That was a quote by Sparks not me. I tend to avoid calling the Bible the word of God for a reason. Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible contains revelation of the Word of God. But Sparks will be able to defend his terminology (he probably means the Bible is an inspired test and relays a message from God) and this sometimes seems like a semantics issue only though it is possible some border on bibliolatry. I wrote this in another context (and though I probably butchered Barth as he goes above my head at times):
For the conservative Christian the Bible is often elevated to being the exact Word of God. As the bumper sticker reads, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” If these Christian’s are uncertain of something, all they have to do is open up the Bible and see what God has to say about it. Since they follow the Bible, if you disagree with them, naturally, you are disagreeing with God, rather than their interpretation of God. Questioning Scripture is akin to questioning God. For some of those who disagree with their stiff Bible only approach, conservative Christians are often viewed as bordering on bibliolatry. They elevate the Bible to the Word of God but as many theologians will tell you, the Bible cannot be the Word of God. Are there two Words of God? The only true Word of God is, always has been, and always will be Christ Jesus (John 1:1). The Bible is not the Son of God. It is a witness to and a revelation of the one true Word of God. In regards to conservative posture on the Bible, Rodger L. Cragun wrote:
“It has elevated the Bible itself to equality with God. In short it has led the Church into idolatry. The Bible has become something to be worshipped. The doctrine claims that the Bible is exactly what God says and thinks in all time and throughout eternity. Extrapolating on the statement in the New Testament that “Jesus is the Word,” inerrancy equates scripture with God, expanding the Triune God to a Quartet: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Word, the Bible.” Ultimate Heresy xxi
This has led Greg Boyd, who inspired by Karl Barth’s thinking on the “Word of God,” has elected to call the Bible the “Story of God” rather than the “word of God” [Inspired Imperfection]. Barth is considered by many to be the greatest protestant theologian of the 20th century and he recognized the only true Word of God as Jesus but he had a very nuanced position on the issue that is well worth reading. At the risk of oversimplification, he thought the Bible could become the Word of God at God’s behest through preaching. Inspiration occurs as one reads the Bible through the influence of the Holy Spirit which communicates divine truths. The nuances and intellectual rigor of Barth’s writing can be difficult, at least for this author, to summarize so succinctly (Barth, Church Dogmatics V1 pt 2 500).
Where might critical scholars learn from conservative scholars? All ideas need to be checked against the evidence. Source criticism works well when sources are available, or when comparative material is abundant, but there are significant problems when the source is hypothetical. Many supposed criteria for different sources such as poetry versus prose or using different titles for the same deity are found within a single ancient document; differences in word usage can be problematic to assess objectively; different critics come up with myriad different supposed sources. Some proposed naturalistic explanations of miracles, e.g. Elijah was pouring lighter fluid, not water, on the altar or Jesus was walking on a tiny ice floe, not on the water, require equally miraculous factors to work.
The Pentateuch contains much material that dates back to the late 2nd millennium BC. Claims that it was invented from scratch during the Exile are not plausible. But it also does contain later editing. “It is there to this day” is obviously a later “footnote”, for example. Compilation of the text into our modern form no doubt took a while; there are a couple of references to sources in the text. Piecemeal modernization of vocabulary and other references is also quite likely. But this also makes analysis for sources quite problematic. Switching between different names for God in the Psalms where one psalm was copied with slight alterations to make a new one shows that the names, though having distinct nuances, could be regarded as synonyms and changed editorially. Thus, they are not reliable as markers of distinct sources.
So far as Richards’s evidence goes, it is only Cicero who did this, no one else. But drafting a brief stereotyped letter is completely different from composing a long, detailed, finely argued, carefully reasoned, and nuanced letter like l Peter or Ephesians. What evidence is there that essay-letters of that sort were ever handed over to a secretary to be composed? There is absolutely no evidence that I know of. Richards hasn’t seen any evidence of it either. Dr. Bart
To establish that this was not something done 2,000 years ago because neither Richards nor he had found evidence for it, and to apply that conclusion to what we could expect for Paul and Peter is a stretch.
I am not sure what you are even referring to. It would be helpful if you could quote the specific comment you are responding to or clarify what you are quoting. This is not a reason I have seen used to deny Pauline authorship to the pastorals. The evidence against them is quite strong and the reasoning is sound (we know of Pauline forgeries outside the NT (3 Cor, Laodecians, Paul and Seneca) and he was one if not the most likely candidate in early Christianity for pseudonymous authorship. The evidence for the Pastorals is strongly against them.
As for your quote, i am trying to figure out the context. it has to do with someone writing a letter for someone else I am guessing. The idea that someone else thought of and composed Paul’s thoughts is certainly dubious. If Paul told someone a basic message and they went forth from there the writing belongs to the final redactor, not Paul. You could claim the final version is Paul approved but there is zero evidence for this. It is pious imagination hard at work.
Also, I am not sure the full context of your quote but my hunch is only because you want it to be a stretch. If scholars read dozens or hundreds or thousands of letters from antiquity and never find any evidence where something happened, then it would probably be the general judgment of historians that apologists who are claiming this occurred to reconcile a Biblical problem are just motivated by a doctrinal a priori and aren’t worth the time of day. They are engaged in theology, not history. Biblical criticism does not work in the cartesian world. It doesn’t ever say anything is impossible. It ALWAYS speaks in terms of probability. It is about what is most probable.
The proper question is for you to ask how many examples of ancient literature they consulted before dismissing their viewpoint. If it is not based on a large enough sample size then we can certainly dismiss their argument. But I honestly don’t know what you are getting at. Feel free to clarify.
There is absolutely no evidence that I know of. Richards hasn’t seen any evidence of it either. When Cicero asked a secretary to compose a quick stereotyped letter for him and make it look as if it came from him, Cicero, he was doing what no other person is known to have done in antiquity. As Richards himself says: “It is tempting to conclude that an author-initiated request for deception was rare indeed, perhaps singularly restricted to Cicero and to this time in his life” (i.e., when he was old, tired, and unwilling to write a letter himself). 27 What about other secretaries who may have composed a letter (not even a letter-essay) for another author? Again, according to Richards: “Nowhere was there any indication that an ordinary secretary was asked, much less presumed, to compose a letter for the author.” On the contrary, “without an explicit reference to the use of a secretary as a composer of a letter, this secretarial method probably should not even be considered a valid option.” 2 There is certainly no such explicit reference in the deutero-Pau-line or Petrine letters. I don’t know of a single piece of evidence or a single analogy to suggest that Peter or Paul used a secretary who significantly—or insignificantly, for that matter—added to the contents of the letter. That is why it is important to consider not only the style of writing, but also the contents when considering whether Paul did or did not write, say, Ephesians or l Timothy, or that Peter did or did not write l or 2 Peter. When a person claimed to write a letter, he was owning up to the contents. Sometimes a letter attributed to Paul is at odds with what Paul says elsewhere, as when Ephesians differs from Paul’s view of the resurrection of believers as found in his letter to the Romans. Since secretaries did not produce the contents of letters (at least letter-essays of this sort), a secretary could not be responsible for the difference. So Paul is probably in no way responsible for the disputed letter.
Speaking of content that differs, I’LL BE BACK
I’M BACK
. So the final two chapters outline some of the ethical requirements of the new life in Christ. The reasons for thinking the book was not actually written by Paul are much the same as for Ephesians. Among other things, the writing style and the contents of the book differ significantly from those in the undisputed letters of Paul. Far and away the most compelling study of the writing style of Colossians was done by the German scholar Walter Bujard nearly forty years ago now. 23 Bujard analyzed all sorts of stylistic features of the letter: the kind and frequency of conjunctions, infinitives, participles, relative clauses, strings of genitives, and scores of other things. He was particularly interested in comparing Colossians to Paul’s letters that were similar in length: Galatians, Philippians, and l Thessalonians. The differences between this letter and Paul’s writings are striking and compelling. Just to give you a taste: How often the letter uses “adversative conjunctions” (e.g., “although”): Galatians, 84 times; Philippians, 52; 1 Thessalonians, 29; Colossians, only 8. How often the letter uses causal conjunctions (e.g., “because”): Galatians, 45 times; Philippians, 20; 1 Thessalonians, 31; Colossians, only 9. How often the letter uses a conjunction (e.g., “that,” “as”) to introduce a statement: Galatians, 20 times; Philippians, 19; 1 Thessalonians, 11; Colossians, only 3. The lists go on for many pages, looking at all sorts of information, with innumerable considerations all pointing in the same direction: this is someone with a different writing style from Paul’s. Dr. Ehrman
Well done. Most of us commenting have formally studied Bible. Grad school classes do not tend to assign encyclopedia articles, they assign scholarly journal articles.
In Romans 16:22, the scribe adds his own greeting.
In Galatians 6:11, Paul adds something in his own handwriting.
I feel like you are conflating issues of authorship and the fairly well-established fact that Paul used a scribe. It was an oral culture. This was a common practice.
Thanks.
I’ll try to clarify. I have my glasses on.
Not only does Dr. Ehrman conclude that secretaries never wrote lengthy letter essays back in the day, proving that someone else forged Paul’s work, he can decide when comparing content, that Paul couldn’t be the author of any letter that didn’t fall within the writing style parameters of known letters Paul did write.
I dispute Ehrman’s conclusions. More to come.
It would be fun to challenge some scholars to a contest. Take several samples from each of several well known writers, mix them up, and ask them to figure out who wrote what.
I am a bad boy ABBOTT!
I don’t know where to put the following. If I start another comment, I might get shot.
So,
"I was a different human being. Everyone changes in those late teenage years, of course, but I’d say my change was more radical than most. Among other things, in the intervening years I had become a born-again Christian, graduated from high school, gone off to a fundamentalist Bible college, Moody Bible Institute, and had two years of serious training in biblical studies and theology under my belt. At Moody we weren’t allowed to smoke (“Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” the New Testament teaches, and you don’t want to pollute God’s temple!), drink alcoholic beverages (“Be ye not drunk with wine,” says the Bible; it didn’t occur to me that it might be okay to be drunk with bourbon)—or, well, do lots of other things that most normal human beings at that age do: go to movies, dance, play cards. I didn’t actually agree with the “conduct code” of the school (there was also a dress code, and a hair code for men: no long hair or beards), but my view was that if I decided to go there, it meant playing by the rules. If I wanted other rules, I could go somewhere else. But more than that, I went from being a fourteen-year-old sports-minded, better than average student with little clue about the world or my place in it and no particular commitment to telling the truth to a nineteen-year-old who was an extremely zealous, rigorous, pious (self-righteous), studious, committed evangelical Christian with firm notions about right and wrong and truth and error. We were heavily committed to the truth at Moody Bible Institute. I would argue, even today, that there is no one on the planet more committed to truth than a serious and earnest evangelical Christian. And at Moody we were nothing if not serious and earnest. Truth to us was as important as life itself. We believed in the Truth, with a capital T. We vowed to tell the truth, we expected the truth, we sought the truth, we studied the truth, we preached the truth, we had faith in the truth. “Thy Word is truth,” as Scripture says, and Jesus himself was “the way, the truth, and the life.” No one could “come to the Father” except through him, the true “Word become flesh.” Only unbelievers like Pontius Pilate were confused enough to ask, “What is truth?” As followers of Christ, we were in a different category altogether. As Jesus himself had said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Dr. Ehrman
I include his testimony for several reasons. Maybe some day, those who seek to learn all about the bible will be more open to the idea that others who disagree with their findings, are just as interested in finding truth as they are, maybe more.
It is fair to say that Dr. Ehrman’s life was rerouted as the result of his “born again” relationship with God through Christ. He embarked, initially, after finding God to be an extraordinary phenomenon, on a path to educate himself in all things Christian in preparation for the ministry. What had taken place in his life as a 15 year old was so powerful that he set his face like flint as a teenager to do what he could to spread the message of God’s love.
Why? What was finding Jesus like? What stirred him so much that even today the topic of God and related subjects hold such interest for him?
“For me, at the time, it felt like an enormous relief, a lifting of burden, a sense of connecting with the universe in a way I never had before. Very powerful!” “At that point Jesus became not only my Lord and Savior, but also my best friend and closest ally.” “Jesus was my model of self-giving love…”
Something like that would shake up anybody.
In fact, when brother Vinnie was asked why he loved Jesus, he responded with this:
“He created solidarity between me and God and saved me from myself with his life, deeds, mission and death on the Cross. In the person of Jesus God chose to lower himself, empty himself, face all the same trials we all do, lead an exemplary life and died so that I might learn the depths of His love and see him for his true self. He saved me as he saved the world. Jesus is God’s representative on earth. God in the flesh. How could I not love him? How could I love anything if I do not love Love? Worshiping and loving God, putting His will above mine is as natural as breathing to me. I just wish I did it as much.” Vinnie (And, we ain’t done with the good Doctor Vinnie quite yet!
Same here. Barbara Mandrell, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Dylan, Reggie White, Brian Welch, Patsy Cline, Rickie Skaggs, Merle Haggard, Charlie Daniels, Johnny Cash, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees, Nick Foles, Russell Wilsom, Dak Prescott to name a few. (Them quarterbacks better be serious, too!) Terry Bradshaw on and on.
I mention this because, Because… there is always the possibility, regardless how small or remote or seemingly impossible, that Jesus just might be the Son of God. Somehow, He convinced quite a few people that indeed, He was/is God, that He was murdered and rose again and lives today and we can Know Him!
It depends on what you mean by conservative scholars. How conservative? There is certainly a range in critical scholarship in regards to those who think, for example, a significant portion of the Gospels can be traced back to Jesus. Then there are those who think very little can. In NT studies I would probably stop at N.T Wright or Robert Gundry as conservative sources whose arguments deserve attention. But all evangelicals, no matter how objective they try to be, always start with a known conclusion before analyzing the Biblical data. When a methodology and reasoning never allows for or admits a truly negative judgment, it is clear that it is grinding a theological axe. Conservatives can definitely try their best to be objective but I also believe there is also a reason why the scholarly consensus across universities the world over by trained experts in history is what it is. My experience with them is that most are very intelligent and quote sober in most of their historical analysis. The bottom line is the arguments of critical scholars are simply better than those of conservative scholars. They can be more critical because they don’t have presuppositions pushing them towards or against historicity before actually consulting the evidence.
Brill’s Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus did something interesting in 2011. They did a series on the issue of whether critical scholars could dialogue with evangelical historical Jesus scholars. There was some inserting dialogue. [I have all the PDFs of that volume if anyone is interested] Mark Powell, who has a high view of scripture tells this story:
Some years ago when I was researching a book on historical-Jesus studies I attended a meeting of the Jesus Seminar. Some colleagues who knew I was about to embark on this trip gave me a bag of marbles to take with me—it was a bag of exclusively red marbles. They were teasing me and the basis for the joke was that I am known to be a confessing Christian who possesses a high view of scriptural authority: my colleagues were implying that I would only need one color of marble when voting on the historicity of biblical events since I believed that everything reported in the Gospels did de facto occur.
I do pretty much believe that, but their assumption would still not have held. If I had actually been a voting member of the Seminar (and if the group had actually been voting on anything at the meeting I attended), I would have needed marbles of all four colors and I suspect that I would have cast a considerable number of gray and black votes. For me, however, such a vote would not have meant ‘this event did not happen’ but simply ‘there is insufficient evidence to establish the historicity of this event apart from a theological appeal to the inspired or authoritative status of the writings in which it is attested’. Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011) 124–136
I think quite a few scholars feel this way, even if this was only intended as a joke. But notice how Powell says he does believe everything in the Gospels did de facto occur. To me research requires a claim to be falsifiable and the correct answer cannot be known ahead of time. Conservative scholars do often get many things right and can temper beliefs on the opposite end of the spectrum. Some try really hard to be objective and any good scholar will evaluate all arguments and sides of an issue but the arguments of evangelical historians are often not critical enough (confusing verisimilitude with historicity) and are not especially difficult to respond to for experts trained in the field.
That is exactly what Biblical critics do. They evaluate the evidence, inside and outside the Bible consistently. They don’t engage in special pleading for a Holy Book. Sparks has a chapter on Assyriology for this reason. He shows how historians evaluate sources outside the Bible, using careful and sober reasoning.
This is too generic for me. Source criticism has to be analyzed on a case by case basis. Can’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. We certainly don’t dump Christianity because Christians can’t agree with one another. There is often a consensus within the scholarly diversity, a belief held to by the vast majority of experts in the field whom I am absolutely certain are aware of the pitfalls and limitations of source criticism. Apologists will latch on to the diversity in critical scholarship but neglect the very strong agreements between the vast majority of scholars. The consensus is that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. It was written much later by several authors. This is widely held by talmost everyone. Once you go beyond this to specifics of exactly how it was composed, you will get more diversity because the evidence there is open to greater interpretation. As Sparks wrote, “although the narratives of the Pentateuch may contain some veiled history, in its present form the Pentateuch is largely an anthology of many different genres, including not only history, but also myths, legends, novellas, laws, rituals, and other ancient traditions from various times and places. If Moses existed all, his role in composing these texts was relatively minor because the Pentateuch was written or assembled by several authors or editors who lived long after Moses.” pg 78. That is the consensus regardless of your charge of a “myriad of different supposed sources.” I get a subtle hint of well poisoning here.
[quote=“paleomalacologist, post:22, topic:46266”]
The Pentateuch contains much material that dates back to the late 2nd millennium BC. Claims that it was invented from scratch during the Exile are not plausible. [/quote]
I don’t think anyone denies this possibility in general. But your much is extremely vague. And most people think many of the things that made it into the Pentateuch were traditional stories passed on, possibly for centuries. Of course, that fact alone shows how useless some of them are as historical data.
Could be, therefore. Apologists confuse the realm of logical possibility with historical methodology. For this reason your word choice and reasoning sounds like apologetics rather than history to me. I am not as well versed in the OT but I would ask, does something need to be universal to indicate a general pattern or trend? Also, are scholars who reconstruct P and J sources throughout the Pentatuech not aware of this? Why do they think the different names for God show different authors? Are they really this uncritical and sloppy? Of course scholars are not this naive. This is a caricature of what they actually think and the names are seen together in our extant version of the Pentateuch. This is my biggest problem with conservative ideology and scholarship. The adjective prima facie comes to mind when thinking about how narrow-minded the charges against critical scholars can be. Sparks write about Ishmael in Genesis 21, who is simultaneously mentioned as an “infant” and a young man in his view. Why? Because there are two separate sources combined by an editor, a Yahwist and Elohist source. This created the inconsistency. He says:
“Biblical critics have been relatively successful in differentiating the two sources, in part because the sources tend to refer to God using different names, Yahweh and Elohim. But variations in the divine name would be in themselves meaningless for this purpose. What makes the name variations interesting is that they correspond to a host of other indices that reveal two parallel narratives with somewhat different views of history and theology.” pg 83
Sparks also mentions in a footnote that the Yahwist sometimes used a source that referred to God using Elohim. At any rate, he went on to cite some of these indices. The first is the two creation stories. It seems obvious to me that there are two different creation stories in Genesis 1-3. Not merely the different names for God but that combined with different images of God who, to be honest, is a bit primitive and stupid in Genesis 2 when compared to Genesis 1 (after realizing none of the animals suited Adam he made Eve). Not to mention the contradictions between creation story 1 (1:1-2:3) and Creation story 2. “In the Elohim version of the creation story, the animals are created before human beings (1:1-2:3), while in the Yahweh story the creator order is Adam, then the animals, then Ee (2:4-2:25).”–Sparks. In things like this, I think scholars are on the right track here with their J and P sources.
Then Sparks goes on to mention the two genealogies (Yahweh in chapter 4 and Elohim in chapter 5) then regarding the flood that "a close inspection reveals that it too was based on two older sources that have been combined into one. Each of these stories has a distinctive beginning, chronology and ending. " pg 83 but going into 84 for details. On page 86-87 we see a large table listing a bunch of examples. It is not just the different names, but also that we seem to see different stories associated with them. Different theologies at times.
As you noted diversity before, Sparks also writes, “I should point out, for the sake of completeness. that Biblical scholars have an ongoing debate about how to characterize the two major layers of the Pentateuch.” p 86
I can’t defend or espouse a lot of OT Criticism at a high level since I am not as well versed in it as the NT, but I am convinced by a wealth of evidence that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. It came way after such a figure, who may be based on a historical kernel. I also see that OT critics actually are careful and intelligent. They make sober judgments, the same judgments they apply to other literature and historical documents.
I guess, to go back to your first question, if a conservative interpreter won’t even recognize the obvious contradictions between creation story 1 and creation story 2. How does a Biblical critic dialogue with an apologist who refuses to admit clear evidence?
Can you please cite a source on this? Book and page number or URL? It has been my experience in the last week or two that you seem to confuse and conflate different critical-historical issues and thus misinterpret what some scholars actually say.
"There is no doubt that the apostle Paul used a secretary on oc- casion. One of his secretaries tells us that he has written the let- ter! In Romans 16:22 we read, “I Tertius, the one who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.” Tertius does not mean to say that he was the “author” of the letter. He was the scribe who wrote what Paul told him to write. Paul also used a scribe for his letter to the Galatians, since at the very end he tells his readers, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (6:11). Commentators are widely agreed that Paul had dictated the letter to a secretary, but here at the end he was writing the fi-nal bit himself. He used larger handwriting either because he wasn’t as skilled at writing as the secretary, because he had problems with his eyesight and so wrote larger letters, or for some other reason.
Did Paul use a secretary for all of his letters? It is impossible to say. Did the secretaries contribute to the contents of the letter? This is easier to say. Despite what scholars often claim, all of the evidence we have suggests that the answer is no. The same evidence applies to the authors of 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and in fact to all the other early Christian writers."
I think you are misunderstanding Ehrman. He is responding to Richard’s four uses of a secretary in NT times. He is arguing over the role secretaries played in writing ancient letters for lower class individuals. I am sure if I read through the rest this would tie into the pseudonymous Pauline works.
I am guessing someone is making the claim Paul had a secretary write all or some of letters scholars now rejected by scholars as being written by him. This might explain the differences. He appears to be rejecting this proposal. The last three of the four points Richard’s trie to argue for.
It is with the other three categories that we begin to have problems. One very severe problem is the nature of our evidence. Virtually all of it comes from authors who were very, very wealthy and powerful and inordinately well educated. These were the very upper class, the highest tier of the cultured elite: emper- ors, consuls, and senators. It is a genuine question how relevant that evidence is for people who were of the lower classes, who may have been moderately well educated, which would put them way ahead of most people of course, but far below a Cicero or a Marcus Aurelius. The papyri—that is, the surviving private letters that were written by regular folk instead of the elite of soci- ety—do not give us any help in knowing about these other three categories.
Another problem has to do with the nature of the “letters” in- volved. Most letters in the Greco-Roman world were very short and to the point. They were one page or less. They had very lim- ited content. Most commonly the author would say who he was, indicate to whom he was writing, offer a brief thanks to the gods for the recipient, indicate his information or his request, and then sign off. Bam-bam-bam and done.
The reason this is a “problem” is that the letters of early Christianity that we are concerned about—the letter to the Eph- esians, for example, or 1 Peter—are not like that at all. They are lengthy treatises that deal with large and complex issues in the form of a letter. They do have the stylistic features of ancient let- ters: the names of the author and the recipient, a thanksgiving, the body of the letter, and the closing. But they are so much more extensive than typical letters, for example, in their theological ex- positions, ethical exhortations, and quotation of and interpreta- tion of Scripture. These New Testament “letters” are really more like essays put in letter form. So evidence that derives from the brief, stereotyped letters typically found in Greek and Roman circles is not necessarily germane to the “letters” of the early Christians."
What is unsound about what he has just said in your eyes?
The same applies to the letters bearing Paul’s name that he did not write, in which the contents, not just the style, differ significantly from the views of Paul himself. These letters were not produced by secretaries. They were produced by later Christian authors claiming to be Paul. As a result, the secretary hypothesis, as promising as it looks at first glance, simply can’t explain away the forgeries of the New Testament. Conclusion I CAN WRAP UP these first four chapters by making a series of summary statements. There were a large number of literary forgeries in early Christianity, some of which may be found in the New Testament. These really are forgeries, books whose authors claim to be well-known authority figures, even though they were someone else. Some scholars today avoid the term "forgery" and call these writings pseudonymous or pseudepigraphal; technically speaking, these other terms are correct, but they are imprecise. Pseudonymous writings include writings produced under a pen name, and none of the writings we have been considering fall into that category. Pseudepigraphal writings include originally anonymous writings that were later wrongly attributed to well-known figures. The books we are talking about are by authors who lied about their identity in order to deceive their readers into thinking that they were someone they were not. The technical term for this kind of activity is forgery.
He cannot make these statements as if they are facts. (He only works with probabilities.)
Another problem has to do with the nature of the “letters” in- volved. Most letters in the Greco-Roman world were very short and to the point. They were one page or less. They had very lim- ited content. Most commonly the author would say who he was, indicate to whom he was writing, offer a brief thanks to the gods for the recipient, indicate his information or his request, and then sign off. Bam-bam-bam and done.
The reason this is a “problem” is that the letters of early Christianity that we are concerned about—the letter to the Eph- esians, for example, or 1 Peter—are not like that at all. They are lengthy treatises that deal with large and complex issues in the form of a letter.
I believe I mentioned that there were overly lengthy letters that were disqualified, as well, not just those with lengthy sentences.
To my old headmaster and to anyone who cares before I’m through I’d like to say my prayers. I don’t believe you. You had the whole da n thing all wrong. He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, JESUS is reputed to have said, “I did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Truer words were never spoken. Many Christians in the modern age think of their religion as peace loving, as well it often has been and should be. But anyone with any grasp of history at all knows also just how violent Christians have been over the ages, sponsoring oppression, injustice, wars, crusades, pogroms, inquisitions, holocausts—all in the name of the faith. Maybe all the Christians behind history’s hateful acts were acting in bad faith; maybe they were violating the true principles of their own religion; “maybe they were out of touch with the peace-loving teachings of the Good Shepherd of the sheep.”
Dr. Ehrman is acknowledging, perhaps unconsciously, that Jesus said some good things.
And no one should deny the amazing good that has been done in the name of Christ, the countless acts of selfless love, the mind-boggling sacrifices made to help those in need.
I know many Christians, many, many Christians who do countless acts of selfless love and mind-boggling sacrifices to help others all the time. It is nice to hear a few kind words about them. Thanks
Either an a priori commitment to the principle that the Bible must be correct or to the principle that the Bible must be incorrect will sway one’s assessment. A serious assessment of the accuracy of the Bible must be careful to examine what it claims for itself, not what one’s favored interpretation might say (whether that interpretation is viewed as supporting or contradicting the Bible’s reliability). This requires a serious effort to understand the text in terms of its original cultural setting. Both fans and critics of inerrancy tend to misread the Bible as a modernistic historical/scientific narrative, rather than as an ancient Near Eastern document collection. Ehrman, for example, persists in the same fundamentalist attitude of his youth towards interpretation but now uses it to promote unbelief instead of belief; a similar pattern is seen in all too many shallow popular atheistic arguments.
This is an essential part of a proper understanding of accommodation. The Bible has to communicate with us. Perhaps some of us might like the Bible to be more like a textbook of systematic theology, but most people connect better with narratives about God’s work, despite the resulting ambiguities that interfere with confidently drawing precise theological conclusions from such material. Likewise, the text needs to be meaningful to the original audience. This speaks against the bible code-type approach, whether it’s claiming supernatural hints of modern physics or the “don’t get left behind” attempt to predict details of future politics from Revelation or the secret hidden casserole recipe if you read every twelfth letter or whatever. The interpretation of Revelation as purely talking of events in the first century is not particularly plausible (no early commentator seems to have thought that 666 referred to Nero, for example; any congregation with elderly, sick, or mortal members would wonder about dying before the second coming), but it is promoting the principle that God is working things towards an ultimate goal; we should be faithful and alert, not falling for calls to Make Babylon Great or other distractions. The imagery, drawn heavily but creatively from the Old Testament, contains various contradictions if it is misinterpreted as a history-style prediction of the future (as do other eschatological passages), but not if we ask what the point of the passage is.
If the references to “days” in Genesis 1 and 2 are demanded to be 24 hour periods, then there is a contradiction. But ancient Near Easterners did not just say “duh, I guess math wasn’t created until later.” The fact that the two accounts are included together shows that they were viewed as complementary and compatible in some fashion, and strongly suggests that chronology was not the point (as does comparison with other ancient Near Eastern writings that also use a 7 day sequence, not to mention comparison with geology). If Genesis 1(-2:4) focuses primarily on “all things are part of God’s creation” and the rest of ch. 2 focuses primarily on “humans have a special role and responsibility in creation”, then there is not a contradiction.
If you chop up the Pentateuch into different parts based on whether Elohim or YHWH is used, you get two parts, but that doesn’t assess the legitimacy of the basic premise. Any number of criteria can be used to make divisions, but how can the approach be tested? Indeed, several other approaches besides source criticism have their popularity in non-conservative circles. The existence of varied interpretations is no proof that none of them are wrong, but it does indicate that the claim that a particular approach is solidly settled is doubtful.
Perhaps a more fundamental problem with source criticism is that it obsesses over the assembly of the text instead of what the text means.
What basis lies behind the dates assigned to various sources? Claims such as that the Israelites could not have believed in absolute monotheism before the exile are baseless. People have all sorts of ideas at all sorts of random points; there is no fixed trend, and monotheistic ideas pop up here and there.
An obvious problem of definition is what constitutes authorship - how much later compilation and editing might occur before we say it is not of the author?
This what one might call the either/or argument or the either/or fallacy. Sadly it is part of our Western dualist heritage. The Bible must be the Truth or it must be a lie.
The irony is that the real answer is very clear and obvious in the Bible, John 1:1. Jesus is the Truth, the Alpha and Omega of our faith, not the Bible. The Bible tells us about Jesus Christ, the Logos, it is not God’s Word.
The Bible has to communicate with us, with the ancient Hebrews, the Jews, with the Greeks, with the Middle Ages, and with today’s world. Those who believe that it was written only for them or that times have changed so it is out of date are too lazy to apply themselves to understand the truth.
Jesus says that Christianity is about Love. Love is a relationship as is faith and hope. This is the key. How are people to relate to God?. Through Love, Faith, and Hope. How are we to relate to others, and ourselves? Through mutual Love.
We start with Jesus Who died for our salvation and lives that we might love, and stands in direct opposition to the Man of Lawlessness.
Correct. One should not assume before investigating an ancient source that it’s contents are either correct or incorrect. This problem plagues conservatives, not Biblical scholars. They form judgments carefully with sober methodology conservatives won’t bat an eye to when it pertains to Assyriology or any other non-biblical history. The problem
In general does not lie with Biblical critics today.
I want to agree but I don’t want to confuse theology with history. When engaged in Biblical studies there is no “Bible.” Each work is an individual document that must be understood on its own terms and its sitz im leben. The idea that there is a canonical dimension to the collection of works known as the Bible is a job for theologians to analyze. The sober works of Biblical critics should be guiding some of their judgements. But historians don’t think of “the Bible’s reliability.” Some texts are deemed more reliable than others for the purposes of historical reconstruction. But I certainly agree that a proper understanding of God’s intended purpose for scripture is a good method of theological inquiry.
There is a sleight of hand here that there is a specific model of inerrancy available apart from these interpretations that is correct. . I’m guessing it’s your model of inerrancy that’s held up to be the golden standard here? Most simply take the Bible at its word. When a letter claims to be written by Paul or Jesus suggests Moses wrote the Old Testament, they just take it at its word as opposed to coming up with contrived and convoluted explanations on how the Bible is still God’s inerrant word despite hundreds if not thousands of internal, external, scientific and moral errors—in addition to statements that are patently false and need to be reunderstood to make any sense today. Moving the goal posts so far stretches credibility.
But yes, the Bible has to be read in its historical context and I would go so far as to say those confusing the nature of inerrancy (fans and critics) are not Biblical critics. They understand the nature of the individual Biblical works all too well. It’s the fundamentalists, typical evangelicals and the atheists they argue with who misunderstand the nature of “inerrancy.” To a biblical critic, the doctrine of inerrancy is meaningless to historical inquiry. It plays no role. Each text, canonical or non-canonical, is treated like a historical document.
Are there any specific examples you can cite from Ehrman where his Biblical scholarship is shallow? I have read many of his books and watched the majority of his NT course. Like every scholar, he can make mistakes but he is generally pretty careful, sober and mainstream on what I see him talk about. I am sure he is also aware of Christian diversity but it would be unfair to expect Ehrman to comment on every single obscure theology and interpretation in a Christianity. He seems to address what he perceives as the most common version.
My understanding is Ehrman was taught that every word of the Bible was literally inerrant in an all or nothing framework. Even down to textual grounds IIRC. So horrendous and mistaken was the conservative scholarship guiding the false dilemma his church and Christian environment presented to him, once he educated himself a bit he came to easily and obviously reject the Bible and is now a very popular critic of it. What he was presented is patently false. Dismissing it with a bit of education is a no brainer for a critical thinker. Maybe it’s a negative character trait on my part but I am more inclined to blame the conservatives and feel sympathy for Ehrman in this case. When you grow up your whole life exposed to a Christianity that is intellectually bankrupt and on part with flat-earth ideology, this is inevitable for critical thinkers to reject it once they journey outside the closed off shells they grew up in. There are lots of Bart Ehrmans out there. I was one. For me, to have something so amazing be taken away has to suck! He also has immense difficulties with the problem of evil. Once we admit sin, death and suffering pre-existed some alleged fall in a magical, mythological garden, we realize the earth was the way it is now since the beginning. Those of us who do not take Genesis literally try to explain this in various way but it’s never fully coherent in my view and always entirely speculative. Many Christians who accept the Garden story would be entirely uncomfortable with God making a world with cancer, death, disease, suffering and natural disasters. I mean, the world as we look at it is what some believers associate with atheism. This is how things would look without God and they only look this way because humans made it so. Every person not drowning in conspiracy theory lunacy recognizes the earth is very old and has been this way for billions of years.It’s much easier theologically if you can blame these things on ourselves, especially when you are a modern Protestant subscribed to the fallen nature of humanity and impossibility of achieving any sort of salvation on your own.
Does every line need to communicate with us? Could parts of it have been meant for past societies, cultures and communities? Maybe those it was written for? There is a multitude of scripture that communicates nothing but anger to me. There is also a lot of scriptures that is meaningless and useless to me (Genealogies, temple measurements, purity laws, other OT regulations, etc.). I honestly could care less. I try to find the canon within the canon. Maybe the newer revelation should just supersede the older revelation, some of which dates a millennia or more before it. We are also almost two-millennia past the latest scripture. Maybe it’s times for another dispensation or at least a complete revamping of the last one.
Even under inspiration I don’t think we need to look for meaning in every scripture that was specifically intended for us. Some of it is clearly antiquated. I am sure I could force meaning out of every passage if I tried but I am not convinced that model of inspiration is correct. Quite a bit of scripture is obsolete and no more useful to me than what I can find in purely human, non-biblical works. Sometimes greater inspiration is even found outside some parts of the canon. I’m not going to chant “scripture scripture scripture” like a mindless drone. It’s not all of equal quality to me.
The problem is this is precisely how the Bible is used by countless Christians. See the recent thread on hell. Some quoting universalist verses, some quoting verses supporting hell. I’d guess a lot of Christian doctrine is filtered through lenses that treat scripture like an encyclopedia of theological knowledge and doctrine. Now this model makes sense if you subscribe to dictation or verbal-plenary inspiration.
Also the problem I have with accommodation, and I hope Sparks can alleviate it, is most interpreters are okay accommodating the OT but stop dead in their tracks when it comes to the Gospels and epistles of Paul. I think once we admit accommodation and major errors the Biblical critics tell us, an entire revamping of the major tenets of a Christian doctrine is in order. Personally, I don’t feel the need to be bound by older creeds in the church. And I always found it just a tad bit ironic that Protestants so bent on sola scripture are also fixated on affirming creedal Christianity. I’d like to see a good defense of the trinity that recognizes how the unhistorical the I am sayings in John actually are. A defense that doesn’t require force-fitting every passage in different books together as if there could not be conflict between them.
Though I agree a huge portion of the Bible is narrative and we can connect with that. Nothing beats a good story. Maybe we are meant to connect with stories and not worry as much about theology and doctrine. Did Jesus offer a systematic theology? Did Jesus have a habit of bringing up debates about the Law in the Gospels when not provoked by questions? Or did he tell stories, teach about the Kingdom of God, teach people how to behave and expect people to act charitable towards one another, including social outcasts and the marginalized members of society? Maybe I am wrong but I think Jesus spent more time on pushing for ethical behavior over offering exegetical analysis of the Law and Prophets. Maybe we should just wholeheartedly run with the narratives in the Bible and glean whatever meaning we can and not worry about anything else.
Of course, this is assuming your interpretation of it is correct. The other alternative is it was meant to be history-style predictions and has these historical errors you speak of. The point of the passage could be right on its surface, or it could be deeper. That is both a question for theologians and Biblical critics who analyze similar material and who are aware of the historical setting the work comes from. I have no stake in either claim. I just don’t presume to know the answer before I start researching nor do I claim that the interpretation which frees it from error is necessarily the preferred one. There are unfulfilled and incorrect prophecies in the Old Testament from my perspective. I even saw a few modern “Christian prophets” publicly predict Trump was getting reelected.
IF… then there is not an error. There goes that apologetics language again. If if if, apologists who engage in pious imagination and employ double standards absolutely love that word. You are just coming up with a generic and vague interpretation of the story that is completely unfalsifiable and absolutely speculative. This is apologetics, not history whether your interpretation is correct or not.
But I agree with you, if 98% of the creation narrative in Genesis doesn’t mean what it actually says, and it’s point means, what you narrowly define it to mean, since you are aware of all the errors and contradictions any other interpretation creates, then there is no error. This sort of clouded thinking is what defines evangelical apologetics in my mind. How many other creation myths could we defend if we assume they must must be true when properly understood and our imagination is the only limit to pious harmonization? If a document can make 50 false statements and still be completely true and inerrant, then surely you are just playing word games. What it seems you want to say is these narratives reliably serves the purpose for which God intended them despite the human errors inside. Just drop inerrancy. It is all but meaningless and certainly misleading.
The bottom line is there are two very different creation accounts that were placed together. They contradict with one another in details and their presentations of God are radically different (ranging from something resembling an Omni-being in the first one, to a primitive deity in the second (Gods seems to learn none of the animals will be a suitable helper for Adam). Not to mention, am I supposed to believe ancients interpreted this narrative only to get “we are special out of it?” The first creation account already tells us that. We were made in God’s image in that one. Why the mythological redundancy? Humans already have a special role in Genesis 1 and therefore your entire bifurcation and explanation for two separate stories is completely unnecessary. What new information about the world do we get out of Genesis 2? Virtually none of its statements are true in all probability. Repetitive and redundant is not the same thing as complimentary to me. But I let historical criticism as opposed to apologetics guide my thinking.
What we actually have here are reworked older creation myths. The meaning of the stories should probably be gleaned by considering the changes the Biblical authors made to these other stories (redaction criticism 101) rather than you just contriving up whatever explanation you can that allows you to say “the Bible is not in error here.” If God only had a bit more foresight and knew all the problems these two creation stories would create, with such a bland and minimalist agenda per your interpretation, maybe he would have considered inspiring slightly different creation myths or not inspiring any at all.
The first creation story does not necessarily say all things are part of God’s creation. Another valid translation involves a pre-existing substance that God forms.
How do we assess the legitimacy of your basic premise that the two creation stories in Genesis serve two different complimentary roles and are not just two different reworked older creation stories an editor placed together that contradict one another? Is it all guesswork or are we expected to engage in double standards only when it comes to what Biblical critics say and not when Christians offer modern, ad hoc interpretations of 3,000 year old stories meant at salvaging inerrancy?
And as noted, no one chops it up just based on Elohim and Yahweh, but on the fact that we also see clear evidence of two sources in these accounts with details that create friction and conflicts in the texts. Sparks went through this in chapter 4 when taking about how evangelicals just can’t seem to represent biblical criticism accurately. He says they try a divide and conquer strategy where they treat divine names and conflicting stories separately and try to explain them away. But this isn’t addressing biblical critics as they don’t do this. Their arguments are a package deal. The different names of God seem to frequently occur in places where two different stories are evident, as seen by numerous conflicts and contradictions within the Biblical text.This occurs frequently enough and there is a host of evidence against Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. There is not a host of evidence in favor of your apologetical harmonizing of the two creation stories in Genesis. The only thing going for this might be an a priori belief that they must have compatible, complimentary and harmonious meanings.
As noted, it’s a package deal to Biblical critics and the evidence is overwhelming against Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Jesus’ statement on this account is incorrect. Being incarnated as a full human did he believe this error or was he omniscient all along and just accommodating his hears? I follow those like Brown and subscribe the the former but these seem to be the only two options available. We need to come to grips with that.
Varied interpretations? What? And they are what and by whom? How does one analyze who wrote a document without source criticism? And are any of these variant theories remotely friendly to the claim that the Pentateuch is mostly by a single author in the second millennia BC? Or are they just more complicated forms of a documentary hypothesis? Virtually all of critical scholarship is against Mosaic authorship. Exactly how the documents were composed is open to greater interpretation.
Also, this is a typical apologetic ploy that is useful for placating the doubts of the unsophisticated. Point to a few scholars who disagree and try to cast doubt on the whole industry. I’m not buying what you are selling. The consensus is there. That Moses did not write the Pentateuch is firmly settled and for very good reasons. That it comes from multiple sources is firmly settled. It’s exact compositional history is open for more interpretation. There is a small school of scholars who thinks it all actually came remarkably later (this is even less friendly to conservatives).
I can point to a few scientists who are skeptical of general relativity, the Big Bang or PHDs from IVY league schools who support young earth creationism. Does this mean any of those issues are not settled? Of course not. You are overstating diversity and that diversity itself is virtually unanimous in rejecting Mosaic authorship.
Perhaps a more fundamental problem with apologetics is that it obsessed with harmonization and forcing different stories with conflicting details together into a harmonious whole as if they must be inerrant instead of assessing what each text actually means. When you force a text to mean something it does not in order to make it compatible with a different one, you aren’t actually getting at what a text means. Source criticism is valid and no amount of conservative well poisoning will change that.
That the material in the Pentateuch post-dates Moses is based on a host of evidence. Forst the text itself implies it was not Moses. It’s certainly written from a third-person perspective and naturally reads like something a later author wrote. But if you are desperate to keep Mosaic authorship and are willing to get past this, why do some evangelicals try to maintain Genesis 36:31 is a scribal gloss? Or 12:6 and 13:7 and the Canaanites? Numbers 21:10-20? There are also internal and external chronological problems. As noted, we see multiple authors and different sources inside. Problems with the reference to the Philistines. Scholars argue that based on what they can reconstruct from the time, the material reflects a first millennium view. Sparks went through some of it. I remember the NJBC going through some as well. The inability to affix an exact date certainly doesn’t call the theory into question. It shows how reserved scholars are and scholars think different parts may come from different time periods. It’s not as if they believe it was all woven from whole cloth at the time. These are older stories passed down and scholars often try to date the final redaction in addition to determining when a story might have come form, if possible.
I personally don’t recall seeing Jewish belief in monotheism as a primary reason against Mosaic authorship or recall it being mentioned. Again, evangelicals often misrepresent the views of critical scholars. I just read Karen Armstrong’s In the Beginning and she mentioned the idea that Jews were polytheist for a while. So this seems to be a belief of some scholars but I am not aware of their arguments or reasoning so I can’t comment on them.
I finished chapter 4. It was another excellent read. I took notes on the laptop but I am in a place without wifi through the end of the week so I won’t be able to post anything until then. Sorry for any typos above. I wrote that on my phone which, in hindsight, wasn’t fun .
Moving on to chapter 5 which should start to explain how Scripture and Biblical criticism can coexist.
Let’s look closely at portions of the gospel in light of your beliefs expressed here. “But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. 27 And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry." From the Gospel of John.
“Must”? You must testify about me not because I command you to do so, but because you cannot contain the overflowing joy from your encounter with me as the Holy Spirit. Your thoughts, Vinnie. Was the paraclete the Third Person or Christ himself and what difference does it make? More important for this discussion, why did the scribes and forgerers and others make up this passage and did they do so only after they discovered that Jesus was deceived and was never coming back.
A close examination is warranted into this ancient source before deciding if its contents are correct or incorrect by anyone who is curious, correct? Let’s take a closer look-see to find out what we might be able to learn, fair enough?
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