Someone turned my attention to an article by Bart Ehrman, published in the Huffington Post, titled “Who Wrote the Bible and Why it Matters.” The article is essentialy an argument that the Bible contains lies. Specifically, Ehrman addresses individual books of the Bible which claim to have been written by one person and, in fact, were not.
This is called pseudepigrapha, which means “false writing.” It happens when one author pens a work, yet claims it was written by someone else. Examples are pseudepigrapha are many. The Gospel of Thomas, The Letter of Peter to Paul, The Gospel of Judas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene all qualify. There are dozens of these works, both for the Old Testament and the New. Ehrman’s basic argument is nothing new or extraordinary. He claims that many of the New Testament books are pseudepigrapha. The leading contenders for this designation are 2 Peter and six of the letters attributed to Paul, including the pastoral epistles.
Reasons for suspecting these works are various and complex. However, according to Ehrman, the presence of these works in the Bible demonstrates conclusively that the Bible is full of lies. After all, is it not a lie to write something, and then claim that it was written by someone else? What if I wrote this blog post, but under the author designation, said it was written by Bart Ehrman? It would be deceptive and discrediting. It would be more than an error; it would be a lie. According to Ehrman, here is “the truth”:
“Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle — Peter, Paul or James — knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.”
Anyone reading this article would get the impression that Ehrman is telling his readers something that most others are either too ignorant or too scared to reveal. But he is “coming clean” with a truth that virtually all scholars have already admitted.
The article is by no means a scholarly or balanced argument. In fact, I don’t see any arguments at all, just assertions and appeals to the scholarly masses. And anyone who does not come to the same conclusion is pushed aside as biased and uninformed.
Unfortunately, this is all too common when Ehrman’s “scholarship” steamrolls the unsuspecting public. Time and time again he presents himself as the knight in shining armor, finally making the truth known to the otherwise helpless sheep following those radical (or radically ignorant) pastors and teachers within conservative Christianity. After all, this issue is such a slam dunk that anyone who disagrees with Ehrman’s conclusions is, de facto, a “rabid fundamentalist.”
Here are a few of the problems I find in Ehrman’s article:
1. Ehrman does much to disqualify his voice when he starts the article with these words: “Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible might contain errors.” At this point, what chance does any alternative to Ehrman’s conclusions really have? Although I hate to invoke argumentative fallacies (they are just not classy and are way overused), this is a classic case of “poisoning the well.” It is an attempt to discredit any alternatives by lumping them together with the most unholy of associations. But from the standpoint of any honest observer, this simply reveals the author’s emotionalism and/or timidity. If and when arguments are not present (or not very strong), just poison the well to achieve the same result. However, this only works with those who are not really seeking the truth.
2. Ehrman sees no need to present any sort of argument for his case. It is true – there are many scholars who agree with Ehrman that many New Testament works are pseudepigrapha, and they have good reasons. But these reasons are hardly as compelling as Ehrman assumes. A good case can also be made that each letter is authentic. I suggest picking up a copy of Donald Guthrie’s New Testament Introduction to see the evidence for and against each book in question. One can not easily dismiss Guthrie as a “rabid fundamentalist.” At the very least, you will get a much clearer picture of the issues than Ehrman seeks to give.
3. The implications are overstated. Even if one were to grant that 2 Peter were a pseudepigraph (and while I disagree, I admit it is the best candidate), what does this do? According to Ehrman, it means that the Bible contains lies. But this is not true. It would simply prove that 2 Peter was a lie. It is not scholarly in the least, in this type of argument, to treat the entire canon of Scripture (or just the New Testament) as one book written by one author (as the title of Ehrman’s article, “Who Wrote the Bible and Why It Matters,” does). Ironically, in such cases, skeptics like to attribute a unity to the Bible which they would never grant in any other situation! The truth is that even if 2 Peter and certain Pauline epistles were written by someone else, they alone would be deceptive. The rest of the books would be untouched.
4. The implications are not stated. Let us assume that the letters in question are not authentic. Let us grant Ehrman’s unsupported theses (just because we like the guy). What does this mean? The implications are rather unremarkable. No cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith is affected in the least. All the major doctrines of orthodox Christianity remain intact, finding their support in the authentic books. I am not saying that these letters are of no value, I am simply saying that Ehrman continually fails to mention, in all of his “pastoral revelations” to us poor unsuspecting people, that the message of the Christian faith is largely unaffected.
Unfortunately, I believe Ehrman’s style is much more “rabid” and far more “fundamentalist” than just about anyone else out there these days, believer or non. But, more than that, I would say his imbalanced treatment of this topic is the only “lie” I can see clearly in this article. Ehrman seems to have sold out the respect and contribution that his level of scholarship could demand, Christian or not. He is increasingly trading in his respectability as a scholar for some sort of crusade against Christianity, in which he may be seeking to solve his bitterness toward his own fundamentalist upbringing. He is a far cry from his mentor Bruce Metzger, and more and more resembles the lack of balance, meekness, and poise of so many in the New Atheist camp. I think a comment in the article from an atheist sums this up well:
“I would love to believe this article on its face. I am an Atheist, after all. But I would also love some references and citations for what are obviously some controversial claims. Otherwise it sounds a bit like Christian apologists.”
I suppose these days Bart Ehrman thinks his own musings are enough of a reference to support his claims.
195 replies to "Thoughts on Bart Ehrman’s Article in the Huffington Post"
Satan is a scare tactic that Christians use. LaVeyans are just as deluded.
What could be more than one of the biggest delusions than the idea that Satan is a myth! As an old book by Hal Lindsey was titled: Satan Is Alive and Well On Planet Earth!
Again “NES”, just why are you here? To educate us poor old folks? 😉 Btw, I think we did quite well before you came along! That’s a hard pill isn’t it for this narcissist generation!
But Ehrman doesn’t say (and nor did I) that “the Bible lies” – it’s a book, not an agent, so it can’t lie. He said “the Bible contains lies”, which it does, if you grant the premises that some of the books of the Bible are pseudoepigraphic, and that this makes them lies.
We can see just how reliable Hal Lindsey is as an information source here. He might well be described as the wingnuts’ wingnut.
Same thing for what I argued.
Btw: Bart responded to my article at the Christian Post.
@Jason: What could be more biblical and logical than what our Lord has said about person of Judas Iscariot! He is or was the only Judaean disciple. And yet, as Jesus said it would have been good had he never been born! (Matt. 26: 24 / Mk. 14: 21) And he kills himself, as the scripture says: Acts 1:15-20. What a most terrible death! As Ps. 69: 25, “May his camp become desolate, and let their be no one to dwell in it.” And not to mention depth and reality of John 17: 12! There are several scriptures actually fulfilled through Judas, and not one is positive for Judas! He is a lost irreparable soul, and one fallen under the great judgment of God, and surely under perdition!
This simply destroys any idea of Christian universalism!
@Nick: Both Hal Lindsey and our blog host graduated from DTS (Dallas)! It is a well know Dispensational school! It has had some very good men!
*known
C. Michael Patton,
That makes no sense. What “same thing” are you referring to?
Robert,
I doubt we would agree on who count as “very good men”.
Hey, what’s going on?
Theological censorship or moderation?
Indeed one of these good men that help start the DTS, was the English or Brit Anglican presbyter, WH Griffith Thomas, a moderate Dispensationalist, but a great Christian pastor-teacher of the Evangelical Anglican persuasion!
Btw, old Hal Lindsey is actually a good conservative man, both biblically and politically.
Wow, one of my blog replies has been sitting in “moderation” quite since yesterday A.M. Indeed who is at the helm here?
Here the Wiki on Hal Lindsey… note he has a Masters from DTS in NT study.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Lindsey
Yes, I basically like the guy, though I am more towards the PD or Progressive Dispensational position. But yes, this always must include the basic essence of Dispensationalism! (1 Cor. 10: 32) But I am also a conservative Brit, living right now in the US. And you got it, I support Modern Israel! (I lived and taught there in the late 90’s).
Fr. Robert, at least they are not just picking on me. Whew! Thought I had committed the unpardonable sin of not agreeing with them. 🙂
I fear CMP has just too many “irons” in the fire! I learned this lesson the hard way back in my 40’s also. One can only be what “God” has called him to be, and not much else! Now that I am basically retired (only hospital chaplain work these days, though that can be real tough work itself!), and I am my dear wife’s helper… she has chronic COPD, though younger than myself. Btw, whatever you do, don’t smoke! (She has not for over ten years, but the damage is done!)
Btw, “Dr. Jay” hardly anyone agrees on the blogs with me! But then I guess like you as an old teacher, I like to keep people guessing! 😉 And though I am a Calvinist, that old “neo” is very real in my sort of eclecticism! And yet, I am always a Reformed creedal guy, as too that conservatism that demands reality!
Btw, let me quote the Latin: conservare, “to retain” …
According to Quintin Hogg, a former chairman of the British Conservative Party, “Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself.” Amen, love that quote! Btw, Hogg has passed on to his eternity (2001?)…RIP!
Good old Sir Edmund Burke… Father of Conservatism! You Americans had the great William F. Buckley!
Forgive me, if I have moved the needle here as to subject!
Robert,
All my doubts have been removed. I know we don’t agree on who are good men. BTW, Hogg was a leading supporter of appeasement in the 1930s, and remained a vile homophobic bigot to the end of his life. The following is from the wikipedia article on Hogg:
@Nick: Welcome to the great Political of the Ad hominem! It seems you too are a player! And it appears a liberal?
Btw, I will man-up here as both a religious and political conservative, and state that I hate the liberal religious ideology! Here is the real vile and bigotry! Yes, we dare not pull-back from this “War”, as it touches also the “spiritual” quite often!
From the Wiki..
‘Hogg voted against Neville Chamberlain in the Norway Debate of May 1940, and supported Winston Churchill. He served briefly in the desert campaign as a platoon commander with the Rifle Brigade during World War II. His commanding officer had been his contemporary at Eton; after him and the second-in-command, Captain Hogg was the third-oldest officer in the battalion. After a knee wound in August 1941, which almost cost him his right leg, Hogg was deemed too old for further front-line service, and later served on the staff of General “Jumbo” Wilson before leaving the army with the rank of major. In the run-up to the 1945 election, Hogg wrote a response to the book Guilty Men, called The Left was never Right .’
Robert,
Don’t. Be. So. Silly. We’re arguing about whether Hogg was a “good man”. He wasn’t. Yes, he voted against Chamberlain once it was politically expedient to do so, but he was a craven appeaser of Hitler in the 1930s, when the opposite course might have avoided a war that killed some 60 million people. Here’s a quote from the link I gave earlier:
I really hate this P&P blog, I wrote something very long, only to see it disappear?
Now quickly, Hogg was a good man, he had written several Christian religious books. And he could see the sin and ill of homosexuality, before both God and culture! Indeed many of us still believe this is a very grievous sin, both Jews and Christians! I don’t agree with every statement, or the way Hogg said everything, but he was generally just old school and a conservative!
Btw, on a personal level, I have a niece (24), just a most beautiful girl, at least in her looks, one of the daughters of my younger brother, but most certainly a Lesbian! So we feel this deeply too. But right is right and wrong is wrong! And we can’t change it because of our own personal situations!
Btw, if you are a liberal and liberal Christian, fine. But not me, and never me! Note my Irish Brit family, father, uncles, even a few great uncles were WW II Vets. RIP! My father was a Spitfire pilot, and even bought and flew for fun, an American P-51 Mustang in air races, well into his 60’s. I am was also a RMC, Royal Marine Commando, retired officer (actually a “mustang”), from the reserves. But I had over 10 years active service with the regulars, from fighting communism (attached to some American Force Recon Marines, the Nam, 1968), then much later in Gulf War 1. Yep, I am a conservative, both in my Christianity and in my political nature!
From the Wiki, for Hogg…
‘Perhaps his most important book, the Penguin paperback “The Case for Conservatism,” was a similar response to “Labour Marches On” by John Parker M.P. First published in 1947 in the aftermath of the crushing Conservative election defeat of 1945, and aimed at the mass market and the layman, it presented a well-written and coherent case for Conservatism.
According to the book, the role of Conservatism is not to oppose all change but to resist and balance the volatility of current political fads and ideology, and to defend a middle position that enshrines a slowly-changing organic humane traditionalism.
For example, in the 19th century, Conservatives opposed classic Liberalism, favouring factory regulation, market intervention, and various controls to mitigate the effects of laissez faire capitalism, but in the 20th century, the role of Conservativism was to oppose a danger from the opposite direction, the excessive regulation, intervention, and controls favoured by Socialism.
Lord Hailsham was also known for his writings on faith and belief. In 1975 he published his spiritual autobiography The Door Wherein I Went, which included a brief chapter of Christian apologetics, using legal arguments concerning the evidence for the life of Christ. The book included a particularly moving passage about suicide; when he was a young man his half-brother had taken his own life, and the experience left Lord Hailsham with a deep conviction that suicide is always wrong. His writings on Christianity have been the subject of discussion in the writings of Ross Clifford. Lord Hailsham revisited themes of faith in his memoirs A Sparrow’s Flight, and the book’s title alluded to remarks about sparrows and faith recorded in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and the words of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew.’
Robert,
You evidently think that bigotry is virtuous. I disagree.
Nick: Again, when talking about “virtue”, we must also see ideology, and here you and I are poles apart! I don’t see much virtue in sin against God! Always my bottom-line, obedience to God and Holy Scripture!
And btw, let me recommend here.. the American Russel Kirk’s fine book: The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. (Regenery, 2001)
Thanks!
Replying to Jim #130,
Sorry for the delay; I was AFK this weekend. Also, the office version of Firefox is old and has a fit with this page.
Jim (from #101), “He Fr. Robert, you forgot to slam C. S. Lewis and John Stott, both universalists. Barclay was perhaps the most articulate.”
JRP (from #104), replying (not realizing Dr. Stott had finally passed on): “As for Dr. Stott, unless he has changed his mind again he’s still a major annihilationist.”
Jim (from #130): “[The ultimate annihilation of the wicked, Stott added] ‘should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment.'” Plus a quote from Stott advocating the annihilation of the wicked. “How answer ye that?” addressed to me.
I answer: looks like Dr. Stott’s biographer agreed he remained an annihiliationist, not a universalist! 😉 Universalists (like Barclay, and myself) believe in universal salvation of all sinners from sin, not (like Stott and Lewis) that some sinners will finally be annihilated.
(Continuing reply to Jim): If you meant instead, how do I as a universalist answer Stott’s comment on Rev 14:11, I answer: if “into the eons of the eons” means never-ending forever here, as Dr.S allows for the smoke, then that which generates the smoke continues by the same token, which is the tormenting; similarly in the same verse those who (per the Greek grammar) continue to worship the Beast also continue to have no rest day or night, and the faithful in the next verse continue to keep watch on God’s implanted goals.
Strictly speaking if they’re annihilated then of course they do not continue worshiping the Beast so (one way or another) also would not continue having no rest day or night. But the point is that the smoke continues being generated, and the parallel usage of language indicates that it continues going as long as the other things do. If Dr. Stott believes that’s forever, so is the worship of the Beast, the having no rest, and the watch-keeping by the faithful.
Fortunately, the key verb there (translated ‘torment’) is that for examining and testing ore with a touchstone such as in refining gold, which fits with a lot of OT scripture about God’s punishment of the wicked being like refining gold. But that’s a hopeful goal with a prophetically accomplished victory: those whom God so refines aren’t annihilated, they eventually become righteous. Fire and brimstone, furthermore, were (and still are) provincially common last-ditch emergency medical treatments to save patients of infection.
RevJohn has more to say along this line of course, and I realize this puts the problem back on the phrase “into the eons of the eons”, which does certainly mean “forever” in other contexts (including in RevJohn). But now we’re talking book-length replies.
#137 Loo, if penal sub atonement is true, then annihilation still doesn’t fit the result, since neither was Jesus permanently annihilated out of existence. If Jesus pays a hopeless punishment for anyone, by being punished, the punishment must be hopeless. Whether it’s by ETC or anni is irrelevant.
This certainly didn’t happen to Jesus, so either penal sub atonement per se is false (as I tend to go with on trinitarian grounds, completely aside and prior to the question of ECT/anni/Kath, or Calv/Arm/Kath for that matter), or penal sub is true but all the punishment Jesus took in substitution was hopeful (as my ultra-universalist friends tend to go with. I’ve noted before that if I was ever convinced penal sub was true, I’d be even more of a universalist than I am now!–although much less of a trinitarian. 😉 )
#157 Fr. Robert, the phrase about having never been born was a cry for pity and salvation toward the object, and was used that way in classic OT texts.
That Judas kills himself means nothing about whether God can and will eventually save him from his sins (without bringing in a denial of post-mortem salvation, but that’s another topic than what our Lord said about Judas).
St. Peter quoted the Psalm in the context of justifying by prophecy that someone else would replace Judas as an apostle and bishop.
Psalm 69 involves those who have persecuted David (and subsequently Christ) being blotted out of the book of life and not coming into God’s righteousness, which if anything would count against Calvinism since God does not blot the elect out of the book of life. But David, the sinner, may not (yet) notice the irony of calling for the hopeless punishment of those who expect God to hopelessly punish sinners such as David himself, from whose persecutions David cries to God for salvation and restoration to God’s fellowship. Psalm 109 is much the same thing, with David calling hopeless curses on those who curse him and expect his punishment to be hopeless. This is what we might expect from a sinner, although David does pray to God for restoration and in other Psalms seems to come to understand that the salvation he hopes for himself he should expect God to give to all.
(Continuing reply to #157): Christ the sinless, by contrast, warns the apostles after Judas’ departure (in GosJohn’s Final Discourse) that if they do not follow His new commandment to love one another as He loves them (despite their coming betrayal and abandonment of Him) that they shall not be continuing in His love and so shall be grafted out of the vine and burned. (That this is not hopeless St. Paul strongly emphasizes, and warns other people against supposing, in Rom 11.) Since in the Sermon of the Mount Christ told them that to love their friends is no more than what everyone does, and that He means for them to love their enemies, the new commandment of loving their brother must, Biblically and logically, apply to Judas Iscariot their rebel brother.
That’s the reality and depth of John 17:12, too; although if you did manage to convince me that Christ after all finally loses the soul of one whom the Father has given to Him (which runs strongly against other verses in GosJohn emphasized by Calvinists) I would surely be an Arminian not a Calvinist, as you could not afterward sell me on the eternal security of those given to the Son by the Father. But because I do take those other verses in GosJohn seriously, about the competency and persistence of God to save sinners from sin, I Biblically and logically conclude that the son of destruction (i.e. Judas) is not permanently lost. David the sinner in Psalm 41 prays for a hopeless punishment on him who has no pity on David for being punished by God in his sins (predicting the betrayal of Judas along the way). Christ the sinless routinely warns even His apostles, even after Judas has gone to betray Him, that they shall be punished by God for not being merciful to sinners — but if we interpret that punishment as hopeless, we put ourselves in the place of those whom Christ warned.
(Concluding reply to #157, and my final one for the night as well as for this thread since we’ve long gone WAAAYYY off topic — and besides it would be better to have this discussion in a forum somewhere without a character limit):
If Christ chooses a devil to be one of the apostles, this could just as easily mean that Christ elects even a devil to salvation (once the devil has served his purpose). After all, Jesus was rebutting Peter’s claim that they stayed because of their loyalty to Him. No one can come to the Son unless this has been granted from the Father, but not everyone called by the Father comes at once (as Peter himself was certainly an example of, even literally, as there are at least two and maybe three Gospel accounts of Peter being called at different times)! Peter must fulfill his role as a Satan, too, to oppose, betray and then get behind Christ.
As to the remnant according to the election of grace, Paul spoke of that in the middle of strong declarations that those who were not of the remnant, still stumbling over the stumbling stone, had not stumbled so as to fall, and that having been grafted out of the vine they could and would still be grafted back in by God — strenuously warning those currently grafted in therefore not to despise those currently grafted out as permanently lost.
While I might be wrong about some or all of that, it isn’t merely for a lack of reading and believing my Bible. 😉
As always in these so-called theological and hopefully “biblical” debates (on the blog), Holy Scripture will be our argument and exegesis!
And so I turn to Luke 16: 19-31, ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus! For the moment we will put aside the question whether this was a parable, or a piece of history, or from our Lord’s present. Though it seems it might be a bit of all this perhaps. Btw, on the blog we cannot fully do justice to this Text and texts, so I will focus in on just one Text, verse 26: “And besides all this, [the great argument thus far] between us and you there is a great chasm (“chasma, Gk.) fixed (set fast, established), so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, (cannot=are not able), and that none may cross over from there to us.”
I think this Text and so-called Parable speak for itself! Just a note, but “Abraham’s bosom” surely appears real! (verse 22) I don’t see how we can get around this great Text/texts! And then too note “torments” (verse 23), “tormented” (24), again “tormented” (verse 25), “this place of torment” (verse 28). And of course finally: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” (Verse 31)
*Note, the historical Lazarus, and “though one rose from the dead.” (See too John 12: 9)
There is much more here, but I am not able at the moment!
Wow, Jason, it appears my answer back to you (that I just wrote), is in “moderation” again, just amazing!
Why have a blog, and thus blog questions, if when one answers using Scripture, it goes to moderation? Especially someone who has already commented? I am certainly not a computer guy myself, but its seems rather nuts to me! Of well, and it does greatly impede the blog progress and answers in the argument & debate!
189 Fr. Robert (Anglican)
Really? I thought scripture was what it was all about?
*Oh well..
Yes, it is Sola Scriptura for us “truly” Reformed! 😉
Hey I got “moderated” early! #187 😉
[…] http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/06/bart-ehrman-is-at-it-again/ […]
I have been listening to the New Testament series taught by Dr. Bart D. Ehrman (The Great Courses series) and I must say that I find solid scholarship lacking. He sets the stage by arbitrarily assigning authorship in most (perhaps all, as he is not really clear on this) to pseudonymous origins written at conveniently late dates. I say, conveniently late because it sets the stage to refute them as inauthentic and in most cases bogus. I find it strange indeed that John’s writings, for instance, are placed well after 70 A.D. although there is no mention of the fall of Jerusalem in any of the books of the Bible, yet he refers to historical markers (or the lack of them in this case) as proof of his positions. Personally, unfortunately, I find Dr. Ehrman intellectually dishonest. Sorry, but I do get that feeling.