Bart Ehrman's latest book is out - Forged: Why the Bible's Authors Aren't Who We Think They Are. It follows his usual formula. Take a kernel of truth that is well-known amoung Bible students and blow it out of all proportion to make controversial claims that aren't supported by the evidence to undermine the authority of the Bible.
I've got it on my desk and will read it next week to make a more detailed review. And we have Michael Kruger, author of The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity, scheduled to discuss it on the radio program Sunday, April 10. He and Greg discussed Ehrman M.O. last summer. Greg assessed Ehrman's work in a recent Solid Ground.
In the meantime, Jerry Newcombe has gathered some comments from leading Bible scholars about the book:
Dr. Licona, who has debated Ehrman twice, told me, "What we’re seeing from Ehrman [in Forged] is not new information.
It may be new to many readers who aren’t used to looking at the academic stuff, but it’s not at all new."
Ehrman goes on to assert that many New Testament books that do claim authorship within the text, such as Ephesians, Colossians, and the letters of Peter and James, are not written by the claimed authors. It should be noted that this is not based on manuscript evidence. It’s based largely on the style of the text, and there are many conservative scholars who are not convinced by these arguments. Thus, Ehrman is stating liberal opinion as fact.
Ironically, Ehrman even states in his own book, "Virtually all of the problems with what I’ve been calling forgeries can be solved if secretaries were heavily involved in the compositions of the early Christian writings." [p. 134]...
Dr. Paul Maier, a professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University and a first rate scholar of the New Testament and its history, told me, "Both [Ehrman] and his publisher [HarperOne] are guilty of cheap sensationalism with little or no regard for the truth."
What's meant here by 'manuscript evidence'?
What's the context of the secretaries quotation?
What does Ehrman call a forgery? Suppose he abuses the term for effect or to sell books does that save the day for you?
Are you comfortable with, say, the gospels being anonymous as opposed to forged - in the common sense?
Are you comfortable with, say, the Tims and Titus and Hebrews not being written by Paul?
RonH
Posted by: RonH | March 26, 2011 at 01:59 PM
Oops, meant more like...
Suppose Bart abuses the word forgery for effect or to sell books. Does that save the day for you?
Posted by: RonH | March 26, 2011 at 03:26 PM
Ron,
I have no idea who you are but I'll lay it on you from my simple mind.
Either way, it's a win win for me and others like me. If there is NO God, then I have done the world a great service by taking care of my fellow mankind according to my beliefs in Christ. If God is, as I beleive he is, I have gained eternal life with him. I win either way.
That's all I can say.
Posted by: John | March 26, 2011 at 09:11 PM
Well said John, and fortunately as believers it is no longer saving our days that we're concerned about. Our days have an answer and a purpose.
Posted by: Todd | March 27, 2011 at 06:40 AM
John and Todd,
!
RonH
Posted by: RonH | March 27, 2011 at 08:36 AM
Bart continues to sing his one note song. Selling his books to the gullible masses.
Amazing how many times he can repackage his one thesis. A shrewd marketer, Bart.
Posted by: Jeff | March 27, 2011 at 01:37 PM
Hey RonH (this seems familiar)
The Bible may in fact be wholly mistaken, or mis-written, or just plain fake. If it were proven to be so, then the question for RonH remains, is Love the Ultimate Ethic? Or perhaps Ultimate Reality neither knows nor cares, for Gravity, DNA, and other Blind, Indifferent, Forces simply are, and we dance to their music? Perhaps.
If that is the case, then Ultimate Reality, The-Real, is wholly Indifferent, Unfeeling, Uncaring, Unseeing, Unknowing, and in the mean time we all make up our little plays and dance our little dances of Auto-hypnosis and Wish Fulfillment. Very well then. My pretend play is that Love is the Ultimate Ethic, and etc, and etc. Well, you know what I mean. But what is it you really believe about where all of this is going, or ends up, or means, or...well...you know what I mean, as per our other discussions.
Is there an Ultimate Ethic? If the incidental flux of photons in the brainstem of an animal called homosapien are the End-Point, or the Starting-Point, or the Whole-Show, or whatever, then, well, the incidental flux in my brainstem moves me in this (or that) direction....and so it is...and so it goes...and it really doesn't "mean" Real or Fake, for there is no Real or Fake, there is a flux of photons....and etc....
Well...we've been here before. I think you may be right about this or that issue with the Bible's authors....but that really doesn't solve anything. I mean does it? Isn't there a much, much bigger, broader, more ominous question? Again, there is the Blind and the Indifferent of Atheism, and there is the "something larger" of various Theisms, as per our other discussions... and I think your concern about the Bible's authenticity is not only valid, but, yes, it is an important question. Actually very important. Discounting the felt concerns of people is a mistake. But I am here granting you that it (the Bible) is wholly bogus. But what then? Are you in your felt-reality really content with our former "Gravity and DNA neither know nor care, they just are, and we dance to their music"?
(Hey I'm bored and it's late....so excuse my poor impulse control here)
Posted by: LoveHimselfRescuedMe | March 27, 2011 at 07:07 PM
Does it really matter who penned the words? I’ve always felt that the author, in some cases, was one person and someone else wrote down what was dictated to them. It’s the message not the penmanship. When your doctor writes a prescription; aren’t you glad that the pharmacist gets the order right? So it goes with the Bible. No!, Paul wrote that or was it Timothy or was it Tychicus , Epaphroditus , Onesimus or Lucas. The Bible was written as a guide to the truth not as a why to give honor to the human author. We must realize the true author is the Holy Spirit.
Posted by: Hushai | March 28, 2011 at 08:19 AM
RonH
"What's meant here by 'manuscript evidence'?"
From what has been said in context, this seems to mean that the credibility should be based on content rather than the style of the content. Let's say I was an awful writer and had to write a scientific paper. Is it legitimate for you to dismiss my body of work in the basis that it was badly written while the science behind what I wrote was sound? Does it matter if all my ducks are in a row, but the pigeon, being the last bird in line, is out of position? I should think that the ducks are what matter.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | March 28, 2011 at 09:05 AM
Hushai,
I agree with you in one sense and disagree in another. The authority of the authors was one of the criteria that was used to decide if these specific books were Spirit-breathed or not. If the author had not known, or had a significant interaction with, Jesus, they probably would not have been recognized as God-breathed.
Just my two cents.
-Austin
Posted by: Austin | March 28, 2011 at 09:55 AM
Anyone who has read Bauckham's "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" would not be quick to say the witnesses are forgeries, nor anonymous. The trouble is that the book is dense and not easy to read ... and frankly sometimes boring when Bauckham gets so deep into minutia for pages at a time that isn't really critical to his argument. Although I'm not usually a fan of popularizing scholarly works (ie, dumbing them down) it would be nice to have a condensed version of the book that more people would actually read.
Posted by: emmzee | March 28, 2011 at 12:08 PM
I suspect that B.E. has seen the popularity and big bucks that have come Dan Brown's way for sensationalist writing and thinks there is a niche for him as a former insider to cash in on the same gullible readership.
Posted by: inkling43 | March 28, 2011 at 12:19 PM
Emmzee,
The book you mentioned interested me, so I looked it up on Amazon. After reading reviews, I noticed that it seems to focus on the Gospels and not on the Epistles. Is this true? On the other hand, it seems Ehrman is focusing on Epistles, though I suppose I would need to buy his book to find out for sure.
Posted by: Austin | March 29, 2011 at 06:09 AM
Here's a book I got a lot out of. Eyewitness To Jesus gives strong manuscript evidence, the Magdalen Papyrus, to be exact, that Matthew's Gospel was written down no later than the 50s and by the traditional Matthew.
http://philologos.org/guide/books/d'ancona.matthew.1.htm
Posted by: Daron | March 29, 2011 at 07:52 AM
Who are those "fellow[s]" and why do they need you to "take care" of them?
Ron,
I have no idea who you are but I'll lay it on you from my simple mind.
Either way, it's a win win for me and others like me. If there is NO God, then I have done the world a great service by taking care of my fellow mankind according to my beliefs in Christ,. If God is, as I beleive he is, I have gained eternal life with him. I win either way.
That's all I can say.
Posted by: Norm | March 30, 2011 at 06:53 PM