Loading...I often get asked about the Qur’an (on which I have zero expertise) and my views of Islam (which I admire as one of the great religions of the world with lots of problems involving how it sometimes gets interpreted and used, just like every other great religion of the world). I was just thinking about that this morning and remembered a post I did a long time ago answering a question a reader had raised with me. Is it true I am about to convert to Islam? Well, it hasn’t happened yet, but I thought I would be worthwhile repeating the post:
READER COMMENT:
I received a message on Facebook a couple of weeks ago from a person who has been proselytizing to me about the Muslim faith. This has happened a few times with others on your FB page. I guess that’s what they do. Anyway, the other day I asked him if he was on your blog. He responded with a yes. Then he said that we (the members) were going to get a surprise from you soon. I asked him how so, and he said that you would be reverting to the Muslim faith. Apparently, reverting is something like converting according to him. I asked him how he knew this information, and he said
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RESPONSE:
Whoa. Really? I’m soon to announce that I have become a Muslim?!?
So let me squelch this rumor and reply with some emphasis: Absolutely not. I am about as likely to become a Muslim as I am to join the Hari Krishnas or to become a Jainist or an orthodox Jew or … pick your religious preference. From where I sit now, the likelihood of any of the above is somewhere close to below zero.
It’s not that I don’t respect each and every one of those faiths – and all the other great religions of the world. And it’s not that I don’t admire many of their moral principles and theological views, and that I don’t think highly of their sacred writings. I simply am utterly, completely, and thoroughly satisfied with what I am: a 21st century academic specializing in early Christianity who is personally (and perennially, I imagine) an agnostic when it comes to knowledge (do I think I know whether there is a greater power in the universe? Of course not – how could I possibly know?) and an atheist when it comes to belief (do I believe in a greater power – God, Yahweh, Allah, Krishna, Zeus, or pick your divinity? No.)
When this reader first sent me this comment, my first reaction was different from my second and my second from my third. So just to set the record straight, before explaining each reaction, let me state definitively: I have never, ever talked with a neighbor of mine in my entire life about my views of Islam in general or the Qur’an in particular. I’m not averse to having that conversation, but when I’m talking to neighbors, it is always about something else. Like the next block party.
Further, I’ve never even heard of Yusha Evans, so how he imagines (if he imagines? I don’t know that he does) that he has inside information about my religious predilections and the direction I’m heading in my spiritual life is beyond me. (He certainly is not a neighbor of mine!) The whole thing is false. Fabricated. Made up. Kind a like most of the news we hear these days.
And so my FIRST reaction was: this person doing the proselytizing is simply telling a bald-faced lie in order to try to convert someone to Islam. That’s, well, not good.
Now it’s true that this may in fact be the case. But as I thought about it (for, like, 10 seconds) I realized it’s a bit ungenerous. I don’t know who this person is and know nothing about his moral character or missionary zeal. And so my SECOND reaction was that maybe *he* didn’t make up a lie, maybe he genuinely heard this information from someone else who was telling a bald-faced lie.
But then I thought about if for a bit more (another 10 seconds) and I thought, wait a minute: I’ve just written an entire book on oral traditions and how they change and alter and get invented and transformed and so on over time (Jesus Before the Gospels). Maybe I should think about this ill-founded rumor in light of what I actually know about the process of oral transmission of traditions.
This then was my THIRD (and current) reaction. The reality is that the way rumors start is sometimes, but not always, and in fact not all that often, because someone comes up with a lie that s/he tells to someone else. But more often a rumor starts because someone misunderstands something they heard, or unwittingly exaggerates what they heard, or unknowingly alters what they heard. This happens ALL the time. A falsehood does not have to be a lie. If a claim is false, well, then it’s false. But a lie involves a falsehood that someone tells while knowing full well that it’s false. That’s different.
And when it comes to such things as rumor and gossip (there is actually a whole field of scholarship that specializes in such things), lying is rarely the culprit. So I’m not sure that this Muslim proselytizer, or his source of information, or that person’s source of information was lying. Rumors like this just start. Happens all the time.
When it comes to the historical Jesus, some conservative Christian scholars argue that you could not have rumors about him floating around that were not true while there were still eyewitnesses available in order to verify or disverify them. So, according to this widely-held (but highly problematic) view, no one could say that Jesus did x, y, or z or that he taught x, y, or z or that he experienced x, y, or z during his lifetime, since the disciples were there to correct the false information.
That is absolutely and demonstrably WRONG. The rumor about me that I’ve been discussing has been floating around for a while, and anyone on the planet, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Jainist, whatever could ask me if it’s true. Has anyone? Just one person. And we’re in the age of electronic communication. Imagine what it was like in the first century Roman empire! There is no way to check or prevent or circumvent rumor and gossip, even about people who are alive at the time, even if you can ask them, or someone who knows them. That applies not just to me today but (even more) to Jesus 2000 years ago. That’s what my book is about.
But before you go off to buy the book, let me assure you: in it I do not announce that I have decided to become a Muslim. But if wanted to sell a LOT of books, I would have done just that.
It must be annoying to hear false rumours like this about yourself, but the funny side is that Muslims clearly hold you in high esteem since they are so desperate for you to join their team!
I had a good chuckle over your last sentence!
If we are bound to suspect such a large amount of invention, how can we trust the historicity of, say, Mark’s story telling? At each and every one of his assertions we must then ask ” who witnessed this and to whom did s/he tell?”. Events occurred in so many places, witnessed by different people.One finds oneself dangerously close to ” the Jesus Seminar”.
We don’t have archaeology to back up most of the telling. Just the text.
If it’s so easy and common to make up stories, then with regards to Mark’s Gospel and the new portions by Mathew and Luke, to borrow from cosmology,it’s turtles all the way down.
I wonder if, *statistically*,it would have been possible, in less than 40 years ( since Jesus’ death),that an attested, coherent story could have emerged from perhaps very many bits of individual memories. Intuitively, it seems that hundreds of years would be necessary for that to occur.
Yup, the strategy of the historian is precisely to *doubt* every source and put it to the test. There are tests that can be applied to historical sources, whether the Besht, Charlemagne, or Jesus….
Ha! How bizzare. I will say that since I left the evangelical faith of my upbringing that some times a very nice person will try to witness to me. Typically, it’s a very sweet Mormon friend who imagines they are being subtle. I don’t mind it, honestly. But I’ve never had anyone claim me for their religion and tell others I was soon to announce my conversion!
Do you ever get Christians messaging you odd things like “deep down, you still really believe!” ?
Only about three times a week….
Well,,,,I’m not sure that any reasonable Muslim would have wanted you, with your background as a historian first of all,,then second, theologian, and then !! upon that, , textual critics who are familiar with the theological evolution both within Judaism and Christianity and the enormous theological (Christology) conflict that took place in the first centuries (CE).
An Islamic religion that both historically (which lacks so many or perhaps most historical references and evidences) that comes out in a time of a Christian “separation” due to derivation based primarily on the Trinity and how its Christology was understood. The islamic theological expressions and understandings, and that it seems to just jump right into the biblical stories (both Judaism and Christianity), without any introduction, probably from the theological understandings by the Jewish Yemenites, and the Christian Ebionites, the ancient Nazarenes who had a kind of Ebionite Christology, and the Collyridians,,,at least. I’m sure from your own historical/theological base, the Islamic texts that some suggest are quite heavily influenced by both the Bible, and also the Jewish Midrash, the Apocryphal (Jewish and Christian) texts, Jewish and Christian legends, and even with Greek legends would probably be very obvious to you. Some examples could be:
Testament of Abraham
The Cave of Treasures
Pseudo Matthew
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Several non-canonized Gospels and Syriac poems such as Jacob of Serugh
Cont.
continue:
,,,,
All this together with lack significant historical support from both their prophet, in a language that still did not have a common (accurate) written language (classical Arabic), and an origin of texts that are a recitation of a recitation etc etc etc based on ( and written long after often with some supposed Aramaic parallels) the origin of the oral histories of what the muslims supposedly illiterate prophet were supposed to have received in a cave for over 20 years from an entity (angel Gabriel) who was supposed to speak the word from God.
And,, , ,,,, ,without and kind of evidence or witnesses!
I’m not sure if it would have been a smart move to invite you into their religion with your historical and textual critical capacity. They could not ask for more trouble I guess !!
In essence,it seems that Mark is all we have! Matthew and Luke took most from him.The narrative is basically given by Mark.And some by John.
If the parameters are:
Q ,if it existed,would not have provided narrative.
Mark had less than 40 years since Jesus’ death to gather his material.
Those closest to Jesus were illiterate and had dispersed.Only oral memories would have been registered,from throughout the Land of Israel.
At a very elevated rate of invention,rumor creation,traveling limitations for the sake of correspondence,and faulty transmission,how is a credible account formed in a mere 40 years?
If Paul says practically nothing about Jesus’ sayings or miracles or history,short of crucifixion and resurrection,is it perhaps because he didn’t have the opportunity to read about them?
If there was any “evolutionary” accretion of knowledge ,with pieces of the puzzle gathered over time,Paul would have known about it, it seems to me.
Can we assume that he deliberately chose to ignore it, wholesale?Or perhaps such information was not available until Mark wrote it? To which we must add additional time for dissemination.
I guess what I’m trying to analyse,for my own edification,is how oral history might have worked to produce Mark.
Is ” Jesus before the Gospels” the book to read?
Yup, that one. Or maybe even before that Jesus:Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, where I discuss the criteria one can use to decide what probalby actualyl happened.
Hello Bart. On a somewhat related note, I’ve been thinking a little in recent times about your position within the “overall” Christian faith. Whilst you are clearly no longer a believer, Christianity is still a very big part of your life, both socially and professionally. So whilst in one way you have left the faith, in another very real way you also haven’t, if you catch my drift. Would you agree ?
Thank you.
I’d say I’ve left the faith but continue to be an interested outsider.
Trust me on this! Bart is NOT a Muslim or anything else!
Well, I’m a Chiefs fan. Does that count for anything?
It’s amazing how rumours spread!
Very clever ploy there “Dr. Ehrman.” We’re on to your game of planting the rumor, and then posting this proactive post, all to distract from the truth that you are high priest of the Illuminati.
Actually, my initiation is not until next Monday.
The Qur’an makes a very bold claim about the Old Testament and the New Testament 1400 years ago So imagine hearing Christian Scholars themselves saying they don’t have the original manuscript that God had given to Moses and Jesus after The Qur’an already tells us this. It could have only been from God.
Qur’an
Chapter 2 verse 75.Do you (faithful believers) covet that they will believe in your religion inspite of the fact that a party of them used to hear the Word of God ( the Taurat (Torah) then they used to change it knowingly after they understood it?
77. Know they not that God knows what they conceal and what they reveal?
78. And there are among them unlettered people who know not the Book but they trust upon false desires and they but guess.
79. Then woe to those who write the book with their own hands and then say This is from God to purchase with it a little price! Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for that they earn ( thereby).
And I always think about it like this Muhammad ﷺ could not read so he couldn’t read the Old or New Testament and even if he heard someone reading the Old or New Testament he still wouldn’t know that it has been changed just by hearing someone reading it. And he couldn’t understand Hebrew nor Greek. So why would a Jew and Christian who changed the words of God tell Muhammadﷺ this information? And this information wasn’t even known by common Jews and Christians so only someone who participated in this would have been able to tell Muhammad ﷺ this information. No way Muhammad guessed this when he never heard verses from the Old nor New Testament. So everything you say Bart confirms what the Qur’an already told us about the Old And New Testament you just confirmed the Qur’an’s claim with your research on the New Testament and believe it or not many Christians really hate when we mention your name because of this.
” . . . as I am to join the Hari Krishnas . . .” When I read that line I pictured in my mind Dr. Ehrman wearing a saffron robe, chanting in the streets, playing some instrument like hand cymbals. Just imagine the sales of that next book.
You’re givin’ me ideas here…
I am assuming from a pragmatic perspective that Bart as an Atheist is more valuable to the Muslim apologists than Bart being a Muslim: whenever the Muslim apologists debate with their Christians counterpart about the Gospels, The Muslim apologists will use Bart as a reference, and Bart has (and still is) been regarded as an impartial scholar. But if Bart became a Muslim then he will not be regarded an impartial scholar by the Christians, and the Muslim apologists will lose a strong argumentative leverage.
From another perspective: it is rare for people after the age of 50 to go through a voluntary paradigm shift in their belief system. This (I think) is the way that we have been wired in our design: The laws of nature favor stability over change; therefore, the development of the community is governed by the struggles between the youngsters (who want the change) and the elders (who don’t want any change). These struggles would establish a sense of stability in the development of the community.
Therefore, I am assuming here that the probability for the people to have a paradigm shift in their belief system after the age of 50 is really low.
My paradigm shift occurred at age 48. The seeds of it may have begun as early as age 40. But I went over old notes once and found the last time I posted a particular viewpoint in a comment on a blog. 3 months later I had made the final shift and no longer held to that viewpoint and still don’t over a decade later.
As a Muslim and someone who has followed your writings and lectures for a while, I would be shocked if you suddenly became a Muslim! Anyone espousing such ideas is clearly very misinformed of your views and of the challenging questions that Biblical scholarship brings up even for Muslims.
Lots of ignorance in the world. Of course, I get a lot of email telling me either that I’m certainly to become a believer in the inerrancy of the Bible again eventually or that I never *was* a Christian. When it comes to any of us, I guess, the future possibilities are virtually endless!
Why is some Evangelists called Christian Nationlism as their movement has nothing to go with the 3 religion Palestinian GOD. Or Jesus or St Paul or the Moses Law.
Maybe something to do with slaveowners & the creation of Southern Baptist & Southern Methodist denominations
As one raised in a Muslim household but left religion long time ago, I absolutely agree.