I continue now with the backstory of why I wrote my book Misquoting Jesus; up to this point I’ve explained how I became an evangelical Christian and, after high school, made a beeline for Moody Bible Institute and became interested in understanding how we got the New Testament – not in the original writings, which we no longer have, but only in later copies which have lots of mistakes in them. I continue now from there, with another excerpt the Introduction of my book Misquoting Jesus (Harper, 2005)
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At the end of my three years at Moody (it was a three-year diploma) I had done well in my courses and was more serious than ever about becoming a Christian scholar. My idea at the time was that there were plenty of highly educated scholars among the evangelical Christians, but there were not many evangelicals among the (secular) highly educated scholars. And so I wanted to become an evangelical “voice,” as it were, in secular circles, by getting degrees that would allow me to teach in secular settings, while retaining my evangelical commitments. But first I needed to complete my Bachelor’s degree, and to do that I decided to go to a top-rank evangelical college, and chose Wheaton College, in a suburb of Chicago.
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Great article, Bart. It’s always surprising to me how people read scripture even after they have learned the languages and have studied it thoroughly and miss these points. Many will proclaim “the suffering messiah” is present in the OT, that the messiah is proclaimed beginning in Genesis, et al. None of this true: the noun for messiah comes up 39 times in the OT, not once does it mention a suffering messiah. People say that the “suffering servant” (e.g. Isaiah 53) is the messiah but there’s no direct evidence that this a reference to the messiah. There is not even any evidence of this “future messianism” until it’s first mentioned in Daniel 9 (and even that is not referring to a person but a rebuilding of the temple).
So, what do you think is going on? Do people simply bring. their bias to the text and then read it in a way that supports their claims (we all have bias, but there’s a way to check some of it, right?). Or are these people just “squinting scripture” (that would be a good title for a book!) to see something that is simply not there?
My sense is that most pepole are told that’s what these passages mean, it maks sense ot them, and so then it seems like “common sense.” That’s how it worked with me originally, at least.
Professor … your dissertation is dated in 1985…. A time which, if I recall correctly, pre dates commercial or public access to the infant internet. There were, however, time sharing connections at individual institutions and early networks like DoD’s ARPAnet. So, just wondered how you accessed the manuscripts you studied?
I used published collations, transcriptions, and, especially, critical apparatuses that cited manuscript readings for this or that verse (I used multiple ones in order to be able to cross check them)
From an old book called “The Believer’s Unbelief” by Roy Pearson:
“If a mind never has any perplexities at all, never makes contact with material which it cannot comprehend, never finds any of its presuppositions no longer supposable, the likelihood is great that it has more affinity with a corpse than with Christ.”
BART, just for fun, what lost text do you think is most likely to be rediscovered next? My guess would be a work by Papias because I read somewhere that one of his works was extant as recently as the Middle Ages.
I have no idea. that’s the fun of it all. I’d love for Papias to turn up. And about a hundred other texts we know about but don’t have. (As two examples: The Diatessaron and the Gospel of Basilides!)
Hello, Bart,
What’s your commentary on the below verses?
3 John 1:9-10 NRSV
[9] I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. [10] So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.
Thanks,
Diotrephes is a Christian opponent of the author and is badmouthing him and refusing to allow his (the author’s) followers to participate in the church. (One big question is whether this is a forgery or not; my colleague Hugo Mendez is writing a book arguing that the letters of John are not authentic)
I’m curious – how long (in years, or semesters of classes) did it take for you to get to a point where you knew Greek/Hebrew well enough to understand the oldest manuscripts we have?
I learned Greek my junior year of college; I suppose I was taught how to read Greek manuscripts about five years after that. It could have been earlier. It’s a matter of learning different styles of handwriting — so knowing grammar really well is not the most essential thing.
Hi bart in the New testament jesus is clearly being described as going to the underworld but what is exactly the under world was it shoul (grave) or hades(a place for the dead to be). I dont think jesus him self belived in hades.
Where do you see that as clearly stated?
Bart you have said that you think that the parable in luke (lazarus and the rich man) is a latter addision and i think its very plausable for a couple of reasons but some scholars think that the parable is from jesus? Why is so i have heard that some think until verse 30 the parable is pre luke put i have hearr that 27-29 is from luke so i guess this is not a argument but why do some think it was from jesus i think it went gray in jesus seminar not black.
I suppose because they like it so much they think he must have said it! And it is consistent with his teachings against wealth generally, so that probably is part of it.
is the 1611 KJV the same as 2024’s KJV? [this is in reference to copies & changes in language & society in addition to inaccuracy of scribes]
1) David & the showbread: that is an example where in the church I grew up in- the sheep couldn’t violate the rules of the elders or biblical- but the elders could justify.
2) whenever the leadership made a mistake, they would seek refuge from the congregation, while the sheep were leaderless [i.e. Jerry Falwell Jr]
there is a 3rd thing my uncle told me that the Elders did that violated that divine leadership.
& then the mustard seed! I figured I probably had too much faith & obedience. As the Shanghai Community Church Sr Pastor suggested: God wants you to let go of him.
As opposed to the Expat Fellowship Leadership where I could not get any feedback [strictly I belonged to the foreigners, but lived with the native church well as I didn’t act like I was better or HOLIER THAN THOU ART! after all I was the triune God’s servant [no HS, no divinity, nor smart or talented as St Paul was]!
Depends which 2024 KJV you’re reading.
Bart, are you saying youve lost your faith in Christianity and therefore Jesus? Based on the biography above, you are very intelligent but intelligence doesnt get us into heaven.
Ive read a lot of interesting things in the last couple of hours since I joined but Id like to know where youre coming from so I can account for what youve said.
Yes, I left the faith about 30 years ago. It actually didn’t have a huge effect (much of any effect) on my scholarship — what I teach now was pretty much what I taught as a Christian. I explain the reasons for my leaving the faith in several of my books, especially God’s Problem. It wasn’t because of my research or intellectual understandings of the Bible or early Christianity, but because of wrestling with the question of how there ccan and always has been such extensive massive suffering in the world if there is a God who is in control and active in the world in any sense. I just came to think that I don’t think so…. But as I said, unless I”m directly speaking about my loss of faith, what I say on teh blog is usually simly what critical scholars usually say. (Much of my understanding came from my training at Princeton Theological Seminary doing my Masters of Divinity Degree).
Thank you Mr Ehrman for your generous reply. I seems to me that it doesnt take a college degree, which I have 3 of, to say that the reason for suffering is sin that Adam brought with him. Yes, Im informed by the Bible cause common sense without it would never come to that conclusion. Re common sense, the Bible says in rom 7.7 “…I would not have known sin except for the law…”.
As for God’s involvement in the world, hes not. God set up the natural principles which were fractured by Adam but are still limping along.
Now the Holy Spirit which is God, has been given to us to help with spiritual things, but God’s involvement in every detail of my life, hes not on a regular basis. Occasionally he will involve himself in the human sphere but thats not his MO. I will close my reply with 1 Timothy 4:1 “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith” We do see an increasing amount of that which makes one think that we may be in the “later times”. Thats exciting to me cause my faith is my ticket to heaven.