Meet Bart Ehrman: A One-Man God Fraud Squad

[steve2470]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/150734/meet_bart_ehrman%3A_a_one-man_god_fraud_squad/

Nearly half of the New Testament is a forgery, according to a world-renowned Bible scholar whose new book fingering the forgers is making evangelical Christians as mad as — well, hell.

"Bart Ehrman has waged war on Christianity for years. This is just his latest salvo," snaps a FreeRepublic commenter. "Bart himself is a forgery. More of his usual tragic, groundless, infantile, bigoted narcissism enslaved to the father of lies, mammon ... a willful subtle prevaricator ... a disgusting, arrogant hack. God have mercy on his benighted soul," rages another at the Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth blog.

Ehrman is used to it. The University of North Carolina religious studies professor stoked evangelical ire with his previous bestsellers The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed and Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. He's doing it again with Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (HarperOne, 2011).

"When Bart D. Ehrman and all his so called 'scholar' friends are long gone, Jesus Christ will still be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to whom EVERY KNEE will one day bow. Friends — repent," pleads a Daily Mail commenter.

[zeemike]

1. Now don't get me wrong I am against religious fundamentalism

But people like this do the cause of rational thought no good at all.
And I don't have to read the books to know that he basses all his criticizes of conjecture and assumptions that no one should make.....and the reason I say this is that it is imposable to claim what he claims to be true being that is is so removed in time.
Which is no different really from the fundies really...just in opposition to them.
If extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof he will fail the test.

[struggle4progress]

3. Much of Ehrman's work seems rather interesting to me, though what I take, from my reading of him,

may be different than what the author, in the article linked by the OP, takes

I stand up weekly in my church to recite the creed, but I do not think it requires me to regard the canonical texts as being perfectly consistent, and uninfluenced by ancient power struggles: I see divine inspiration there, but I am also willing to entertain suspicions of some tinkering

[zeemike]

5. For me the problem is that it is read as a creed.

And the story it tells is lost.
And yet without the story one loses all perspective as to what is being talked about.
For instance ask most any Christina who are gods chosen people and they will say the Jews without fail....yet that is not what the story says....the story says it is Isreal....the 12 tribes which the Jews is only one of....and I think the whole story is important.
As to someone changing it I doubt that has happened to any great extent at all...the dead sea scrolls seem to lend credence to that...in that the parts they found were exactly the same as we have today.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I'm fascinated.

Would you mind explaining what you mean when you say the Jews are only one tribe of the twelve tribes of Israel?

[zeemike]

11. Israel was made up of 12 tribes.

Judah was one of them.
When they came into the promised land the land was divided up among the 12 tribes and the nation became well off and demanded a king....they were ruled by judges in the beginning as moses had set it up.....when they got a king is when the conflict began and it ended with them being overrun by the Babylonians and ten of the tribes scattered throughout the world....The Jews were allowed to return to the land after 40 years.
So out there in the world are 10 tribes....the small tribe of Dan was absorbed into Juda...which are gods chosen people too.
All of that is there in the Old testament....it tells the story....but few actually know it.

[Pacifist Patriot]

15. Not exactly, but I don't even know where to begin.

From an Orthodox rabbi who ought to know:

Jews from ANY tribe were called by the term Yehdi. In fact, the Torah uses this term for somebody that worships G-d in the manner of Avraham before Yehudah (Judah) was even born! The fiorst time the term is used is in reference to one of the wives of Esav who changed her name to Yehudit (the feminine form of Yehudah) to imply that she had converted to Judaism- this was done after Ya'akov hed left and Esav was aware that his parent shad told him to take a wife from the family of Rivkah and not to marry any canaanites (Esav's other wives were all Canaanites). The term Yehudi actually just means "One who praises G-d". Another reference in the Tanakh to Yehudi as a generic term for all Jews is in the Book of Esther where Mordechai, her uncle is referred to as "Ish Yehudi" (a Jewish man) though Mordechai is from the tribe of Benyamin.

In my own experience hosting exchange students from Israel every year, the bloodlines are more than a little murky and probably apochryphal, but Jewish families today claim descent from more than just the tribe of Judah and Dan. The last two teenagers we hosted in February were from the tribes of Levi and Benjamin.

Your knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures seems rooted in Sunday School lessons.

[zeemike]

16. No it is just from reading the Bible.

But then I have read the New Testament as well.
And in Revelations it confirms what I said in that it list the chosen people....the 144 thousand that are considered the elect...and it list them as 12 thousand from each of the tribes naming each one. (revelations chapter 7 if you what to check it)
but I don't question whether some one thinks they are of the tribe of Benjaman....I would have no way of knowing sense they were scattered thousands of years ago and in fact I might be a descendant of one of them.
But my knowledge did not come from Sunday school...I have never attended one in my life....but from years of reading not only the bible but many works on spirituality including eastern mysticism.

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. That's going to be a different perspective from someone who has studied...

the texts in an academic environment. Revelations is an example of highly mystical apocalyptic literature. I wouldn't remotely approach it with a literal mindset with the intention of learning anything about the ancient Israelites, or even Jews contemporary with the author. Revelations is an excellent case in point regarding historical context, author identity and the intent of the author. The book almost didn't make it into the canon. It's a diatribe against the Roman Empire and Emperor Nero in particular.

Reading the Bible alone without appreciating its historical-social context doesn't make any sense to me. Sorry.

[zeemike]

20. It depends on the attitude you take toward it.

I happen to take the approach that it is true until shown to be not true...And I try not to let those that take the opposite approacn....that it is all myth and made up stories influence my thinking.
Academia is not scientific at all in their approach because they start out with the assumption that it is all a bunch of bullshit and that there job to discredit it whenever and where ever they can....even to the point of assuming things that should not be assumed like Revelations was an indictment of the Roman Empire....there are some that doubt whether Israel ever existed at all.
But basic ly this is a war between those that want to use the bible as a stick to beat people into submission and the other side that hate that and fight against it by trying to make the bible a myth.
Well I am not in that fight....I want to take things for what they are....and if there is wisdom or some kind of understanding in some text I take it on it's face value.

[struggle4progress]

10. The Dead Sea scrolls cast light on a Jewish sect around the beginning of the Christian

era: rather than casting light on early Christianity directly, they provide some information about context

Christian attitudes towards Judaism have varied with time and place. There's no question that many early Christians considered themselves members of a reformation sect purely within the context of Judaism. But with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, it seems that attitudes towards Judaism began to shift among some members of the community, as can perhaps be seen by arranging the gospels, by best-guess as to date of composition, to deduce apparent attitudes from the polemics

Such examination seems to me informative and useful

I'm currently reading the Borg-Crossan book about Paul, where the authors wish to distinguish seven genuine Pauline texts, from three canonical texts attributed to Paul but (according to scholarly consensus) obviously not written by the same person who wrote the seven just mentioned, and from three further canonical texts attributed to Paul, for which there is no clear consensus on authorship. The attitudes on certain issues seem to vary widely between these three groups of texts attributed to Paul: the first group exhibits rather egalitarian attitudes, the second group Roman imperial attitudes towards social organization, and the third group an intermediate posture

That the church might have exhibited decreasingly Judaic and increasingly Roman attitudes, after the destruction of Jerusalem, is quite believable as a social-historical theory; and such a textual analysis might reasonably color how we read remarks about "the Jews" in the later gospels, or comments about the role of women in some of the "Pauline" letters

Since I subscribe to a "three-legged stool" view of Christianity -- part personal revelation, part ancient scripture, part community tradition -- it doesn't particularly bother me to consider the possibility that the old writ may have some flaws, just as personal revelations and community traditions have some flaws

[zeemike]

12. My point about the Dead Sea scrolls is that it shows that the OT

was copied over and over for over a thousand years and did not change...at least the fragments that survived.
So then the evidence is that at least in these pieces of the OT were copied accurately over and over with no changes....and that was the supposition by the scholars is that mistakes would be made and over time the text would change....so based on the evidence that assumption is wrong.
And then there is this notion that if you are really good you can tell who wrote things by the style....and I question that assumption also.

[Pacifist Patriot]

14. Except there are some transcription errors in the Dead Sea scrolls.

Nothing particularly major that I can recall, but they do not support the contention that there has been a flawless continuous transcription of the Hebrew scriptures.

Have you read any of Ehrman's work? If not it seems rather silly to have a discussion about it.

[zeemike]

17. No I have not read his work that I know of

Except maybe as it is used to prove that the bible is a crock of shit and that anyone that reads it must be crazy sense...and I am sure it will be quoted widely by those that feel that way and held up as empirical evidence to that fact.
So yes this is silly.

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. You remind me of the people who protested Harry Potter as evil...

without ever having read the series. Bart Ehrman is actually quite respectful of the scriptures and I don't recall him saying anyone who reads it is crazy. He's spent his entire academic career reading it. Does that make him nuts?

What is it about the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that should make them exempt from the historical exploration and textual criticism we apply to other ancient documents?

[zeemike]

21. Does that mean I have to read Glen Becks books before I can say

what a piece of shit it is?
I am not criticizing his books I am critical of his methods....and here I assume his methods are the same as most of academia.
And I could give many examples of how I think it wrong...but just one right now.
The picture of Jesus....that most people have seen....the critics will say he has blue eyes...and we KNOW that most people in that time and place had brown eyes....so therefore it is wrong.
And he is shown with long hair....and the style among the romans was short hair...so therefore he had short hair....(assuming that the Jews adopted roman customs because Rome had occupied them)
And that is my objection to their methods....not that things like that should not be considered but that it MUST be so.

[Pacifist Patriot]

22. Well it seems rather bizarre to discuss an academic with someone who....

disdains academia so this must be a parting of the ways. Cheers.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. I've been reading his books for a long time.

He actually uses sound academic principles and has always acknowledged the lack of concrete information rendering the historical truth problematic and impossible to ever know for sure. He deals in the probabilities of history, not the certainties.

He has always presented his views of Jesus as probable based upon the evidence (or lack thereof) available.

It's his critics who paint him to be dogmatic in his conclusions.

[zeemike]

6. But how is that any different than guessing and speculating?

When the real merit in the book....or any book for that matter is the story it tells.
If the words mean something then they mean something no matter how they came to be put on paper or recorded.

[Pacifist Patriot]

7. He's an academic and an historian.

To some of us, the process of creation and the context in which it is created are matters of interest and can greatly impact meaning. Such context can help with the hermeneutics. It does matter who wrote something, why they wrote it and to whom when determining meaning. That is what is so fascinating about the early Christianities to me.

[darkstar3]

9. .

"If the words mean something then they mean something no matter how they came to be put on paper or recorded."

Does this apply to Dianetics?

[zeemike]

13. Can't say because I have never read it.

But there is noting to stop one from putting down a load of bullshit on paper....and the same applies...does not matter who puts it down.

[struggle4progress]

24. Well, of course, it is in some sense guessing and speculation, but there's

guessing and speculation -- and then there's guessing and speculation. All knowledge is in some sense guessing and speculation, but not all guessing and speculation is equivalent: some guessing and speculation is better informed than other guessing and speculation

I can't tell you for sure how to read the texts yourself, since that has been in dispute from the time they first passed from pure oral tradition into writing. In trying to make sense of the texts myself, I find some discussion of context helpful, but of course you are correct to say that we cannot reconstruct such matters with certainty

[zeemike]

26. I guess what I object to is the certainty they project

It is like every time they come up with a new theory they present it as if it is certain that it is true.
And then you see a topic here saying that it has been proven that....bla bla bla. And some get quite offended if I speak up and doubt it or question it in any way...because how could they be wrong...they are scholars and I am nothing....and so they must be right.
I would much rather discuss what the words mean and what the story it tells is about than speculate on whether John had a ghost writer or changed something because he did not agree with it in it's original form.

[struggle4progress]

27. If you mean that good theology does not really depend heavily on historical scholarship,

then I think you are correct -- and I conversely also expect that good historical scholarship cannot heavily lean on theology

But it would be difficult to read first or second century theological texts with understanding, if one has no notions about the historical context -- just as it wopuld be difficult to try to excavate Christian history with understanding, if one was unwilling to consider any theological issues

Of course, "discussing what the words mean and what the story it tells is about" really is much more important than "whether John had a ghost writer"

[sudopod]

28. Relevant to this discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=277399&mesg_id=277399

[tanyev]

2. That reminds me...need to check if the library has his new book yet.

[cleanhippie]

23. Where were you last week?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x277101

[dimbear]

25. In a similar vein, and highly recommended:

http://www.umass.edu/wsp/biblica/alpha/index.html

Alpha Christianity. The original and still the best.