Bart Ehrman: "Biblical Scholarship and the Right to Know"

by leavingwt 60 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  leavingwt

  I think we've become side-tracked. The article is very positive, IMHO. Notice that Ehrman objects to both believers and unbelievers, if they want to:

  silence, oppress, or harm others
• 

  designs

  Sidetracked! We never get sidetracked we just occasionally take the I'm Right You're Wrong Off Ramp
• 

  AvocadoJake

  LeavingWT" Have you read any of the works by Daniel Wallace and his spirited debate with Dr. Bart D. Erhman? I enjoy reading Erhman and Wallace! John Lennox, Ravvi Zach but I do enjoy when John Lennox speaks up with those of the genious in debate forums.

  http://www.bethinking.org/events/out-of-the-silent-church-conference
• 

  Cadellin

  I thought this was an excellent read, which should resonate with anyone who has left the WT because of its intellectual dishonesty. Ehrman's process of enlightenment regarding Biblical inerrancy, moving as it does through denial, rationalization and finally acceptance, finds parallel in many former JW's journeys. In particular, his desperate attempts to explain away obvious errors, like the Ahimelech/Abiathar discrepancy, find numerous correspondencies in the WT's own ideological structure.

  Thank you for this interesting find!
• 

  Leolaia

  I would then call 'intent to deceive' something like in the Trial of Jesus where you have the Jews saying 'His Blood be upon us'. This is a clear show of intent to malign a culture/religion. As Rabbis for over onethousand years tried to explain to the Church: 'No Jew would ever call upon themsleves the curse of Cain'.

  Just because a passage was later used by non-Jews in antisemitic discourse does not mean that this was the meaning or intent of the passage in its original context. Inner-Jewish polemic was very prolific in early Judaism; one may observe how the Essenes in the Dead Sea Scrolls derided the Hasmoneans and the Pharisees as children of Belial and the sons of darkness. The scene from the trial discussed here (Matthew 27:24-25) represents a rewriting of the originally Markan narrative in Matthew, the most Jewish of the canonical gospels; the same gospel recognizes Torah observance (Matthew 5:17-20, 7:21-23, 23:2-3) and describes apostolic authority in halakhic terms (16:19, 18:18).

  The Matthean Pilate scene is based on the heifer sacrifice ritual in Deuteronomy 21:6-8, and the declaration "May his blood be upon us and our children" is a play on the prayer in v. 8. This sets the guilt of Jesus' sacrifice on the nation of Judea; although Ioudaioi is usually translated "Jews", in the first century the reference was still fundamentally "Judeans". I think one could make a very plausible case that the author is engaging in an inner-Jewish polemic through the same political tradition found in the exilic prophets (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah). These writers interpreted the misfortunes experienced by Judah in 587 BC as divine punishment resulting from the nation's sins and shedding of innocent blood (see Isaiah 59:7, Jeremiah 7:6-7, 19:3-4, 22:17, 26:1, Ezekiel 7:23, 9:9, 22:2-13, etc.). This is stated very succinctly in Lamentations 4:13: "But this happened because of of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed within her the blood of the righteous". The link with the prophetic tradition is clear from the wording of the statement in question ("May his blood be upon us and our children"), which depends on Jeremiah 51:35: "May our blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea, Jerusalem will say". The author of Matthew, writing some time after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, was making a similar statement as the OT prophets concerning the First Temple: The recent destruction of the Second Temple was punishment for the nation's sins — particularly, from a Christian perspective, the unjust execution of Jesus...the ultimate shedding of innocent blood. The Matthean revision of the Olivet discourse, which explicitly concerns the destruction of the Temple, is preceded by a short prophecy that directly connects its destruction with the city's shedding of innocent blood:

  Matthew 23:34-38: "Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate.

  This is a prophetic polemic in the same vein as those found in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and notice how "on you may come all the righteous blood" anticipates the later statement of "all the people" in 27:35: "May his blood be on his and our children". So what is now taken to be antisemitic was quintessentially Jewish in its construction, and draws on themes found in the OT. A number of points could be made supporting this reading. It was a commonplace in Jewish apocalyptic literature of the time to compare the events of AD 70 with 587 BC; this can be found in 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, and the Jewish Sybilline Oracles. Moreover Josephus reported a prophetic oracle by Jesus ben Hananiah (again certainly an inner-Jewish polemic) strikingly similar to that in Matthew 23, warning of a voice "against Jerusalem and the Holy House, against the bridegrooms and the brides, and against the whole people". And Josephus himself had a similar view of things: that God's favor now rested with General Titus and the Romans, and had abandoned the Temple and the nation of Judea which revolted against Rome. There is an interesting article by John Kloppenborg (JBL, 2005) that discusses this concept of evocatio deorum in further detail, which is found in the OT prophets (cf. Jeremiah 12:7, Ezekiel 8:12, 9:9), and in Jewish writings written shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple (cf. 2 Baruch 64:6). The Markan passion narrative has the Temple veil rent at the moment of Jesus' death (Mark 15:38, Matthew 27:51), and this likely signifies (on the strength of other parallels) God abandoning the Temple. This notion too would be used in later Christian supercessionism, but it is rooted in traditional Jewish themes from the OT prophets.

  So I don't think its warranted to say that the author wrote to malign a culture or religion — especially if the statements in question derive from well-established traditions in that religion. The antisemitic use of this text rather represents an exaptation of a meme that originally had a different function.

  Or having Jesus suddenly spout Latin Baptismal Liturgy like in Matt. 24. Cleary the Bishops had an agenda.

  It's not a "Latin" baptismal liturgy; the formula in Matthew 28:19 is the same found in Didache 7:1 ("As for baptism, baptize in this way: Having said all this beforehand, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in running water"); both books have an Eastern (Syrian) provenance and have a special relationship with each other, likely because they were written in the same socio-cultural milieu. Later Justin Martyr (Apology 1.61.3) attested the tripartite form of the baptismal liturgy. As Kurt Niederwimmer noted, "The agreement of the formulae is not explained by the Didache's quoting Matthew's Gospel but — naturally — by their common dependence on the liturgy" (Hermeneia, p. 127).

  While I haven't dug into Bart's work the obvious signs that Books like Romans, Galatians, Hebrews etc were not written by a Jew named Saul (Paul) are the Jewish errors and assumptions that are made.

  Second Temple Judaism was diverse and very far from a monolithic unity of biblical interpretation; one could easily list "errors" made by the Essenes, Sadducees, different Pharisee schools, Alexandrine Jews, etc. Saul of Tarsus incidentally is portrayed in the NT as a diaspora Jew who had Roman citizenship status; it thus comes as little surprise that "Paul" viewed things quite differently (e.g. having a more Hellenized perspective) than, say, a Qumran covenanter. Also Hebrews makes no claim of Pauline authorship and there was quite some hesitance (particularly in Rome) to accept Hebrews on account of this.
• 

  designs

  Thanks for your research Leolaia-

  For an alternate take find 'The Book Of Jewish Knowledge' by Ausubel, pages 100-111. Noting that the Christians misused the Jewish Texts in the Gospels: page 110: 'Yet all four narratives of the evangelists-the Gospels of M.M.L.J.- described in an emotionally inflammable setting, bear down inexorably on one premeditated conclusion: that it was not Pilate but the Jews who, in a frenzy of hatred for Jesus, were responsible for his agony and death on the cross. The diabolical image of the Jews-frightening, cunning, and cruel, as they are collectively depicted -stimulated the imaginative genius of christian art during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The foremost painters and sculpters portrayed the heart-rendering scenes along the Via Dolorosa: Jesus being scourged, "the Jews" abusing and leering villainously at him as he dragged his cross to Golgotha, the 'Hills of Skulls', and gloating vengefully as they beheld him, hanging shattered, bleeding, and still, nailed to the cross of his martyrdom. To the Christian who is enlightened and is also knowledgeable about the principles of the Jewsih religion and of its moral values, institutions, and practices, such a depiction of the Jews must seem either absurd libel or a vast distortion.'

  page 113: "What devout Christian has not been inflamed in his deepest feelings on reading in an uncritical state of mind about the clamor the [Jewish] mob raised before Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, for the life of Jesus. "Let him be crucified," thay are alleged to have cried. Then, as if to crown its own infamy and make it appear the more unspeakable, the Gospel writer puts these incredible words into the mouths of the shouting mob: "His blood be on us, and on our children." Mt.27:25. It was principally on this particular passage that the religious anti-Semites of history pounced, nailing it down as the source of supreme sanction for the unremitting persecution of the Jewish people. They argued the the Jews had out of their own mouths condemned themselves with these words, voluntarily accepting their blood guilt as "Christ killers'- Certainly, it passes all credibility to believe that the Jews, in screaming their hatred for Jesus before the Roman procurator- the man who was both their oppressor and their relentless enemy- would gleefully accept the mark of Cain for themselves and all their descendants so readily and with such relish!"

  See also Mission and Expansion of Christianity by Adolf von Harnack and his declaration of regret and contrition to the Jews.
• 

  Band on the Run

  Ditto. I keep running across Ehrman the populizer, the provacateur. If there is true freedom, people must have freedom to be fundamentalists and not be attacked. What is the message after scripture is errant. It is no longer news. I don't think it was news in the first century.
• 

  designs

  Baptism: Greek not Latin, thanks. How a nice Jewish kid ends up with a Trinitarian formula and speaks Greek Liturgy is another red flag. The Tevilah in Mikveh it ain't
• 

  AvocadoJake

  I wonder why Bart never credits John Marcos Allegro's works and his provacative book written around 1960... Bart owes men like Allegro, men who wrote about the Essenes, John The Baptist, Magic Mushrooms, Gnostics and other wild Jesus and Mary Magdalene stories. Poor John Marcos Allegro, being on the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible team, only to die before the advent of the Divinici Code and Bart's Misqouting Jesus and Gnostic Gospels.
• 

  wobble

  I do not agree with BOR's statment that: " if there is true freedom, people have the freedom to be fundamentalists and not be attacked".

  I presume you BOR, are not talking of pysical attack, but intellectual? If so, your statement is arrant nonsense.

  Thanks for posting LWT, I think it is a good read. We have dealt with BE's use of "Fake" and "deceive" on other threads, suffice to say he really should qualify exactly what he means, but he is a good self publicist, he wishes to sell his books, you cannot get stuff such as he writes to a wide audience without stirring up a bit of contoversy.

  Thanks again for pointing us to his speech.