TYT: Interview w/ Bart Ehrman on the origins of the new testament

[ProfessorPlum]

Run time: 14:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmM18riY2po   Posted on YouTube: June 04, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 04, 2009 By DU Member: ProfessorPlum Views on DU: 1944

 
Ehrman's book, Jesus, Interrupted, is one of my very favorite books on the historical origins of Christianity and the New Testament. Erudite, fascinating, surprising . . .

I note here that Ehrman's books do not (necessarily) preclude belief, as Ehrman himself points out in this interview. But every Christian should know the information in this book, about where sacred texts actually came from, so they can be informed on how those texts are used. The fact that church goers are kept so in the dark about this stuff is a scandal.

[destes]

1. I wish they had discussed the book of Revelations

Of all the books of the New Testament, Revelations sticks out like a sore thumb as antithetical to the remaining texts. Hell, without "Revelations freaks" Christians aren't such a bad sort.

[knitter4democracy]

3. There's a really good book on that.

It's called "A Second Look at the Second Coming" and was written by an Eastern Orthodox priest (if I remember right). I got mine at conciliarpress.com. The author goes through the history of the text, the history of the theology and beliefs around that, and he really rips apart the whole Rapture thing, especially as it's practiced today.

[izquierdista]

5. Pharmacological answer

The hallucinations described in Revelations pretty closely follow the symptoms of ergot poisoning, which was pretty common among people who weren't able to keep mold from growing on their wheat.

[ProfessorPlum]

8. Oddly, Ehrman's books present the (well-argued) case that Paul, Jesus, and

John the Baptist were all apocalyptic prophets, who thought that the world was just about to be destroyed and upended by God, who would then bring about cosmic justice. So Revelations is actually probably right up their alley.

However, I agree with you that it should have been dropped out. What a lot of nonsense it has caused.

[knitter4democracy]

2. Nothing new there.

He just repeated everything my profs taught at our very conservative evangelical Christian college. We talked about the problem with the texts, how the Bible was created, all of that. So, it's not like there are evangelicals or Christians of any stripe (I'm no longer evangelical) who don't know this stuff. Like he said, though: he's got smart friends who know all that and still choose to believe, and that shouldn't be a problem.

[Sander]

4. Sixty Years

As I sit here contemplating Ehrman's remarks, I'm taken by the (nearly universally accepted) contention that Paul was writing sixty years after Jesus' death. I am 69 years old. If I lived 2000 years ago, I would be an extremely elderly man. I am hard put to remember the incidences in my life sixty years ago.

I was nine years old. I was in fourth grade. My knowledge of the political landscape at that time was knowing that Truman had been elected President. I knew nothing about the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, the beginnings of NATO nor of his message to Congress, March 12, 1947, explaining the need for and importance of providing assistance to Greece and Turkey.

But perhaps Paul might not have known about the affairs of the world outside his own community when he was nine years old either. So I ask myself. Who was the City Manager of Toledo OH where I grew up, at that time? I remember the name of my Rabbi at the Collingwood Avenue Temple, but not anything about his family nor the topics of any of his sermons. How would Paul, sixty years after Jesus' death, remember the words Jesus spoke?

So when Paul wrote, he was recounting memories of stories told to him by others. Scholars debate Paul's age when he wrote. Some say he was in his thirties. So he was recounting memories of those that lived contemporaneously with Jesus? Or of those that were repeating stories of what they heard from their elders?

For these and other reasons, I am no longer a Religious person in that I no longer believe in the inerrant word of the bible - Old or New Testament. Yet I do believe in a Higher Power. I am a very spiritual person. I believe the "Bible" was written by men, not by God. They were spiritual men who were interpreting the world around them in terms they could understand. There were many universal truths written - and many patently ridiculous views based on the world as we know it today. "Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shalt not steal." "Do unto others..." "Blessed are the peacemakers..." All great moral lessons. The myth of the talking snake? Prohibitions against wearing cotton and wool together? Eating shellfish? Not so much.

Walt Whitman wrote, "To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle." To me, I read, "God exists in every hour of night and day, every cubic inch of space, and in every breath of air." God surrounds me. I talk to Him through prayer. I hear him in those "Ah-Ha" moments of inspiration or intuition.

[ProfessorPlum]

7. that feeling of the numinous, the intuitive, the sacred, is one of the most

important feelings in the human experience.

Focusing on that, instead of debating whether Mary was a virgin (which arose because the Greek-speaking authors of the gospels mis-interpreted a Hebrew word for "young girl" as "virgin"), is a worthwhile activity.

[grantcart]

15. A more serious problem is that Paul didn't actually witness anything in the Gospels.

Paul's writings were letters to other Christians where he was answering specific problems and controversies. If you don't try and establish the context its not very meaningful.

A more significant problem is the 'Synoptic' problem that contrasts and compares the three synoptic gospels (Matthew Mark and Luke).

[Hyper_Eye]

6. K&R! To the best threads you go!

This was a fantastic interview. I was familiar with Dr. Ehrman before this interview but this was a particularly good interview. Good work TYT.

[arthritisR_US]

9. Ehrman has always impressed me as do the well thought out and cogent

replies above. Well done!

[rockstar7]

10. Hmmm

He just repeated everything my profs taught at our very conservative evangelical Christian college. We talked about the problem with the texts, how the Bible was created, all of that. So, it's not like there are evangelicals or Christians of any stripe (I'm no longer evangelical) who don't know this stuff. Like he said, though: he's got smart friends who know all that and still choose to believe, and that shouldn't be a problem.

Mic | Rockstar

[ihavenobias]

11. Well, it *should* be a problem IMO

Not that the absurd origins and contradictions and various problems invalidate the existence of a God, but they sure as hell (pardon the pun?) should make one question the idea of using that particular book as a life guide.

Or so you'd think.

[grantcart]

14. Erdman was very conservative and went to Princeton Theological Seminary

(where he and I missed each other by a year) and eventually had to concede that his far right theology was not biblical.

He is now an agnostic and makes a nice living taking all of the basic scholarship, which the person in the pew has never heard, and explains it for lay people.

Nothing he writes is the least bit controversial.

Actually its kind of funny that he has kind of cornered the market on writing about things that are really general knowledge and widely accepted.

It makes him look like a radical and he's not.


Welcome to DU.

[Seldona]

12. K&R

Bookmarked for later.

[ihavenobias]

13. Kick n/t