Bart Ehrman Quotes
Christians came from the ranks of the illiterate. This is certainly true of the very earliest Christians, who would have been the apostles of Jesus. In the Gospel accounts, we find that most of Jesus’s disciples are simple peasants from Galilee—uneducated fishermen, for example. Two of them, Peter and John, are explicitly said to be “illiterate” in the book of Acts (4:13). The apostle Paul indicates to his Corinthian congregation that “not many of you were wise by human standards” (1 Cor. 1:27)—which might mean that some few were well educated, but not most. As we move into the second Christian century, things do not seem to change much. As I have indicated, some intellectuals converted to the faith, but most Christians were from the lower classes and uneducated.
Bart Ehrman
Quotes to Explore
The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.
James Hal Cone
The disciples found angels at the grave of Him they loved; and we should always find them too, but that our eyes are too full of tears for seeing.
Henry Ward Beecher
On remaining unmarried, she said 'Marriage did not happen because it was not meant to be. As for children, all my disciples are my children.
Yamini Krishnamurthy
A martyr's disciples suffer more than the martyr.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Just look at the faces of the great Christians! They are the faces of great haters.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Christians who engaged in infamous persecutions and shameful inquisitions were not evil men but misguided men. The churchmen who felt they had an edict from God to withstand the progress of science, whether in the form of a Copernican revolution or a Darwinian theory of natural selection, were not mischievous men but misinformed men. And so Christ's words from the cross are written in sharp-edged terms across some of the most inexpressible tragedies of history: 'They know not what they do'.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.
William Blake
After ten years of conflicting feelings, I’m suddenly not conflicted at all.
Bella Andre
The poet should try to give his poem the quiet swiftness of flame, so that the reader will feel and not think while he is reading. But the thinking will come afterwards.
Sara Teasdale
We've seen in the papers that we've been smashed by England. All credit to them: they played fantastically well. But if we actually dissect exactly what happened, it came down to a couple of edgy draws and a game where we were beaten by two runs. It was a lot closer than everyone made out.
Brett Lee
Christians came from the ranks of the illiterate. This is certainly true of the very earliest Christians, who would have been the apostles of Jesus. In the Gospel accounts, we find that most of Jesus’s disciples are simple peasants from Galilee—uneducated fishermen, for example. Two of them, Peter and John, are explicitly said to be “illiterate” in the book of Acts (4:13). The apostle Paul indicates to his Corinthian congregation that “not many of you were wise by human standards” (1 Cor. 1:27)—which might mean that some few were well educated, but not most. As we move into the second Christian century, things do not seem to change much. As I have indicated, some intellectuals converted to the faith, but most Christians were from the lower classes and uneducated.
Bart Ehrman
