Unbelievable

I just listened to the Unbelievable program's podcast featuring a "discussion" between Mike Licona and Bart Ehrman supposedly addressing the topic: Biblical evidence for the Resurrection.

My question is why did the program give Mike Licona over an hour of the 90 minute broadcast? The funny part is that Licona would make sweeping generalizations about, say, the reliability of oral tradition, and then have to back down when Ehrman shot down his claims. One wonders what kind of misinformation Licona is able to spread to audiences when there isn't a genuine scholar present to check up on him.

By Any Other Name?

It is almost amusing to watch the kerfuffle over Bart Ehrman’s forthcoming book, Forged. From what I can determine from news coverage and the blurb on various websites, Dr. Ehrman is claiming that ancient writers sometimes used the names of persons of authority and wrote things that were not strictly true in order to win points for their theological side of the debates that characterized the first few centuries of the Christian era.

Ehrman’s sin it seems is in calling a spade a spade.

Jim West (who seems continuously on the prowl for his next outrage fix) sets the tone for the reaction on the conservative blogosphere. First the irony; in the very same sentence Doctor Pastor West states that Ehrman “cannot POSSIBLY know what intention was operative in the minds of the writers of those texts” while calling him a “publicity seeking deceiver”. Apparently Dr. West CAN POSSIBLY know what intention was operative in the mind of Dr. Ehrman! Tee Hee!

More to the point, is this criticism valid? Would any of Ehrman’s critics cringe if The Book of Mormon were referred to as a forgery? I doubt it. It would be universally acknowledged that throughout history religious writings were passed off as authentic works of figures from the Bible. A pile of works was rejected from the canon because each was suspected of being “inauthentic” – read “a forgery”. We all know it was going on. So if we can detect in a work some anachronistic element that conveniently counters a later “heretical” claim and have good reason to doubt the attributed authorship of the work then what other conclusion are we supposed to come to other than that it is a forgery perpetrated to further the views of the forger. It may soothe West’s feelings to call it mimicry but the fact is that even Paul was concerned about forgeries. To wit, he writes in 2 Thess 3:17 “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write.” Why would Paul feel the need to authenticate his letters if so-called mimesis was harmless and nothing like that as nasty forgery?

Personally, I applaud Bart Ehrman’s attempts to bring these kinds of issues to the attention of a public who has is still being told that Moses wrote Deuteronomy and Matthew is an eyewitness account. Does he over do it sometimes? Yeah, perhaps. But compared to the twaddle that passes religious instruction these days, I am willing to take a risk.

Matthew

Just finished reading the Gospel according to Matthew as a stand alone book. A few surprises, as advertised: The Son of God references never seem to imply divine status, just David-style Messiahship.

The one place that nearly got me is where the disciples "worship" Jesus after He walks on water in Matt 14:33. The Greek word translated here as "worship" is the same as that used to describe how Nathan approached David. Perhaps "prostrate" would be a better fit. This raises a few questions. First off, without a knowledge of Greek, can you ever hope to understand the Bibles we read? Second, did the translators here pull a fast one? Did they chose the translation that fit the accepted theology at the cost of losing Matthew's message? Lastly, have I become a complete shill for Bart Ehrman?! (The Triple - the mark of fine comedy. Watch for it)

I am still trying to pull together exactly what Matt 27:62 means when it says (NRSV) "The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation..." Is John's placement of Jesus crucifixion on the day of Preparation for Passover messing me up here with regards to preparation day before the sabbath?

Lastly, Matt 28:2 has an angel flying down, throwing open the tomb and showing that there is no body in there: Ta Dah! If Jesus were bodily risen from the grave, it must have been in one of those nifty glorified bodies that can walk through walls, obfuscate its visage and disappear. You know, like the one He wears in John's post-resurrection appearances.

Oops! He Did It Again

My minister once preached a sermon in which he explained thoroughly that we don't really know what happened to the disciples - specifically that the stories of their individual martyrdoms were likely legendary. Then he preached a sermon on the martyrdom of the disciples!

This time, he preached on Matthew 17:14

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. "Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him."

"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

The minister very carefully and explicitly pointed out that the additional verse

"But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting"

is not found in our best manuscripts; experts believe it not to be original; blah blah blah - essentially that this verse is spurious...

...wait for it...

... and then preached an entire sermon on this very verse!!!!

I heard Dr Bart Erhman shift some of the blame for this disconnect between what seminarians learn about the nature of the Bible and what is actually taught to the congregations but I am coming to the conclusion that this misinformation is taught willfully. Our pastor is a very well educated, highly intelligent man. Why would he pull stunts like this? Is it that the the message is more important than the 'truth"? What about the people in the pews? Is it that the congregation is too dense to notice the switcheroo? Given the quality of Sunday School teaching perhaps it really does just go over their heads. Or is it that they just don't give a rip?

I harbor a slender hope that one young person, maybe even 19 or twenty, will hear these side comments a?." Then she will pick up a book by Burton Mack or, *gasp*, Bart Erhman and who knows what might happen next ...

The Unknown Unknowns

Bart Ehrman was not the first to point this out: the Bible as we know it has been altered, purposefully. The woman taken in adultery did not always sit at John 7:53. In fact, it is well known that this pericope was not originally in the last gospel. The same applies to the ending of Mark. No one knows what the original ending was, if there was one at all. These issues are not controversial. When approached on this conservative Christian apologists will nod their heads and try to change the subject with an argument like, "No point of teaching is affected by these minor changes." Minor changes? I would not consider adding a guarantee that believers can safely handle poisonous snakes a minor change but maybe that is just me.

So, Biblical Inerrancy (whatever that means these days) is defended by claiming that "minor" changes do not affect the Faith. Then we have this from good ol' Ken Schenck:

The NIV is a wonderful example of the "say one thing, do another" dynamic I see necessary for this hermeneutic to sustain itself.

Say: We are listening to the Bible. Our interpretations come from the plain sense of the text. We are under the authority of the text and not letting the Church have a higher authority.

Do: Let's translate "form of God" as "very nature God" so the full divinity of Christ is not in question (Phil. 2:6)--is "shape" really the same as "very nature"?! Let's translate "firstborn of creation" with "firstborn over creation" (Col. 1:15) so there is no question of whether Jesus is created or not. Let's add a word out of nowhere to "did not give" so it reads "did not just give" (Jer. 7:22), even though there is no such word in the Hebrew--we don't want to leave any question about whether Leviticus was written at the time of the exodus. Let's add another word out of the blue so that "to the dead" reads "to those now dead" so there is no room for the dead being saved (1 Pet. 4:6)--Protestants don't believe such Catholic ideas. Again, let's add another word that isn't there in the original so that "is not concerned" reads "is not just concerned" so we give no room for allegorical interpretation in 1 Cor 9:9-10.

Most of these moves have no clear basis in the text and seems in each case to be motivated overwhelmingly to maintain the perspective of the neo-evangelical tradition, thus deconstructing the fundamental claims of this hermeneutic. When push comes to shove, those of the Chicago Statement approach consistently trump the most obvious meaning of the Bible with evangelical tradition, in my opinion.

Today's translator has taken the place of the ancient copiest. In Ken's example only very "minor" changes are being introduced but with an eye to shore up a specific theological stance to protect readers of the original text. Who, without access to the original manuscripts (here the sources used for the NIV), would notice these "fixes?" Now, if the authors of the NIV made idealogically driven changes to the clear reading of the text that are almost impossible for the uninformed to detect, why assume that similar, lexically small yet significant changes [don't] exist in our extant manuscripts that shut down interpretations that would be plausible in the original manuscript.

That is the essential point of those of us who look at the known alterations and wonder about the ones we can't know. Conservatives are forced to take an odd position: "I acknowledge those little, itsy, bitsy changes over there, put those are the only ones. There can't possibly be any others!"

update: Fixed a spelling error and a missing "don't" in the second to last paragraph...

Iñigo Montoya, is that you?

William Willimon, United Methodist Bishop, wrote a review of Bart Erhman's God's Problem in The Christian Century. Good lord, this man is a crank. While complaining that Bart Erhman is a narcissist, the Bishop - a man elevated as an example of Christian behavior - heaps such scorn on the man that I almost couldn't finish the review. His disdain is breathtaking. Apparently Erhman "assumes a position of moral and intellectual superiority" to which Willimon is immune. Questions of suffering seem universal but Willimon considers the honest questioning of young adults "puerile theodicy." Such humility!

This is not my first encounter with Bishop Willimon, having read his "United Methodist Beliefs." In that work he occasionally lets slip a curmudgeonly snark about how deluded and idiotic non-believers must be. I got news for ya, Guv. We are doin' just fine.

The maddening thing is that his own sense of superiority is not so deserved as he seems to hold it. In his review he waves away the whole of the theodicy issue first by scolding anyone who might notice suffering and then drops this bit of sarcasm:

It's just too confusing to imagine that God's alleged omnipotence might be something other than what we think of as omnipotence or that God's love might be other than what we conceive of as love.

So God's love is something other than what we think of as love? Then it isn't love!! It is something else that apparently we humans can't understand. In other words, God's love appears to humans as indifference but don't worry it really is love. Follow up with this bit of reasoning:

Trouble is, ambiguity, dissonance and conflict are the usual way that scripture presents its peculiar truth.

So truth doesn't mean what you think it means either.

This is a practice N T Wright indulges in as well, using normal, descriptive language as if it doesn't have it's usual meaning, hardly any meaning for that matter, and then infusing the whole argument with a knowing appeal to mystery. Some intellectuals relish their ability to hold two contradictory notions in their head at the same time. Unfortunately theologians have mistaken this for argument and now routinely spread their contradictions on the table and then reach for the chips as if the matter was settled rather rephrased and obfuscated.

I seem to be having trouble coming to my point and I apologize. I suppose I am still trying to articulate what is serious flaw in high-end apologetics. Perhaps some day my thoughts will crystallize. Let me attempt a paraphrase. If God's ways are so transacendant or whatever that his creation can not understand them ot that any attempt to explain them ends in contradiction what justification do we have in believing that we will be okay in the end of things? Christopher Wright explicitly suggests that if God's purposes are served than any colateral damage is justified. Give me the opportunity to sacrifice for a worthy end but if this is Divine Love imposed, than you would have to be daft to worship its God.

Update: The word I was looking for to describe the Bishop Willimon's attitude in his book review: Self-Righteous.

Faith vs. Evidence

For that reason, Bill’s four pieces of evidence are completely irrelevant. There cannot be historical probability for an event that defies probability, even if the event did happen. The resurrection has to be taken on faith, not on the basis of proof. [emphasis added]

Bart Ehrman - Debate vs William Craig 2006

(ht: The Dilettante Exegete)

Wikignostic

I have become increasingly disappointed with Wikipedia when it comes to getting unbiased information on non-trivial topics. Then I read the entry on the Gospel of Luke.

Statements like this set off the warning bells:

The traditional view of Lukan authorship is “widely held as the view which most satisfactorily explains all the data.” The list of scholars maintaining authorship by Luke the physician is lengthy, and represents scholars from a wide range of theological opinion. But there is no consensus, and the current opinion concerning Lukan authorship has been described as ‘about evenly divided’ on who the author was.

Note the appeal to popularity. Not a lot of light shed here.
Then there was the sop to Bart Ehrman on early modifications to Luke:

While probably not original to the text, these verses reflect first-century tradition.

When you check the source for this statement you get Bruce M. Metzger, a favorite authority for apologists and evangelicals. In fact nearly a quarter of the sources cite Donald Guthrie whose wrote "New Testament Theology, which some evangelicals believe to be among the more significant books related to the New Testament." Excuse me if I reserve judgment.

The article does contain a smattering of skeptical citations but the whole fails to give any sort of balance or appreciation of the thrust of argumentation. Of course, I will continue to use Wiki for all my Power Rangers background material.

Why the fuss over N T Wright?

N T Wright, Bishop of Durham (England) is currently held up by some as the great theolgian of our time. Every encounter I have had with his writings was left me saying, "Huh?" I managed to get through his brief article, Kingdom come: The public meaning of the Gospels and, frankly, I am left surprised and baffled.


I am surprised that he reduces the significance of the Kingdom of God that Christ's life and resurrection ushered in to the Church confronting "secular" leaders to be accountable to Jesus/God's instruction or to be martyred in the attempt. He might insist that "advancing God's restorative justice" is of utmost importance but it is expressed solely in terms of "holding powers to account." Color me unimpressed.


Bishop Wright makes it abundantly clear that he believes that the "rulers of this world" govern by some sort of Divine Right. "God wants the world to be ordered, not chaotic, and that human power structures are the God-given means by which that end is to be accomplished.” Furthermore, “... rulers are corrupt and to be confronted yet are God-given and to be obeyed." In a way I admire Wright's fidelity to Paul's language. But are we really to resist overthrowing tyrants in our now familiar Enlightenment manner toward which the Bishop hurls such disdain? To indicate that martyrdom is acceptable when the tyrant does not welcome a call to restorative justice (whatever that means) would indicate that the answer is a firm No. "That sounds to us as though we are simultaneously to affirm anarchy and tyranny. But this merely shows how far our conceptualities have lead us again to muzzle the texts in which both stand together." To prove this by saying that Isaiah recognized Cyrus as a ruler glosses over the fact that God threw in some heavy signs of His sovereignty to keep Cyrus in line. I assume neither the Bush nor Clinton administrations received any such warnings. Hence my bafflement. We are to accept worldly authorities but to hold them accountable. We are “called to collaborate with compromise” with “overtly pagan” authorities but to “put them on trial” after they leave office.


Maybe “doing God in public” is about letter-writing campaigns, protests and 527 organizations. If so, why doesn’t Bishop Wright just say, “Get active in your community and lobby for prayer in schools and food stamps?” All this about God reclaiming the world seems like God is not doing much of anything other than sending the Holy Spirit to give a stirring pep talk during halftime. His followers are doing ALL the work. The God who stopped the sun and raised Jesus from the dead is reduced to this? As the founder of the Vineyard Church said, “Where’s the stuff?”


Finally, God’s apparent sloth has reached the point where 2000 years of slaughter and mistreatment by Christians, pagans and secularists have been allowed to transpire without any sign of God redeeming his creation. Wright has implied in his “debate” with Ehrman that reclaiming the world was an ongoing process. With Dr Ehrman, I would say, enough is enough. Wright can get as cranky as he likes toward scholars and the flippin, modern world but some of us would just as soon walk away from his God’s little project and see what can be done to end river blindness and to bring a tiny bit more peace to the world.


As far as I am concerned, paraphrasing Paul Kurtz provides a more succinct and useful statement than all the Bishop of Durham’s thick prose: “There is no God. We have to fix this ourselves.”*


• - sorry, can’t lay my hand on the exact quote.

Update: Found the Kurtz quote from the Humanist Manifesto II - "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves."

A lifetime in their moccasins

Just finished reading Dr Bart Ehrman's God's Problem about the ol' theodicy issue. It is an interesting mix of analysis of how different Biblical authors view the problem of suffering and Dr Ehrman's own views on the matter.

In the last chapter, Ehrman sums up and points out that some suffering in the world is avoidable. When he states that the income and goods in the world could be redistributed if we had the will I was thrown back in my mind to my days in Junior Achievement and my attendance of the National Convention in Terre Haute, Indiana. One speaker claimed that if the incomes of the millionaires in the US were redistributed it would amount to such-and-such an amount, implying that it would be a pittance. I don't know if this was true but I have noticed that people who make arguments about how happy the poor are or how money can't buy happiness or how a few thousand dollars isn't going to make a difference to the poor, these people NEVER offer to trade places with the poor. If being poor is so satisfying and so little different from being affluent, why do these people pursue affluence so eagerly. The same argument goes for school funding. If "throwing money at the problem" is not an excuse for taking no action at all, then let's just reduce the school budgets for their precious children to the level of Alabama's Black Belt or the Mountains of Honduras. There is a certain minimal level of food, medical care and educational resources below which life is really hard or a child's education will be incomplete. There is probably a point where "enough" needs are being met and anything else is just tennis teams but of the worlds 6 or so billion people, how many are getting enough.

I am no saint and am haunted by my own laxity, greed and inability to do anything but, shit, at least acknowledge the issue people!