Quotes from Bart D. Ehrman

What if the book you take as giving you God's words instead contains human words?

On the Nature of Things

Whether you are a believer—fundamentalist, evangelical, moderate, liberal—or a nonbeliever, the Bible is the most significant book in the history of our civilization.

the God of Revelation cannot be the true God.

the fact that I left the faith is somehow seen as threatening, at least among people who have a gnawing suspicion, which they never explicitly acknowledge to themselves, that their own faith may need to be reexamined.

Where do any of the ancient sources speak of a divine man who was crucified as an atonement for sin? So far as I know, there are no parallels to this central Christian claim.

This view lost out in the ensuing debates

What about the world we live in? Was it the creation of the one true God? Or was it the inferior creation of the God of the Jews (who was not the God of the Christians)? Or was it a cosmic disaster and inherently evil?

It is because in John's Gospel we are not hearing two voices—the voice of Jesus and the voice of the narrator. We are hearing one voice. The author is speaking for himself and he is speaking for Jesus. These are not Jesus's words; they are John's words placed on Jesus's lips.

The author of Acts, who has put these words on Peter's lips, sees that everything—even the disastrous events of Jesus' betrayal and execution—was according to plan.

That's not how authors, ancient or modern, work. Authors write for readers in their own time and place.

Ezekiel 37, a passage frequently misread by people who think the prophet is discussing the future resurrection of individuals at the end of time. He is not. He is explicitly referring to the restoration of the nation of Judah after its destruction.

When his predictions didn't come true, or even close to true, he continued writing books and giving lectures about how now the signs were coming to be fulfilled

there is nothing objectively that makes objectivity objectively true)

Stoics believed that Logos—reason—was a divine element that infused all of existence

that they may live

In short, the books that were of paramount importance in early Christianity were for the most part read out loud by those who were able to read, so that the illiterate could hear, understand, and even study them. Despite the fact that early Christianity was by and large made up of illiterate believers, it was a highly literary religion.

But there are some rare terms that simply don't have satisfactory, simple words that adequately express the same thing, and the word hypostasis (plural: hypostases) is one of them.

strikes a compromise: Moses's brother Aaron will accompany him, and Aaron will do all the talking, based on what Moses instructs him. And then God makes this remarkable statement: "[Aaron] indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him" (Exod. 4:16). Here, Moses is not said actually

Irenaeus was particularly distressed about the widespread presence of Gnostic Christians in the midst of the church.

apostles" (i.e., those sent on a mission)

If communities of believers obtained copies of various Christian books in circulation, how did they acquire those copies? Who was doing the copying? And most important for the ultimate subject of our investigation, how can we (or how could they) know that the copies they obtained were accurate, that they hadn't been modified in the process of reproduction?

propositional statements

That is, by showing what happens after death, the texts emphasize what matters in life, providing insight into the purpose, meaning, and goals of human existence so as to encourage certain ways of being and living in the world: attitudes, dispositions, priorities, commitments, life choices, beliefs, practices, public activities, relationships—in fact, almost everything involved with being a sentient and conscious human being.