The victors not only write the history, they also reproduce the texts. In a study that explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, Ehrman examines how early struggles between Christian "heresy" and "orthodoxy" affected the transmission of the documents over which, in part, the debates were waged. His thesis is that proto-orthodox scribes of the second and third centuries occasionally altered their sacred texts for polemical reasons--for example, to oppose adoptionists like the Ebionites, who claimed that Christ was a man but not God, or docetists like Marcion, who claimed that he was God but not a man, or Gnostics like the Ptolemaeans, who claimed that he was two beings, one divine and one human. Ehrman's thorough and incisive analysis makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the social and intellectual history of early Christianity and raises intriguing questions about the relationship of readers to their texts, especially in an age when scribes could transform the documents they reproduced to make them say what they were already thought to mean, effecting thereby the orthodox corruption of Scripture.
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament.
by whereami 46 Replies latest watchtower bible
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JuanMiguel
As most of us here on this board are probably well-versed in Baloney Detection (sound argumentation versus fallacious arguments and rhetoric), the work of one author does not truth make.
While I can only speak for myself in agreeing with a critical approach to Biblical analysis, this leaves me and the rest of academia—religious and otherwise—as condemned by Ehrman for using the historical-critical method, especially employing disciplines in textual source analysis.
Ehrman does not believe in textual criticism. Instead he advances his own theories as superior, theories which advance as fact that it was the heretics of Christianity who had that religion and the correct rendering of Bible books right, and that the Church Fathers were purposeful corrupters of Scriptural texts.
This is interesting but highly unlikely due to the fact that there was no canon of agreed Scriptures during the time of the Church Fathers or the heretics that he claims had a better view of the Christian texts like Marcion, for example. There was no “New Testament” or official collection of books that the Christians viewed as a continuation of the Hebrew Bible for several centuries after Christ, and the resulting canon contains several books that were not widely distributed and even questionable by a great number of congregations (such as 2 Peter and the Revelation to John) while ignoring books that were universally read and used (like the Apocalypse of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas, to name a few).
Another factor that Ehrman tends to ignore is that persons like Marcion wanted a canon as a means of advancing a “proof text” system to support Gnostic views. Such use of texts was highly uncommon among the early Christians as there was no authoritative text for them beyond the Hebrew Scriptures, and these were rejected by Marcion as useless. Marcion had to develop his own canon because of the absence of one in Christianity, and he is specifically remembered in history for doing just that. This leaves us with the question, how could the Church Fathers corrupt the words of a canon that Marcion had to invent because of its non-existence in the first place?
Finally, Ehrman is interested in advancing his personal views as an agnostic because of the failure of evangelical Fundamentalism to prove efficacious to his needs. He makes this very clear as he uses his disappointment with this type of a theology as a reason for rejecting any evidence that speaks contrary to his own contrived theory of Church Father corruption of a canonical text that did not exist yet. He also admits in his own writings that he is the one who invented this view, and he also advances that his view is but a theory and nothing more. His approach is an admitted cynical one, and this differs greatly from a critical approach which generally employs disciplines, some of which are in line with the scientific method.
Of course I respect your convictions because at least you are showing that we don’t have to lean on the Watchtower concepts and any others in particular to arrive at finding workable answers for ourselves. And regardless of my own views on Ehrman, at least he is an educated man and did not stick with his previously held Fundamentalist views after he tested them and found them wanting. That shows a lot of courage. He is a prolific author, and despite having a cynical approach, from what I gather he is unusually respectful with it nonetheless, at least where civility is concerned—a rare combination.
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Band on the Run
I've had a strong layperson's interest in Biblical scholarship. While I was a student at Columbia, I took several courses with Elaine Pagels, both on New Testament and gnosticism. When it came time to write papers, I studiously avoided all Witness loaded topics. So I came across the historical Jesus studies. I believe I have an unread book by Ehrmann among many other books to read.
I'm not certain what Ehrmann's theory is. It sounds too glib if it is as reported. One person rarely has substantial truth. If one scholar is on to something, others follow. Indeed, Pagels corrected us when we were dissing profs who cannot teach getting tenure. She said she could tell us just about anything about NT studies and we'd believe her. Exposing her work to others was challenging.
Every topic I've ever studied has been complex and hard to categorize. I'm not certain whether he means dominant or Eastern Christianity. The Bible never comes in nice packages since I left the Witnesses. Corrections may have been made by a single scholar but would not there not be a very specific program of revision to alter translation of the present Bible.
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wobble
Whatever the faults with Ehrmann's views, the fact remains that the Bible Canon as we have it was decided by the catholic church late in the 300's , 381CE (ish, I can't remember exactly)
Of course debate continued, Luther and others did not fully agree which books should be included.
The Church at this time was a highly political animal, meddling in affairs of state, king-making was their profession. Writings which did not suit their agenda would have been left out, maybe even destroyed.
Those that they do include were often written in the first place with a particular agenda, take Matthew for example, and were not actual trustworthy records of the Historical Jesus or of his words.
What we are left with is a work of fiction that has evolved without doubt, and is derived from copies of copies and then translated.
And still we get the Fundie types saying we should do as they say because the "Bible says........". As though it is the word of god.
The Bible has no provenance and no legitimate claim to any authority.
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JuanMiguel
I totally agree with Wobble, but there is nothing wrong with a religion selecting texts that serves it's own needs. Why would it select texts that served the needs of those who opposed them or perscuted them or who were trying to destroy them?
This doesn't mean we should all join the Roman Catholic Church or pretend that there aren't some serious problems there, but again like the Jews who wrote and collected books about their own religious history for their own purposes, what was the difference? Whose texts were they?
As to the historicity of the texts of the gospels, scholarship agrees that none of them were intended to be historical biographies. The writers made no mention of the appearance of Jesus, a profile of his personality traits, or even attempt to keep the events they report on in chronological order. Each of the gospels are religious testimonies on the meaning of Christ and what events in connection with his life prove (at least from the Christians' point of view) his claim that he was the promised Messiah.
And the gospel texts we have are not changed much at all from the originals or their sources. We have the John Rylands fragment of John which is only a few years older than the original (and may have been a first-hand copy of that gospel) and the writings of the Church Fathers, many of whom quote large portions of the text centuries before their canonization, and these prove that only errors ever found their way in some manuscript copies, no errors which are beyond identification even to laypersons today. There's no need for a repeat of Qumran for Christianity regarding the accuracy of the texts we have today because there are far more dependable witnesses to their precise transmission than that which exists for the plays of Shakespeare.
If you develop a philosophy or invent a religion, you likewise have the say of any writings you adopt as special if you choose so. It is true that at the time of the final canonization the fact that universally accepted books like the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and Peter's revelation were not included while the highly suspect 2 Letter of Peter and the mostly unheard of Revelation to John were chosen instead did not sit well with a lot of the bishops and members of the churches. For whatever reasons Eusebius and Athansius give for their selection, it appears that there will never be a lack of people around who will disagree.
Like the Jews, the Christian Scriptures were not the basis for the Christian community and its religion. Their religion was based on their encounter with Jesus of Nazareth who they confessed as Christ and the teaching set by the Apostles. The books they wrote, cherished, collected, and later canonized were not chosen to create a text upon which to base Christianity itself but to show how its origins were set in authority, to compliment itself. If Christianity were meant to be based on what one finds in the Christian texts, we would not have a Christian religion to speak of as there would have been no one to write them, no one to read or distribute them about, and no one to choose and have the final say over which books belonged in its canon. Like the Jews, these texts were not the basis for this faith (as the Witnesses claim the Bible should be). Instead the Christian Scriptures were based on the already set beliefs of these Christians, and it was by the authority they wielded that it came about, not the other way around.
Whatever value we wish to attribute to such is a whole different subject altogether, however, and a personal matter.
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ProdigalSon
I don't think the selection of books is nearly as important as how they are interpreted. Not many people took Horus and Set or Pandora's Box literally.
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PSacramento
For those that want to read up on the process of canonization, I suggest:
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance.
Bruce M. Metzger (Author) ›Visit Amazon's Bruce M. Metzger Page Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author Are you an author? Learn about Author Central (Author) I would also suggest this one here:The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th Edition)
Bruce M. Metzger (Author) ›Visit Amazon's Bruce M. Metzger Page Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author Are you an author? Learn about Author Central (Author), Bart D. Ehrman (Author) The first one gives the process of how the canon came to be, and the second relates the process of transmission of the NT. -
wobble
Dear JuanMiguel,
I agree that we have the John Rylands fragment, which is probably within decades of the original, but opinion is not undivided on that,but it is just that, a fragment that proves that that part of scripture is as least as old as the fragment, but it is only a few words, and is a copy.
The oldest complete text we have is the Codex Sinaiticus, separated by centuries from the originals.
How can you claim that the gospel texts are not changed much from their originals or their sources, that sounds like the WT speaking !
WE have nothing close to the originals, let alone their sources.
So I make my point again, the bible has no provenance, and no legitimate claim to authority.
I wish people would take that on board and not ask what every jot and tittle in the bible we have today means, as though we could get the mind of God that way. They come out with "Jesus says, or Paul says.. " We don't know what they said, though the writings of Paul that we have are more than likely pretty close, but what Jesus said or did for sure, we can never know.
Yet they, bible believers, would have us believe our eternal salvation depends upon this stuff !
It is a collection of books cobbled together by a politicised church to bolster and maintain its power, and that is its chief use, or rather mis-use, today, establishing power and control over people.
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Heaven
I have always been intrigued about what wasn't written down; about what wasn't documented. To me, this is the real mystery. There is so much more that went on back then and even now that never got/gets published or publicized. This fascinates me more than what has already been hashed and rehashed.
Intimate stories of peoples' lives and experiences, what their ancestors had to endure are the real tales I wish to hear and not some belief system's or religion's agenda.
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PSacramento
I enjoy Bart's work, even if it is a tad bias and not really anything new and I agree with the majority of what Juanmiguel stated in his posts.
None of Bart's points are actually new and have been addressed over the years before Bart was in born.