Quotes About Bart D. Ehrman

The first Christian author we have is the Apostle Paul

As a historian I am no longer obsessed with the theological question of how God became a man, but with the historical question of how a man became God.

Scholars sometimes use technical terms (i.e., Hypostases) for no good reason, other than the fact that they are the technical terms scholars use.

This is the only verse in the entire Old Testament that uses the term "everlasting life.

fundamental question: Did Jesus and his disciples teach an orthodoxy that was transmitted to the churches of the second and third centuries?

The word synoptic means "seen together":

It is widely held among scholars that the Prologue is a preexisting poem that the author of John has incorporated into his work—possibly in a second edition.

Matthew and Luke had another source available to them that provided them with these non-Markan passages. Since this other source was mainly made up of sayings, these (German) scholars called it the Sayings Source. The word for source in German is Quelle, and so scholars today speak about "Q"—the lost source that provided Matthew and Luke with much of their sayings material.

Skepticism is demanding evidence before believing; cynicism is not believing even with evidence

Acts is theological history, while the Gospels are theological biographies, i.e., biographies written with a theological agenda.

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?

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

the time when Christianity arose, with its exalted claims about Jesus, was the same time when the emperor cult had started to move into full swing, with its exalted claims about the emperor.

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.

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

the manuscripts back immediately and return the worthless checks.

the worship that is due only to the gods.

The Christ of Nicea is obviously a far cry from the historical Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant apocalyptic preacher in the backwaters of rural Galilee who offended the authorities and was unceremoniously crucified for crimes against the state. Whatever he may have been in real life, Jesus had now become fully God.

Balfour wrote the famous Balfour Declaration, dated November 2, 1917, in the name of the country's cabinet in a letter