mark roberts on ehrman

 

In preparations for my interview, I have taken some time to research Ehrman and to digest some of his material. [1.1] Ehrman, using techniques of textual criticism, learned in his Princeton years, that the Bible cannot be inerrant as he had been taught earlier. [1.2]

  • I am looking forward to reading Ehrman’s Jesus, Interrupted soon (though I have not received it in the mail hopefully I have enough time to read it before the interview). [1.3]

    Jones, Timothy Paul: Misquoting Truth; A guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [1.4]

    I once used one of his [Bart D Ehrman’s] books in a seminary course I was teaching. [1.5]

    5. When discussing Wettstein’s views of the NT text, Ehrman argues that ‘As Wettstein continued his investigations, he found other passages typically used to affirm the doctrine of the divinity of Christ that in fact represented textual problems; when these problems are resolved on text-critical grounds, in most instances references to Jesus’s divinity are taken away’ (Misquoting, 113). [1.6]

    See Reinventing Jesus: What TheDa Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006), co-authored by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, for a more balanced treatment of the data. [1.7]

    Examples include The Da Vinci Code (book and movie), the Gospel of Judas (book and TV), various theories about the gnostics and their writings, Mary Magdalene, Brad Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, and many more! Invariably, a stream of men and women with D.D.s and Ph.D.s after their names from prestigious universities are presenting claims that the original New Testament documents are corrupted, other documents have been suppressed, that ugly truths about Jesus or others have been kept hidden, etc. [1.8] I forget the details, but one Evangelist has him haughty and pissed off, another all meek and mild (and of course in John he’s this hippy who says really weird mystical shit). [1.9]

    The picture most of us have of Jesus is a vague ‘harmonization’ of all four Gospels I mean, how many people, even Christians, could tell you off-hand in which Gospels a particular parable, or saying, or incident, is found? [1.10]

    An examination of historical reliability of the canonical Gospels in light of recent skepticism about the uniqueness of Jesus and the reliability of the New Testament (e.g., Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code or Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus). [1.11]

    For those who aren’t as educated about this as Grape is, a great read is Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. [1.12]


  • Manuscripts

This reveals many discrepancies, for example, “Jesus dies on different days in Mark and John”. [2.1]

He [Bart Ehrman] frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible. [2.2]


  • Bored in Vernal

    I am grateful to Dr. Witherington for posting my very brief treatment of Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [3.1] He [Jamie Spencer] is an Associate Member of the Jesus Seminar and is preparing several articles on religious moments in literature. [3.2]

    Lost in Transmission: What We Can and Cannot Know About the Words of Jesus Nicholas Perrin. [3.3]

    Thomas Nelson, $21.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8499-0367-0 Perrin, a professor of New Testament at conservative Wheaton College in Illinois, addresses his first book as a response to Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [3.4]

    Johnny now has his commentary of chapter three of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus up at The Fire Sermon. [3.5] Bored in Vernal alerted me to the following LDS discussions of the book: [3.6] Jeff analyzes, from an LDS perspective, Ehrman’s assertion that later scribes added Jesus bloody sweat to Luke’s narrative. [3.7] In his [Ehrman’s] conclusion, Ehrman espouses a postmodern worldview. [3.8]

    Of course, if this is true, then one wonders why Ehrman wrote this book in the first placeâ Ehrmanâ s own book shows that he assumes some agreed-upon reality with his reader where words mean things and texts can be understood â ‘including his own. [3.9]

    Perhaps Misquoting Jesus in conjunction with Nick Perrin’s Lost in Transmission would be an interesting book study for a small group of those interested in learning more about the history and interpretation of the NT. [3.10] He gives a good, rational review of New Testament mythology and it’s historicity as well as evidences for redaction and change and why. [3.11]

    While his discussion is very objective and he makes an effort not to really question the actual historicity of Jesus, you get a good sense of some of the reasons for doubting the literal word of biblical scripture and for treating it more as allegory and myth than history. [3.12]

    Ehrman, an atheist (he would say “agnostic”, but either you believe in a god or gods or you don’t -he doesn’t), doesn’t dispute the existence of Jesus -he just doesn’t believe he was divine. [3.13] 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. [3.14] Since then, New Testament professor Dan Wallace responded to Ehrman with a lengthier review, “The Gospel according to Bart”. [3.15]

    Misquoting Jesus is a history of textual criticism of the New Testament, and focuse on three main branches of New Testament textx: the Alexadrian, the Byzantine, and the Western. [3.16]


  • InterVarsity Press

    The Gospels are therefore our main source of information about Jesus, and, while believers grapple with their own personal responses to the text, a historian encounters a series of familiar problems, the first being the lack of original manuscripts. [4.1]

    This is a very helpful refutation of many of the major planks in Bart Ehrman’s misguided project Misquoting Jesus in which this UNC-Chapel Hill professor alleges that the NT manuscripts are unreliable and indeed corrupt. [4.2]


  • Bert Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and Maudlin

    Bishop Yvette Flunder of City of Refuge Church, a member of the HRC Religion Council, recommends Gary Wills new book, What Jesus Meant, and Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [5.1] Both books seek to reveal a deeper and more critical understanding of the politics and cultural norms that resulted in a distorted portrait of the history and theology of Jesus,’ Flunder said. [5.2]

    It is also good to read the books together, as Wills speaks from a Catholic background and Ehrman from evangelical beginnings. [5.3] Boutote has worked on titles like Bert Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and Maudlin has handled books such as Alan Jacob’s The Narnian. [5.4] If the book isn’t the inspired Word of God, then the teachings of Martin Luther and his successors is suspect. [5.5] Title: Misquoting truth : a guide to the fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting JesusAuthor: Timothy P JonesPublisher: Downers Grove, Ill. [5.6]

    And from New Testament scholar Robert Gundry, expressing his opinion of Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, in an extended review that I have linked from my article: [5.7] These criticisms were made of his [Ehrman’s] earlier work, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which Misquoting Jesus has drawn from extensively. [5.8]

    There are many books on the New Testament, (e.g., Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, Galambush’s The Reluctant Parting), yet each one of them has its own particular view of what constitutes the New Testament and their own focus. [5.9]


  • Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth

    I’m halfway through Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth, and it’s certainly not an important work of textual criticism nor is it meant to be. [6.1]

    While Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus is very illuminating for those who are unfamiliar with the field, the Pope’s work demonstrates a thorough doctrinal knowledge of not only the New Testament scriptures and tradition but also of the Old. [6.2]

    He also goes to great lengths to look beyond the scriptures themselves and delve deeply into the works of Jewish (and other) scholars and how they interpret the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whether they agree with the Nazarene or not. [6.3]


  • Evangelical Textual Criticism Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus

    I mentioned Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus in my response to nlj21’s complaint that Karen Armstrong does not provide a source for her claim that the Apostle Paul didn’t write the Pastoral Epistles. [7.1]

    Bill Collier Concerning Ehrman, you might find a March 15, 2005 entry at Ben Witherington’s blog entitled Misanalyzing Text Criticism Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, and a July 25, 2006 entry at Awilum entitled Scholarly Lack of Transparency of interest. [7.2]

    Evangelical Textual Criticism Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, and this led me personally to seriously study textual criticism. [7.3]

    I’d like to propose a different approach to the discussion of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus (this came up in a conversation with Elise and John White last night thanks y’all!). [7.4]

    I have ordered Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus for her first read. [7.5]

    I note that Curmudgeon is suggesting reading Barth Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [7.6]

    A Conversation about the Pope, the Bible, the Qur’an (Quran, Koran), God, Inspiration, and Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [7.7]

    Beside that, I read Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, about the of the Bible (mainly the NT) from Elder Days to the present. [7.8]

    For Easter, I’m finishing Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, a nice readable description of why all our Bible translations are bad (though he puts it in much more interesting wording). [7.9]


  • Post-mortem

    Anyone wanting to read a brief, but brilliant rebuttal of Bart Ehrman’s latest attack on the Bible’s textual trustworthiness, Misquoting Jesus, should read Robert Gundry’s ” Post-Mortem: Death by Hardening of the Categories” In the September/October edition of Books and Culture. [8.1] I limit myself to one quotation: [8.2]

    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. [8.3]


  • Brownsboro Road

    Last Wednesday I began an eight-week summer study of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus at Christ Church United Methodist, 4614 Brownsboro Road, Louisville, Kentucky. [9.1]

    2) Nobody knows “who wrote the books”, but that has nothing to do with archaeology if you want to know how the continuity was maintained, read Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. [9.2]


  • The Gospel of Luke and Acts

    Dean L. Overman examines the earliest Christian records to build a compelling case for the divinity of Jesus. [10.1]

    Overman analyzes often-overlooked evidence from liturgies and letters written in the years immediately following Jesus death decades earlier than the Gnostic gospels or the New Testament gospels. [10.2] In A Case for the Divinity of Jesus, you’ll learn: [10.3]

    For example, Mack believes that the author of The Gospel of Luke and Acts is the same person, yet he says that ‘The ambiance of Jesus teaching in Luke’s gospel contrasts markedly with the sharp edge characteristic of the sermons in Acts (p. 169)’ and he recognizes a ‘much sharper polemic against the Jews in the sermons in Acts (p. 170). [10.4]

    His responses to questions at the end are particularly good (especially the one from the bloke who’s clearly read Elvis Shot Kennedy: Freemasonry’s Hidden Agenda and therefore “knows” that Jesus spent a lot of time travelling round India before marrying Mary Magdalene). [10.5] “What scriptures were flying about in the early days of Christianity saying that Jesus didn’t die or that He wasn’t resurrected? [10.6]

    What if the Ebionites-who believed Jesus was completely human and not divine-had ruled the day as the Orthodox Christian party? [10.7]

    A good teacher does not hold back on telling his [Phil Ryken’s] students what is what, but he also knows how to package the material so they do not let emotion get in the way of reason. [10.8] The irony is that Misquoting Jesus is supposed to be all about reason and evidence, but it has been creating as much panic and alarm as The Da Vinci Code. [10.9] The teachings of Jesus were not even original, but found a parallel in the teachings of other Rabbis. [10.10]

    It seems you didn’t do very much research about the book you believe to be inspired by God himself! I would seriously recommend you do some studying, starting with Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus as a simple intro to manuscript history. [10.11] Speculating we can’t absolutely prove physical matter doesn’t have anything to do with believing in God or Jesus or the FSM. [10.12]

    His conduct clearly showed this (at least from the accounts we have of this character called Jesus). [10.13]

    Jesus was really the Son of God or not is a central question for Christians–and one this has provoked heated debate since the time of Jesus birth. [10.14]

    If I remember correctly, he proves that Everything in mathew after the closure of the tomb is a later interpolation, so are the first verses of John (Logos/theos) & Jesus & the prostitute incident, that is usually used to prove that he wanted abrogation of Mosaic law. [10.15]

     

    See also

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