Lost and Found-- a Student critique of Ehrman's 'Lost Christianities'

The following is a seminar paper presented by one of my doctoral students which I thought was a useful critique of Bart Ehrman's popular work on 'Lost Christianities.
BW3


ALTERNATIVE VIEWS OF CANON AND CULTURE:
AN ANALYSIS OF EHRMAN’S LOST CHRISTIANITIES


SUBMITTED TO DRS. WARREN SMITH AND BEN WITHERINGTON
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
NT805—THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
AND THE FORMATION OF THE CANON








BY
BRAD JOHNSON
JULY 26, 2008

Had Jesus of Nazareth left an autobiographical account of his life, teachings, and ministry, there would be perhaps no need for the Gospel accounts and other writings of the NT as we have them today. In the absence thereof stands instead an ongoing debate over the authenticity and accuracy of alternative (and oftentimes competing) accounts of the Jesus Event. This begs a foundational question: are all accounts valid? Further, what constitutes the basis for such determinations? An initial foray into the arena of canon formation and criteria reveals a lack of precise consensus not only on what the criteria for canonization were and are, but also as to the method of preserving the history of that canon.
In Lost Christianities, Bart Ehrman sets out to examine the NT documents themselves, and more specifically, to bring to light some of the various documents that failed to reach canonical status. Suggesting that there may in fact be value in resurrecting these ancient writings, he embarks on a journey that examines the trail of remains of written sources from—along with the extinct manifestations of—early Christianity in an effort to demonstrate their role in preserving the Christian heritage and its diverse history of theology and practice. He argues that the ongoing commitment to a closed NT canon of twenty-seven documents is in reality not only a product of the hegemony of the orthodox tradition emerging from the fourth century, but perhaps also an incomplete and inadequate account of early Christianity and the diversity of forms representing it. Recent discoveries (such as the Nag Hammadi documents) create opportunities, he maintains, for understanding ancient and contemporary Christianity in new ways.
Ehrman’s approach is built around the following methodology. The first part examines a number of pseudepigraphical writings which “tell us about the various forms of Christian faith and practice in the second and third centuries” (ix). By appealing to a broader range of writings, argues Ehrman, a richer and more diverse composite sketch of early Christianity can be discerned. The second part looks at a number of rival social groups standing in contrast to a particular form of Christianity that eventually carried the day. These groups represent various points on a theological spectrum, and generate the tensions Christianity experienced with Judaism on one hand, and pagan philosophy on the other. The third part addresses the conflicts that ensued between the various groups and belief sets, illustrating “how one early Christian group established itself as dominant in the religion, determining for ages to come what Christians would believe, practice, and read as sacred Scripture” (ix). The conclusion of the book offers Ehrman’s reflections on the status quo of the NT canon alongside non-canonical documents.
Embedded in his methodology is a three-fold argument advanced along the following lines. First, he makes a literary argument addressing pseudonymity and its role in canon formation. Second, he develops an historical argument that indicates how one particular form of Christianity emerged as dominant. Third, he packages his overall presentation within an ethical argument, addressing the need for religious tolerance amid diversity. The flow of these arguments is to a large degree linear: the literary argument is a subset within the historical argument, which in turn is a subset of the ethical argument. The aim of this paper is to assess and analyze these arguments as they impinge upon alternative views of Christianity, their sacred texts, and the cultures created by those texts.
1: The Literary Argument. Ehrman begins his discussion by highlighting the significance of alternative early Christian communities and documents, noting the impact of recent textual discoveries like those from Nag Hammadi. He highlights several texts, but none is featured as prominently as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. About this particular text Ehrman says:
[It is a] remarkable document, an ancient forgery condemned as heretical by early proto-orthodox Christians and lost or destroyed, until the remarkable discovery of the Gnostic library in Upper Egypt, near Nag Hammadi, preserved now for us as the secret sayings of Jesus, which, if rightly understood, can bring eternal life. (65)

In so saying, Ehrman displays a sympathetic affinity for the document, especially as it sits in the shadow of the larger orthodox structure. Calling Thomas a “forgery,” Ehrman is really highlighting the pseudepigraphical character of the work, which, by so doing, heightens the interest of and rapport with his primary audience: the non-academic community.
Clearly acknowledging the pseudonymity of the document, Ehrman delivers a pre-emptive strike to his detractors by candidly accepting the chief criticism lodged against the Gospel of Thomas: namely, that it is not Thomas’ writing. Nevertheless, he counters, such should not be a reason for overlooking this document given the apparent “forgeries” currently located within the NT canon. Specifically, he states that the “author of 2 Peter [for example] explicitly claims to be Simon Peter, the disciple of Jesus, who beheld the transfiguration (1:16-18)” (11). In the following sentence, he then adds, “But critical scholars are virtually unanimous that it was not written by him.” Thus, he insists, “forgery” (as a literary judgment) “by rights should cover some of the New Testament books as well, including the letter of 2 Peter” (11).
It should be noted that Ehrman does not use the term “forgery” in the typical pejorative sense to which his readership may be accustomed, but invokes it as a means of avoiding the technical complexity and nuance of “pseudepigrapha,” which, he maintains, “is typically taken to refer only to the noncanonical books that claimed, and sometimes received, scriptural standing...” (11, emphasis his). He does, however, differentiate between acceptable and non-acceptable uses of the literary tactic. Decidedly unaccepted usages of “forgery” would be those which,
are as artificial as one can imagine and are useful chiefly in revealing the gullibility even of modern readers. They tend to be the stuff of supermarket tabloids and are valuable in showing that there are still forgers in our midst who have no qualms about fabricating complete lies, even about their own religion, or order to make a splash and possibly get across their point of view. Or, at least, to earn some royalties. (68)

The question then becomes: if some of the NT documents are “forgeries,” why is the Gospel of Thomas not afforded the same authority as, say, 2 Peter? The answer, he says, lies in an altered perspective on history.
2: The Historical Argument. The establishment of the NT in the fourth century as an exclusive canon of twenty-seven books, he argues, is a result of the hegemony of the prevailing and dominant Christian culture (which he brands as both “orthodoxy” and the “winners”). Further, Christianity was a richly diverse phenomenon up through the second and third centuries (2), more diverse than even the various extant forms of Christianity observable today (1). As a result of the establishment of orthodoxy, certain texts—and their cultures—were rejected (“lost”) in favor of a more unified presentation of the Jesus Event. The “winners” then justified their position by re-writing history:
[T]his victorious party rewrote the history of the controversy, making it appear that there had not been much of a conflict at all, claiming that its own views had always been those of the majority of Christians at all times, back to the time of Jesus and his apostles, that its perspective, in effect, had always been ‘orthodox’…and that its opponents in the conflict, with their other scriptural texts, had always represented small splinter groups invested in deceiving people into ‘heresy’. (4)

As a result, the prevailing culture effectively neutralized diverse perspectives and their sacred texts.
In characterizing this history-revising enterprise, Ehrman adopts the Religionsgeshichte previously developed by Walter Bauer in Orthodoxy and Heresy (172-76). Arguing from a novel position against the traditional view of the history of early Christianity, Bauer proposed that the prevailing majority opinion of scholarship accepting the Eusebian account of church history was in error. Rather than assume that all heresies were variations or corruptions of an original and singularly orthodox view (as it was promulgated by a cadre of highly unified apostolic witnesses), Bauer asserted that early Christianity was instead constituted of a number of diverse perspectives on the Jesus Event, and that it was as a result of the Romanization of Christianity in the fourth century that one form of Christianity gained dominance. Thus, two different perspectives on the history of the canon are offered: that of Eusebius (Figure 2, p. 15 of this paper), and that of Bauer (Figure 3, p. 15).
Although his assessment of the advent of orthodox belief nearly replicates that of Bauer, Ehrman does diverge from Bauer in two important respects. First, he is far less explicit about the effect of Romanization on the development of orthodoxy than is Bauer. Whereas Bauer points to defining moments such as Constantine’s conversion, the adoption of Christianity as the imperial religion, and the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, for example, Ehrman tends to focus primarily on texts. One of those texts is Eusebius’ Church History, about which Ehrman says,
Writing a century and a half after the Muratorian canon…, Eusebius shows how debates over canon were still very much alive. At one point of his ten-volume work, Eusebius states his intention is “to summarize the writings of the New Testament” (Church History 3.25.1). To do so, he sets forth four categories of books. The first he calls “acknowledged” books, meaning those books accepted by all sides within the orthodox tradition…. His second category involves books that are “disputed,” meaning writings that may well be considered canonical but whose status is debated…. [He] then names books he considers “spurious”…. Finally, Eusebius provides a list of books that are heretical. (244)

Another text is “the famous Athanasian letter of 367 CE” in which Athanasius “came up with a definitive list of books to be included in the canon that matched our list today” (245). Ehrman goes on to say that,
[A] significant moment occurred in the history of the formation of the new Testament canon in the late fourth century. It was in the year 367 CE that the powerful bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, wrote a letter to the churches throughout Egypt under his jurisdiction, in which he laid out in strict terms the contours of the canon of Scripture. This was the first time anyone of record had indicated that the twenty-seven books that we now have in our New Testament canon, and only those twenty-seven books, should be considered as Scripture. Moreover, Athanasius insisted that other ‘heretical’ books not be read. (54)

Even with the mention of these two texts, however, Ehrman is less than clear on what constitutes the defining moment for the triumph of orthodoxy over what would become the noncanonical texts.
A second difference between Bauer’s view of history and Ehrman’s is academic. Whereas Bauer characterizes his approach as being objectively historical, Ehrman demonstrates a multi-disciplinary approach that varies from literary to theological to ethical. It is with respect to the latter that his final argument comes into view.
3: The Ethical Argument. Traditional views of the criteria for NT canonization reflect a certain degree of variance, but in large measure maintain consistency. For example, the criteria according to J.T. Barrera involve “apostolic origin of the writing in questions, its traditional use [“catholicity”] in the liturgy from time immemorial and the orthodox nature of the doctrine expounded.” L.M. McDonald agrees with the foregoing formulation, but adds to it “antiquity” (meaning, “those [books] that came from the apostolic era”). F.F. Bruce follows McDonald’s core formulation, as does D.A. DeSilva.
Ehrman offers a different perspective, one which can actually be viewed in two ways. It is here that his argument becomes an ethical enterprise as he distinguishes between his view of the actual process of canonization (a descriptive undertaking), and what he proposes as a preferable set of criteria (a prescriptive undertaking). Concerning the actual formation of the NT canon, he avoids endorsing the traditional view of canon criteria, suggesting instead that Eusebius, Athanasius and others among the camp of the “winners” gained their victory (marked by the formation of the canon) through the following: a claim to ancient roots of Judaism; a rejection of contemporary Jewish practices; the primacy of a church hierarchy; and, a well-established network of communication (179-80). These, then, became the circumstantial factors for the canonization of the NT, as opposed to the more traditional theological factors.
Ehrman, if read closely, actually suggests an alternative method for evaluating texts with respect to their canonical status. The centerpiece to that method would seem to be motive. Ehrman argues on behalf of preserving alternative forms of Christianity, citing the need to be “tolerant” of diverse perspectives. However, he himself is quick to discredit certain texts:
Strange Gospels appear regularly, if you know where to look for them. Often these record incidents from the ‘lost years’ of Jesus, for example, accounts of Jesus as a child or a young man prior to his public ministry, a genre that goes all the way back to the second century. These accounts sometimes describe Jesus’ trips to India to learn the wisdom of the Brahmins (how else would he be so wise?) or his exploits in the wilderness, joining up with Jewish monks to learn the ways of holiness. (68, emphasis his)

For Ehrman, it would seem that the invalidity of these “strange Gospels” is self-evident. What remains to be seen, however, is what constitutes his normative device in differentiating the “strange” from the acceptable. It would appear to be an issue of motive:
Those captivated with this fascination [with alternative understandings of Christianity from the past] commonly feel a sense of loss upon realizing just how many perspectives once endorsed by well-meaning, intelligent, and sincere believers came to be abandoned, destroyed, and forgotten—as were the texts that these believers produced, read, and revered.” (257, emphasis mine)

Ehrman thus rejects “strange Gospels” on the basis of motive: they are designed to deceive or to exploit. If one reads him correctly, then, it would appear that an acceptable, or canon-worthy, text would be one which evinces an authorial intent characterized as being “well-meaning, intelligent, and sincere.” Leaving aside the issue of authorial intent as a potentially enormous issue for explication, Ehrman’s test of canonicity, when properly recognized, may be rather problematic.
Responses. At a number of points, Ehrman’s discussion generates questions. Some of these, within the space remaining, will be addressed according to the order of his presentation. First, with regard to his literary argument, Ehrman’s claim that 2 Peter is a “forgery” may be rather overstated. Consider the following observations by Ben Witherington,
[It] is rather amazing that many contemporary scholars just assume that pseudepigrapha was an accepted literary genre and practice that raised no ethical concerns for ancient Christians. This is not so. But it is equally surprising that many scholars today do not seem to realize there are other options besides declaring this document to be a pseudepigraphon or a letter composed by Peter himself. I attribute this to the fact that most New Testament scholars do not know sapiential literature as well as they should, and they especially seem unaware of the scribal practices found in early Judaism and early Christianity, where scribes would not merely copy but also edit together collections of valuable sacred traditions, just as we see happening in 2 Peter. These are not exercises in pure creativity or in pseudonymity. They are ways of preserving sources and traditions from the past and applying them in later situations, with the editors neither claiming authorship nor trying to deceive anyone about he sort or identity of their sources.

2 Peter becomes understood in this sense as a composite document, not a “forgery”.
With regard to his historical argument, several things can be said. First, Ehrman assigns the culpability for the loss of various early Christianities to the orthodox tradition. However, and at the same time, he recognizes that some of these movements failed on their own merit. For example, he cites the Montanists as being a “lost” Christianity, but acknowledges their failure to enlist popular support due to their miscalculations of the eschaton. About this group he says, “There is nothing like a radical disconfirmaton to make your group a laughing stock” (150). And about the Ebionites he notes that their tenacious commitment to preserve Jewish customs, especially that of circumcision, lacked popular appeal. He compares early responses to Ebionite and Marcionite Christianity: “[P]otential converts from among the pagans were not flocking to the Ebionite form of religion, which involved restricting activities on Saturday, giving up pork and other popular foods, and, for the men, undergoing surgery to remove the foreskin of their penises” (103). It can rather clearly be seen, then, that the disappearance of certain strains of Christianity was more a result of internal weaknesses than external pressures.
Second, Ehrman’s terminology is ambiguous. In his invocation of terms such as orthodoxy, proto-orthodoxy, and heresy, it is often unclear whether he is using the terms from his own perspective or for that perspective claimed by the participating parties. Further, he often vacillates between describing these terms in relation to individuals, to groups, and to beliefs. The net result is a presentation that lacks focus and precision, and as a result, fails to advance his argument to the degree that he might have. An example is his treatment of Tertullian, who—being referenced by Ehrman perhaps more so than any other patristic figure—is shown as being both “proto-orthodox” and heretical. The sheer volume of citations of Tertullian indicates that Ehrman is setting Tertullian up as an exemplar for proto-orthodoxy. How, then, can Ehrman reconcile his identification of Tertullian as a precursor to orthodoxy when Tertullian was actually branded by the dominant orthodox group as a heretic? This begs the question: when dealing with Tertullian, are we to understand him as an individual, as a member of a body of believers, or as a figurehead espousing a certain set of beliefs? The same issue can be observed, in fact, with respect to the term Christianity. Is [a] “lost” Christianity really [a] Christianity at all?
Third, contemporary Christianity, given its global manifestations and using the same refractive prism that Ehrman uses in describing early Christianity, can hardly be said to be less diverse than that of the earliest centuries of the church. His is an assertion devoid of any data. When the multitude of variables are considered in the present context, it can hardly be accepted that Christianity—now firmly established on six of the seven continents, after nearly two millennia—is in any way more homogenous than that of the first three centuries. In addition, and pursuant to his historical construct in which all competing forms of Christianity were neutralized by the prevailing orthodox party, he claims that “virtually all forms of modern Christianity, whether they acknowledge it or not, go back to one form of Christianity that emerged as victorious from the conflicts of the second and third centuries” (4, emphasis his). This is a surprising statement for two reasons. On one hand, it seems inconsistent with the premise of his primary argument that he would be able to claim this about modern forms of Christianity contra members of those forms themselves. The reader might note the implications of Ehrman’s verbiage: “whether they acknowledge it or not”.
On the other hand, he fails to recognize movements such as those that led to the Armenian Christian church: a community of ancient Christians who, thanks to their geographic separation from the Mediterranean and a steady northeasterly expansion along the Silk Road, remained beyond the Roman imperial embrace of Christianity. Further, one wonders where Ehrman assigns other groups along the spectrum of orthodox Christianity. Can the Mormon Church claim early Christian origins in light of Joseph Smith’s textual discovery? Where might Ehrman place the Jehovah’s Witnesses on this spectrum? Does the ongoing presence of Messianic-Jewish movements not indicate an ongoing persistence of Ebionite Christianity? And in the same vein, might not modern the New Age movement simply be yet another embodiment of Gnostic beliefs, beliefs which, contrary to his historical analysis, continue to thrive?
With respect to his ethical argument, and perhaps most significantly, Ehrman champions the cause of tolerance and diversity with respect to texts and communities, yet he overlooks the embracing and inclusive features of the NT canon itself. The very structure of the NT reflects a desire to draw into communion a very diverse constituency: the champions of pro-Semitic, Ebionite Christianity (and its texts reflecting an ongoing commitment to the Jewish underpinnings of Christianity, such as the Gospels, James, Hebrews, etc.), and advocates of a distinctively Marcionic, “New Testament” Christianity (primarily committed to the Pauline corpus). F.F. Bruce observes that,
The gospel collection was authoritative because it preserved the words of Jesus, than whom the church knew no higher authority. The Pauline collection was authoritative because it preserved the teaching of one whose authority as the apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles as acknowledged (except by those who refused to recognize his commission) as second only to the Lord’s. The bringing together of these two collections into something approximating the New testament as we know it was facilitated by another document which linked the one to the other. This document was the Acts of the Apostles, which had been severed from its natural companion, the Gospel of Luke, when that gospel was incorporated in the fourfold collection. Acts had thereafter to play a part of its own, and an important part it proved to be. ‘A canon which comprised only the four gospels and the Pauline epistles’, said Harnack, ‘would have been at best an edifice of two wings without the central structure, and therefore incomplete and uninhabitable.’

Thus, the NT canon represents a body of literature strategically developed and arranged so as to accommodate the widest readership.
Conclusion. In summary, it can be observed that: 1) Ehrman’s employment of the term “forgery” to describe pseudepigraphical NT works perhaps strikes more of an affective chord than a literary one; 2) his conclusions with respect to the history of the formation of the canon seem somewhat lacking with regard to concrete historical events and realities; and, 3) his primary ethical aim of advancing “tolerance” as a means of preserving “diversity” is contradictory, both in light of his own positions with respect to various movements and positions, and also in terms of his lack of acknowledgement of the inclusive and diverse materials of the NT itself.


Bibliography

Barker, Glenn W., William L. Lane and J. Ramsay Michaels. The New Testament Speaks. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1969.

Barrera, Julio Trebolle. The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible: An Introduction to the History of the Bible, trans. Wilfred G.E. Watson. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Bauer, Walter. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel, eds. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.

Bruce, F.F. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988.

DeSilva, David A. An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods, and Ministry Formation. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Irvin, Dale T. and Scott W. Sunquist. History of the World Christian Movement, Volume I: Earliest Christianity to 1453. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2001.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation, rev. ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.

McDonald, Lee Martin. The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

Witherington III, Ben. , Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Vol. II: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1-2 Peter. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2008.

Yates, Timothy. The Expansion of Christianity. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

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P.S. In an earlier draft of this paper, Johnson also rightly made the point that Ehrman defines the term Christian far too broadly, in fact so broadly that the NT writers would surely have repudiated the definition almost immediately. When you define Christian as "someone who claims to be a follower of Christ", you do not reckon with the various definitions implicit and explicit in the NT documents themselves where we hear things like "a Christian is a person who confesses that the crucified Jesus is the risen Lord" (Paul), or "no one who denies Christ come in the flesh" can claim to be his follower (1 John), or even one who denies there will be a second coming is a true follower of Christ (Jude and 2 Peter). In other words, there was a standard of Christological orthodoxy already in the first century A.D. and none of the Gnostic groups or the author of the Gospel of Thomas or Marcion would have been identified as Christians by the apostles and their co-workers. This being the case, Ehrman's book should have been entitled 'Seven Little Heresies and how They Grew' not 'Lost Christianities'.

Misanalyzing Text Criticism--Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus'

Bart Ehrman is both an interesting person and an engaging lecturer. He speaks well, he writes well, he obviously has a gift for what he does. I like Bart though I find his spiritual pilgimage troubling, and as an alumnus of UNC I am sad to see him as the successor to Bernard Boyd at Carolina. Boyd had such a positive spiritual impact on many persons including myself while at Carolina. In fact I have been told some 5,000 persons went into some kind of ministry as a result of Boyd's decades of teaching the Bible at Carolina.

I am however glad Bart is honest about his pilgrimage. If only he could be equally honest and admit that in his scholarship he is trying now to deconstruct orthodox Christianity which he once embraced, rather than do 'value-neutral' text criticism. In my own view, he has attempted this deconstruction on the basis of very flimsy evidence-- textual variants which do not prove what he wants them to prove.

His most recent book, "Misquoting Jesus" has now made it to the NY Times bestseller list. It is apparently receiving a wide audience, although you can never tell whether those who buy the books actually read all the way through them. And with this book that might be just as well. The first four chapters provide a laypersons guide to textual criticism, and while one could quibble with this or that, basically Ehrman has provided us with a clear statement of the principles applied in that discipline. This is material I could happily assign to seminary students wanting to understand the basics of text criticism. I don't have a lot of qualms or quibbles about much of what he says there. However, like reading the Da Vinci Code, in the middle of this book it takes a left turn and what we have is a simplified version of what was present in Ehrman's earlier scholarly monograph-- "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" and along the way we have some personal testimony on why he has become an agnostic.

Dan Wallace, whom many of you will know if you know the NET Bible or www.bible.org. has now reviewed Ehrman's book which he has graciously agreed to allow me to reprint here. What follows after that are some of my own comments as well. Especial thanks to the folks at Christusnexus.org for allowing me to reprint Dan's review here, particularly Ed Komoszewski.

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Review of
Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005)
by
Daniel B. Wallace,
Executive Director,
Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (csntm.org)

Bart Ehrman is one of North America’s leading textual critics today. As a teacher and writer, he is logical, witty, provocative, and sometimes given to overstatement as well as arguments that are not sufficiently nuanced.

His most recent book, Misquoting Jesus, for the most part is simply New Testament textual criticism 101. There are seven chapters with an introduction and conclusion. Most of the book (chs. 1—4) is simply a lay introduction to the field. According to Ehrman, this is the first book written on NT textual criticism (a discipline that has been around for nearly 300 years) for a lay audience.

The book’s very title is a bit too provocative and misleading though: Almost none of the variants that Ehrman discusses involve sayings by Jesus! The book simply doesn’t deliver what the title promises.

But it sells well: since its publication on November 1, 2005, it has been near the top of Amazon’s list of titles. And since Ehrman appeared on two of NPR’s programs (the Diane Rehm Show and “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross)—both within the space of one week—it has been in the top fifty sellers at Amazon.

For this brief review, just a few comments are in order.
There is nothing earth-shaking in the first four chapters of the book. Rather, it is in the introduction that we see Ehrman’s motive, and the last three chapters reveal his agenda. In these places he is especially provocative and given to overstatement and non sequitur.

In the introduction, Ehrman speaks of his evangelical background (Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College), followed by his M.Div. and Ph.D. at Princeton Seminary. It was here that Ehrman began to reject some of his evangelical upbringing, especially as he wrestled with the details of the text of the New Testament.
The heart of the book is chapters 5, 6, and 7. Here Ehrman especially discusses the results of the findings in his major work, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford, 1993). His concluding chapter closes in on the point that he is driving at in these chapters: “It would be wrong… to say—as people sometimes do—that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws from them. We have seen, in fact, that just the opposite is the case.”

Some of the chief examples of theological differences among the variants that Ehrman discusses are (1) a passage in which Jesus is said to be angry (Mark 1:41), (2) a text in which “even the Son of God himself does not know when the end will come” (Matt 24:36), and (3) an explicit statement about the Trinity (1 John 5:7-8).
Concerning the first text, a few ancient manuscripts speak of Jesus as being angry in Mark 1:41 while most others speak of him as having compassion. But in Mark 3:5 Jesus is said to be angry—wording that is indisputably in the original text of Mark. So it is hardly a revolutionary conclusion to see Jesus as angry elsewhere in this Gospel.

Regarding Matt 24:36, although many witnesses record Jesus as speaking of his own prophetic ignorance (“But as for that day and hour no one knows it—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son—except the Father alone”), many others lack the words “nor the Son.” Whether “nor the Son” is authentic or not is disputed, but what is not disputed is the wording in the parallel in Mark 13:32—“But as for that day or hour no one knows it—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son—except the Father.” Thus, there can be no doubt that Jesus spoke of his own prophetic ignorance in the Olivet Discourse. Consequently, what doctrinal issues are really at stake here? One simply cannot maintain that the wording in Matt 24:36 changes one’s basic theological convictions about Jesus since the same sentiment is found in Mark.
In other words, the idea that the variants in the NT manuscripts alter the theology of the NT is overstated at best. Unfortunately, as careful a scholar as Ehrman is, his treatment of major theological changes in the text of the NT tends to fall under one of two criticisms: Either his textual decisions are wrong, or his interpretation is wrong.

These criticisms were made of his earlier work, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which Misquoting Jesus has drawn from extensively. Yet, the conclusions that he put forth there are still stated here without recognition of some of the severe criticisms of his work the first go-around. For a book geared toward a lay audience, one would think that he would want to have his discussion nuanced a bit more, especially with all the theological weight that he says is on the line. One almost gets the impression that he is encouraging the Chicken Littles in the Christian community to panic at data that they are simply not prepared to wrestle with. Time and time again in the book, highly charged statements are put forth that the untrained person simply cannot sift through. And that approach resembles more an alarmist mentality than what a mature, master teacher is able to offer. Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.

Finally, regarding 1 John 5:7-8, virtually no modern translation of the Bible includes the “Trinitarian formula,” since scholars for centuries have recognized it as added later. Only a few very late manuscripts have the verses. One wonders why this passage is even discussed in Ehrman’s book. The only reason seems to be to fuel doubts. The passage made its way into our Bibles through political pressure, appearing for the first time in 1522, even though scholars then and now knew that it is not authentic. The early church did not know of this text, yet the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 affirmed explicitly the Trinity! How could they do this without the benefit of a text that didn’t get into the Greek NT for another millennium? Chalcedon’s statement was not written in a vacuum: the early church put into a theological formulation what they saw in the NT.

A distinction needs to be made here: just because a particular verse does not affirm a cherished doctrine does not mean that that doctrine cannot be found in the NT. In this case, anyone with an understanding of the healthy patristic debates over the Godhead knows that the early church arrived at their understanding from an examination of the data in the NT. The Trinitarian formula only summarized what they found; it did not inform their declarations.

In sum, Ehrman’s latest book does not disappoint on the provocative scale. But it comes up short on genuine substance about his primary contention. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of. Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave this book with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain. A good teacher doesn’t hold back on telling his students what’s what, but he also knows how to package the material so they don’t let emotion get in the way of reason. A good teacher does not create Chicken Littles.
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I am in basic agreement with what Wallace says in his critique of Ehrman, which is why I have reprinted here. It is simply not the case that any significant theological truth is at issue with the textual variants that Ehrman wants to make much of.

As I remember Bruce Metzger saying once (who trained both Bart and myself in these matters) over 90% of the NT is rather well established in regard to its original text, and none of the remaining 10% provides us with data that could lead to any shocking revisions of the Christian credo or doctrine. It is at the very least disingenuous to suggest it does, if not deliberately provocative to say otherwise.

Take for example the arguments that Ehrman makes in Chapters 5ff. in this book. Does the absence of the Trinitarian formula in 1 John 5 somehow prove that the NT has no notion of three person in one God? Absolutely not. There are a whole variety of texts where such an idea is found (see e.g. Mt. 28). Furthermore, its not so much whether we have a 'formula' here and there, but whether the notion of the divinity of Christ and the divinity of the Spirit are affirmed in various places in the NT along with the divinity of the Father. And in fact they are--- repeatedly so. Even our chronologically earliest NT documents, Paul's letters are perfectly clear on this point.

Take another example. Ehrman points to the fact that in Matthew's version of the ignorance saying (cf. Mk. 13.32 to Mt. 24.36) as some sort of proof that Jesus should not seen as divine, at least in Matthew's Gospel. We can debate the textual variants, but even if we include 'not even the Son' here which is certainly present in Mk. 13.32 it in no way proves that Matthew presents a merely human Jesus. The Emmanuel (God with us Christology) which we find at the beginning and end of this Gospel rules that notion out all together, as do various other texts in Matthew where Jesus presents himself as the Wisdom of God come in the flesh (see my forthcoming Matthew commentary).

Furthermore, Ehrman does not reckon with the profound theology of divine condescension reflected in a hymn like Phil. 2.5-11 which suggests that the pre-existent Son of God deliberately put on hold the 'omnis' so he could be fully human while remaining divine. By this I mean that he accepted our normal limitations of time, space, knowledge and power to be fully human. Notice that as Hebrews says however he was not like us in regard to sin. Sin, is not an inherent quality that God originally programmed into humanity. Ehrman writes as though he has never seriously dealt with the concept of divine self-limitation and Incarnation-- an idea we find in the NT from its earliest Pauline sources to its latest Johannine ones.

Furthermore, it is simply false to say that Jesus is presented as non-divine in the Synoptics in general, or even in their earliest source material (Q?, M?, L?), whereas in John, Jesus is presented as divine. The Fourth Gospel certainly more clearly and loudly presents the divine side of Jesus, but this is by no means lacking in the other Gospels, and there are no nefarious textual variants out there lurking that suggest there was ever a Gospel or a Gospel source that merely presented Jesus as man or a teacher or a messianic prophet.

Consider for example the fact that Jesus's two most frequently used phrases are Son of Man (in reference to himself) and Kingdom of God (which he is bringing in). Where in the OT do we find these two notions, indeed where do we find them together? In Dan. 7.13-14 where the Son of Man figure is promised to reign forever in a kingdom on earth. One has to ask-- what sort of person could personally reign forever in a kingdom? Who would God give this privilege to? The answer is to a forever person who was also a 'son of man'.

I have argued at length that Jesus exegeted himself and his mission out of Dan. 7.13-14 in my book 'The Christology of Jesus'. He also saw himself as God's Wisdom come in the flesh. This means that the historical Jesus saw himself as both human and indeed more than human--- as divine. The church then was not wrong in any sense to view him in this fashion. The tired old notion that the divinity of Jesus was something concocted late in the first century A.D. is historically false. Whether one likes it or not, Jesus is the one who suggested such a notion himself and the church simply amplified and clarified these ideas.

I want to turn around now and say something about one thing Ehrman is right to complain about. Ehrman is right that later pious scribes sometimes over-egged the pudding, to use a British phrase. Sometimes they did revise the text to better highlight Christian doctrine including the notion of the Trinity and other such truths. This is really quite irrelevant because when one stripes away the later accretions one still has a portray of Jesus that involves: 1) the virginal conception; 2) the atoning death of Jesus; 3) the bodily resurrection of Jesus; 4) the raw stuff of Trinitarian thinking, and we could go on. Ehrman's so-called evidence that these are later ideas imposed on the text by scribal corrupters is frankly false-- historically false, text critically false, theologically false.

Take another issue. Ehrman makes much of the fact that originally Mark's Gospel ends at Mk. 16.8, or at least its original ending is lost, and so we do not have an account of Jesus's resurrection appearances in this Gospel. In the first place, it is not at all likely that Mk. 16.8 is the original ending of this Gospel, as has recent been made abundantly clear by Clayton Croy's fine recent monograph on this subject. 'The Greek phrase 'for they were afraid....' is not a proper ending to any such book. It is grammatically awkward and inappropriate as an ending. I have argued as well in my Mark commentary at length that the original ending is lost, and the later material in Mk. 16.9ff. does not represent the original text. On this last point, I think Ehrman would agree.

But let us take the harder tact for a moment. Suppose Mark's Gospel does end at Mk. 16.8. Does this mean we have no early evidence of Jesus rising from the dead? Absolutely not. We have evidence from over a decade earlier in 1 Cor. 15-- Paul provides us with a long list of witnesses of the risen Lord, including himself. He is citing a tradition here and not making this up. This is what the early church believed whether they were disciples of Paul or Peter or John or James. Notice for example the Aramaic prayer at the end of 1 Cor. 16--- marana tha--'Come o' Lord'. Paul here cites a prayer that Aramaic speaking Jewish Christians he knew uttered. It is a prayer prayed to Jesus for him to return. All the earliest disciples of Jesus were monotheistic Jews, and yet here they are praying to Jesus for him to return. You don't pray to deceased rabbis to return.

I am glad we have a book like 'Misquoting Jesus' to tease our minds into active thought, though ironically very little of the book as anything to do with the actual sayings or teachings of Jesus himself. The title like the book is more of a tease, than really providing substantial evidence for 'the orthodox concotion of the Christian faith'. I would simply say to the reader-- caveat emptor. This author has a strong ax to grind, and the fact that he grinds it well in fluid prose makes it all the more beguiling. As my granny used to say-- Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out!

Ehrman vs. Wright on the Problem of Suffering. Whose Right?

My friend and fellow blogger Mark Roberts has just posted the following, which I am copying to you. Check it out. BW3
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Excellent Discussion on the Problem of Suffering

By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, April 24, 2008

Beliefnet.com is hosting a fine "blogalogue" between Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright on the problem of suffering. Ehrman, as you may know, has published the most recent installment in his series that might be called: "A Popular Scholar's Attempt to Get People to Stop Being Christians." This book is: God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer. I have not read this book yet, but, given what I've read of what Ehrman has said about it, it certainly doesn't break any new ground. But Ehrman has the attention of the secular media (like NPR), and he's an engaging writer (for a scholar). So God's Problem will surely sell plenty of copies. (Photo: Bart Ehrman)

I can't think of anyone I'd rather have "blogaloguing" with Erhman than N. T. Wright. In this conversation, Ehrman is way out of his league, theologicially. More importantly, however, Wright's approach to suffering takes seriously the biblical narrative of salvation.

Here's what we have so far in the "blogalogue":

Ehrman: How the Problem of Pain Ruined My Faith

Wright: God's Plan to Rescue Us

Ehrman: What About the Actual Suffering?

Wright: What It Looks Like When God Runs the World

Bart Ehrman's New Book-- God's Problem

Well its Holy Week, and of course we have come to expect bombshells lobbed at the church by various pundits during this week, and right on cue we have a new book by Bart Ehrman that suggests "we can't believe a good all powerful God exists because there is suffering in the world." My friend Dr James Howell, the senior minister at Myers Park UMC in Charlotte has now reviewed an advance copy of the book, and here is his review (see link below)--- right on target. (N.B. Howell has a PhD in theology from Princeton and a top drawer degree from Duke as well. He is not your average minister).

This book is sad in many ways, not the least of which is, it doesn't even meaningfully interact with any of the great scholars and theologians over the past 2,000 who had wrestled with the issue of God and suffering. It is as if Ehrman discovered there are issues in regard to suffering for a belief in God.

In one sense of course, Bart Ehrman's views are understandable. If you are raised to believe that a good sovereign God before the beginning of time pre-determined all things that have happen in this world, then indeed you have a severe problem of logic when it comes to both sin and suffering, both misery and mayhem. But in fact the God of fatalism with all things predetermined is not the God of the Bible. That is the God of Islam, but not Christianity at its best.

The Bible teaches that most of human suffering is of our own making, not predestined by God. There is this little doctrine called the Fall, and also the matter of humans being created with wills of their own. Both the Fall and at least the power of contrary choice in fallen persons more than adequately explains most of the wickedness we see in the world--- it is, as Tennyson used to say "a case of man's inhumanity to man". Read Jame's review and see what whether you think you need to read Ehrman's polemic or not.

http://www.charlotte.com/440/story/537338.html

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted' Part One

Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted, (San Francisco: Harper One, 2009), xii +292 pages. Part One ( the first 60 pages)

Bart Ehrman is both a gifted writer and a gifted lecturer. Perhaps his best gift is the ability to distill difficult and complex material down to a level that undergraduates and ordinary lay folk can understand. It is thus understandable that his popular level books on the New Testament and cognate subjects have been well and widely read, and in age disposed to ‘dis’ the Bible anyway, which is to say, in a generally Biblically illiterate age, Bart’s work has been seen as confirming suspicions already long held by the skeptical or those prone to be skeptical about the Bible and Christianity.

One of the problems however with some of Bart’s popular work, including this book, is that it does not follow the age old adage--- “before you boil down, you need to have first boiled it up”. By this I mean Bart Ehrman, so far as I can see, and I would be glad to be proved wrong about this fact, has never done the necessary laboring in the scholarly vineyard to be in a position to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted from a position of long study and knowledge of New Testament Studies. He has never written a scholarly monograph on NT theology or exegesis. He has never written a scholarly commentary on any New Testament book whatsoever! His area of expertise is in textual criticism, and he has certainly written works like The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which have been variously reviewed, not to mention severely critiqued by other textual critics such as Gordon D. Fee, and his own mentor Bruce Metzger (whom I also did some study with). He is thus, in the guild of the Society of Biblical Literature a specialist in text criticism, but even in this realm he does not represent what might be called a majority view on such matters.
It is understandable how a textual critic might write a book like Misquoting Jesus, on the basis of long study of the underpinnings of textual criticism and its history and praxis. It is mystifying however why he would attempt to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted which frankly reflect no in-depth interaction at all with exegetes, theologians, and even most historians of the NT period of whatever faith or no faith at all. A quick perusal of the footnotes to this book, reveal mostly cross-references to Ehrman’s earlier popular works, with a few exceptions sprinkled in—for example Raymond Brown and E.P Sanders, the former long dead, the latter long retired. What is especially telling and odd about this is Bart does not much reflect a knowledge of the exegetical or historical study of the text in the last thirty years. It’s as if he is basing his judgments on things he read whilst in Princeton Seminary. And that was a long time ago frankly.

It is not sufficient to reply that Bart is writing for a popular audience and thus we would not expect much scholarly discussion even in the footnotes. Even in a work of this sort, we would expect some good up to date bibliography for those disposed to do further study, not merely copious cross-references to one’s other popular level books. Contrast for example, my last Harper book What Have They Done with Jesus? The impression is left, even if untrue, that Ehrman’s actual knowledge of and interaction with NT historians, exegetes, and theologians has been and is superficial and this has led to overly tendentious and superficial analysis. Again, I would be glad to be proved wrong about this, but it would certainly appear I am not. This book could have been written by an intelligent skeptical person who had no more than a seminary level acquaintance and expertise in the field of NT studies itself. And I do not say this lightly, for this book manifests problems in all areas, if one critiques it on the basis of NT scholarship of the last thirty or so years. There are methodological problems, historical problems, exegetical problems, theological problems, and epistemological problems with this book, to mention but a few areas.

My grandmother used to say, “if you can’t say anything nice about a person, then don’t say anything at all.” So let me start the more detailed part of this discussion by saying something positive--- I believe Bart Ehrman is an honest person, who really has been a truth seeker when it comes to the Bible and Christianity. His preface to this latest volume reflects that, and I applaud his honesty and forthrightness, while at the same time pointing out that I was a person who went through the same process of deep study and inquiry whilst in college and seminary and came to very different conclusions than Bart, and it wasn’t because I checked my brain at the door or ceased being a critical thinker on these subjects along the way. Bart and I are different in that I did not come out of a fundamentalist past at all, but we do share not only UNC and Bruce Metzger in common, we also both did English literature degrees in college, which explains to some degree the ability to write and the tendency to do it frequently.

Let me start then with a general criticism about Bart’s entire approach. He begins in his first chapter by bemoaning the fact that the general populus including the church, has been left in the dark about what “scholars have been saying” for lo these many years (over a hundred actually) about the Bible. He puts it this way “the perspectives that I present in the following chapters are not my own idiosyncratic views of the Bible. They are the views that have held sway for many, many years among the majority of serious critical scholars teaching in universities and seminaries of North America and Europe”(p.2).

Now it is always a danger to over generalize when we are dealing with as important a matter as the ‘truth about the Bible’. And frankly it is simply untrue to say that most scholars or the majority of Bible scholars or the majority of serious critical scholars would agree with Bart Ehrman in his conclusions about this or that NT matter. NT scholarship is a many splintered thing, and Ehrman’s position certainly does not represent a majority view, or the critical consensus about such matters. At best, one has to say yes and no repeatedly to what Bart takes as the critical consensus about such matters. Bart Ehrman, like the more radical members of the Jesus Seminar (e.g. Robert Funk cf. Robert Price) represents a minority position which has indeed been very vocal in proselytizing for their point of view. So this book should have come with a caveat emptor--- “Buyer Beware: Hyperbolic claims about what most or the majority of critical scholars of the NT think will be frequent in this tome”. The appeal to authority or expertise in any case does not really settle much. The issue is—what is the evidence and why should we draw this or that conclusion? The other issue is--- why mislead the general public about what “the majority of serious critical scholars” have been saying? Perhaps an end run has been done from the outset--- you define a small circle of scholars as the serious ones, the critical ones, the real scholarly thinkers, the real historians, and then having defined your own group narrowly enough, you then say—“the majority of such people think…” Evangelicals are sometimes just as guilty of this ploy as others, but in any case, it does not help when one misrepresents the actual state of play of things among scholars to the general public.

Bart reminds us early on that the method of studying the Bible taught in most mainline seminaries is “the historical critical method”. It is also, in fact perhaps the main method of teaching the Bible in evangelical seminaries today as well. And two of the major things one is taught, quite correctly in the study of this method are: 1) ancient historical texts must be studied in their original historical contexts to be properly understood; and 2) modern post-Enlightenment historiography is at odds with the historiography of most ancients, particularly when it comes to the issue of God’s involvement in human history.

There is a further corollary—in order to understand the Gospels or Acts, or Paul’s letters, or Revelation, one needs to understand the features and characteristics of such ancient literature—in short their respective genres. The Gospels are written like ancient biographies, not modern ones, or in the case of Luke-Acts like an ancient work of Hellenistic (and Septuagintal) historiography. Unless one knows the conventions and limitations that apply to such literature, one is in no position at all to evaluate whether there are “inconsistencies” “errors” or other problematic features of such literature. Error can only be assessed on the basis of what an author is attempting to do and what literary conventions he is following. Let us take an example Bart uses from p. 7 of his book—the fact that in John the cleansing of the temple comes early in the Gospel account, whereas in the Synoptics it is found in the Passion narrative. He is right of course that some modern conservative Christians have attempted to reconcile these differences by suggesting Jesus did the deed twice--- once at the beginning and once at the end of the ministry. The problem is, that this conclusion is just as anachronistic (and genre ignoring) as the conclusion that the Gospels contradict each other on this point. What do I mean?

If you actually bother to read ancient biographies (see e.g. Tacitus’s Life of Agricola, or Plutarch’s famous parallel lives) you will discover that the ancients were not pedants when it comes to the issue of strict chronology as we are today. The ancient biographical or historiographical work operated with the freedom to arrange there material in several different ways, including topically, geographically, chronologically, to mention but three. Yes they had a secondary interest in chronology in broad strokes, but only a secondary interest in that.
If one studies the Fourth Gospel in detail and closely in the Greek, comparing it to other ancient biographies what one learns is that it is a highly schematized and edited product, and the sign narratives are arranged theologically not primarily chronologically. And whilst this might cause a modern person some consternation, it is not a reason to say that John contradicts the Synoptics on this Temple cleansing matter. The Fourth Gospel begins by showing that Jesus replaces the institutions of Judaism with himself—a theological message (he is the Passover lamb, he is the Temple where God’s presence dwells etc.). The Synoptic writers are likely presenting a more chronologically apt picture of when this event actually happened. But strict chronology was not the major purpose of the Fourth Evangelist, we should not fault him for not giving us information we might want to have, or for focusing on the theological import of the event, rather than its timing. Such was the freedom, within limits, of ancient biographies and histories. I must disagree with the conclusion then when Bart says “Historically speaking, then, the accounts are not reconcilable.” (p. 7). False. This is only so if one insists on a flat modern anachronistic reading of the text which pays no attention to what the authors are attempting.

The Gospel of John probably tells us nothing about this chronological issue, the Synoptics probably do, and judged on their own terms and on the basis of their ancient genre, one cannot draw the conclusion Bart does. Period. And unfortunately, this is a mistake Bart makes over, and over again, judging ancient texts on the basis of modern presuppositions about history writing, and what counts as truth or error. In fact, it is not entirely erroneous to say that Bart reads the Bible with the same sort of flat literalistic hermeneutic that he would have used before he did his scholarly study of the text. And I find this passing strange.
Let’s take his next pet example--- the three denials of Christ by Peter, and the cock crows. I quite agree with his critique of those who come up with six denials of Christ by Peter. No Gospel says that, any more than any Gospel mentions two cleansing of the Temple. Bart points to the difference between Matthew and Mark, the latter saying Peter will deny Christ before the cock crows twice, whilst in Matthew it says ‘before the cock crows”. He then asks--- “which is it?” The assumption is: 1) these Gospel writers were trying to be very precise; and 2) these two options are mutually contradictory; and 3) we should ask these sorts of detail questions of ancient historical documents because we have a right to assume that modern historical ways of analyzing this material will help us to get to the bottom of such matters and find the historical truth.

In the first place let’s consider point 2). In fact, if Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed at all, then he certainly denied Christ three times before the cock crowed twice!!! But suppose the Gospels writer were not much concerned to give us precise information about the intricate relationship and intercalation between denials and cock crows. Suppose, in terms of historical information they just wanted to make clear that there were three denials and there were cock crows? Of course this is maddening to those who think that we must have precision on such matters, but in fact if an author wants to be general let him be general, and if he wants to be more specific, let him be more specific. Mark may simply have wanted to be more general in his account. And since I think, with most scholars that the First Evangelist is using Mark’s account, he probably knew far more about the Markan intent than we do, and decided to be more specific. He edits his Markan account according to his own presentation of things. I could go through Bart’s examples one by one explaining how insufficient attention has been paid by him to the ancient conventions of such genre of literature, but I agree with him that over-harmonizing on the basis of modern anachronistic considerations is wrong, just as wrong as claiming there are obvious contradictions based on a modern literalist reading of the same texts. And herein lies a very fundamental problem with the ex-fundamentalist readings of Bart Ehrman.

The Gospels are not, and never were intended to be inspected as if they were ancient photographs of Jesus taken with a high resolution, all seeing lens. On the contrary these documents are much more like portraits, and portraits always are selective, tendentious, perspectival. Let me illustrate this point.
One of my favorite Impressionist painters is Claude Monet, and I really love his series of painting done of Rouen Cathedral. These paintings were done in the late 1890s and they depict the front face of the Cathedral from slightly different angles of incidence, and in different lighting. But in each case it is recognizably the same cathedral with the same basic shape, from the same basic frame of reference. Let us suppose for a minute then that the Gospels are like these paintings. Now it would be totally pedantic to have an argument that went as follows: “In this painting Monet depicts the color of the front façade of the cathedral as being gray, but in this picture he paints it as being a yellowish shade, and in this picture a pinkish shade.” Which is it? Surely one must be right and the other depictions wrong.” Of course the proper response to this silly discourse is that they are all right, because they attempt to depict the appearance of the building at different times of day from slightly different angles. And no art critic in their right mind would think of suggesting that one painting was in error compared to the other. My point is simple. The Gospels are not works of modern biography or historiography and they should not be evaluated by such canons.

Nor for that matter are we much helped by evaluating the Gospel traditions on the basis of the canons of modern German form criticism which is grounded in notions about the passing on of oral traditions which simply do not apply to the first century A.D. and in the Jewish setting of the Gospels and Acts (on this point see Richard Bauckham’s fine study Jesus and the Eyewitnesses). Various of Bart’s comments presuppose that most NT exegetes and historians assume that the Bultmannian conclusions about oral history and oral tradition are correct. This is certainly not true now in the way it might have been said to be true specifically in mainline schools in the 70s. On the contrary, there is now a lively discussion about oral history that makes clear that the notion that there was likely a long gap between the events and their being written down, or between eyewitness testimony and their being written down is probably false.

Equally pedantic and unhelpful is Bart’s analysis of Genesis 1 and 2(pp. 9-10), which are generally agreed to be two different ways of telling the story of creation, one more general, and one more focused on the creation of humankind. Besides the fact that Genesis 1 falls into the category of poetry or poetic prose and should not be analyzed on the basis of it being some sort of scientific account of creation, it is frankly not fair game to compare and contrast these two chapters as if they were attempting to say the same thing in the same way writing like modern historians. They are not. Ancient narratological conventions come into play (see now Bill Arnold’s fine commentary on Genesis in the Cambridge series I edit). And now we begin to see why Biblically illiterate folk who are skeptical about the Bible are drawn to the Ehrman analysis. It appears to take the text at face value, and evaluate it by comparison and contrast, without taking into consideration at all issues of literary context or conventions. In other words, it approaches the matter as if one could simply read the English translation of the text without any knowledge of ancient writing conventions and come to important conclusions about historical truth and error. But in fact, this is not only not proper, in most cases it is not possible. The real truth seeker knows that a text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you would like it to mean.

Let’s take another example--- Bart’s treatment on pp. 10-11 of Psalm 137. In the first place this is a song, and so should not be treated like a theological or ethical treatise. In the second place, what this song is a revelation of is what is on the heart of the psalmist. In the psalms, human beings speak to, pray to, implore their God in various ways. It is a very truthful and accurate reflection of various things on and in the human heart, including the desire for vengeance. What the psalms are generally not is a revelation of what is in God’s heart or character. But Bart seems oblivious to this point which is commonly enough recognized by commentators on the Psalms. More in depth study of the psalms could have led to the avoidance of this sort of error.

Let’s take now an example from the second chapter (pp. 24ff). Here Bart is comparing and contrasting the relationship between the events that lead up to Jesus’ death as told in Mark and as told in John, and trying to synch that up with the Jewish liturgical calendar in regard to the celebration of Passover, and the Day of Preparation.

A few historical remarks are in order. 1) despite what Bart says, no Gospel suggests Jesus was crucified on Passover, which is to say between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday on April 7 A.D. 30 (or less possibly in A.D. 33); 2) the meal described in John 13 is definitely not the same meal as that described in Mark 14 and the other Synoptics. John 13 is very clear about this--- John 13.1 reads literally “But before the festival of the Passover…” The text does not say how long before. This could easily be a meal at the beginning of the week when the feast of Passover transpired, rather than near its end. And nothing whatsoever is said in John’s story about sharing the Passover elements. This is a striking difference from the accounts in the Synoptics, and I would say the differences are great enough that we must take them to indicate we are dealing with different stories here. 3) Most scholars who have written commentaries on the Synoptics do indeed think that Jesus celebrated his last supper with his disciples on Thursday night, which is to say, on the beginning of the Day of Preparation rather than on Passover day. There was precedent for this in early Judaism in some cases, and some scholars have even argued that Jesus was following the Galilean rather than the Judean liturgical calendar, which is certainly possible and believable. Whether this is so or not, it is notable that there is no mention at all about Jesus and his disciples eating lamb….in any of the accounts. This has led some to conclude, wrongly in my judgment, that even the Thursday night meal was not a Passover meal. 4) one of the major issues in determining when Jesus actually died is the question of which clock an Evangelist is running on--- is it the Roman way of keeping time, or a Jewish and Oriental one? Which hour is the third, sixth and ninth hours, according to the respective Evangelists? Mark’s seems to be based on the Roman way of time keeping, but this may not be the case in John. In any case, all the Gospels in fact are in agreement that Jesus died before sundown on Friday, which is to say, before Passover actually begun, which is to say on the Day of Preparation. 5) in A.D. 30 the day of preparation for the Sabbath was in fact the day of preparation for Passover. It was one and the same day. Therefore, Mk. 15.42 does not in any way disagree with John when it says that Jesus died on the day of Preparation. Correct— and this was Friday before sundown when both Passover and Sabbath began that year. John did not need to change a historical datum to make a theological point that Jesus was the Passover lamb. The point is inherent in a theological interpretation of the actual day Jesus died. In this case, Bart is busily finding contradictions in the text which are a chimera. They are not really in evidence.

Bart carries on in much the same vein in his analysis of the birth narratives. What is of concern to us is not where he sees differences in Matthew and Luke’s accounts, but rather where he finds what he deems to be actual discrepancies. The first of these is that Bart claims that what Luke says in Lk.2.1-3 is clearly historically in error (pp. 34-35). What however does the Greek text of Lk.2.2 actually say--- “this registration happened first/prior to the governing of Syria by Quirinius.” The issue here is the function of the word prote. What it seems to indicate is that the census in question took place prior to when Quirinius was governor of Syria. There was indeed a famous and indeed notorious census which led to the rebellion of Judas the Galilean in A.D. 6, and so Luke would be distinguishing that census from the earlier one when Mary and Joseph were enrolled. Bart also deems the notion of such enrollments as historically improbable, at least in the way Luke tells the story. There are however very clear examples from the province of Egypt of such census taking done for the purpose of taxation. And in fact, the evidence suggests a link with one’s ancestral home. I see no reason why the Romans would do it any differently with the province of Judea. Furthermore, when Augustus decide to go for the full blown Empire deal, he needed much more money for many more troops and armaments.

While Luke may be using rhetorical hyperbole when he says all the oikomene was being enrolled, a rhetorical usage common in Hellenistic historiography influenced by rhetoric, what Luke is referring to is the inhabited Roman empire, outside of Rome itself. In other words, his audience would likely have understood the reference quite easily and naturally. Bart also takes exception to the story of the wise men following the star. He says nothing of the fact that ancients often thought stars were living beings, the heavenly hosts, and it is more than likely that what Matthew is describing is the leading of the heavenly host or angels, of these persons to the birth place. Here again however some latitude must be allowed for ancient story tellers to present their narrative in ways that their audience would understand. While Matthew’s account does not tell us that Nazareth was Mary and Joseph’s hometown, his account is compatible with this fact, which Luke does tell us. The absence of an explanation does not a discrepancy make nor should it lead one to conclude the author thought something different, especially when Matthew tells us that eventually the holy family did go to Nazareth, and why would they pick that wide place in the road out of the blue if they had no prior associations with it? No good reason. The scripture fulfillment text in Matthew is a midrashic attempt to explain the fact that Nazareth was their home. It did not generate such an idea.
Lastly, Bart wants to argue that both Matthew and Luke made up the notion of a trip to Bethlehem independently of one another based on Micah’s prophecy, in order to indicate Jesus’ messianic origins, rather than suggesting he was born in a one horse town in Galilee. The problem with this is that Bethlehem itself was also a one horse town in Jesus’ day, and among other things, the slaughter of the innocents is perfectly in character with Herod’s paranoia as described in Josephus. It was hardly necessary for a messianic figure to come from Bethlehem unless one wanted to insist he was a descendant of David, but as we know from Qumran, there were other Jewish traditions that did not associate messiah with the Davidic line. In regard to the oft parodied story of the slaughter of the innocents, we are only talking about a handful of infants at most in such a tiny village anyway, perhaps 6-8. There is nothing improbable about a birth in Bethlehem at all or a slaughter of a few infants. Jesus was called Jesus of Nazareth because he grew up there from infancy.

Differences there are indeed in the accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. And they are not explained by denying their existence, or resorting to false harmonizing tactics and exegetical gymnastics. We are not however talking about direct contradictions at all here. These narratives are quite compatible in all their essential details, and it is remarkable that two such independent accounts would in fact emphasize the same crucial points--- a virginal conception and a birth in Bethlehem. This did not happen because they were both creative exegetes. It happened because they both relied on historical sources of information about these events. Ehrman’s conclusion that “there are historical implausibilities and discrepancies that can scarcely be reconciled” (p. 34) is saying far more than he knows or the evidence suggests. Had Luke said Jesus was born in Nazareth and Matthew said no he was born in Bethlehem, then we would have a contradiction. But we find nothing like a contradiction in these two accounts—differences do not necessarily equal discrepancies much less equal disagreements. One has to come up with much better examples than this if one wants to claim the accounts can’t be explained or reconciled.

It is the task of a historian, which Bart Ehrman says he is, to get his facts straight. When he takes on the differences in the genealogies there are a few crucial facts he either ignores or is ignorant of. The first of these crucial points is that in Jewish law, if a man adopted a son, that son was entitled to be considered a descendant of his adoptive father, including being a descendant of his step-father’s ancestors. The genealogies in both Matthew and Luke are strange in part precisely because of this legal issue, and more to the point they are strange because both writers want to include the notion of the virginal conception in their accounts, indeed Matthew includes it right in his geneaology, and this may be the only known genealogy where the wife is included in the husband’s geneaology like this!

Bart is right about various of the differences in these genealogies. But he does not correctly explain some of the reasons for the differences. In the first place ancient royal genealogies often were prone to leaving the skeletons out of the list, and so offering an edited version of the ancestry. Something like this is happening in Matthew who wants to suggest Jesus is the seventh son of a seventh son of David, namely the perfect descendant of David. In other words, the form of the genealogy reflects not just historical but also theological interests. The same can be said for Luke’s genealogy and his concern to show that Jesus is not merely son of David son of Abraham, but also son of Adam, and more crucially, son of God. The issues here are not purely historical and it is a form of reductionism to treat them in a purely historical manner. But they were not intended to answer purely historical questions. One needs to read them in light of the conventions of such ancient genealogies, not in the light of modern historical conventions.

Scholars have long debated why these two genealogies differ, and Bart may be right that they both are genealogies connected to Joseph, rather than Luke’s being connected to Mary’s family. But even if this is true, one of them could offer some part of Joseph’s paternal ancestry and the other some part of Joseph’s maternal ancestry. We honestly cannot say. What we can say is there is no basis for the confidence that Bart shows that we have clear contradictions here. More would need to be known about ancient genealogy composition to come to that conclusion. We could carry on with this sort of dialogue with Bart’s list of complaints but we have already dealt with what he takes to be some of the more famous parade examples of clear contradictions. Some of his other examples are much weaker, and can be explained on the basis of the differing editorial tendencies different Gospel writers had, or in Luke’s Acts accounts on the basis of what were the conventions of rhetorical history writing in the first place. About such things Bart says little or nothing, because he seeks to read the text on the basis of modern historiographical conventions, a signal mistake. Ancient texts must be evaluated on their own terms and without demanding of them a precision they never were intended to have.

It is interesting that as the book moves along, Bart stresses here (and later in this study) that he does not think that historical critical study of the Bible should necessarily or will necessarily lead to a loss of Christian faith. I quite agree with this. In fact, I would say in my case that it is precisely the historical, contextual study of the Bible that has strengthened my faith in its truth telling on various subjects of import, not the least of which is the need for and possibility of human salvation. I also quite agree with Bart that teaching students to think and do critical thinking about life and the Bible is a good thing. On these two conclusions we would simply agree. What is interesting is that the more I studied the Bible the less I was prone to accuse the Bible of obvious historical errors and stupid mistakes, including theological errors about a matter as profound as human suffering and evil. To the contrary, I found the Bible rich, complex, varied, and helpful and truthful in dealing with precisely such life and death matters. It would be appropriate then to ask---why exactly did studying the Bible in the same way at seminary and during doctoral work lead Bart Ehrman and myself to such different conclusions? In my case, my faith in the Bible was strengthened, but the opposite seems to have been the case with Bart. “This is a mystery and it calls for profound reflection”. Some of this clearly has to do with presuppositions. Let’s take a theological one that seems to be at the root of some of the differences.

Bart seems to assume that a God who is both almighty and a God of love, would not allow the hideous amount of suffering that goes on in this world. Now this is by no means an uncommon objection to Biblical revelation, but what it seems to assume is a particular sort or deterministic or even extreme Calvinistic view of God, God’s sovereignty, and human life. I can see how extreme suffering and evil is a major problem for such a view of God. It would seem to make God the author of suffering and evil, or at least an uncaring deity in too many cases. Suppose however that God has not pre-determined all things? Suppose God chose to create us in his image with a measure of freedom of choice, the power of contrary choice? Suppose God relates to us relationally and not on the basis of divine decrees? Suppose the vast majority of suffering in the world is a result of human misbehavior or stupidity or sin? Suppose in addition that God does repeatedly intervene in human history to aid and rescue us, without taking away our ability to make viable choices that have moral consequences? It seems to me that part of the issue here is that Bart and I have very different views of the Biblical God and how God actually operates.
Here’s another quandary and quagmire. It appears to me that Bart and I disagree profoundly about the import of textual variants. As Bruce Metzger who taught us both once said--- we know what about 92% of the NT said in its original manuscripts with a rather high degree of certainty. As for the other 8%, very little of theological or ethical consequence is at stake. For example, the Trinity is not at stake if 1 John 5 did not mention it. The deity of Christ is not at stake just because some NT documents do not mention it directly, and some unscrupulous scribes added some clarity to this matter in other manuscripts in ways that distorted some NT manuscripts.

We also disagree rather strongly on the degree of flux in belief and in the handling of NT documents early on. It is simply not true to say that many of the primary Christian doctrines were not affirmed widely until centuries after the time of Christ. It is also not true that any such doctrines hang on only late copies of this or that NT book. When it comes to the issue of textual variants, the development of the textual tradition, and the theological import of such variants, Bart simply over-reads the evidence, or as the British say, over-eggs the pudding.

Now I think I understand why he does this. He rightly gets peeved with those fundamentalists who want to stick their heads in the sand and say, there are no such issues or problems even in the least. But an over-reaction is just that--- an over-reaction. Throughout this book, the real boogeyman that Bart is trying to refute is fundamentalists who hold to a certain wooden and very literal view of inerrancy which hardly takes ancient historical considerations into account at all. I would actually have as many problems with the same people as I have with Bart’s views.

He also does not do justice to a reading of these texts in light of ancient genre, conventions, purposes, history writing and the like, but for very different reasons. The reasons seem to include that he is a ardent convert from fundamentalism to a very narrow and all too modern form of historical critical analysis of these texts-- a form that starts with an inherent skepticism about the supernatural among other things, and assumes that critical thinking equals the ability to doubt this, that or the other ancient datum. I call this justification by doubt. It is no more a valid starting point for evaluating the NT than blind fideism is. Indeed, I would argue that to actually understand an ancient author you must start by giving them the benefit of the doubt and hear them out, doing one’s best to enter creatively into their own world and thought processes before understanding can come to pass. To approach the text with a hermeneutic of suspicion is to poison the well of inquiry before one even samples the water in the old well.

Bart and I furthermore disagree on the issue of pseudonymity in the canon. It is one thing to say there are anonymous documents in the NT, which there are. Hebrews would be a good example. It is another thing to say that there are pseudonymous documents in the NT, forgeries. I and many other critical scholars think this is not so, but Bart is right that many scholars think otherwise. My point is simply this--- there is a healthy debate about that issue amongst scholars. It is not a “well assured result of the historical critical method” on analyzing the NT. I have pointed out at length in my Letters and Homilies of the NT, series the problems that pseudonymity raised in the first century A.D. for both Greek and Latin writers, never mind writers of documents supposed to convey God’s truth. The Gospels as we have them are formally anonymous in terms of their internal evidence, though the Fourth Gospel tells is that the Beloved Disciple (not specifically identified) is the source of the material in that Gospel. We can discuss the merits of the attributes later appended to these Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John), but in my view the testimony of Papias is important, and makes evident these attributions already existed in the first century, and in some cases during the time when there were still eyewitnesses. They cannot be dismissed with a wave of a hand, but at the same time one needs to ask--- what were the conventions when it came to appending names to composite documents? This deserves more discussion. In the second part of this post, we will pick up the discussion with Chapter Three. Stay tuned.

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted' Part Five

In chapter five of his book, Bart Ehrman sketches out a basic narrative of the historical process which led to the production of the Gospels. I do not really disagree much with him about either the dating of the Gospels, or the Synoptic problem (i.e. the relationship of Matthew, Mark and Luke), but where I would have serious disagreements is with his analysis of the historical process that led to the production of the Gospels. In essence the difference is this—he imagines a long chain of oral tradition, involving the telling of these narratives by many people who were not eyewitnesses, which eventually led to the writing down of these traditions by others who were neither eyewitnesses nor in touch with eyewitnesses. By this means he seeks to explain what he sees as the many discrepancies in the Gospels. Besides the fact that this analysis is based on some enormous unproven assumptions, it in fact goes flatly against both the internal and external evidence we have about the matter. Let me illustrate, starting with Lk. 1.1-4.

In Lk. 1.1-4, Luke tells us that he had observed, for a long time the “things which have happened amongst us” and more crucially he says that many had compiled a written account of things before he did. In addition, and most crucially he adds that he had consulted eyewitnesses and the original preachers of the Gospel message. On the prima facie showing of this preface to his Gospel what would it be reasonable to deduce about the gap between Luke and the original Gospel events? Was he writing at a time or a place so far removed from the original events that he could not consult those who were actually eyewitnesses of these things? Unless one wants to claim Luke is simply telling a lie, which few scholars would do, Luke is telling us that while he himself is not an eyewitness of the life of Jesus, nevertheless he knew and had consulted those who were, and used them as sources in his work. We must also conclude that he had written sources, which he calls ‘many’. I suspect he means Mark, perhaps a written collection of Jesus’ sayings (‘Q’), and perhaps Matthew as well, and there may have been other sources as well. Now it is the consensus of most scholars that Luke is the latest of the Synoptic writers, using Mark, and possibly knowing Matthew as well, but in any case later than Matthew. He probably wrote sometime in the 70s, or possibly even the 80s. This reminds us of an important point. There were still eyewitnesses around to be consulted until the very end of the first century, as Papias tells us, for he consulted a couple of them in the early second century.

Now if Luke indeed consulted eyewitnesses and written sources, then the myth of a long chain of oral tradition with many weak links cannot stand close scrutiny. But there is in addition external evidence as well on this matter from a reliable tradition in Papias. It says the following:

"And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he [i.e. Peter] remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he [Mark] neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, and formed his [Peter’s] instructions into chreiae, but with no intention of giving a complete narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements."
Now the presbyter in this statement is the man Papias calls John the elder. This is not John Zebedee, whom Papias had not met, but rather John of Patmos, who himself had been in touch with the earlier eyewitnesses, including the Beloved Disciple. If you want this statement by Papias properly unpacked at length, read Richard Bauckham’s excellent treatment of it in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and if you want a lengthy critique of Ehrman’s myth about long and weak chains of oral tradition see my critique of James Dunn’s Jesus Remembered, forthcoming in my What’s in a Word?. Here it must be sufficient to say that Mark was the interpreter and translator of Peter. What the Greek text of this passage suggests is that Peter often spoke in Aramaic, and Mark translated for him, and this included translating various stories about Jesus and his words and deeds into Greek. This explains a good deal about the Gospel of Mark (not least its various parenthetical translations of Aramaic words). Jesus spoke in Aramaic and so did Peter. Mark was more skilled in Greek than Peter.

Now Papias tells us that Mark had no intention to give a full or completely chronological account of the life of Jesus, but simply to present some of the salient memoirs of Peter. He also tells us that Mark formed these narratives into chreiae, the rhetorical form for a persuasive short story that normally ended with a bang with either a notable saying of the hero, or a notable action of the hero. What this tradition tells us of course is that there is no long oral tradition gap between the events in the life of Jesus and Mark’s Gospel--- Peter himself is the missing link. And here it is worth adding that it is highly unlikely that the second century church, so enamoured with apostolic and eyewitness testimony, would have made up the notion that two of our earliest Gospels were written by non-apostles and non-eyewitnesses like Mark and Luke, who on the very showing of the NT itself were minor figures in early Christianity, not major ones. To this of course we could add the testimony about the Fourth Gospel from John 21 which says explicitly that the Beloved Disciple was an eyewitness of some of the events in Jesus’ life, that he wrote down his own memoirs, and that later the community collected them and composed what we call John’s Gospel. I would suggest the reason it is called that is because it was in fact John of Patmos who, having returned to Ephesus from exile, was the one who collected and edited the Beloved Disciple’s material. This is the same John who wrote Revelation and whom Papias had met.

There are other points in Chapter Five that need to be challenged: 1) the notion that Paul tells us nothing about Jesus or his words and deeds. In fact every Pauline scholar I know would say this is false. Not only because he can recite the tradition passed down to him about the last supper (1 Cor., 11), or the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15), but also because with some regularity he draws on the teaching of Jesus (see 1 Cor. 7, and Rom. 12 and Gal. 6 for example). Furthermore, in his earliest letter, Galatians, Paul tells us he went to Jerusalem more than once and consulted the three pillars of the Jerusalem church James, John, and Peter (Gal. 1-2). You may be sure that the subject of the many conversations included Jesus and his words and deeds. 2) Amazingly, Bart Ehrman serves up warmed over Albert Schweitzer and his largely discredited theories about Jesus, from over a century ago, not only in Bart’s own book on Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, but again here in this book. Schweizter to his credit was right that Jesus’ message and mindset was eschatological and prophetic, but he was quite wrong that Jesus thought the world was definitely ending in his lifetime and completely wrong that Jesus predicted the world would end within a generation. We have already dealt with this in a previous post (see e.g. Mk. 13.32). The fact that Ehrman ignores the numerous critiques of Schweitzer’s theories in most other recent detailed scholarly works on Jesus (see e.g. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, or Flusser’s Jesus as Sage, or my Jesus the Sage, and Jesus the Seer, or John Meir’s massive multi-volumes on Jesus a Marginal Jew, or A.J. Levine’s A Misunderstood Jew and there are many more), is frankly just not responsible scholarship. Of course the masses who read Ehrman’s book don’t realize that most Jesus scholars would disagree with him about this, because of course their works have not appeared in such popular form as this easy to read book. 3) on p. 174 we come to a statement which explains much, historians are unable to discuss miracles. He says this because he believes “there cannot be historical evidence for a miracle” (p. 175). This of course depends on what counts as evidence. I do not frankly see the evidence for ancient or modern miracles as any different than the evidence for other sorts of events. We should use the same criteria to evaluate all historical claims--- multiple attestation by reliable witnesses, and the like, which criteria Bart lists. A miracle, like any other historical event is a unique event. It does not differ from other historical events in this respect. This is of course why any historical event differs from a repeatable laboratory chemical experiment.

And this brings me to the issue of the study of history as opposed to the study of nature. The form is largely an analytical art, the latter is a science which involves empirical experimentation. It is a mistake to see the study of any ancient historical event as a “science”. It isn’t because historical events are by definition unrepeatable one time occurrences. It is equally a mistake, and this is where Bart’s definition of a historian goes sadly awry, to assume either that: 1) we know all the laws of nature, or 2) that they cannot be accelerated or transcended by the God of nature. At a minimum, even a skeptical historian must allow that remarkable and inexplicable things do happen in history, things not explicable by modern science. This is no knock on science, but like any discipline of knowledge it has its limitations. Just as I would not use my wife’s knowledge of botany to study Napoleon, so we should not apply the rules for chemical experiments or scientific testing of nature to study any historical event. Historians of course do seek to establish what probably happened in the past, and since miracles by the millions have been reported in all ages of history including the current one, it is quite impossible to say that miracles are the least probable historical occurrences. How in the world could we know that? Has anyone assessed all the occurrences of everything in all of human history and then weighed the probabilities? Certainly not. No one has that sort of exhaustive knowledge, and no historian should be so presumptious as to assume that he knows miracles have always been improbable. Rather, in humility, he should be open to whatever is the most plausible historical explanation of this, that or the other event, and then in addition admit, that sometimes we have to say ‘I don’t know or can’t explain that. Maybe it really happened and really was a miracle.’

Me personally, I am not merely open minded about this, I have been present when miracles of healing happened, that the doctors were unable to explain. This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or a good historian should just ignore this kind of event in someone’s life, though he may be led to say ‘I don’t know how that happened, it doesn’t seem explicable in purely naturalistic terms’. But then there is no law that requires a good critical historian to be a naturalist in his assumptions about all life. None whatsoever. Let me leave you with a true story.

Some time ago I was pastoring in Coleridge N.C. and had gone to Charlotte with my wife for a few days to visit my folks. One of our most stalwart church members, Bertha Albright, suddenly and unexpectedly became ill on a Saturday and was dead by the time we returned. This was in an age before cell phones, and when I arrived back in Coleridge my neighbor was frantic and asking me to come to his house. He was worried his mother had gone bonkers. You see, Mrs Whitehead had been Bertha Albright’s best friend, and about 4 or so that afternoon she had received a phone call from Bertha, which her son Roger had overheard. The phone rang, they talked for a while, and then Mrs. Whitehead hung up. She had been talking to Bertha. The problem is, that Bertha was already dead some hours, and so a phone call of that sort was, on a naturalistic set of assumptions, quite out of the question.
When I came across the street and was told all of this, because of course now Mrs. Whitehead had learned Bertha was dead and was distraught, I tried to calm her down and ask her some questions. I asked her was she sure it was Bertha? Oh yes, she had known this person for many many years. How did Bertha sound? “She sounded far away.”

I remember saying “I guess so, it was truly a long distance call.” But when I asked her what Bertha said, one of her remarks struck home “She asked if Ben would be back to preach on Sunday, and to tell him not to be discouraged but to keep giving those good sermons and doing the ministerial work.” I was a pastor of four churches, and it was difficult. And indeed I was discouraged, and wondered whether I belonged in the pastoral ministry. And that message was precisely the word of hope and help I needed on that weekend.

I could tell many other stories like this from my life, but the bottom line is, anyone who rules out God and the miraculous and calls that good historiography has indeed left out a large amount of history from our purview. It is a sad, and stunted version of reality that is involved, and worst of all, it’s not really true to reality. Modern historians do not need to be theologians to do their work, but when they step on holy ground, they ought to have the good sense to realize that they don’t know enough to rule God ought of the equation. They would do better to simple say ‘something remarkable happened as the evidence we have suggests…. But I simply can’t explain it.”