Loading...Now that Christmas has ended it is a good time to reflect more broadly on the difference between reading the Christmas story, and in fact, the Bible as a whole, for its religious significance — which, of course, is how and why most people read it in the first place — and trying to consider it historically. Is there any easy way to make the distinction?
Here’s how I explain the difference at the at the beginning of my textbook on the Bible, to explain the difference between a theological (or confessional) approach to the Bible and a historical approach.
*****************************
EXCURSUS
Most of the people who are deeply interested in the Bible in modern American culture are committed Jews or Christians who have been taught that this is a book of sacred texts, Scripture, unlike other books. For many of these – especially many Christian believers – the Bible is the inspired word of God. In communities of faith that hold such views, the Bible is usually studied not from a historical perspective by situating it in its own historical context, or in order to learn about its discrepancies and inconsistencies, or in order to learn that it may have historical mistakes in it. You yourself
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
Hi Dr Ehrman, I am really interested in the way that scholars approach various texts and apply certain reading strategies to determine if something is an “accurate” recording of a historical event.
I was relistening to a MJ podcast episode where you mentioned that a good sign something actually happened is if it is awkward or embarrassing as generally people don’t make those up!
When Jesus is on the cross and potentially says “my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” – do you think this happened? It always seemed to me to be a very strange thing for him to say. But I understand that it also alludes to the Old Testament. Is it possibly somewhere in between? Where he did say something like this that was awkward to reconcile but an effort was made to do so by using phrasing that creates scriptural linkage?
I don’t think there is anyway at all to know what Jesus may have said as his last words. Mark has him quote Psalm 22:1 both in order to show that he “fulfilled prophecy” and to carry out his (Mark’s) idea that no one could understood God’s plan with respect to jesus: at the end, not even Jesus himself understood! (Even though he does earlier in the Gospel). So I would not take this as a saying thqat was embarassing or awkward for Mark: it actually fit his purposes very well.
Thank you very much. Interesting!
Could you please tell us where you stand in the history of historical Jesus studies. Do you lean to what what is called the third wave of studies or more of the Next Wave of studies as stated by James Crossley and others. My understanding of the Next Wave is the sources of information about Jesus are just too unreliable to draw any conclusions and all we can do is study the social history of the time in which he lived.
I haven’t studied Crossley’s writing carefully, but what I”ve heard and briefly seen of it it appears to me that the New Wave is a Wave we’ve had for a long time, particularly intensely in the period of 1920-50, where there was considerable doubt about whether we can know much of anything about jesus and should therefore focus on what the Gospels themself have to say as literary texts and what we can know about the social world. So I ain’t opposed to it, but I’m not sure what is so new about it. (It was a view some of my colleagues had back in my grad school days). Possibly he’s presenting a more sophisticated argument for it? The argument that hte “standard criteria” (which began to be developed in the 1950s) are problematic was around before I was even in grad school…
The reason I am here is because I am interested in the historical part of early Christianity. My interest lays in what can be proved, not yet proved, or what’s not true in the Bible or early Christianity. That being said, I’m not looking to prove or disprove my faith or someone else’s. Nevertheless, I do have issues with the literal interpretation of the Bible, which conflicts with my interest in the history and science of the Bible.
The subject of Authenticity of “Scholars” has been been a real issue for me. It seems to me that there are a lot of Theologians and Evangelist who mask themselves as Scholars and poisen historical scholarship. N T Wright once mentioned the Scholarship of Theology. If true, then there needs to be a clear distinction between a Historical Scholar and a Theological Scholar.
Background of those who identify as a Scholar or Historian is critical for me. In fact, your background and education was a huge “red flag” for me. It is your loss of “faith” in religion that cements your qualification as a true scholar, but I feel you still carry the Christian Fundamentalist “lens” you were schooled in that you may unintionally allow to filter your interpretation of the history. A prime example is in your early dating of the Gospels. It is interesting, that Scholars pushing later dating are not from fundamentalist backgrounds. Pappias and Luke both confirm there were many writings of the Sayings “Logia” of Jesus (incl Gospel of Thomas) and proto gospels prior to the 4 gospels. So early Church Fathers could be quoting from any of these rather than our current gospels
I’m not sure what you’re saying. There are certainly scholars of theology and scholars of history, since theology and history are two different disciplines (even for those who realize there can be overlaps.). But I don’t understand your view about my “early dating of the Gospels.” My view is that Mark was written around 70 CE; Matthew and Luke 80-85 CE; and John 90-95 CE. That’s the view held by the vast majority of critical scholars of every kind — that is, apart from fundamentalists, very conservative evangelicals and a few others who want to date them earlier. Very few shcolars date them much later, for the same reasons I have. I’m not aware that I have retained any of my former fundamentalist views that are at odds with critical scholarship.
I’m not sure what you’re saying. There are certainly scholars of theology and scholars of history, since theology and history are two different disciplines (even for those who realize there can be overlaps.). But I don’t understand your view about my “early dating of the Gospels.” My view is that Mark was written around 70 CE; Matthew and Luke 80-85 CE; and John 90-95 CE. That’s the view held by the vast majority of critical scholars of every kind — that is, apart from fundamentalists, very conservative evangelicals and a few others who want to date them earlier. Very few shcolars date them much later, for the same reasons I have. I’m not aware that I have retained any of my former fundamentalist views that are at odds with critical scholarship.
Let me get more detailed here regarding my view of Historical vs Theological scholarship.
(comment 1)
Theological Scholarship is produced through religious schools/institutions and seminaries attracting students and teachers who were/are zealous in their christian faith, and the instruction given/recieved is biased in theological doctrine. These same institutions also offer histotical education, but the bias is still included as the foundation of historical approach. The bias is the motivating reason for these institutions. One does not select a religious institution to get an unbiased education. Whether consciously or not, the scholars produced by these institution hold these biases deep in their foundational beliefs. Every aspect of their scholarship is based on a view from the rooted bias within them, even if they reject their religious beliefs, because they are rejecting beliefs that founded on the bias they accepted them from.
An easy example is the argument of whether Jesus was a historica figure or not. The unbiased argument would begin from the position that there was no such person as the Jesus Christ, then based on enough evidence, they are persuaded there is such a person.
The biased argument is that there is not enough evidence to disprove a Jesus Christ.
You seem to think that there is something like “unbiased” scholarship? I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who doesn’t have biases. With respectx to your example, I’d say most “unbiased” readers assume that if a person in the past is talked about in a bunch of sources the default position is that hte person existed unless there are reasons to suspect otherwise. Surely you don’t think that the unbiased view of Marco Polo would be that one has to dig through evidence to prove his existence. If you have reason to suspect the sources are wrong about it, then you find the evidence. Same with Jesus. I’d also say you are completely wrong about professors in divinity schools being zealous about their beliefs and allowing their zeal to bias their historical judgments. Of course that happens in some circles. But not everywhere at *all*. Do you have any experience with high-level divinity schools and their faculty? (E.g., Harvard, Yale, Chicago, etc.) You might be surprised.
(comment 2) continuing previous reply:
True Historical Scholarship would require a clean slate from such embedded bias as contained in religious institutions. Same with archeological scholarship. People seem to always find what they are looking for (bias), Noahs Arc, Garden of Eden, Sodom and Gomorrah, Tower of Babel, Jesus’ Tomb etc. The problem with biblical history/archeology, is that it starts with knowing (bias) of what one is looking for.By it nature, biblical histoy is heavily biased, thus biblical and theology scholarship are both heavily biased scholarships.
Unbiased historical/acheological Scholarship would approach religion as a secular cultural history. I know you are trying to do such but still have not been able to drain all of your previous bias even including your dating of texts. Your gospels dating still is biased by your fundamental roots in that you are pushing them back in time from your original (biased) view based on evidence that could no longer support your original dating (bias).
Scholars who were schooled in secular institution advocate the latest datings. It seems the more religion injected into the person and their education the earlier the dating of the gospels. You are doing better but your fundamental bias is still evident.
Apart from fundamentalist schools, I don’t know *anyone* lookin’ for tha ark or the Garden of Eden, etc. Every serious scholar at every decent divinity school in the country thinks that kind of thing is completely laughable. It sounds to me like you are equating Christian scholars with fundamentalist scholars. Oh boy is that ever a mistake.
Short question: Is there a list of Bible texts that are forgeries?
Longer question: I am interested in all ancient texts. I am especially interested in accurate translations, discrepancies between versions, probability of forgery, date of authorship, the ambient culture, and competing narratives. Is there a searchable DB of all ancient texts that capture the following properties for each physical text:
1. authorship – date, location, forgery status, putative author, real author
2. discovery – when, where, by who
3. physical – language, material, ink, font, age
4. possession – chain of custody, current custody
5. version – how many versions, which one is this one
6. translation – who, when
7. originality – which parts are original, which other texts were likely used as source material
8. identity – common names, official names
9. synopsis
I am sure there are more. This was just a quick list.
1. I identify them in my book Forged.
2. Of *all* ancient texts? Not to my knowledge. (Not even of all *surviving* ancient texts). But it’s easy enough to find such information for most of those that survive.
Now for a question..
In one of you blogs you replaced the word “Law” (Nomos) with the word “instruction”. I was wondering how you came to do so, is “instuction” a better definition?
What would be the best Koine dictionary/lexicon? I fear that a biblical Koine dictionary would slant the defiinitions into theolgical definition to fit the orthodoxy. Same question for Hebrew, depending on if dictionary/lexicon is Christian or Jewish based. Definitions are critical to get to the true historical texts.
BTW.. Changing from “Law” to “Instruction” totally changes the meanings/understandings of Pauls letters especially Romans 2:12-16. Instructions are guides to get you to the desired conclusion, and the point is to get to the desired conclusion even if the instructions are modified. Where as Laws are rules that if broken require punishment and the point is to just follow the Law. In the Gospels, it fully reveals the conflict between Jesus and his teachings, and the strict/rigid interpretation of Laws by the Pharisees. Jesus seems to consider the Torah as general instructions with flexabilty to still attain righteousness, counter to the pharisees unbending enforcement of the torah including punishments.
So is your substitution based on koine or Hebrew definition or on the definition Jesus seems to hold in the Gospels?
The Greek word Nomos is one of those words (like lots of other words, actually) that doesn’t mean a single thing, but lots of different things, dependig on its context. Just within the writings of Paul (just in Romans!) it means different things. It can mean an actual law; it can mean a principle of guidance; it can mean the Torah, it can mean a commandment, it can mean a custom … etc. etc.
A number of years ago I realized that the word `belief’ is ambiguous. It sometimes refers to knowledge that is absolutely certain (like “I believe that two times three equals six”) and sometimes it refers to an opinion (like “I believe that there are other planets in the Milkyway with life”). So, when an evangelist says people must believe X, Y, and Z to get salvation it is unclear if the convert must have absolute certainty about X, Y, and Z to get salvation or is merely holding X, Y, and Z as an opinion sufficient to get salvation. Which meaning of `belief’ does the New Testament use and is it the same one used in contemporary Christianity?
Yup, like most words it can mean different things according to context, even in the New Testament. The Greek word for belief and faith is the same (PISTOS). For Paul it means something more like “trust.” You trust that God is true to his word, you trust that Christ’s death will bring salvation. For other authors (in 1 Timothy e.g.) it means something like “the doctrines you accept as true.” Not the same thing!
Yeah, trust in God or Jesus is a completely different thing than accepting a doctrine that Christ’s death brings salvation. The doctrine that Christ’s death brings salvation may not be true at all. In fact, “trusting” a doctrine is just as ambiguous as “belief” because it is unclear if this so-called trust can be just an opinion or if it needs to be a certainty. As far as I can tell, Pistos is still ambiguous. Is there anything else in the Greek meaning of the word that might dispel the ambiguity?
Like all words, it can only be disambiguated by the context within which it is used.
Is there a concise way to characterize how believers who also accept (most of) the critical history about the Bible would describe the Bible.
Rather than “simply” say that the Bible is the inspired word of God, might they say something like the Bible is the record of what Jews and Christians believe were encounters with God, a record of how they understood those encounters, of what they understood about God and what God wanted to tell them?
This allows for mistakes, varying biblical viewpoints and changes and growth of their understanding about God—but still preserves the idea that one can learn about God and what he’s trying to tell us by studying the Bible and trying to understand it better. Indeed, critical history could be extremely important in this endeavor—as could human knowledge in general.
One might even go so far as to say that the Bible is inspired by God but consists of fallible and limited understandings of what God is trying to say.
It depends whom you ask and, well, what their view is! Many believers think God speaks through the (flawed) Bible in important ways, analogous to how he speaks through (flawed) preachers, theologians, and philosophers in imporant ways; or that it is God’s Word without being his actual words; or that it is a helpful record of how key religoius figures thought about and understood God; etc…..
Ask Bart: … If the name “Jesus” was originally “Yeshua” and would more accurately be translated as “Joshua”, and given that there are other Joshuas in the Bible who were translated as such … Why was the name of Jesus not translated as Joshua in the NT?
Because the New Testament was written in Greek, and the Greek equivalent of Yeshua is IESOUS, which comes into English as Jesus, just as the Hebrew equivalent of Yeshua when written in Hebrew letters would would sound in English like Yəhōšūaʿ but would be translated into English as Joshua.
Dear Bart,
I often find that historians of early Christianity use the terms “historical Jesus/Paul/whoever” and “real Jesus/Paul/whoever” somewhat interchangeably, which I don’t love. I think there’s a difference between the historical Abraham Lincoln, who is an artificial human construct arrived at by following the rules of historical scholarship, and the real Abraham Lincoln, who is someone we have no access to. Perhaps I’m being too post-modernist though.
Perhaps somewhat analogous are Proto-Indo-European, an artificial human reconstructed language obtained by following the rules of historical linguistics to the best of our ability, and whatever was truly spoken by any particular speaker in the Pontic-Caspian steppe in, say, 6000 BCE. Or, as a looser analogy, Biblical religion as it existed in its ideal form in the mind of the priestly redactors of the Tanakh, and Israelite-Judean religion that any particular person in say 600 BCE would be engaging in, if we could build a time-machine and go observe them.
I’m curious if you think there is genuine value in emphasizing the difference between historical persons and real persons, or if this is post-modernism taken too far, and that given we have no time machine, the distinction is a not a useful one.
Sincerely,
Krish Desai.
Yes, I basically agree. “Historial” anything is a scholarly reconstruction of what apparently actually happened in the past (e.g., what a person actually said and did), and even if it’s really close to reality, (a) we’d have no way of independently knowing that and (b) a reconstructio is not the real think itself. You may be able to reconstruct a Tyrannosaurus, but it ain’t a real Tyrannosaurus. Even so, if you want to know what a real Tyrannosaurus looked like, you’re better off looking at a scientific reconstruction than a cartoon. And if you want to know what the real Jesus or Paul was like, you’re more likely to get close with a critical, historical reconstruction than a Sunday School curriculum
Where basing our assumptions on scraps from literature gospels.
Written 40-80 years after,
By writers who weren’t from Palestine, who didn’t know Jesus, the followers, w low knowledge of Palestine geography,
As Bart says.
As robyn faith welch asumes,
The gospels may even we’re written in Rome by literature writers, w scribes, rich sponsors,
W maybe Paul’s letters,
How many there were, anyone guess, 7, 100???
W Jewish books??
I have very low expectations the gospels are but fiction.
As they say, what we know from Jesus was that he lived, was a jew, and was executed by the romans,
Anything else?
Lots more. I lay out what I think we can know, and why we can know it, in my book Jesus: Apocayptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
“EXCURSUS
Most of the people who are deeply interested in the Bible in modern American culture are committed Jews or Christians who have been taught that this is a book of sacred texts, Scripture, unlike other books. For many of these – especially many Christian believers – the Bible is the inspired word of God.”
Thanks Dr Ehrman!
Unfortunately if the 1st sentnce above was true than the last 10 years would not have resulted in further racial violence. As for the 2nd sentence, St Paul was addressing the Old Testament only. I recall I asked a further missionary in Shanghai about the NT & his response was far from what I expected.
” even in the New Testament. The Greek word for belief and faith is the same (PISTOS). ”
according to being a Christian biblical belief was living your life in God at best all the time & not only on Sundays or the who go to church twice a year.
“Many believers think God speaks through the (flawed) Bible in important ways, analogous to how he speaks through (flawed) preachers, theologians, and philosophers in important ways; or that it is God’s Word without being his actual words”
It is not enough to approach the New Testament from a historical perspective, it also needs to be viewed from the perspective of the factual truth.
The true Messiah has come, and God has arranged for the true Messiah to break the scammer Jesus into pieces. The truth of the matter is that Jesus was only a cult leader, and the New Testament was just a cult preaching book.
When the truth is fully revealed, which is God’s arrangement and prophesied by the prophets, all the writings of the New Testament scholars may need to be revised. So the very busy days of New Testament scholarship are coming.
I recently started learning Koine Greek. I recall you recommending Attic Greek instead, but since I’m primarily interested in the NT text and always short on time, I figured I’d go directly for Koine.
Something that was somewhat surprising to find out was that pronunciation of ancient forms of Greek varies amongst teachers. Is there a particular method you follow (Erasmus, modern, reconstructed, etc.)?
Erasmus. I suppose they are all reconstructed though!
Thanks for posting Approaching the New Testament Historically – this is exactly why I am here!
: – )
Dr Ehrman!
I have a burning question that I cannot find an answer for. As a background I grew up in an IFB church and obviously that is how I understood the Bible for the majority of my life. One of the key bolstering passages for the authority of scripture is the author of 2 Tim saying that all scripture is profitable for.. etc etc.
Lets say that Paul was the author of 2 Tim. Since he died before the writing of any of the earliest datings of the gospels or other NT books. What exactly would Paul have considered “scripture” anyway? This question eats at me and I’m wondering if you’ve written on this and I’m not finding it, or if you have covered it in a lecture somewhere before.
Thank you!
Whether it was written by Paul or not (I think certainly not, but either way), “Scripture” at htis time referred ot the Jewish Bible (later called “Old Testament)