Reading anything?

[lester1/2jr]

the truth shall set you free

[indianasmith]

A sentiment I agree with - but Ehrman can be very disingenuous.

One example:  In MISQUOTING JESUS, he cites the "fact" that there are over 400,000 errors in the Greek translations of the New Testament.
Considering the New Testament is only 250,000 words long, that makes it sound as if the text is totally unreliable. BUT -

to arrive at that figure, he counted duplicate errors as individual ones.  (In other words, if a scribe misspelled a word in his copy of Matthew, and 20 scribes who copied from his manuscript repeated that same spelling error, he counted it as 21 errors, not one error repeated 21 times.)
If you cut out all the duplicate errors like that, his figure drops to less than 100,000.
Of those remaining, over 80% are simple spelling errors - easily detected, easily corrected, and actually helpful in tracing manuscript origins.  They change nothing as far as meaning goes.
That brings it down to fewer than 10,000 errors.  Over 90% of those are word reversals, the most common of which is "Christ Jesus" for "Jesus Christ."  Again, it changes NOTHING as far as meaning is concerned.
In the end, less than 1% of the text of the New Testament is in any doubt whatsoever, and none of those passages where the original wording is in dispute change a single basic doctrine of the church.
That's what I mean when I say his scholarship is either deliberately sloppy or disingenuous.

[lester1/2jr]

He counted 400,000 errors I'd hardly call that sloppy. I don't know 400,000 anything.

His point I imagine i haven't read that is that the bible can't be infallible if there is even one error, much less 400,000

actually, the most recent ehrman thing I watched was a debate with robert price who believes Jesus never existed so... he was representing the conservative side on that one

[indianasmith]

That depends largely on what your definition of infallible is. 
I don't think any denomination stretches it to include every handmade copy ever produced!
Ehrman is a bright guy, he's found his niche and sells way more books than I do, so hats off to him for that.
But he also does go for sensationalist positions sometimes. 
A good counterbalance is "Fabricating Jesus - How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels."  I forget the author's name, but he has actually taught alongside Ehrman and has PhD's in a couple of subjects.
I don't doubt Ehrman believes what he writes; belief, however, is no guarantor of truth or historical accuracy.

I will say that the position "Jesus never existed" is virtually indefensible.  The evidence that He was a real historical figure is overwhelming.

[lester1/2jr]

well, nothing from that era is all that overwhelming. There is some roster that names Pontius Pilate and they relatively recently found a coin that had his name on it, but other than that there is no contemporary record of him either.

Most of Jesus' fame came long after his death via his followers and there is much more of a record of them. Ehrman relied mostly on Paul who of course knew James and Peter who themselves knew Jesus thus creating a lineage.  he discounts the letters of James and Peter in the NT as forgeries though 

[Newt]

belief, however, is no guarantor of truth or historical accuracy.

[indianasmith]

well, nothing from that era is all that overwhelming. There is some roster that names Pontius Pilate and they relatively recently found a coin that had his name on it, but other than that there is no contemporary record of him either.

Most of Jesus' fame came long after his death via his followers and there is much more of a record of them. Ehrman relied mostly on Paul who of course knew James and Peter who themselves knew Jesus thus creating a lineage.  he discounts the letters of James and Peter in the NT as forgeries though 

He is in a real minority with I Peter - the vast majority of scholars, skeptics and believers, believe it to be authentic. James is well-attested and has been attributed to Jesus' half brother as far back as we can attest it.  It is true, however, that many scholars - a huge majority at one time - reject II Peter.  However, in recent years, there has been some reconsideration of that opinion.
I'll probably pick up Ehrman's book and give it a read, though.

About Pilate - there is a lengthy letter from Philo of Alexandria criticizing Pilate as governor that was written while Pilate was alive, and Josephus wrote extensively about him some fifty years after his death.  The fact is, other than the New Testament writings and a handful of inscriptions, there aren't a lot of surviving written records out of Judea from the first half of the first century.
One thing that is fascinating, though, is the recent discovery of a substantial portion of Mark's gospel that has been used as paper-mache for an Egyptian funeral mask.  The mask is early to mid second-century, and they think that the copy of Mark used to make it might date as far back as 70 AD.  That would be a real game-changer!

[lester1/2jr]

I saw that.

There's a good chapter on more overt, recent forgeries some of which you might know of or remember. Someone goes to a monestary and finds some long lost tome describing Jesus going to India or this or that secret gospel.

As a kid I remember the Hitler Diaries. Theres an art to forgery but also "tells", often that they give away what era they are being created in. This happens with fake old master paintings too. the forger ultimately is trying to make money or gain fame so they can't help but try to appeal to the current tastes.

The bible guys had different reasons mainly to try and add apostolic authority to their own opinions. Marcion and those sort of people

[indianasmith]

I've researched the topic my whole life,  I have yet to see any evidence that shows the Gospels were written by anyone other than the men whose names they bear.  They've never been attributed to anyone else, those designations go back to the very beginning of the Christian era, and there were so many bogus Gospels written in the second century that were immediately rejected as spurious.

But, acknowledging traditional authorship makes it much harder to be a skeptic, so I understand why Ehrman is so anxious to disprove it.

[lester1/2jr]

" I have yet to see any evidence that shows the Gospels were written by anyone other than the men whose names they bear.  "

Well, If you've researched this topic your whole life than you knew yours is not the majority opinion. very few scholars outside of evangelicals believe that Luke the companion of Paul wrote the gospel of Luke or that the apostle Mathew wrote Mathew. There are obvious discrepencies between Paul and acts, such as the amount of time between his conversion and his meeting the apostles. In his letters its several years, in Acts its right away

But, acknowledging traditional authorship makes it much harder to be a skeptic, so I understand why Ehrman is so anxious to disprove it.

the gospels are anonymous so the burden of proof would not be on skeptics to disprove their authorship but on those who think that John,who is described as ignorant and illiterate in Acts, wrote the complex gospel of John in perfect Greek.  the titles were added long after they were written

Papias actually does mention a gospel of Mathew which is just quotes (a la the much later gospel of thomas) but that was in hebrew while the one we know today was in Greek.

[indianasmith]

John was described as "unlearned" - i.e., not trained in the rabbinical schools - in 32 AD.
He wrote his Gospel near the end of his long life.  Can a man not learn anything in a lifetime?
And his Gospel is far from "perfect Greek" - it's actually filled with Aramaisms.
And I think Erhman exaggerates the consensus of opinion on Luke's authorship.  A majority of scholars accept the "we" passages in Acts as authentic, and Luke's rigorous attention to detail certainly implies he was there for much of those events.  But here is a point: if you accept apostolic authorship, then that would certainly drive you towards believing what the Gospels claim about Jesus is true, which would lead one towards being an "evangelical."  There are many scholars who started off as atheists/skeptics and then became believers because the evidence convinced them of the Gospels' truth.  In short, their journey took them in the exact opposite direction that Ehrman's did.

One of the most important things I learned in college is: "There are no unbiased historians."  That applies in every field of historical study, including the New Testament.  Everyone has an agenda, Ehrman included.

[lester1/2jr]

"He wrote his Gospel near the end of his long life.  Can a man not learn anything in a lifetime?"
 
when did he write Revelation then? which is written in a totally different style going down to the primitve vs refined quality of the Greek itself?

How did he live such a long life when everyone else was martyred. fleet footed?

"  A majority of scholars accept the "we" passages in Acts as authentic"

so Paul was in two places at once. wow that incredible

"In short, their journey took them in the exact opposite direction that Ehrman's did."

I'm sure all of them agree the gospels are in fact anonymous though. in terms of their claims as opposed to Paul's letters. They'd have to theres no "Luke here" moment in any of them

[AoTFan]

Meh.
Ehrman's just another bitter ex-Christian with an agenda.
Sloppy scholar, too.  LOL

Where do you get the idea he's bitter?  I mean, I've read two of his books (well, one and a half, I still gotten through Forged yet) and he explains in one of them his reasons for not being a Christian anymore and they sound pretty rational to me. 

To sum up, the guy was studying the Bible, first at Christian universities, then he started learning Greek and studying at secular institutions and he began to notice that the more he studied from non-Christian sources the more they would point out various mistakes and contradictions in the text.  This eventually lead him to start re-evaluating his beliefs.   

Deny it if you want, but there's a BIG trend amongst Christian "scholars" to pretty much say, "Oh, The Bible is perfect and true and ANY source doesn't start from this premise, we're just gonna COMPLETELY ignore!  We might even go so far as to say the people who wrote it were evil/unbelievers/had an agenda etc, etc." 

Anyway, to me though, it's a not a new story.  I know of a LOT of former believers who, once they actually began studying about the Bible and it's history (and not just from whitewashed Christian sources) they came to same conclusion.

[indianasmith]

And there are many who started as atheists who came to the opposite conclusion, who's to say their experience wasn't equally valid?
Believing in the truth of something does not negate your scholarship on that topic - if you think that, then 98% of what scientists wrote about evolution could be dismissed as hopelessly biased and therefore inaccurate.

[indianasmith]

"He wrote his Gospel near the end of his long life.  Can a man not learn anything in a lifetime?"
 
when did he write Revelation then? which is written in a totally different style going down to the primitve vs refined quality of the Greek itself?

How did he live such a long life when everyone else was martyred. fleet footed?

"  A majority of scholars accept the "we" passages in Acts as authentic"

so Paul was in two places at once. wow that incredible

"In short, their journey took them in the exact opposite direction that Ehrman's did."

I'm sure all of them agree the gospels are in fact anonymous though. in terms of their claims as opposed to Paul's letters. They'd have to theres no "Luke here" moment in any of them

I'll answer these points in order.
OK, John, according to early sources, was exiled to Patmos by Domitian.  He wrote the Revelations there, most likely in his own hand.
After Domitian died in 98 AD, John returned to Ephesus, where he was surrounded by his loyal disciples, and knowing his end was near, he wrote the Gospel that bears his name, probably using a scribe to record his words, which (along with the completely different subject matter of the two books) accounts for the difference in the language usage between the two.  John died of old age - the only one of the Twelve to do so.  On that all the second, third, and fourth century sources agree.  In fact, John dealt in the last chapter of his Gospel with the superstitious belief that he was going to live on till Christ came back, showing that he must have been a very old man when he wrote it!
Luke neither says nor implies that Paul was in two places at once; he simply skips the time that Paul traveled in Arabia (two years, according to Paul in Galatians), and picks up the story when Paul rejoined the Christian community.  Ehrman is forcing a contradiction where there is none.
As for your last comment - well, the Gospels are indeed anonymous.  However, nearly everyone agrees that Luke and Acts are by the same person.  The narrative style and the identical introductions both prove that, as does the consistent use of Greek and Luke's eye for historical details.  Only a handful of the most radical scholars reject this idea.  And Luke, by his own admission, was not an eyewitness of Jesus' life.  So he doesn't include himself in his Gospel, but when you get to Acts, he clearly includes himself in Paul's travels, using "we" and "us" repeatedly.
All the Gospels provide clues to the identity of the author - John most clearly, Luke second, and even Matthew and Mark insert little details about themselves into the story that the others neglect.

Also, the Gospels were associated with those four names as far back as we can trace them, to the mid-second century, less than a hundred years after they were written.  The church accepted these four books, and these alone, rejecting dozens of other pseudepigraphical works that bore the names of Peter, Thomas, Judas, Paul, James, and so on.  From the very earliest years of the Christian movement, these books were strongly associated with the men whose names they bear and NEVER once with any other. They were considered authoritative because they came directly, or indirectly, from the apostles of Jesus.

 If the Gospels were any other work of antiquity, the traditional authorship would be unquestioned by anyone.  But, because they are Christian works - because indeed their story is the very heart of Christianity - they have been held to a much higher standard of proof than any other document of the ancient world.  They are better attested, better preserved, and earlier attested, than any work from that time period (did you know our earliest copy of Caesar's COMMENTARY ON THE GALLIC WARS was copied over a thousand years after the original was written, while our earliest texts of the Gospels date within a generation of their composition? We have a good-sized fragment of John that dates to 125 AD, which places it within 30 years of the time John wrote the original text!)

Ehrman no longer believes in Christianity, and his work is guided by his desire to make others disbelieve.  It may not be "bitterness" - that was a poor choice of words - but he DOES have an agenda, and that agenda is skepticism.