perfectly obvious that Paul, writing before the Gospels were written, had never heard these stories about what Jesus is supposed to have said and done on earth. Indeed, what is so striking about Paul’s epistles is the complete absence of any quotation from Jesus. How is this possible if there really was an “oral tradition” which supposedly passed down information about Jesus to the Gospel authors? Surely Paul, only 20 years after his death and 20 to 40 years before the first Gospel was written, would have known the basic facts of Jesus’s “life” and teachings, and been able to quote at least one of his sayings.
+bluesman1929 I love what you said--I have wondered for years how Paul could have come up with all the things he did if he hadn't read the 4 gospels. Love to discuss this more--drop me a line a masl.stacks@gmail.com
yes good point. It's very interesting that 20 yrs after jesus there was very little if any oral transmission going on as Pauls lack of jesus historicity clearly shows, so its clear then that the colourful stories were developed somewhere between "post Paul" and Mark, which is extremely im probable and more importantly suspiciousy unreliable..
Hey, Bluesman, I hope you revisit this page and resume several interesting points. Sorry I missed all these discussions for a year. Bluesman brought up some really intriguing points about Pauls seeming ignorance of Jesus' sayings, writing only twenty years after Jesus' death, earlier than Mark, the earliest gospel. Yet Paul, self appointed judge and jury against the Christians was so avidly antiChristian that he went around, on his own initiative, seeking and ferreting them out for public execution by the Romans yet he was not even a soldier with specific instructions to round up known Christians. Again, after his dramatic Damascus experience, he suddenly seemed endowed with special knowledge about Jesus. The big difference is, like you said, he never quoted any Jesus' sayings but that most of his references about Jesus came from symbolic prophecies that abound in the Torah most prominently from Isaiah. Paul was both a Roman citizen and a Jew and seemed schooled in the Torah and took every opportunity to relate Jesus as fulfillment of the Torah prophecies. Surely, in his time, there were already stories circulating about Jesus among the early Christians. Was Paul afraid that there could be some kind of subversive conspiracy being hatched by the Christians against the Roman empire? Historically, there had been attempts by the Zealots and the Mccabbees of inciting unrest and revolts against Roman power but they were quickly quelled decisively and ruthlessly. This seems to be the logical explanation for Paul's antiChristian zeal. Its very clear in his epistles that he never heard of the miraculous virgin births by simply stating that Jesus was born of a woman and born under the law.....Gal 4:4 For Paul, there were no virgin birth or flight to Egypt stories, no traveling star, no magi bearing gifts, no choir of angels singing, no shepherds strangely tending their flock in the dark or by the moon, and other embellishments to the birth stories by Matthew and Luke.
Paul Osbourne. Paul, or it can be, Paul at the time, didnt belong to the Christian community and out of the loop because he was still a pagan Roman citizen and a persecutor of Christians. It appears that he probably heard about this deceased Jesus as a cult leader with a large following and was suspicious that they were secretly plotting a violent revolt against the Romans like other failed Jewish leaders in the recent past. That would explain his active hatred and suspicions against the Jews as a loyal Roman citizen and his ignorance of Jesus' teachings.
Perceiving a contradiction between Luke 11:1 and Romans 8:26 is a stretch, to say the least. You would have to not only interpret Jesus as meaning that the Lord's Prayer should be all you ever pray, and but also interpret Paul as invoking a very narrow, intellectual/propositional definition of "knowledge". Both of which are absurd. And Paul's advice in Romans 13 is straight-up synonymous with "render unto Caesar". Not disagreeing with the broader point.
Bart is brilliant as always, and I love his talks, but sometimes it feels like he's playing Mr Time Traveller. How can he be sure the Semitic fishermen didn't know some primitive Greek (the Gospels are written in terrible greek)? But even if someone else wrote the gospels, why does it have to be an author catching snippets from an oral culture like an ancient anthropologist? If Mark was written 60 AD then this is only 30 years after the crucifixion. So you don't need an oral culture. Maybe an old man told the story to Mark? Is this so impossible?
Two things I don't get here: Why would educated Greek speakers show any interest in what some Jewish fishermen believed happened 30-40 years earlier? And why should we assume that the gospels reflect memories at all? After all, the earliest "Christian" writings, those by Paul, contain no memories, real or invented, of Jesus at all.
+Griexxt I don't get your point, as there obviously was enough interest for such accounts, and even for more to follow which never were canonized. And if you try to say that they were completely made up, I don't see the argument, as well, as they were taken for true and they wouldn't certainly have raised more interest if they had been considered as fiction. The Jewish historian mentions Jesus, so we may assume that there was a memory of Jesus among Jews. I think, it's pretty hard to completely fabricate a biography and then try to gain people as followers of the person you've just made up (by which reason soever). It seems much easier to convince people by telling (embellished) stories of a familar ad maybe disputed character.
SiggiNebel I'm merely questioning the rationale for assuming that the gospels have a true story at its core simply based on the idea of "gist memories" being more reliable. I totally agree that it's reasonable that a rough outline of a story is more likely to be remembered than all the details, but that doesn't mean that what the story is about actually happened. I guess I should read Bart's book to see if he expands on this idea there, but I already have a huge stack of books on my night stand, so I was hoping someone else might enlighten me. "The Jewish historian mentions Jesus, so we may assume that there was a memory of Jesus among Jews." Assuming that you're talking about Josephus (and setting aside the fact that many history scholars question the authenticity of his passage about Jesus), that is incorrect. The only thing we can infer from Josephus' is that there were stories being told about Jesus. We have no reason to assume that Josephus ever met anyone with a living memory of Jesus. What he's telling us, he could have gotten from any Christian off the street. "I think, it's pretty hard to completely fabricate a biography and then try to gain people as followers of the person you've just made up (by which reason soever). It seems much easier to convince people by telling (embellished) stories of a familar ad maybe disputed character." Yes, but the point that modern day mythicists make (at least the ones that seem most credible to me), is that even if the gospels are made-up, the character of Jesus was already known. So, yes, they're telling made-up stories, but about someone the readers already believed in.
+Griexxt - Most people in that part of the world spoke Greek, they just couldn't write it. Stories about Jesus connecting him with the Christ(Greek name), or Messiah(Hebrew name) had been circulated by Paul and others to all areas of their known world and many were interested. Some believed Jesus to be Christ - some thought him divine, others didn't. I believe the thought here is, story telling and oral traditions are a combination of memories, not only of what the teller has seen or heard , but also remembering the stories heard before, with varying abilities to tell a story and convey the message it represents. There was a different expectation then, the message, or meaning of the story was most important, not whether all the facts were correct. Today we expect facts in a story to be correct - like a news story. Although, I doubt how factual most news stories are these days, seems most are biased!
Rebecca Parr Agreed, but Bart's point seems to be that this idea of "gist memory" is enough of a rationale for assuming that there was an actual Jesus at the basis of the stories that were written down. I just don't see that.
If you ever read your supporters comments, at least the ones responding to the debates....they are frightening. I'd prefer the company of Christians any day.
Bart tells only a half-truth regarding memory in oral cultures. Oral cultures can pass down traditions very accurately when they need to; I encourage readers to look up Lynne Kelly's writings on this matter. However, the context in which oral cultures pass down traditions accurately is not relevant to the context of the New Testament, and involves such techniques as restricting knowledge to an initiated elite. Nothing Bart says is wrong, but he doesn't delineate the context in which it applies as clearly as he might.
What makes me sad as an avid observer of Ehrmans work, is that it can be clearly seen how he becomes more and more megalomaniac with the passage of time. Or maybe he has always been that way, I just didn't pay much attention until now. It's sad because this personal trait affects his scholarly approach and judgement imho
+Stefan Provide some details as to how Ehrman's 'megalomania' has influenced his work. Which of his arguments are a result of his 'megalomania'? If you cannot then you are just indulging in petty character assasination without any evidence.
+ChiliMcFly1 We didn't start reckoning our calendar by Jesus's birth (which date was got wrong anyway) until the 4th century after the presumed event, but the year numbering wasn't widely used until after AD-800. What's more, the Romans had sod-all to do with it, other than providing the language of the term 'Anno Domini.'
The book will not save anybody but calling on Jesus name will. The world was made through Jesus Christ. Sin has deformed us but Jesus came to transform the body, soul, and the spirit and our twisted minds too. The book and the preacher are the tools for finding salvation. The thief on cross had no time to read the scriptures but he cried "Jesus save me". see www.gotquestions.org
Dear professor Ehrman,
thank you for all the great vids you release. I am subscribed to your channel and enjoy them a lot. I admire your commitment to communicate your work to lay audiences. This is often not appreciated in the scientific community. I, however, think it is crucial that the wider public can follow scientific progress. If they can't, their support for science may go away.
Best regards, Diedert
Anyone who feels they must believe something, no matter how outlandish, implausible, or invalid, should be suspected of succumbing to ulterior motives, and the possibility of surrendering to irrational fear.
this is what I am talking about, great job of posting a recent talk!
More I know about Bible I see how biggest lie this book is .
Can't wait to get it, but I'll have to wait a few weeks.
Assumptions are even made in science constantly. I'd love if @Bart D. Ehram would post the links to the scientific works he cites in Yugoslavia, Rwanda on the oral transmission of legends (Telephone game).
This believer enjoys the writings of Bart Ehrman. I also find it ironic that he came off as a bit more of a believer than Bishop John Shelby Spong, during his critique of Spong. Spong's claim was that absolutely nothing in the Gospel of John are things that the historical Jesus said. Ehrman said that he wouldn't go that far and that there might have been a few things. The other place is where Ehrman seems to be more of the viewpoint that the gospels were written as researched (for that time and culture) writings, while Spong gave the idea that they were written for liturgical purposes.
Im addressing My Reluctant Theology here that I think Bshp Spong is on the right track when he says the gospels were rewritten and retold for liturgical purposes, that factual history must give way to theology for ecclesial purposes. So, the drama in the gospels, especially the last three days, are theological reconstructions for dramatic liturgical effect to promote the Roman Catholic Church's underlying theme that Jesus is the incarnate Son of the Triune God.
I can't wait for an age where we have a free, culturally accepted and expressive Islamic version of Bart Erhman.
he will fail miserably since Islam is true.
I think that what professor Ehrman says about oral history applies to the origin of the Qur'an as well. How grateful I am to live in a free society where religious dogma can be challenged.
Mustafa M
You and your dogmatic way of thinking is the problem many people have with Islam
Diedert Spijkerboer
With all the Islamic immigration that is happening, for how long will our societies be free???
Sunyata
Exactly, Mohamed got so many things wrong, for example he thought that Mary, the mother of Jesus was also the sister of Moses.
Mohamed was simply a bronze aged Joseph Smith, it's just Muslims are not free enough to understand this.
There is no mention of Paul until the early second century with Marcion's "found letters".
Most people wont realize Christianity brew in Ephesus ( Western Anatolia which is my back yard ) not in Jesus land
The idea of "memories" and "oral tradition" about Jesus cannot possibly be right, because Paul (c.50 CE) has no knowledge, much less "memory" of the basic
teachings of Jesus. In Romans 13:6-7 he addresses a controversy as to whether
Christians should pay taxes to Rome, evidently unaware of the fact that Jesus
had already ruled on the matter in his famous aphorism to “render unto Caesar”
(Mark 12:14-17). In Romans 8:26 Paul says: “For we do not know how to pray as
we ought…”, yet according to Luke (11:1), the disciples had specifically asked Jesus
how to pray, and had been taught this through the Lord’s Prayer. It is
perfectly obvious that Paul, writing before the Gospels were written, had never
heard these stories about what Jesus is supposed to have said and done on
earth. Indeed, what is so striking about Paul’s epistles is the complete absence
of any quotation from Jesus. How is this possible if there really was an “oral
tradition” which supposedly passed down information about Jesus to the Gospel
authors? Surely Paul, only 20 years after his death and 20 to 40 years before
the first Gospel was written, would have known the basic facts of Jesus’s
“life” and teachings, and been able to quote at least one of his sayings.
+bluesman1929 I love what you said--I have wondered for years how Paul could have come up with all the things he did if he hadn't read the 4 gospels. Love to discuss this more--drop me a line a masl.stacks@gmail.com
yes good point. It's very interesting that 20 yrs after jesus there was very little if any oral transmission going on as Pauls lack of jesus historicity clearly shows, so its clear then that the colourful stories were developed somewhere between "post Paul" and Mark, which is extremely im probable and more importantly suspiciousy unreliable..
Hey, Bluesman, I hope you revisit this page and resume several interesting points.
Sorry I missed all these discussions for a year. Bluesman brought up some really intriguing points about Pauls seeming ignorance of Jesus' sayings, writing only twenty years after Jesus' death, earlier than Mark, the earliest gospel. Yet Paul, self appointed judge and jury against the Christians was so avidly antiChristian that he went around, on his own initiative, seeking and ferreting them out for public execution by the Romans yet he was not even a soldier with specific instructions to round up known Christians. Again, after his dramatic Damascus experience, he suddenly seemed endowed with special knowledge about Jesus. The big difference is, like you said, he never quoted any Jesus' sayings but that most of his references about Jesus came from symbolic prophecies that abound in the Torah most prominently from Isaiah. Paul was both a Roman citizen and a Jew and seemed schooled in the Torah and took every opportunity to relate Jesus as fulfillment of the Torah prophecies.
Surely, in his time, there were already stories circulating about Jesus among the early Christians. Was Paul afraid that there could be some kind of subversive conspiracy being hatched by the Christians against the Roman empire? Historically, there had been attempts by the Zealots and the Mccabbees of inciting unrest and revolts against Roman power but they were quickly quelled decisively and ruthlessly. This seems to be the logical explanation for Paul's antiChristian zeal. Its very clear in his epistles that he never heard of the miraculous virgin births by simply stating that Jesus was born of a woman and born under the law.....Gal 4:4 For Paul, there were no virgin birth or flight to Egypt stories, no traveling star, no magi bearing gifts, no choir of angels singing, no shepherds strangely tending their flock in the dark or by the moon, and other embellishments to the birth stories by Matthew and Luke.
Paul Osbourne. Paul, or it can be, Paul at the time, didnt belong to the Christian community and out of the loop because he was still a pagan Roman citizen and a persecutor of Christians. It appears that he probably heard about this deceased Jesus as a cult leader with a large following and was suspicious that they were secretly plotting a violent revolt against the Romans like other failed Jewish leaders in the recent past. That would explain his active hatred and suspicions against the Jews as a loyal Roman citizen and his ignorance of Jesus' teachings.
Perceiving a contradiction between Luke 11:1 and Romans 8:26 is a stretch, to say the least. You would have to not only interpret Jesus as meaning that the Lord's Prayer should be all you ever pray, and but also interpret Paul as invoking a very narrow, intellectual/propositional definition of "knowledge". Both of which are absurd. And Paul's advice in Romans 13 is straight-up synonymous with "render unto Caesar". Not disagreeing with the broader point.
Bart is brilliant as always, and I love his talks, but sometimes it feels like he's playing Mr Time Traveller. How can he be sure the Semitic fishermen didn't know some primitive Greek (the Gospels are written in terrible greek)? But even if someone else wrote the gospels, why does it have to be an author catching snippets from an oral culture like an ancient anthropologist? If Mark was written 60 AD then this is only 30 years after the crucifixion. So you don't need an oral culture. Maybe an old man told the story to Mark? Is this so impossible?
Good stuff. I just ordered the Kindle version from Amazon and look forward to reading it.
Two things I don't get here:
Why would educated Greek speakers show any interest in what some Jewish fishermen believed happened 30-40 years earlier?
And why should we assume that the gospels reflect memories at all? After all, the earliest "Christian" writings, those by Paul, contain no memories, real or invented, of Jesus at all.
+Griexxt I don't get your point, as there obviously was enough interest for such accounts, and even for more to follow which never were canonized. And if you try to say that they were completely made up, I don't see the argument, as well, as they were taken for true and they wouldn't certainly have raised more interest if they had been considered as fiction.
The Jewish historian mentions Jesus, so we may assume that there was a memory of Jesus among Jews. I think, it's pretty hard to completely fabricate a biography and then try to gain people as followers of the person you've just made up (by which reason soever). It seems much easier to convince people by telling (embellished) stories of a familar ad maybe disputed character.
SiggiNebel I'm merely questioning the rationale for assuming that the gospels have a true story at its core simply based on the idea of "gist memories" being more reliable. I totally agree that it's reasonable that a rough outline of a story is more likely to be remembered than all the details, but that doesn't mean that what the story is about actually happened. I guess I should read Bart's book to see if he expands on this idea there, but I already have a huge stack of books on my night stand, so I was hoping someone else might enlighten me.
"The Jewish historian mentions Jesus, so we may assume that there was a memory of Jesus among Jews."
Assuming that you're talking about Josephus (and setting aside the fact that many history scholars question the authenticity of his passage about Jesus), that is incorrect. The only thing we can infer from Josephus' is that there were stories being told about Jesus. We have no reason to assume that Josephus ever met anyone with a living memory of Jesus. What he's telling us, he could have gotten from any Christian off the street.
"I think, it's pretty hard to completely fabricate a biography and then try to gain people as followers of the person you've just made up (by which reason soever). It seems much easier to convince people by telling (embellished) stories of a familar ad maybe disputed character."
Yes, but the point that modern day mythicists make (at least the ones that seem most credible to me), is that even if the gospels are made-up, the character of Jesus was already known. So, yes, they're telling made-up stories, but about someone the readers already believed in.
+Griexxt - Most people in that part of the world spoke Greek, they just couldn't write it. Stories about Jesus connecting him with the Christ(Greek name), or Messiah(Hebrew name) had been circulated by Paul and others to all areas of their known world and many were interested. Some believed Jesus to be Christ - some thought him divine, others didn't. I believe the thought here is, story telling and oral traditions are a combination of memories, not only of what the teller has seen or heard , but also remembering the stories heard before, with varying abilities to tell a story and convey the message it represents. There was a different expectation then, the message, or meaning of the story was most important, not whether all the facts were correct. Today we expect facts in a story to be correct - like a news story. Although, I doubt how factual most news stories are these days, seems most are biased!
Sunyata Maybe I should do that. Thanks for the tip.
Rebecca Parr Agreed, but Bart's point seems to be that this idea of "gist memory" is enough of a rationale for assuming that there was an actual Jesus at the basis of the stories that were written down. I just don't see that.
If you ever read your supporters comments, at least the ones responding to the debates....they are frightening. I'd prefer the company of Christians any day.
Bart tells only a half-truth regarding memory in oral cultures. Oral cultures can pass down traditions very accurately when they need to; I encourage readers to look up Lynne Kelly's writings on this matter. However, the context in which oral cultures pass down traditions accurately is not relevant to the context of the New Testament, and involves such techniques as restricting knowledge to an initiated elite. Nothing Bart says is wrong, but he doesn't delineate the context in which it applies as clearly as he might.
What makes me sad as an avid observer of Ehrmans work, is that it can be clearly seen how he becomes more and more megalomaniac with the passage of time.
Or maybe he has always been that way, I just didn't pay much attention until now.
It's sad because this personal trait affects his scholarly approach and judgement imho
+Stefan Provide some details as to how Ehrman's 'megalomania' has influenced his work. Which of his arguments are a result of his 'megalomania'? If you cannot then you are just indulging in petty character assasination without any evidence.
You know what Paul wrote to the churches, but have no idea what he preached to the gentiles.period.
Rome changed the calendar from BC to AD. The NT came out of Rome and the Torah came from God. Think about it.
+ChiliMcFly1 We didn't start reckoning our calendar by Jesus's birth (which date was got wrong anyway) until the 4th century after the presumed event, but the year numbering wasn't widely used until after AD-800. What's more, the Romans had sod-all to do with it, other than providing the language of the term 'Anno Domini.'
The book will not save anybody but calling on Jesus name will. The world was made through Jesus Christ. Sin has deformed us but Jesus came to transform the body, soul, and the spirit and our twisted minds too. The book and the preacher are the tools for finding salvation. The thief on cross had no time to read the scriptures but he cried "Jesus save me". see www.gotquestions.org