Tag: Bart Ehrman

Book Plunge: Did Jesus Exist?

What do I think of Bart Ehrman’s latest book? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I’ve had this one sitting for awhile meaning to read it but some of you may know how it is. You find one more book that you want to order at the library and you do so and that becomes another and then another and then another and those books you have at home that you’re meaning to read never seem to get there. Encouragement from others on this book finally got me to sit down and go through it and I do agree, it is a good book.

A great advantage that we have in this book is that this is someone that normally the atheist community respects, although there has been quite a backlash against Ehrman since he wrote it. It is quite amazing that atheists who often say Christians go against all of scholarship in being against evolution can often themselves do the same in going against all of scholarship in being Christ-mythers and yet they think that this is a respectable position. It is not. It never has been. It never will be.

Not only this, Ehrman gives plenty of evidences that the Christian can use in dating the evidences. For instance, Ehrman says within a couple of decades of Jesus’s death, we have numerous accounts of his life in a wide geographical area. He notes that there are at least eleven sources. (82-83) He makes it clear that there are possibly more. On page 108 we read “The Other is that the Acts account gives clear evidence of being very early and Palestinian in origin.”

Also, Ehrman does not hold back when he speaks about people like Acharya S. and Freke and Gandy in “The Jesus Mysteries.” He repeats a number of statements that he refers to as howlers that can be found in them. He will also throughout the book deal with other Mythicists like Richard Carrier, G.A. Wells, Earl Doherty, and Robert Price. I do know Price has recently responded to Ehrman’s appearance on Unbelievable? talking about this and Carrier was quite vehement in his reply to Ehrman.

Ehrman also includes a basic historiography and tells us about how we can establish someone’s existence in the ancient world. He lays myth to the idea that the Romans kept excessive records and points out that there is hardly mention of many people whose existence we do not doubt in the ancient sources. Josephus is not mentioned for instance. Ehrman also thinks it’s implausible to point out that Caesar is mentioned, as if the person who rules the Roman Empire could be compared with any person living in the Empire. (Nevertheless, Jesus does get an impressive number of mentions)

I do think his responses to why Jesus isn’t mentioned in other sources are weak. I would answer that the reason Jesus isn’t mentioned is the same as it would be today. Suppose you hear about someone halfway around the world who is working miracles. Are you really going to investigate it? Even if you get on your computer, you’ll find one site that explains it away and that can be enough. Most of us don’t take that claim seriously, even if we believe in miracles!

Now transplant that to the Roman Empire. Suppose you’re in Rome. You hear about this Jewish rabbi in the backwater area of Palestine who is doing miracles. What are you going to say? Simple. “What a bunch of ignorant superstitious people.” You’re not going to bother because you’re predisposed to be against miracles, especially if you hear about a resurrection. After all, who wants to come back to life anyway? Finally, if you hear he has been crucified, well that clinches it. No great ruler would be crucified.

In fact, this is something Ehrman states repeatedly with regards to crucifixion. Jesus’s crucifixion is not something the early Christians would have made up. They would have done anything to avoid it, but the reason that they preached it is that they could not avoid it. It was an undeniable fact and they not only had to share it, but they even saw the basis for it in the Scriptures. If this was the wisdom of God, they were to find it.

Also, Ehrman does a number on the position that because something is in the Bible, we should not accept it as evidence. Ehrman believes the atheist is as wrong as the fundamentalist Christian. It is neither fair nor scholarly. Something does not fall outside the realm of historical inquiry just because the word “Scripture” is given to it. He also says there is no God-given hermeneutic for reading them and they are human and historical. Christians can agree by and large. While we think there is a divine origin, it is also through human authors.

In looking at a response to Mythicist themselves, Ehrman repeatedly points out that the whole of scholarship is in disagreement. The book gives an impression of one Ehrman is disappointed he has to write. The idea is that this theory is so absurd that it does not even, as he says, get a toe-hold in the academy. This also includes even the claim that Nazareth didn’t exist of Rene Salm and Ehrman frequently quotes scholars on the subject, seeing as archaeology is not his area, who make it clear how shoddy they think Salm’s approach is.

He also goes after Kersey Graves, who is a regular source for mythicists, and says that not one of his claims is footnoted with any scholarly evidence. Where does Graves get his information from? We don’t know. We do know that numerous mythicists online are still quick to point to his material about 16 crucified saviors. It is always important to ask people who make the claims about Jesus being a copycat Messiah to back their claims with primary sources.

When it comes to those pagan beliefs, Ehrman says that they did not have a foothold in Palestine and that while there are similiarities, there is no basis to say copying was going on. This brings up a point some readers might wonder about. What do I think about this book in comparison with J.P. Holding’s “Shattering the Christ-Myth.” After all, Holding spends much more time on the matter of copycats then Ehrman.

Overall, I do think Holding’s work is more thorough and better at dealing with the copycat theory and every other aspect. This could also be because Holding’s material is written by a group of individuals. One wonders how long one could write individually on the Christ-myth before one thinks they were repeating themselves. One can find much more in Holding’s book on Mithras, the Testimonium Flavianum, and Remsberg’s list. (I don’t think Remsberg is even mentioned in Ehrman’s.)

Many Christians find disappointment with Ehrman’s book at the end when he describes Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet. Coming from a Preterist perspective, I did not find this section disappointing but rather confirming. After all, I see Ehrman as reading the predictions of Jesus with the same fundamentalist thinking he condemns elsewhere. I can easily look at the text and say “Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet and He was right!”

While I do think Holding’s material is superior for the reasons given, I still think this is an important one as the skeptic is more prone to listen to someone like Ehrman. I will still be including links to both resources.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Shattering the Christ Myth can be found [url=http://www.amazon.com/Shattering-Christ-James-Patrick-Holding/dp/1606472712/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347303077&sr=1-1&keywords=shattering+the+christ+myth]here[/url]

Did Jesus Exist? can be found [url=http://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062204602/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347303116&sr=1-1&keywords=did+jesus+exist]here[/url]

The Ehrman/Carrier debate

How’s the view from under the bus? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I have yet to read Ehrman’s “Did Jesus Exist?” although I do have a copy of it here, but library books come first. That having been said, it has been amusing on some web sites to see how Richard Carrier is now going after Bart Ehrman and this no doubt places the usual village atheist in a bind.

Typically, fundy atheists online have relied on Bart Ehrman. One can hardly read the new atheists without seeing a reference to Bart Ehrman as the authority. At the same time, the new atheists seem quite open to the idea that Jesus never existed and now, the champion that online fundy atheists have claimed for so long has come out with a position deemed heretical.

So now what to do? Apparently for fundy atheists, in the past, Ehrman’s books were seen as excellent because Ehrman is a scholar and he is right in what he says, but now that this one has come out, what to do? Do we want to still say he’s a scholar and value what he says, but if so then we have to drop the idea that Jesus never existed? How could Ehrman give such a betrayal as this?

For the rest of us in reality who actually look at claims on a case-by-case basis and have it be more than “X says so”, this isn’t a problem. We can recommend the works of someone on a case-by-case basis realizing some positions we agree with and some don’t. Not so for the typical fundy atheists who treats the paragons of his faith more seriously than most Christians treat Scripture.

Enter Richard Carrier. Carrier has long been the go-to man for online skeptics and is one of those few people who still holds to this position that Jesus never existed. Carrier also seems to think he’s an authority on several issues and gets called out quickly when someone else comes along who is one. Most notably, he has quite an ego online.

Watching these two fare off is quite amusing, but even more so is the fact that Ehrman is shown to know what he’s talking about by and large while Carrier is picking at tiny little points thinking that this somehow makes a difference in the overall argument.

Not to be outdone in the “X says so” category, we’ve also seen that P.Z. Myers has applauded Carrier for dealing with Ehrman and that Stephen Law has come out against the existence of Jesus. Keep in mind that both Myers and Law in their respective fields will be demanding evidence to believe something, which in itself I have no problem of, but when it comes to history which they do not study professionally, they are quick to say the evidence is not enough.

By all means, let them do it. By doing so, the new atheist movement is becoming more and more out of sync with reality and when they have to defend this historically atrocious position, then they will have to keep doing more and more all in the attempt to save face rather than face that dreadful alternative of saying “I was wrong.”

This has to be done in fact because the last thing that can be admitted is that the Christian theist actually has a point. Once that is done, then the atheist has to admit that it is no longer blind faith. It is faith that has reason behind it and there goes another one of their favorite cards in their deck.

The idea seems to be that we’re all supposed to stand together and Ehrman has gone against that stand. He must be dealt with. It will be amusing to see if this means online atheists will quickly move away from Ehrman when in a debate someone says “Ehrman. Ehrman. Isn’t he the guy who wrote that book demonstrating that Jesus did exist?”

For now, let the new atheists continue their strong defense of Carrier as their champion and just wait and see what happens when it is shown that the emperor has no clothes. Perhaps then we can ever hear a biblical lament at that point about how the mighty have fallen.

After all, when you’re married to an ideology, why let a little thing like evidence get in the way at that point?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus Interrupted

What are my thoughts on Ehrman’s book “Jesus Interrupted?” Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Jesus Interrupted says that it’s about the hidden contradictions in the Bible with the added emphasis of “and why we don’t know about them.” Ehrman starts off early talking about how seminaries have to have “Baby Bible” exams where students are tested on their basic knowledge of the Bible. I remember such an exam. I had to take one when I entered Bible College. Ehrman is sadly right that most students are unprepared for this aside from a strong fundamentalist view which I believe Ehrman had.

Much of what Ehrman says at the start is not really disagreeable. In fact, it points to a great lack we have in really training our young people to know how to study the text. I say our young people since they’re the ones that normally leave and go off to college and hear this, but everyone in the church needs to know about this stuff.

For now, let’s go through the chapters starting with the second that gets into the substance matter.

Chapter 2- A World of Contradictions.

A noticeable aspect of this book is that Ehrman continues with the baby Bible talk as if many of his readers are unfamiliar with the stories of the Bible. Unfortunately, I also agree. Many readers will be atheists and skeptics who pick up the book not knowing a thing about the Bible, and walk away convinced. Ehrman only gives one side of the equation. He normally presents “contradictions” without pointing out that evangelical scholarship also has an answer to such.

I also will not say that every contradiction Ehrman presents is an open and shut case that is easily resolved. They aren’t all that way. Ehrman is wrong however to present this as if this is something new and the church for centuries has been unaware. On the contrary, the church has been entirely aware.

For instance, on pages 35-39, he points out the differences with the genealogies of Jesus. I do agree that this needs an answer, but this is not a new discovery. I believe the early church in fact had at least four different solutions for the problem and they did debate this. These people noticed what was going on in their books.

Ehrman also cites claims that aren’t really contradictions which is problematic. For instance, on page 32, he writes that no record exists of Herod ordering the execution of the children in Bethlehem. Why the New Testament record is sufficient itself is not given. After all, we do accept some claims in history with only one source. Why not what happened in Bethlehem? It’s not miraculous. It fits with the nature of Herod as well. Could it be that we have to be skeptical because it’s the Bible?

Yes. There’s actually a double-standard in studying the Bible.

Ehrman also has a problem with what is said at Jesus’s baptism. Do we agree that different gospels say different things? Yes. This is a problem only if you think the text had to be written to say exactly what was said instead of a paraphrase of what was said.

Finally, on page 50, Ehrman speaks about the triumphant entry and says that the disciples brought two animals, a donkey and a colt, and Jesus apparently rode in on both of them.

It’s hard to really take something like that seriously.

Let me put up the text as it is in the ESV:

“They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.”

Other translations like the NIV and the NASB make it clearer, but let’s state something. For the sake of argument, Matthew could be wrong. It could be this event never happened. It is disingenuous to Matthew to make him into an idiot. Matthew certainly knew you can’t ride two animals at once. Let’s look at that sentence again.

Does anyone else see any noun there that is in the plural that could be the referent of “them.” I’ve got an idea. How about the disciples put the cloaks on the colt and Jesus sat on the cloaks that were on the colt. See? All you have to do is look up the text and it makes sense.

For many other contradictions, I suggest the reader go check some good commentaries. Another excellent site to go to is that of my ministry partner at Tektonics.org.

Chapter 3-We kind of have more of the same in this chapter. There are some helpful insights and keep this as a reminder to students. Reading the other side is not without some merit and it’s not just so you can expose their errors. They can teach you some things too.

However, there are problems again and I will use an example I found most fascinating, that of supposed differences between Paul and Matthew. Ehrman says on page 90 that Jews must keep the law if they are to be Christians. You must keep the least of these commandments in the law in order to be saved.

This is the same Matthew who in Matthew 15 has Jesus saying that what goes into a person’s mouth cannot defile that person. This would be seriously taboo under the Jewish Law as one could not eat certain foods. It was what came out of a person that made them unclean. Could it be that in reality, the problem is Ehrman’s interpretation of Matthew 5:17-20? Keep in mind Ehrman is a textual critic. That means he knows the languages of course, but it does not mean he is an authority on interpretation. That is a separate field.

Chapter 4

Much of this will be familiar to readers who read my reviews of Forged here and here. Let’s go over a few basic points.

Ehrman makes much about the gospels being anonymous, not noting that the huge majority of books in the ancient world were anonymous. For skeptics, this is a code word indicating that the accounts are not reliable. Absent is any mention of why we believe we know who wrote the books.

Take Matthew for instance. Let’s suppose someone did not know who wrote this book in the early church and they start looking through a list of people in their short church history and the apostles and say “Hey! How about that guy Matthew? Let’s pick him!”

It might sound plausible at first, but why would you? Why not choose James or John or Peter who were part of the inner circle and more prominent? In fact, when one reads the gospels, one hardly even notices Matthew at all save for the scene of his calling. Why choose Matthew? If you wanted a name with strong authority, there were better ones to use.

Or could it be the church fathers paid attention to claims of authorship and had enough information from sources to believe it was indeed Matthew who wrote the book. In fact, if we were just picking authors, why would we have said Mark and Luke? Those are really no-names.

Ehrman gives no indication that any of this has taken place in church history nor does he mention the debates the church had. True, he mentions some church fathers, but Ehrman finds a point of disagreement and then is quick to throw out all of them. How much history would we have if the same was done with Plutarch, Pliny, and others?

Ehrman makes a point about how the Pastorals are forged since they were written in a later period when the church had deacons. However, the genuine letter of Philippians is addressed to deacons in the church as well and Romans 16 refers to a deaconess who delivered the letter. Why didn’t the same happen with 1 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians is likely an encyclical that went to that church first and then went on to other churches to give them guidelines in worship and doctrine.

Other claims just leave one puzzled. On page 113, Ehrman says the book of James was no doubt written by someone named James. What is the argument for this? None is given. What is the source? None given. If the books were anonymous, why think the claim of the church that it was written by James makes that certain, but not the same for, say, the Johannine epistles?

Chapter 5-

This deals with the trilemma of Lewis asking if Jesus was Lord, liar, or lunatic. In this, Ehrman deals with the beliefs that came up about Jesus. Early on, he says on page 145 that the gospels know about historical events like the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (btw Ehrman, I don’t know of non-Christian sources besides Josephus that even mention the destruction. Maybe based on what was said about Herod, that never happened either.)

This is something that cannot be known from a literary study. It assumes that predictive prophecy is not possible. That’s no longer textual clues guiding the text but a metaphysical claim that one approaches prior. Now some of you might say “Well I don’t believe that can happen.” That’s fine, but the best thing to do is to say “I’m skeptical, but I am open so I will take a non-dogmatic approach.” You can say then you don’t believe it happens, but you are open. Anything wrong with that?

On pages 146-7, Ehrman compares the spreading of the accounts of Jesus to the telephone game children play. Scholars know this is a problematic claim. For one thing, when you play telephone, you cannot hear again what the other person said. They can’t repeat it. You can’t check back with them to see if you got it right. That’s what makes the game so much fun.

“Well of course! If you could have it repeated and checked back again then it’s quite likely there wouldn’t be confusion and the game wouldn’t be fun. The checking back makes it less likely mistakes will be transmitted.”

Wow. Don’t you think early Christians would do that also?

Ehrman gives no impression of that. He says nothing about oral transmission in those societies. He says nothing about scholarly studies. The skeptic is left without any idea of what scholarship of oral transmission has to say on the issue and is left with a view that bears no similarity to what happened in the ancient world.

To his credit, Ehrman does give some criteria for historical verification of claims and some readers will be benefited. A lot of mythicists, as we will see in our next chapter, would definitely be benefited if they took the time to study this kind of methodology.

Towards the end of the chapter, Ehrman handles the resurrection and his argument is basically that of Hume’s. His idea is that miracles are the least likely events to have happened, therefore they did not happen. We should always go for the most plausible.

No. We should always go where the evidence lies regardless of if we think it plausible or not.

Ehrman presents another scenario to explain the resurrection and it doesn’t do that. It just explains the empty tomb. It does not explain the claims of the apostles that they saw the resurrected Christ nor does it explain the conversion of Paul. What does Ehrman think about his scenario?

He himself says it is not likely at all and he is not proposing at all that that is what happened, but even though this is a claim that has zero evidence to back it, it is more probable than that a miracle happened.

Hence the great danger if a person will not believe the truth. They will believe in anything else.

Chapter 6

Much of this is about Ehrman’s problem with not having the inspired words of the text handed down exactly. Apparently, for God to make sure His Scripture was handed down, God would have to be a micro-manager. Did Ehrman expect something like a lightning bolt to strike whenever someone wrote a wrong word frying them as a warning to others? He does not say how He thinks it should have happened. Does He think the NT should have just fallen from Heaven? If so, where? in what language? Should this have to be repeated regularly as cultures and languages change?

Ehrman makes a point that we don’t have the originals. Nor do we have the originals of any ancient work that I can think of. So what? This has never been a problem, but somehow when it becomes about the Bible, it is a problem. It’s the double-standard again.

Ehrman also makes much of the situation of how we got the canon that we have. There is a simple solution to his query. If someone wants to know why some gospels weren’t included, the simple way to find out is to actually sit down and read them. I’ve done it. If you don’t know why they weren’t included then, I can’t really help you.

In all of this of course, Ehrman is too quick to identify anyone as a Christian. Upon what basis? We are not told.

Ehrman also presents Bauer’s hypothesis about various groups having different Christianities that they had at the start and orthodoxy was the second position. Bauer’s position has been highly challenged since his time and even a critic like Robin Lane Fox finds it problematic.

Chapter 7

Not much new here. Much is made about supposed anti-Judaism. Ehrman has written in this book about how some Christians even said the Jews were responsible for the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. because they crucified the Messiah. This would be anti-semitism.

But why? What if I said that in World War 2 we fought against the Germans. Does that mean that all Germans for all time are automatically part of what happened at World War 2 and are held responsible? Not at all. Any Christian who wants to condemn all Jews for all time for what one generation did needs to be took aside as that is anti-semitism. The claim that Ehrman is against is not anti-semitic. It focuses on one generation of Jews in a particular time and place for one action, not because they are Jewish.

In fact, it seems many of Ehrman’s problems do stem from his eschatology. Is this an off-shoot of his fundamentalism? Quite likely. Ehrman can write about how we now know that you don’t go up to Heaven, for instance. Jesus is not literally coming back on clouds. The reality is the ancients knew that as well. Ehrman is putting an Enlightenment approach on the text and saying “Now we know that’s not how it is so they were wrong” when it is really the Enlightenment thinking that is wrong, the thinking Ehrman himself has inherited.

Chapter 8

Finally, is faith possible? Ehrman is all for presenting scholarship to the people. So am I. For Ehrman, faith would have to be blind to the discrepancies. I don’t think so. Faith should instead wrestle with them and grow deeper. Ehrman to thinks it should, but only after one accepts the contradictions are irreconcilable.

In conclusion, I do not find Ehrman’s work in this regards persuasive, and it’s a shame not because I wanted to be persuaded, but because I expected much better. To his credit, he does have much to say about Christ mythers and we will cover that more when I review his book “Did Jesus Exist?”

That’s for another time. I think anyone interested in NT studies should read this book, but atheists who just read this do not have a real understanding of Scripture.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Forged

What are my ultimate thoughts on Ehrman’s book Forged? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Yesterday, I gave some preliminary thoughts on Forged that can be found here. Today, I will be concluding those thoughts.

Ultimately, I was expecting that I’d get a hard-hitting argument. Readers expecting that will be sorely disappointed. This does not stop skeptics from thinking they’ve found a holy grail (er, maybe not holy for a skeptic) to use against Christians. The reality is that Ehrman’s claims are nothing new and they have been known by scholarship for years. Anyone who picks up a good commentary on a book of the Bible can see reasons pro and con and much more detailed.

Of course, for our skeptic friends, so what? The huge majority, such as 99.9% will never bother to pick up such a commentary. After all, these are often by conservative evangelical Christians and we know that they’re always wrong with their looking at the data.

This is simply a genetic fallacy. Could it be that the evangelicals can be right? Why should a skeptic’s argument be seen as objective and the Christian’s as biased? Either bother of them are to be seen as biased or both of them are to be seen as objective.

A major problem again with Ehrman’s work is he really does not argue his case often. For instance, when writing about the Gospel of Peter, he will tell about how it ends with two giants angels coming out of the tomb with a giant Jesus between them and a voice from Heaven saying “Have you preached to them that sleep?” and a talking cross comes out of the tomb and says “Yea.”

You don’t believe that happened? Okay. Neither do I. The question is “Why do we not?” For Ehrman’s position, just stating what the account says is enough. This is obviously something beyond the scope of every day experience and therefore not accurate. My stance is that I don’t believe it because this is the only source that I know of with that claim, it’s late, and it contradicts more reliable sources hopelessly.

Throughout this book, Ehrman does not give an epistemology. How am I to know the epistle to the Galatians of Paul is authentic? You won’t know from reading Ehrman’s book. You will be told scholars agree on this. That’s great, but why exactly do they agree?

There are times Ehrman will give the consensus of scholars supposedly, such as in the idea that certain epistles are inauthentic. In these cases, he is not giving the consensus. He is giving a position that is popular and held by many, but certainly not to the degree of certainty with which people say Paul wrote Galatians.

Other times, Ehrman does not give all the evidence. Why is it said that Luke wrote Acts? There is not mentioned the patristic evidence. Ehrman instead goes to Colossians and looks at the Gentiles there and decides on Luke and then gives reasons why he thinks Luke did not write the account. He does not give reasons why some scholars believe he did nor why some would even date it to before 70 A.D. From Ehrman, you would get the opinion the church mindlessly believed Luke wrote Acts for seemingly the shoddiest of reasons and this started to be seen as false within the past two centuries.

Once again, we get into a great danger then. Several skeptics will learn what scholars think. They’ll be clueless as to why it is that the scholars think this. Instead, they’ll tell Christians, like myself “Well go read your own scholars! They will tell you.” There will be the idea of a cover-up. “You ignorant Christians in the pew don’t know this about the Bible, but the scholars all know this! Obviously, if your minister knows, he’s just not telling you!”

That doesn’t mean that this is a bad thing. On the contrary, as a whole, I think Ehrman writing these and other books is a good thing. I have the exact same opinion I do with books like The Da Vinci Code or with the new atheists. These are bringing the discussion to the public and when all the evidence is shown, I have no doubt which side it will fall on.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Some Thoughts on “Forged”

Is Ehrman’s case against biblical authorship sound? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Upon moving here, I went to the library and wanting to invest a good deal in NT studies as well, started ordering several books. Some of which were by Bart Ehrman, and the one I will be starting to deal with today is “Forged.”

Ehrman’s subtitle of the book is about why the biblical authors are not who we think they are. There are some ways this is misleading. To begin with, very little of the book is actually dealing with the Bible. You can read about the Acts of Paul or the Gospel of Peter, but these are not biblical authors.

On the other hand, the majority of it is about the New Testament. Ehrman does speak about forgery in the OT, such as in the case of chapters 40-55 of Isaiah, the book of Daniel, and Ecclesiastes. These are not really argued for, as much as they are footnoted. So far, I have not seen any arguments either against the authorship of the gospels themselves. It has mainly focused on Peter and Paul.

Not that this would damage the case for the resurrection in any way. The books that we need, namely 1 Corinthians and Galatians, to make the case for the resurrection are entirely safe and Ehrman himself would argue that this is Pauline. At this point the question is raised, how does he know?

Ehrman will regularly write about how non-authentic Pauline material is recognized supposedly, but he has not said how the real deal is spotted. Now I do not doubt, for instance, that Paul wrote Galatians, and Ehrman himself says he knows of no one who questions that. What the average layman however, who Ehrman says he wrote this book for (Page 10), wants to know is how we can know that.

When he comes with this question, so far I have found nothing that will give him a good answer. Many of us in apologetics know that when dealing with cults, one technique we teach is to let people know the real so well that they can recognize a fake right away. Ehrman needs some steps to show that we know that we have the real.

Ehrman also writes about verisimilitudes that take place in the NT. These are little messages thrown in that can make the letter look authentic. For instance, in 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy to get his books that he left behind and have them brought to him. These can also include personal greetings. These are done to make a letter look authentic.

The problem with saying this is that there is no doubt that a forgery could have such statements in it, but the reality is also that authentic letters can have those as well. One could point to Romans about Paul’s traveling plans in chapter 15 and one could even argue if they wanted to that perhaps the long list in chapter 16 is to make the whole letter look more authentic.

One main explanation for a lot of differences is the use of secretaries. Ehrman makes the case about 2 Thessalonians, which he thinks is a forgery, and how ironic it is since it warns against a forged letter, and how it has a statement in it about Paul writing with his own hand which does not show up in any other letter.

Well geez. I have a scenario in mind that makes this very plausible. Paul is using a secretary, perhaps writing from prison as he has often been said to do. Paul knows about a forger using his own name to try to impersonate Paul so Paul writes them a message through the secretary and at the end says “Let me sign the end in my own distinct handwriting so they will know it was from me.”

This seems perfectly plausible to me and yet Ehrman seems to say that since the letter ends this way and no other one does, that this would go against its authenticity. In fact, when he gets to secretaries, Ehrman indicates we don’t really have examples of long letters like epistles, which would mean we can’t argue conclusively either way, but surprise surprise, Ehrman chooses to argue as if it’s conclusive that secretaries would not be used this way.

I hope to have this one finished by tomorrow so hopefully I can conclude everything, but for now, color me still unpersuaded.

In Christ,
Nick Peters