The Ehrman Project

[Bill Hamblin]

My link

[Calm]

In an engaging way, he is questioning the credibility of Christianity.

Many criticisms are directed against one interpretation of Christianity. Is there anything he claims or questions that actually puts the credibility of Christianity at risk? There is a huge difference in challenging inerrancy and in challenging the resurrection, after all.

The only link that looks like it might be questioning Christianity itself is the "conspiracy" question, but even that deals with the treatment of scriptures.

[cinepro]

Many criticisms are directed against one interpretation of Christianity. Is there anything he claims or questions that actually puts the credibility of Christianity at risk? There is a huge difference in challenging inerrancy and in challenging the resurrection, after all.

The only link that looks like it might be questioning Christianity itself is the "conspiracy" question, but even that deals with the treatment of scriptures.

While Ehrman definitely attacks the "inerrant" version of Bible belief (probably because he is most familiar with it and it is the easiest to deflate), he covers a lot of ground in general that even LDS might find problematic.

I do remember one argument he raised in his book "Jesus, Inturrupted" where he noted that the gospels probably weren't written by any of the 12 disciples because none of the 12 disciples would have come from the kind of wealth needed to be educated to the point that they could be literate enough to write something like that. Which my LDS-trained mind immediately took as proof that they had written those books, but with divine help.

[Zakuska]

While Ehrman definitely attacks the "inerrant" version of Bible belief (probably because he is most familiar with it and it is the easiest to deflate), he covers a lot of ground in general that even LDS might find problematic.

I do remember one argument he raised in his book "Jesus, Inturrupted" where he noted that the gospels probably weren't written by any of the 12 disciples because none of the 12 disciples would have come from the kind of wealth needed to be educated to the point that they could be literate enough to write something like that. Which my LDS-trained mind immediately took as proof that they had written those books, but with divine help.

Even the Jews were astounded that Jesus knew how to read...

John 7

15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?

Just one more thing JS has in common with the Lord, I suppose. Their critics used the same tactics and there is nothing new under the sun.

Of course modern critics now think Joseph was some sort of religious genius.

We also know at least 1 of the 4 Gospels was not written by an eye witness.

Luke 7

2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

It may even be saying that the other 3 Gospels were also written by none eye witnesses because he uses the plural "they delivered" and "unto us" when speaking about others who also wrote what the Apostles delivered unto them.

[PaulBoyerFan]

Many criticisms are directed against one interpretation of Christianity. Is there anything he claims or questions that actually puts the credibility of Christianity at risk? There is a huge difference in challenging inerrancy and in challenging the resurrection, after all.

The only link that looks like it might be questioning Christianity itself is the "conspiracy" question, but even that deals with the treatment of scriptures.

Well, my sense is that Ehrman is fairly sympathetic to the view of the historical Jesus that was most famously put forward by Albert Schweitzer and that is fairly common in scholarly circles. This view is that Jesus was a first century Jewish apocalyptic with a belief in an eminent eschatology. He did not believe or teach that he was divine, although he did believe that he and his disciples would have a prominent role in the coming kingdom of God (Schweitzer believed that Jesus came to identify himself with the "Son of Man" who would help initiate this kingdom.) Stories about the nativity, resurrection, miracles, etc. were later additions to the tradition, and the Gospels were compiled and written decades after the time of Jesus by early Christians who wrote under the names of Jesus's early followers.

[Stargazer]

While Ehrman definitely attacks the "inerrant" version of Bible belief (probably because he is most familiar with it and it is the easiest to deflate), he covers a lot of ground in general that even LDS might find problematic.

I do remember one argument he raised in his book "Jesus, Inturrupted" where he noted that the gospels probably weren't written by any of the 12 disciples because none of the 12 disciples would have come from the kind of wealth needed to be educated to the point that they could be literate enough to write something like that. Which my LDS-trained mind immediately took as proof that they had written those books, but with divine help.

I read this book, too, and this point struck me as well, but my idea was that Ehrmann was assuming far, far, too much. We have in modern times sufficient examples of people who hadn't received much in the way of education in their youth or early adulthood, or even sometimes in later life, who then went on to produce enduring works of literature, or at least could write in a journal. Granted that literature was harder to come by in the meridian of time, but there is no reason to suppose that the tax collector, Matthew, for instance, did not have the means (in both time and money) to learn to write, and the physician, Luke, clearly had an education. What stops Mark and John from being able to learn to write, if learning to write was what they needed to do to get the message out? There were enough learned men among the early disciples, surely, who could have been engaged (for free!) to teach the apostles their letters! Like I say, Ehrmann assumes too much.

Edited to add the following:

I thought I should expand a bit on this to make the point more sure. I cannot come up with any famous literary authors who were uneducated in their youth or young adulthood, though I am sure they are out there, so I thought it might be instructive to bring up the case of Sequoyah, the Cherokee who originated an alphabet for the Cherokee language.

Here is the case of an illiterate man, who, observing the efficacy of writing amongst the whites, decided to create a writing system for his own people and his own language. This writing system was eventually accepted by the Cherokee nation, and in many places the members of the tribe were more literate in this script than the surrounding whites were in theirs. Sequoyah's writing system is still in use among the Cherokee today. In short, one man developed a system of writing and in his lifetime managed to teach it to hundreds, who in turn taught it to thousands of people who could not previously read or write in any language. Now, tell me that the apostles couldn't have learned to read and write Hebrew and Greek, or Latin, because they weren't rich enough to afford a formal education. Not only does Ehrmann assume too much, he also exhibits an intellectual bias in which he imagines that only formal education can make one literate.

[Bill Hamblin]

Ehrman's argument is silly. Even if all the apostles were illiterate, there was a widespread tradition of dictating to scribes. (Indeed, Christian tradition claims that the gospel of Mark is Peter's account as recorded by Mark). Just read Paul's letters. Literate Paul dictated many of them to scribes, as he states explicitly in some letters.

[cinepro]

Here's part of Ehrman's argument from "Jesus, Interrupted", page 106:

And who were the authors of the Gospels? Even though they all kept their identities anonymous, we can learn a few things about them from the books they wrote. What we learn stands completely at odds with what we know about the disciples of Jesus. The authors of the Gospels were highly educated, Greek-speaking Christians who probably lived outside Palestine.

That they were highly educated Greek speakers goes virtually without saying. Although there have been scholars from time to time who thought that the Gospels may originally have been written in Aramaic, the overwhelming consensus today, for lots of technical linguistic reasons, is that the Gospels were all written in Greek. As I've indicated, only about 10 percent of the people in the Roman Empire, at best, could read, even fewer could write out sentences, far fewer still could actually compose narratives on a rudimentary level, and very few indeed could compose extended literary works like the Gospels. To be sure, the Gospels are not the most refined books to appear in the empire - far from it. Still, they are coherent narratives written by highly trained authors who knew how to construct a story and carry out their literary aims with finesse.

Whoever these authors were, they were unusually gifted Christians of a later generation. Scholars debate where they lived and worked, but their ignorance of Palestinian geography and Jewish customs suggests they composed their works somewhere else in the empire - presumably in a large urban area where they could have received a decent education and where there would have been a relatively large community of Christians.

These authors were not lower-class, illiterate, Aramaic-speaking peasants from Galilee.

He also cites Matthew 9:9 as suggesting Matthew wasn't written in the first person, and John 21:24 as suggesting John wasn't written in the first person.

[Robert F. Smith]

Many criticisms are directed against one interpretation of Christianity. Is there anything he claims or questions that actually puts the credibility of Christianity at risk? There is a huge difference in challenging inerrancy and in challenging the resurrection, after all.

You are probably right about the difference, but then why are evangelicals so tied to inerrancy?

In his The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Ehrman may be onto something. After all, we can be certain of the Jewish scribal tikkune soferim or emendations by scribes of biblical texts which they considered blasphemous or disrespectful toward God. Ehrman is saying that theology can strongly motivate scribes to alter a text and that this is what happened to the New Testament over time.

[David Bokovoy]

Here's part of Ehrman's argument from "Jesus, Interrupted", page 106:

He also cites Matthew 9:9 as suggesting Matthew wasn't written in the first person, and John 21:24 as suggesting John wasn't written in the first person.

I enjoy Ehrman's work. Citing passages such as Acts 4:13 in his The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, Ehrman articulates the same point with some additional details:

[Vex]

So I watched the inerrency video they have posted. To me it seems that the good doctor is out of touch with individuals and their popular usage of the term. The popular usage I have been exposed to by many other Christian denominations is that the Bible in its current configuration and translation contains no perceivable errors within the bindings. As the doctor described inerrency I can agree with a majority of his position with perhaps a few caveats.

[Vance]

So I watched the inerrency video they have posted.

Ditto.

To me it seems that the good doctor is out of touch with individuals and their popular usage of the term.

Well, when pushed a little, their apologists always back away from the popular/common usage of the term, because it isn't defensible. How it remains popular/common makes one wonder.

The popular usage I have been exposed to by many other Christian denominations is that the Bible in its current configuration and translation contains no perceivable errors within the bindings.

Ditto.

As the doctor described inerrency I can agree with a majority of his position with perhaps a few caveats.

When the antis read that statement, the only part they see is "I can agree with a majority of his position". And then they feel vindicated.

[Bill Hamblin]

Here's something I wrote on the topic of literacy among the disciples.

My link

It is germane to Ehrman, since Ehrman is Hitchens' main (only?) source on this claim.

Early Christian Literacy

Hitchens is also mistaken in his claim that all of Jesus's disciples were "illiterate" (p. 114). Presumably he is basing this claim

[volgadon]

I enjoy Ehrman's work. Citing passages such as Acts 4:13 in his The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, Ehrman articulates the same point with some additional details:

[volgadon]

Also, some of these ammei aratzot were capable of very impressive biblical homilies, and I recall reading somewhere thhat many could show off by reciting all the generations from Adam down to Zerubbabel with complete accuracy.

As for Ehrman's dismissive remarks about going back to school, there is the legend of R. Akiva, who did precisely that at the (stereotypical) age of 40.

The picture of literacy in ancient Palestine is a bit more complex than Ehrman gives it credit for being.

[Bill Hamblin]

I agree with Ehrman on some things, and disagree on others. But he clearly has a bee in his bonnet about the New Testament. His personal apostasy colors his writings in both overt and subtle ways.

First, I should note that if Ehrman is correct that the NT reflects late Christian traditions, then why should he think it tells us anything meaningful about the literacy of the Apostles? He can't have it both ways. He can't have a NT that accurately reflects incidental details that support his position, but is so distant from the actual events in time and space that it does not accurate reflect incidental details that undermine his position.

Second, Aramaic was the daily language of Jesus and the apostles. However, they lived in a bilingual society, where Greek was widespread. The NT contains a number of stories of Jesus and the apostles speaking to gentiles. These conversations were almost certainly in Greek.

Third, we have almost no knowledge of the background most of the apostles. For Ehrman to claim they were all "lower-class, illiterate, Aramaic-speaking peasants from Galilee" is an assumption on his part. It is an assumption that is clearly at odds with what little we know. Peter, for example, owned a boat. He was therefore not a peasant. Minimally, he was middle-class. The John the Beloved knew the High Priest. He was obviously upper class. John the Baptist was a priest, and therefore certainly could read. Matthew was a tax collector, not a peasant, and tax collectors had to read and speak Greek. Jesus is depicted as reading in the synagogue, and conversing with numerous gentiles who would have been Greek speakers. Anyone Jew beyond a peasant farmer who never left his village was bilingual in ancient Galilee and Jerusalem.

Fourth, Ehrman's real point is to distance the Gospels from the events they discuss. If the gospels are eye-witness accounts (recounted second hand to scribes), then Ehrman's overall claims are much more difficult to maintain. And there is strong evidence that the Gospels are eyewitness accounts (Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Eerdmans 2006).

Fifth, Ehrman's claim that the authors of the Gospels did not know Palestinian geography is simply wrong. The incidental detail about the topography of Jerusalem and the temple could only have come from eyewitnesses, and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed after AD 70. Whoever wrote most of the New Testament clearly knew the topography of Jerusalem. This obviously undermines his claim that the gospel authors lived outside Palestine.

[volgadon]

Anyone Jew beyond a peasant farmer who never left his village was bilingual in ancient Galilee and Jerusalem.

Indeed, trilingual.

[volgadon]

Fifth, Ehrman's claim that the authors of the Gospels did not know Palestinian geography is simply wrong. The incidental detail about the topography of Jerusalem and the temple could only have come from eyewitnesses, and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed after AD 70. Whoever wrote most of the New Testament clearly knew the topography of Jerusalem. This obviously undermines his claim that the gospel authors lived outside Palestine.

In some places this is true. Others, like Legion and the herd of swine, show, if not ignorance of local topography, then at least a disregard for it.

[Bill Hamblin]

In some places this is true. Others, like Legion and the herd of swine, show, if not ignorance of local topography, then at least a disregard for it.

True. But the geography story seems to be garbled by scribal transmission = many variants on the name location.

[volgadon]

True. But the geography story seems to be garbled by scribal transmission = many variants on the name location.

Iam thinking more of the distance between the water and the cliffs, and how the swine would have broken their necks long before they ran the 3 km's or so to the water.

[Bill Hamblin]

Iam thinking more of the distance between the water and the cliffs, and how the swine would have broken their necks long before they ran the 3 km's or so to the water.

I understand the herd grazing on the lower slopes of the Golan cliffs, not the top. It occurs in the "country/region" (ch?ra) of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:1), not the city itself. They meet the demoniac "immediately" (euthus) after leaving the boat, which means the incident is near the sea shore.

[ElfLord]

On a related note, while the degree of fluency the apostles had in Greek is a matter of debate, it seems more than likely that they were at least conversant in it. Peter, James and John were businessmen operating out of the bustling port of Capernaum, which carried on a brisk trade in fish. It had a gentile presence as well. I find it an unreasonable assumption that Peter, James, and John were completely illiterate. I think rather the scenario in Acts 4:13 has more to do with Peter and John being what the rabbis would later term disparagingly ammei aratzot. Boors and bumpkins, if you will.

As Sam Jaffee has shown conclusively, religious instruction was imparted orally. I don't think then that the priestly circle in acts 4 cared whether Peter and John knew their letters or not!

Also, Josephus employed scribes and translators to make sure his Greek composition was good enough. Such a scenario is entirely conceivable here, even if the books we currently have are further removed from the apostles.

How about... "village idiots"?

Or any of the mirriad of diminuitive labels applied to the early frontiersmen type LDS by the educated elites in the east.

They had quite a few choice ones for Joseph Smith and Hyrum and making fun of Joseph Smith's lack of education and his exagerated sluggish cognitive tempo seems to have been one of the critics favorite pass times and most potent poisons for the well.

One theme in the histories of the US one sees when reading about early Mormonism and their interactions with others, is the charge of all the early immigrant converts coming from Europe is that, the people where of low class and sofistication and education. We see the same thing in our day and age in reguards to the Immigration issues. People assume that if someone doesn't speak their language, they are automatically seen as illiterate dumb brutes. And we see the exact same thing happening in the Bible narratives and the distain the locals had/have of the outsiders moving in, taking over the economy and politics in a region and Jerusalem was no different.

[ElfLord]

I understand the herd grazing on the lower slopes of the Golan cliffs, not the top. It occurs in the "country/region" (ch?ra) of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:1), not the city itself. They meet the demoniac "immediately" (euthus) after leaving the boat, which means the incident is near the sea shore.

Another key issue in the story that needs to be taken into account is the graveyard which the men came out of. It would have had to have been close to the seashore as well.

[volgadon]

I understand the herd grazing on the lower slopes of the Golan cliffs, not the top. It occurs in the "country/region" (ch?ra) of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:1), not the city itself. They meet the demoniac "immediately" (euthus) after leaving the boat, which means the incident is near the sea shore.

I was thinking of the lower slopes, they are still fairly steep and rugged. You most probably would break your neck jumping off them. Between them and the shore is a flat plain of two or three km's. Either way, one of the elements is missing. If you accept that this occured on the slopes, then the sea becomes an extremely unlikely element. If you accept that the swine drowned themselves, then it wasn't on the slopes that Legion entered into them. Either way, to combine both shows a disregard for the topography.

You've been to the area, I mean the BYU students stay at Ein-Gev for several day.

[David Bokovoy]

As an OT guy, I don't have a dog in this fight. I believe the texts are inspired regardless who wrote them. I do agree with him, however, that ancient people were not nearly as literate as most of us have assumed. It is a fact that preindustrial societies had neither the incentive nor the means to provide mass education in literacy for their children.

I do find it interesting that whoever the author of Matthew was that he does not understand Semitic parallelism and therefore places Jesus on both a donkey and a colt in order to fulfill Zech 9:9. I have a hard time imagining a Jewish author making this mistake, but even Ehrman acknowledges that it is a possibility.