Textual Criticism: Introducing Bart Ehrman and His Misquoting Jesus
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, is a monumental New York Times bestseller by the best-selling author Bart Ehrman. Latter-Day Saints and Muslims, whose scriptures teach the Bible doesn't support them because Christians corrupted it, have found sanctuary in Bart Ehrman's skeptical analysis. But of course also, anyone skeptical of the Bible might find it handy, like an atheist. To get a defense is the reason I actually read it.
If you haven't ran into him before, Bart Ehrman is a famous agnostic New Testament scholar. He is one of Christianity's greatest critics. While reading his Misquoting Jesus, I ran into how early church fathers, like Irenaeus and Tertullian, extensively argued against a heretic named Marcion (1). This reminds me of what I see happening with Ehrman. There is no shortage of books contradicting him, from Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible to How God Became Jesus and even the chapter I cross-cite in this blog project from Lee Strobel's In Defense of Jesus. Ehrman's name is mentioned so many times, it can seem like he is on every page. So many apologetics against his arguments are appropriate because he is very influential and a real challenge for Christians (at least the lay Christian), but it makes me cringe to see the God of Love's people trying to tear apart an intellectual argument without seeming to spare the person behind it. (I'm not saying this is necessarily immoral: one could make the case that Jesus's tough love permits trying to protect the masses by leaving no room for mistaking Ehrman was wrong, or something.) I end up feeling bad and want to emphasize that Ehrman is really very intelligent, elite, and a person who deserves respect (because God said so though, not it's a made-up relative rule or something).
Yet... sometimes I get suspicious that Ehrman writes some things he does to gain an audience that agrees with his core non-Christianity, and that he wants to debunk the Bible. I think this is a factor in why he writes books where it says things like it's doubtful that Jesus was buried at all. He is, after all, a prominent skeptic, and has even sometimes acknowledged his thoughts (Obama was born in the U.S[2], we have to make our own morality[3], women can abort[4]). He might be feeding his side.
Throughout this blog project, I will be citing Ehrman of course, but also expressing doubt toward the things he says that aren't really good for Christianity. Now, I don't think he's probably wrong with everything, and rather think he's probably right. But I want to play it on the safe side. I think, "But what if the other side says something different..."
The primary reason, and the only one that comes off the top of my head, that I was pushed to this edge is because of something he argued in How Jesus Became God. Ehrman came to the conclusion it's unlikely Jesus would have been buried, because the Romans didn't bury crucifixion victims, even when it came to the Jews who's law demanded it. But really, there is an abundance of evidence that they would get buried, and even the great critical scholar of the last century Rudolf Bultmann said the burial story lacks legendary development(5).
As the truth will always be, we are all human, and have similarities even if we have differences. His favorite Gospel is Mark, as is mine(6). (This is for different reasons though. I don't even have a real "favorite" of any book of the Bible, as I believe whatever they specifically and individually are fits in a great melting pot of God's inspiration, and none of them are better than the other. But Mark I have extensively studied and for apologetic reasons even call it the true lost Gospel of Peter, and think I can prove Jesus is God from it. I would suspect Ehrman might like this book the most because it is the earliest Gospel -- tending to be the least legendary, so it is said -- and appears to have a more human Jesus than the others.)
I learned that indeed, the problem from Mark 2, mentioned in the post about inerrancy, is what pushed Ehrman over into skepticism. I found it interesting, though, that he had made some argument similar to how the Christian scholars responded. He considered the argument, "while based on the meaning of the Greek words involved," still "a bit convoluted." (7). I wonder what happened there, because it didn't seem very difficult when the Christian scholars cited in that post explained it, using the Greek.
Anyway, here, dear reader, is a blog project about the accuracy of the New Testament we hold in our hand today. I enjoyed reading and learning from Misquoting Jesus, and cross-citing and compiling other information from expert Christians. My hope is for it to show you that God really wanted to, and did, preserve His word for us.
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