Bart D. Ehrman Quotes

#1. The Synoptics simply accept a Christological view that is different from Paul's. They hold to exaltation Christologies, and Paul holds to an incarnation Christology.

Bart D. Ehrman

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

Bart D. Ehrman

#3. We might mean different things. How can you tell? Only by reading each of us carefully and seeing what each of us has to say - not by pretending that we are both saying the same thing. We're often saying very different things.

Bart D. Ehrman

#4. The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew

Bart D. Ehrman

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

Bart D. Ehrman

#6. The reason we need books like these is that the Gospels cannot simply be taken at face value as giving us historically reliable accounts of the things Jesus said and did.

Bart D. Ehrman

#7. As time goes on, thing do get made up.

Bart D. Ehrman

#8. 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. Christians were calling Jesus God directly on the heels of the Romans calling the emperor God.

Bart D. Ehrman

#9. In Matthew, Jesus declares, "Whoever is not with me is against me." In Mark, he says,"Whoever is not against us is for us." Did he say both things? Could he
mean both things? How can both be true at once? Or is it possible that
one of the Gospel writers got things switched around?

Bart D. Ehrman

#10. Traditionally in Christian circles, Judas in fact has been associated with Jews. Of being traitors, avaricious, who in fact, betray Jesus, who are Christ-killers. And this portrayal of Judas of course also leads then to horrendous acts of anti-Semitism through the centuries.

Bart D. Ehrman

#11. whoever finds me finds life, And obtains favor from the Lord; But those who miss me injure themselves; All who hate me love death.

Bart D. Ehrman

#12. In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!

Bart D. Ehrman

#13. But if we don't figure out the way the world works and is, and if we don't live in harmony with it, we will be miserable and no better off than the dumb animals.

Bart D. Ehrman

#14. It's like what some Episcopalians say about themselves today: get four in a room and you'll find five opinions.

Bart D. Ehrman

#15. But only two people known by name were also called "Son of God." One was the Roman emperor - starting with Octavian, or Caesar Augustus - and the other was Jesus. This is probably not an accident. When Jesus came on the scene as a divine man, he and the emperor were in competition.

Bart D. Ehrman

#16. Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and change its character to enable them to deny difficulties in the face of criticism. (Against Celsus 2, 27)

Bart D. Ehrman

#17. The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don't want to go there.

Bart D. Ehrman

#18. The political benefactors are considered 'religious' heroes. They have statues and a place in the temple, and sacrifices are made in their honor. In a very real sense they are the 'saviors' and so are treated as such.

Bart D. Ehrman

#19. You can't believe something just because someone else desperately wants you to.

Bart D. Ehrman

#20. The idea that Wisdom could be a divine hypostasis - an aspect of God that is a distinct being from God that nonetheless is itself God - is rooted in a fascinating passage of the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs 8. ... God made all things in his wisdom, so much so that Wisdom is seen as a co-creator of sorts.

Bart D. Ehrman

#21. The Bible, at the end of the day, is a very human book.

Bart D. Ehrman

#22. Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves.

Bart D. Ehrman

#23. 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?

Bart D. Ehrman

#24. One of our driving questions throughout this study will always be what these Christians meant by saying "Jesus is God." As we will see, different Christians meant different things by it.

Bart D. Ehrman

#25. Wisdom is referred to as "she" - or even as "Lady Wisdom" - because the Greek word for wisdom is feminine);

Bart D. Ehrman

#26. Orthodoxy is my doxy and heterodoxy is your doxy.

Bart D. Ehrman

#27. 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.

Bart D. Ehrman

#28. Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option - legend.

Bart D. Ehrman

#29. In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes pure and simple slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another.

Bart D. Ehrman

#30. The authors of Job and Ecclesiastes explicitly state that there is no afterlife.

Bart D. Ehrman

#31. I have such a fantastic life that I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for it ... But I don't have anyone to express my gratitude to. This is a void deep inside me, a void of wanting someone to thank, and I don't see any plausible way of filling it.

Bart D. Ehrman

#32. (an apocalypse is a vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities),

Bart D. Ehrman

#33. My students sometimes ask: what is a fundamentalist? I give them a very simple definition. A fundamentalist is no fun, too much damn, and not enough mental.

Bart D. Ehrman

#34. There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.

Bart D. Ehrman

#35. The way to escape our entrapment in this world of matter is to acquire secret "knowledge" (= gnosis) from above of who we really are, how we came to be here, and how we can return to our heavenly, spiritual home.

Bart D. Ehrman

#36. a child has been born for us, A son given to us; Authority rests upon his shoulders; And he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God

Bart D. Ehrman

#37. The idea that Jesus rose on the 'third day' was originally a theological construct, not a historical piece of information.

Bart D. Ehrman

#38. Different authors have different points of view. You can't just say, 'I believe in the Bible.

Bart D. Ehrman

#39. Moreover, this earlier tradition has a different view of Christ than the one that Paul explicates elsewhere in his surviving writings. Here, unlike in Paul's writings ... the idea that Jesus was made the Son of God precisely at his resurrection is also stressed.

Bart D. Ehrman