Forgeries in the Bible's New Testament?

[cleanhippie]

Nearly half of the New Testament is a forgery, according to a provocative new book which charges that the Apostle Paul authored only a fraction of letters attributed to him, and the Apostle Peter just wrote nothing.

Written by Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical Christian and now agnostic professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the book claims to unveil "one of the most unsettling ironies of the early Christian tradition:" the use of deception to promote the truth.

"The Bible not only contains untruths of accidental mistakes. It also contains what almost anyone today would call lies," Ehrman writes in "Forged: Writing in the Name of God -- Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are."

http://news.discovery.com/history/bible-new-testament-forgery-110518.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I don't know about forgery, but there's plenty of plagiary.

First, the New Testament was not written by Jesus. So anything ascribed to him via quotations or statements is hearsay and subject to doubt. Next, if one looks at the collection of statements ascribed to Jesus, a lot of them have already been stated in the Old Testament or other sources without giving reference to the original declarer. For example The Golden Rule predated Jesus by milennia in surrounding cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule

[cleanhippie]

2. Great points.

You are not wrong.

[madrchsod]

3. worse yet....the egyptians had many of the same characters in their religion

and of course let`s not forget the religious myths passed down by the hunter -gathers. oops! throw in zoroastrianism that was the foundation of the religions of the middle east.don`t tell anyone but jesus was`t the only miracle man in galilee....

my ,my things do get complicated don`t they!

[Bragi]

4. I love books that debunk the new testament

There are lots of high-quality books debunking the new testament, and I enjoy reading them. I try to read one every year just to stay atop the subject, and to freshen up my arguments against true believers.

The most recent one I read is titled "AD 381: heretics, pagans and the Christian State" by Charles Freeman.

Not only does he document how Jesus doesn't actually become "god" until some 200 years after his alleged death, he also documents how there really isn't even any evidence to confirm that there ever was a historical Jesus.

Most interesting, though, is how he documents how the takeover of early Christianity by the floundering Roman empire ushered in historically unprecedented levels of censorship and religious persecution and intolerance.

[Angry Dragon]

8. You might like 'Jesus the Heretic'

[Geoff R. Casavant]

5. I don't think the scholarship is new.

Church scholars such as Origen were writing just a few decades after the New Testament books were written, that many of the "Pauline" epistles had grammar and syntax that differed from ones whose authorship was confirmed. I expect Ehrman has not necessarily come up with something new so much as distilled the scholarship into a readable summary.

[struggle4progress]

6. It's not new: such issues have been discussed critically, for at least a century and probably closer

to two

[rug]

7. That's somewhat skewed.

The notion that the works were not written by the named author has been around a long time.

This is what Ehrman says about it:

Do forged materials still have value?

I absolutely think that forged texts can be important—religiously, ethically, philosophically and every other way. The truth claims made in a forged document are no different from truth claims in any other document—they need to be evaluated on the same basis. That is to say, whether an author lied about his own identity or not has no bearing on whether what he said otherwise is true. And historically, of course, some of the most important documents of ancient religion were forged.

http://www.kirkusreviews.com/blog/question-and-answer/forged-bart-ehrman-bibles-true-authors/#continue_reading_post

[cleanhippie]

9. Are you seriously saying that even though the bible may be a forgery, it is still "true"?

AM I getting that right?

[rug]

10. No, you're not. Ehrman said that it may still be true.

Maybe you should read his book instead of a headline.

[cleanhippie]

13. No need for snark, I am trying to clarify what YOU are saying.

SO if it is Ehrman saying this, what is your point in posting it? Do you agree with his conclusions? What is YOUR position on the subject?

[rug]

14. I think the Bible has value regardless of questions of authorship.

It reminds me of the debates on who wrote Macbeth and whether Shakespeare existed.

Beowolf is another thing altogether.

[cleanhippie]

15. See, that wasn't so hard!

We are now having a civil conversation!


I too, think the bible has value, but probably not the same value you do. What value do you think is has?

[laconicsax]

11. That brings up an interesting concept...can fiction be forged?

:think:

[darkstar3]

12. +1