Some time ago, a lady in my church lent us a set of tapes from
The Teaching Company. The course, taught by
Dr. Bart Ehrman, was titled
Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication. It was a survey of various divergent ideas and movements in early Christianity, most of which were eventually labeled heretical. Dr. Ehrman took the position that the struggle to determine orthodoxy was primarily political. On the whole, his treatment appeared fair-minded. I was most troubled by allegations that he made that the New Testament documents themselves had been tampered with by scribes in the interest of advancing the "orthodox" view.
Last Thursday night, February 19, 2009, Dr. Ehrman spoke at a public forum at the
Church of the Holy Communion (Episcopal) here in Memphis, Tennessee. His topic, not surprisingly related to his most recent book in publication, was "the hidden contradictions in the Bible and why you haven't heard about them." I went to hear this with my wife Linda and my friend from work Richard Roland. I had no idea what the talk would be about, but I suspected that it might have to do with the issue of manuscript differences and changes. We got there early to get seats close to the front. It is a good thing that we did, since by the time the talk started, the nave was full. The church's clergy introduced Dr. Ehrman. He spoke, then took written questions from the audience. After the talk, there was a reception where, again not surprisingly, Dr. Ehrman's books were available for sale.
Dr. Ehrman is an engaging and entertaining speaker. I will say in his favor that, unlike many of his persuasion, he did not belittle or make fun of those who disagree with him. His talk, however, did not live up to its billing. He presented no information about the New Testament that I was not aware of. The main point that I learned was his own personal perspective. I shall now attempt to summarize his talk and make some brief comments before I forget it all.
Dr. Ehrman began by describing his New Testament classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The students tended to come from conservative evangelical Christian backgrounds. They believed that the New Testament was the inspired, inerrant word of God, but few of them had ever read it in its entirety, and few were aware of the difficulties, the "contradictions" as Dr. Ehrman would have it, that he was about to point out to them. So he would give them an initial pop quiz to see how much they really knew, followed by assignments to research for themselves some of the difficulties.
He also mentioned that most lay people in churches had never been taught about these difficulties, even though their ministers were well aware of them, and then went on to ask why that might be. He said that most people, if they read the Bible at all, read it "vertically": that is, one book at a time. They do not read it "horizontally," comparing the parallel accounts, as he thinks that they should. Thus they never notice the difficulties in the differences of the parallel accounts.
Dr. Ehrman went on to give four main examples that he considered contradictions in the Gospel accounts.
Mark and John appear to give different accounts of the day on which Jesus was crucified. According to Mark, Jesus was crucified on the day of Passover. According to John, Jesus was crucified on the day of the Preparation for Passover, that is, the day before.
The accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot, given in Matthew and Acts, are different. Matthew says that he hanged himself, while Acts has him falling down and bursting open.
The accounts of the birth of Jesus, given in Matthew, and Luke are quite different.
The demeanor of Jesus on the way to the cross is depicted differently by Mark and by Luke. Mark presents him as silent, in shock over the whole thing, speaking only to ask why he was forsaken by God. Luke has him calm, talkative, in control, more concerned about the welfare of others than about himself. He comforts the weeping women by the side of the road and forgives and reassures the penitent thief.
Dr. Ehrman then spoke about his own approach to these and other biblical difficulties. He said flatly that they were contradictory and could not be reconciled. He further said that the differences in the accounts were the key to understanding them. For the differences showed that the authors were consciously changing the descriptions of the events to make theological points.
One claim that he advanced with which I flatly disagree is that the synoptic Gospels portray Jesus as merely a man, while only the Gospel of John portrays him as God. They may not use the same terminology, but the implication is there. See, for example, the story of the healing of the paralytic in
Mark 2:1-12.
Now I am aware of all of the difficulties that Dr. Ehrman mentioned, as well as many others. So I was disappointed that he was not pointing out any "hidden" contradictions. As he himself said during his talk, these issues are there to see for anyone who reads the accounts. In fact, I could have given substantially the same talk that he did, except, of course for the references to his own experience.
His own experience, briefly summarized, is that he was raised an Episcopalian, or "Episco-pagan" as he called it, and was an acolyte who prayed for the forgiveness of sins every week. Then in his teens he "found Jesus." The person who led him to Christ convinced him to go to Moody Bible Institute. From there he went to Wheaton College, and after that to Princeton Theological Seminary to study with the best Greek scholar in America. I think he said that was Bruce Metzger, but I am not sure. Along the way, his beliefs changed as he encountered the difficulties in Scripture.
It was somewhat surprising to hear Dr. Ehrman say that his loss of faith was not due to the difficulties he encountered in Scripture. He specifically said that we cannot simply say that the Bible is full of contradictions and therefore we don't have to believe it. He saw the biblical stories as teaching theological truths, even if they were not historically accurate and consistent. His concept of truth allows a story to be "true" even if it never happened. What finally caused him to lose his faith and become an agnostic was the problem of suffering. He said that he has read all the arguments about it, but he cannot bring himself to believe in a God that allows so much suffering in the world. Nonetheless, he continues to be a biblical scholar because he thinks that the Bible is the most important and interesting book ever written, and the most influential in Western civilization, and therefore eminently worth of study for its own sake.
What I did learn that was new to me was Dr. Ehrman's approach to interpreting the Scripture and dealing with the difficulties and differences in parallel accounts. A fundamental principle of his approach appears to be that each Gospel writer consciously chose the material that he presents, and omitted all other material, for the express purpose of creating a specific impression. He appears not to allow the possibility that different writers had access to different material, so that omission by one of material included by another may not have been a conscious, intentional omission. He proposes what seems a paradoxical combination of "vertical" and "horizontal" reading. He says that you must read horizontal enough to determine that there are difficulties, then decide that the difficulties are not reconcilable and read vertically from that point on. You must read each Gospel account on its own, and not try to combine it with the others. If you attempt to combine the details of the various parallel accounts, you are guilty of conflation, of producing a gospel account that did not exist at the time and is different from any that did exist. Further, you are detracting from what Mark was trying to say if you interpret him in light of Luke, and vice versal. So not only is harmonizing the accounts impossible, even attempting it is fundamentally dishonest.
I know that the issues that Dr. Ehrman raised are real, difficult issues. I will have to leave dealing with them to those more learned than myself. But he was not the first to notice them. I have heard them all before.
I close with some comments on the situation of the talk and the reaction of the audience. As my friend Richard pointed out, it did seem rather strange to be sitting in a space filled with the trappings of high-church Christianity to hear a professed agnostic tear down the Scriptures. The audience was courteous and, as far as I could tell, mostly sympathetic. There was one man on the front row whom I observed to clap enthusiastically during the applause at one point when Dr. Ehrman made some comment about how theological truth was not affected by historical inaccuracy. It appeared that this man was rejoicing that here was someone tearing down the basis of the "fundamentalist" arguments from Scripture, so that he could remain comfortable in his Episcopal beliefs and not be troubled by the "fundies."
Well, to that gentlemen and to others sharing the same point of view, I close by saying this. Be careful of your allies. Here you are applauding an agnostic, who says that he does not even believe in the God that you probably claim to believe in. His arguments are not just against those annoying fundamentalists. You are embracing his arguments against your own faith. Be careful: he may prove too much.
Labels: Ehrman Christianity Bible
