Quotes from Bart D. Ehrman

Christ, the Lamb, is to be united with his bride, the church of his followers, and there will be a celebration. That sounds festive. But who are the banqueters? And what is on the menu? Those who eat the marriage supper of the Lamb

Jesus taught that the age he lived in was controlled by forces of evil but that God would soon intervene to destroy everything and everyone opposed to him. God would then bring in a good, utopian kingdom on earth, where there would be no more pain and suffering. Jesus himself would be the ruler of this kingdom, with his twelve disciples serving under him. And all this was to happen very soon—within his own generation. This

Christ, the Lamb, is to be united with his bride, the church of his followers, and there will be a celebration. That sounds festive. But who are the banqueters? And what is on the menu? Those who eat the marriage supper of the Lamb are the scavenger birds; their meal is the flesh of Christ's enemies.

One of the interesting features of the book of Revelation is that unlike nearly all the other apocalypses it does not appear to be pseudonymous.

When the verses on women are removed, the passage flows neatly without a break. This too suggests that these verses were inserted into the passage later.

in situations of conflict: the "enemy" is portrayed as massive and unstoppable, an inherent threat to decency and truth.

have had a field day here.

The son of a human is human, just as the son of a dog is a dog and the son of a cat is a cat. And so what is the son of God?

If God wanted us to have his words, why didn't he preserve his words?

For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor.

Paul started out as an outsider to the apostolic band and originally opposed rather than supported their movement.

throne, O God, endures forever and ever.                  Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity;                  You love righteousness and hate wickedness.

I could no longer reconcile my faith in God with the state of the world that I saw all around me.

The group that emerged as victorious and declared itself orthodox determined the shape of Christianity for posterity—determining its internal structure, writing its creeds, and compiling its revered texts into a sacred canon of Scripture.

It is important to remember that the emperor of Rome, who also lived in the city, was understood by many people throughout the empire to be the son of God—that is, the son of the divinized Caesar who preceded him.

The authors of Job and Ecclesiastes explicitly state that there is no afterlife. The book of Amos insists that the people of God suffer because God is punishing them for their sins; the book of Job insists that the innocent can suffer; and the book of Daniel indicates that the innocent in fact will suffer. All of these books are different, all of them have a message, and all of the messages deserve to be heard.

The English word "Almighty" is a bit weak for the Greek term used here: Pantokrator, a rare word, or at least it was before the book of Revelation.

good and loving God who is in control

Gospels, Acts, letters, and apocalypses (these are the four literary genres of the New Testament

Jupiter Best and Greatest

ancient religions were almost never interested in "true beliefs.

there is not a single word in all of Revelation about God loving others and no instruction to the followers of Christ to do so, either.

The history of this world was divided into two phases: the present age, which was controlled by the forces of evil, and the age to come, in which God would rule supreme.

There can be no doubt on the basis of the written and archaeological evidence that the Christianization of the Roman Empire and early medieval Europe involved the destruction of works of art on a scale never before seen in human history.