(15 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
Loading...I have talked a lot on the blog about my understanding of how biblical scholarship relates to Christian faith claims. Since the early 19th century critical scholars have dug deeply into the Bible and discovered discrepancies, contradictions, historical errors, geographical mistakes, anachronisms, and claims that make no sense in light of what we know about the world today from biology, geology, astronomy, physics, anthropology, and … and well the list goes on.
Different people draw different faith conclusions from this kind of scholarship. Some think it’s irrelevant to their faith; others think it requires them to change what they believe, possibly radically; yet others think that it negates the possibility of faith altogether — either confirming the atheism they already hold or driving them to abandon their faith and become non-believers.
Is any of these a sensible option? Is any of them the obvious and necessary option? What about the obstacles that stand in the way of change, unrelated to biblical scholarship, such as not being able to leave a conservative evangelical community because of family ties?
These can be unusually difficult questions. I’ve spoken about them from my perspective on the blog, and now I’d like to hear your views. Tell me what you think.
As with other posts of this kind, I will be eager to see what you have to say, but I will not reply or comment: this is your chance to speak your own mind.
Does scholarship destroy the claims of faith? Depends on the claims!
I don’t see how you can be familiar with the scholarship and the science and claim that the Bible should be read literally or is inerrant. Not unless you change the meaning of the word “inerrant”, like Mike Licona does. I’ve never met the man, but he seems like an honest person and I think he has some cognitive dissonance to work through.
AstaKask – Great reply – and spot on!!
If my theist conviction were based on Biblical inerrancy – I would be “screwed”. Since it is not, I am free to be completely honest regarding the text of whatever canon.
As to how honest I am with the epistomology of my faith itself – well, shall we say, only God knows…:-).
To me, it’s fairly simple: it hinges upon the level of truth you can bear.
If you honestly want the truth and you think you can bear it -however inconvenient it may turn out to be-, you change your mind according to your findings -wherever it turns out they have led you.
If scholarship leads you to alter your faith, you alter your faith. If scholarship leads you to leave it, you leave it. To an intellectually honest person, I think it’s as simple as that.
Critical scholarship like yours, if taken seriously, destroys shallow, uncritical acceptance of supernaturalistic faith claims. And what remains? For me it is an emphasis on the here and now “in the flesh”, an enjoyment of New Testament studies, an attention to the gestalt of the community that calls itself “church”, a sense of experimentation, heart-felt devotion to God, love of my neighbors, and confession of failure.
I was thinking about how to respond but then I read your comment and realised I couldn’t put it any better.
I grew up with strong Lutheran and Mennonite influences and one thing that was understood was that the Bible was the foundation stone for Christian Faith. I didn’t grasp the significance until much later that the Bible was a really old book written in a very different time for people that were not North American Christians. No one really invited me to challenge my understanding of the story until Dr Peter Enns and Dr. Bart Ehrman came along. But I can’t say they were totally responsible for my faith house collapsing. But understanding what they have brought to the table makes it impossible to ever rebuild that house again. The foundation I once had is shattered beyond repair.
How do I now embrace a narrative that I once believed was fact, and now makes more sense as a story. First Job, then Adam, Noah, Jonah, Abraham, Moses… all great characters in a great collection of stories… And then there is Jesus. Stories about him I can’t trust either now. Dr Rosen in the movie “A Beautiful Mind” says it best. “What kind of hell would that be”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T109FNgxBpY
Ruby, do you find that the stories of those people make more sense when read as stories about larger stories? I know I do, and I’m always astounded at the subtle genius of the Bible writers, the way they could take a narrative already familiar, like in Genesis when they re-told the Babylonian myth cycles in such a way as to reveal new ways of perceiving divine action in the world.
Once I read Jesus’s story in that light, it became even more brilliant. Crucified people weren’t just executed, they were obliterated, a scandal, no longer spoken of. But his disciples took that humiliating end and turned it into a story of restoration when they hung it on Isaiah’s star. Once again, a familiar (to Jews) story reclaimed to new ways of seeing it.
I think that scholarship certain has the ability to change, damage, or destroy one’s faith. But, it also has the ability to bolster faith as well. Many in my family are not going to change what they believe about Yahweh or Jesus. They believe that the bible is inerrant. But, one family member, my brother, is now not so sure that there was a worldwide flood. (ya think?) Even though he still believes in the literal Adam and Eve and talking reptiles and magic apples etc., he acknowledges that there is tangible evidence of civilizations that were active during the time when the flood is supposed to have happened, and they neither mentioned it nor drowned. Will he eventually come to see that the bible is not an accurate history or science book? Perhaps. It will be interesting to watch how or if his faith changes over time.
I am a pastor and I come from conservative roots. In the last 20+ years I have learned a great deal from biblical scholarship that has been faith challenging. I am in a denomination that is a mixture of conservative and liberal believers. I feel I have been called to two major tasks:
1. Teach people that love of others is what pleases God.
2. Challenge people’s belief in the literalism and inerrancy of the bible.
My two tasks should reveal that I am a believer, yet I am not conservative or fundamental as I once was. From my experience I will say that acknowledging scholarship can be a faith bubble-buster, but some faith bubbles must be burst if spiritual growth is to happen. Truth is not afraid of evidence. I have experienced first-hand how finesse and empathy are key to influencing others to self-examine their beliefs, without the result being rejection of faith, or rejection of scholarship. I’d say my ranking will keep me out of the Super Bowl this year, but every year I get better.
It is a fact that Biblical Scholarship changes and will change even more the way people approach religion. The ongoing findings and logical scrutiny from the various streams of christian-focused scholars will resonate soon into other abrahamic religions.
The implications of a growing doubtfulness about Jesus existance and actual life events will impact on Islamic belief on prophetic-Jesus role and “end-of-times” teachings. Of course the process will take time and the usual hermeneutical escape-route will be there to help keeping the debate alive for decades or even centuries.
The comfort to human mind that Judeo-Christian-Islamic conceptual basis about :
-purpose of life,
-after-life,
-life origins and
– moral-guidance,
is difficult to replace by science-only approaches.
I see the change that occurred for me as a journey as I stopped just listening to my parents and the leaders at our conservative evangelical church and opened up to read what other writers had to say within the Christian community. I was able to see that I was taught incorrect beliefs from the time I was able to listen. I then continued to open up the sources that at one time I was told from the pulpit to never read. So for me, I first left a very conservative church to a more open liberal church. Then as I continued to read and learn, I found that religion was human created and any belief system needed to be on a personal basis.
This is not a question about faith. This is a question about courage and agreeability.
If one’s faith never depended on the literal truth of the NT, critical historical scholarship does not threaten it.
If one’s faith depends on the idea that the NT is literally true and has no doctrinal conflicts, then critical historical scholarship is a real problem.
The question of how an adherent of the latter kind of faith responds to this kind of epistemological challenge depends on their social group. If membership to that group depends on a specific kind of belief, then there will be real pressure to reject the scholarship. How urgently does such an adherent wish to remain with this group of people? How much freedom does one have to leave?
We like to imagine ourselves to be ruled by reason, but I have come to doubt this. We make emotional decisions and rationalize them later.
The twenty years or so I’ve followed Dr. E’s blog (How long has it been really?) and reading his books as they come out have confirmed my position as an agnostic atheist. They have answered questions I’ve had for decades and enhanced my recovery in a twelve step program.
2012!
This is the reason conservative and Fundamentalist groups counsel their people not to go to school.
I’ve been Jehovah’s Witness, checked out Buddhism, became a Pagan Unitarian and now I’m a UMC pastor.
I’ve seen a lot of people suffer deeply because they couldn’t question and so confront and wrestle with their beliefs. They were convinced they didn’t have enough faith. I am always saddened by the way religion causes people pain when it should help them learn to challenge themselves and reach higher. I think the problem lies in defining what “faith” is; is it a certainty that your belief system is the right one, or is it more about trusting the whole thing enough to argue with it?
It’s hard for me to relate. I don’t need the story to live ethically, I’m in because I’ve been around the theological block, so to speak, and this story of Christianity is by far the most layered and endlessly fascinating of any of them. You can study this stuff all your life and not reach the end. It’s a bookworm’s dream come true.
My beliefs have changed since I took biblical scholarship seriously. I no longer believe in the historicity of the virgin birth (for instance) and instead, believe (the heretical belief) that Jesus was adopted as God’s son at baptism.
But in another way, my faith has deepened as the ancient world of Jesus has come into sharper focus, and I am able to understand the meaning and impact of biblical stories and theology more clearly and profoundly.
An example is how Jesus (and his followers) understood his body to be a temple of God, and this was how God had fulfilled his eschatological promise to return to his temple, but in an unexpected way. This had a sharply pronounced effect on the theology of Jesus’ followers, especially considering how both Jewish and pagan religions centered their worship around temples made out of stone.
Early Christians worshipped very differently, and having disconnected from temple-based worship they focused on their corporate and personal ethical transformation by welcoming the indwelling spirit of God into their hearts.
So I would say, biblical scholarship has both changed and deepened my faith, and I’m very grateful for it.
Lev,
Or was it at the resurrection???
Even a wee bit of historical review demonstrates the adoptionism was the most primitive post apostolic christology, i.e. Nazarenes/Ebionite traditions (who also rejected the historicity of the virgin birth…).
Toss out out the hypostatic union – and the hard work is done…:-).
Greg
All established scholarship must inevitably create an orthodoxy and all orthodoxies act as limiting prisms that are bound to have consequential beholder-dependent side-effects, whether positive or negative. On the other hand, there is no other way to move forward.
If my own warm dialogue with a local Christian group over a number of weeks taught me one thing it is this: you can never win an argument with committed believers since all that happens after a meeting of the minds is that they go home, strengthened in their beliefs, and pray for you. And further, that the noisy public debate on matters of theology do not play a role in their lives at all. Faith and community alone more than suffices and guides them. They are thus largely immune to the orthodoxy of scholarship.
I was a Christian: I started to change my view when I would talk to other denominational Christians and started to realized how different we understood the Bible and that our beliefs weren’t line up. Everyone would encourage me to pray to the Holy Spirit and that he would guide me to the truth. That brought a bigger question. If all of us are praying to the same Holy Spirit, How is it that we all get different understandings???? That was a big issue for me. Then started to search outside the Bible and stomped on Dr. Erhman and others, that’s when I started to see more clearly about what the Bible really is. I started to understand that all this Christianity is nothing more than a psychology. And I understand it if it helps you get rid of guilts in life and convince yourself of eternal rewards, and walk assured that you are not dammed. I totally get it. I don’t believe all that anymore. I believe in today I hope there is a tomorrow . And that is also faith.
I would say that a key question is whether one’s Christianity is based on Jesus or on images of Jesus that have arisen after his death. I belong to a socially liberal mainline denomination that seems to have a deliberately fuzzy theology that preaches and tries to practice the ideas that God’s love is universal for all humans, that Original Sin should be replaced by Original Blessing, that Jesus is an ever present Big Brother guiding and comforting us, and that some kind of eternal life of the soul overcomes the death of the physical body. This seems to be an appealing cocktail for many, who believe that it sounds intuitively “right.” But you have shown that it is fraudulent to trace any of these ideas to the historic Jesus. So, at the least, your work should force organized Christianity to abandon claiming Jesus as its foundation, and instead claim the church as its own foundation.
I also come from a deeply fundamentalist/evangelical background, and had doubts about aspects of its teachings even before I began to read Marcus Borg, Jack Miles, your books, and participate in this blog. I now view the Bible, not as a sacred message from God, but as a very human endeavor that reflects the individual writers’ historical context and biases. How could this not affect my faith, which is still evolving? I hang on to the piece of Christianity that provides a guide to living that is exemplified by Jesus’ teachings—at least most of them.
“I know this seems weird to outsiders, since, well, isn’t faith the point? Well, it’s not really the point for academics, whether they are Christians or not (except for fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals). I taught for four years at Rutgers University, I have now taught for thirty-two years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I have been an adjunct for years at Duke university. All of these were and are departments of religious studies with faculty colleagues who were and are experts in various religions and various aspects of religion. In all these years, I have never, ever, had a conversation with a colleague about my personal religious views. Never. Why? I suppose because we are not a church but a secular institution of higher learning, and faith commitments are irrelevant to scholarship. I know, it may seem weird, but there it is.”
There are really two questions being asked here:
1) How do the Biblical claims for the existence of Yahweh and/or Jesus as God fare in the tests of logic, reason, internal consistency and external evidence?
2) Even if the Bible’s claims don’t pass the various tests, does the evidence of astronomy, physics, geology support or reject the idea of some kind of creator and (perhaps) guiding physical or even moral force of the universe?
I’ve just finished writing a draft ms. which I started in order to look at the second question. I decided that the most convincing answer is No. But I also realized that there is always wiggle room for faith to argue against the evidence (for example: the dinosaur bones were created old to test our faith).
But the first question is subject to the rules of logic and evidence, including Occam’s razor and Hume’s Maxim. In short, I found I could explain Biblical claims and evidence, both OT and NT, as historical developments and strictly natural explanations without having to concede a supernatural explanation.
I started this project because the conflicts in Scripture had bothered me since I was young. Historical criticism just confirmed my doubts.
dankoh,
I did not hear anything re personal experience…
Why would I necessarily expect God to show up in these sciences – especially if I am a mere lay-person to these fields of knowledge?
Just throwing it out….always appreciate people’s input!
Greg
Personal experience of a divinity is unreliable as evidence, because it is subjective, unrepeatable, and unverifiable by objective tests. In other words, it cannot be subjected to tests that determine if it is true or false, and so only be accepted or rejected as a matter of faith. In short, someone else’s personal experience of a God cannot convince me that that God exists.
As for expecting “God to show up in the sciences” . . . given the postulate of a God who created the universe and who continues to act in it, it is appropriate to ask whether there is any evidence of it. Science, which tries to explain the world, operates on objectively testable evidence, and the evidence of any such a being simply is not there. (You can apply the argument of “God in the gaps,” but the gap is narrowing all the time.)
But as I said above, I decided that while I had determined that there is no evidence for a god of any sort, it was more worthwhile for me to explore the claims and the impact for the specific God of the Bible.
I have previously spent a lot of time forcing myself and the faith outside our cultures dogmatic god that exists in many forms of “Christianity”, but did not succeed. I have just moved to another level of perception, and since in one of your posts you refer to the passing of the late Bishop John Shelby Spong whom I’ve read a lot (just mentioning an example to identify my position), a definition of my (involuntary) faith in more or less on the same basis as he defines it.
Scholarship, and since it is you who asks, your scholarship. I just want to express my gratitude. A critical textual scholarship that adress many of the problems, its plentyful literal contradictions which distorts/have distorted my understanding of what I understand is the meaning, has clarified much for me. It has removed a lot of what I’ve hated with how Christianity has been expressed and interpreted and practised. My view of an Apocatastasis God/divinity is now more easier for me to understand.
Your valuable work has contributed for my understanding of this exalted God, and paved an easier path to understand of a much more exalted frame of what this “Christ” might mean.
So, Bart, let me express my gratitude for your work!
I believe that scholarship can deepen or hollow out faith. All depends on each individual.
For me the more I learn about Jesus or any other great religious figure as a human being the more I am amazed. I sense that the charisma of Jesus was so great that he wound up as one of many pillars of the various Christianities. Same with Moses, David , Mohammed and Siddhartha. All being the right people in the right place living out roles of psychological (spiritual?) fusion. As stars fuse atoms creating heavier atoms and releasing vast amounts of energy so did these people act as the fuel of human-nuclear fusion.
Another word for these people are shamans. Individuals whose presence, spirit, etc. acted as the fusion which generated the great energies we call religions. Individuals whose presences healed, inspired and motivated psychologies and beliefs way beyond their mortal lives.
By learning about these individuals and their lives – along with what I have learned and seen history, science and art – I can ultimately get ever so slightly better clarity of the whys and wherefores of simply being a human being.
My view is that the definition of faith comes strongly into play here. Oxford Dictionary defines it as:
“…strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.” To paraphrase a selection from a book on atheism I once read, ‘… the more faith it takes to believe in something, the less credibility that something has.’ If you have reasonable proof upon which to base your beliefs, faith is completely unnecessary. It is only required when reason and logic fail and belief must be shored up with something – anything – to prevent total collapse. So when we have scholarly evidence that a biblical claim to truth is untenable, the faithful use the worst possible alternative which is essentially “The Bible says it, I believe it, end of story.” Like good scientists and scholars, we need to be emotionally prepared to abandon long-held beliefs if we are serious about discovering the Truth of our world. This, in my opinion, is the difficult but sensible option.
Of course it has helped. It is poison when relied upon, but very good to test your own convictions. I went to many churches and sects. And as dogmatic as most were, as poor was their willingness to supply research material and a space and the encouragement to seek out a thing. I have met more people on youtube than at churches who had a library at home, could quote church fathers, evaluate the quotes by textual analysis etc. Such are a thorn in the eye of leadership and their foremost scholars. The idea of „flock protection“ has done much damage. As I like to say: „the pastor killed the prophet“. See 1. Corinthians 14.
The bar for a book inspired by an omniscient creator god is very high, and the Bible looks like just another manmade book.
Well if there is no Holy Spirit (which I believe there is) there is a certainly a human spirit. The Bible at least shows us of what the human spirit is capable. Now, many people have their spiritual practices in various forms that are completely removed from trusting in a Judeo/Christian God. But, mostly, between Christians and Jewish, I think a Jewish person would ask (and has) “who’s 10 commandments is it?” I think a key point in the book is guarding what is “holy” and establishing societal norms. Just for starters. It’s really hard to shed a long-abiding faith. Why should I anyway?
Why do anything hard or challenging?? And why is there “certainly” a human spirit? I’ve never seen one. I suppose your answers make perfect sense to you, but definitely not for me. But as long as that can be acknowledged and respected, it’s all gravy.
Whether a finding (e.g. discrepancy) is theologically significant depends on what your theology is. A defining moment for me was when I first read the account of Judas’ death in Acts (discrepant with the story in Matthew), and realized my beliefs about the Bible couldn’t be true. When I shared this experience with a Christian friend, she replied, “so that was significant for you.” I thought it was significant period, but then again, it might not have been had I held a different view of the Bible.
That reminds me. Bart, you have said it was the problem of suffering, not your changed view of scripture, that led to you leaving the faith. Are you sure that your changing view of scripture had nothing to do with it? Often more than one step is involved in making a decision or change. Had you not had such a high view of the Bible at one point, would the problem of suffering had affected you the same way? For me, I am not an atheist because I am open to the idea of an imperfect God. That idea might seem alien to a former fundamentalist.
My scholarship certainly made me think and question *everything*. But were it not for the problem of suffering, I would almost certainly now still be a theologically interested liberal Christian.
I would love to see a post on how the problem of suffering became a turning point for you!
Bart are you saying here that despite all the evidence you know, it’s only the problem of suffering that would prevent you from currently believing?
Yes, I think so.
But believe in what?
Sorry, I”m not sure what you’re asking. You’ll need to expand the question to remind us what you (we!) are talking about.
Great question. My wife is a Catholic and gives me the impression that Catholics are a lot less hung up on the Bible as a cornerstone of faith than, say, Protestants are. She seems to take the sort of things Dr Ehrman had referred to in her stride and doesn’t let it affect her faith. My background is a Protestant one and I have to admit that my faith was shaken a lot when I first came across Scriptural problems around 40 years ago. However, I now regard the Bible as a great work of literature, like Shakespeare and Homer, and probably dissociate it somewhat from my faith. Not the best approach maybe but it works for me.
That may be because in the Catholic Church the Bible isn’t the supreme authority; the Magisterium (official Church teaching) is. There was a time in medieval England (and probably other places) when it was a capital crime for a lay person to possess a copy of the Bible without approval from his bishop. Tyndale was hunted down and executed for translating the Bible into English (his work later became the basis for the King James Version).
One of Luther’s innovations was to insist that every Christian had to come to his own understanding of the Bible, and he translated the Bible into German for that reason.
I agree but my wife would say that the Magisterium draws heavily on the Bible. However, the ‘flow’ of information is, or was, strictly controlled, as you say, by resisting biblical translations into local languages prior to the early modern period. I have attended a Catholic church for 36 years and, at the beginning, bible reading, if not exactly discouraged, certainly wasn’t encouraged. This has changed now and I have encountered situations where fellow parishioners (like some Protestants) get upset when biblical anomalies are pointed out.
If you really want to get them upset, ask them to read and explain 2 Kings 2:23-24!
Well… We all must believe in something until we have a paradigm shift or change in world view. When I finally understood and got it through my thick skull that the NT authors were actually writing to their original audiences, NOT ME, or anyone else outside the message—it was, then, fairly easy to see Jesus, Paul, and any other author/teacher as a false prophet. They said certain things would happen in THEIR lifetime/generation and it didn’t happen. Therefore, I was left with no other logical choice than to courageously follow another truth and except the freedom to explore many other possibilities to our human existence.
Biblical scholarship liberated me from errant religious dogma of the past, so that, I can now appreciate a future base in logical sense.
At eighteen, I accepted Sun Myung Moon as the new messiah and had faith in Divine Principle (DP) theology. DB transformed me into someone who believed in the Christian god and a very human Jesus as DP defined him. I learned to read the Bible for evidence of what DB taught and treated the rest as writings that misperceived “god’s providence.” Textual and historical criticism of the Bible or DP did not guide me away from what I considered reasonable faith. The fellowship of the group became my life. I loved my new “brothers and sisters” and Sun Myung Moon and his wife as the “True Parents” of humankind. I felt as I imagined the first disciples of Jesus must have felt. No sacrifice was too great. That included denial of my gay sexual orientation. When the contradiction between who I was as a gay man and the church’s beliefs that God only sanctions heterosexual unions, I abandoned my faith. Atheism made sense as I studied science, especially anthropology. Where faith had confused me, science gave me tools to discern what is real and what is illusion. Nowadays, I am fascinated by discussions such as those on this blog.
The scholarly pov rocks
Bart’s brilliance and question (Why doesn’t Jesus observe ritual purity?) have been my diving board into Research Gates, JStors, Brills, Google Books, Wiki etymology hyperlinks, and finally, Eisenman.
(Years prior, I had been granted a Bartblog scholarship pre-PUA which gave me much relief — but then I was just trying to figure out why rurals seem to follow the OT not the NT.)
Now, as I made my blogbet on Jesus being patrilineally Nabataean — earthquake. Then lost Verizon and AT&T all the way up the road.
When the signal returned, this album streamed:
Maestranza
Monday night
Loud in the road outside
I saw the gate coming down
And smoke all around
The south hill
These last days
Con-men controlled my fate
No one is holding the whip
And the oil won’t stick
But I will
Now that a light is on
Now that the water runs
And the heartless are nearly gone
No time to get it wrong
Sunday end
Ache for the sight of friends
Though I’ve been safe in the thought
That the line we walk
Is the same one
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0zC5JyjI2y6syYPTiyk1MLS4pSsyrSgQAdLoI9g&q=maestranza&oq=marstransa&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j46i13j0i13j46i13i175i199.3543j0j7&client=ms-android-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#wptab=s:H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLVT9c3NMwuScoyNsuresRowS3w8sc9YSn9SWtOXmPU5OIKzsgvd80rySypFJLmYoOyBKX4uVB18uxi0ktJTUsszSmJL0lMsspOttLPLS3OTNYvSk3OL0rJzEuPT84pLS5JLbLKqSzKTC5exCqblpOaWqKQll-RWqyQm5haXFKUmFeVqACRBwD5bvednQAAAA
Maybe I’ve over-researched, because the lyrics read like uh, Passion Week. The singer posts a lot of IG stories — never mentions Christianity. He says its about the 2016 elections:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/fleet-foxes-robin-pecknold-new-album-shore-trump-post-malone-2771736%3famp
So to return to that song, Maestranza! After posting the comment that I’m replying to, I googled & found this:
“My dad was quite critical of organised religion, so we kids were never scuttled out to church. I don’t know if there is a Judeo-Christian God, but if there is, I wouldn’t blame Him for everything that’s wrong in the world.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/on-the-hunt-for-meaning-with-seattle-band-fleet-foxes-846150.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist
But that song is about Passion Week!! haha
As a high-cred singer-songwriter, all lyrics are his. Prior to that, I had suspected him of maybe going Starbucks-artlit-glib, tho he’s reaaaally soothing.
It gets better.
I said “album.” I first tabbed over bc of the prior song — I thought I heard a symbol of immortality. It is.
Oil and “water runs” seemed odd for indie music but I had just learned about “living water”, Nabataean hydraulics, and Messiah meaning “oiled”.
Yesterday it dawned on me — around last year I watched a v v-low viewer count webcam interview w Robin where ~15 minutes deep in, he explained why he named the album Shore — he had a near-death experience.
Surfing redivivus, in my words.
I had had him on my short list of, if reincarnation exists, he is a former member of The Way.
Great question! Of course, it depends what kind of faith you have to begin with. If you have an all-or-nothing, biblical inerrancy, theologically conservative faith, then you have to either ignore biblical scholarship to keep your faith, or change it to accommodate new found facts. In my experience, I did the latter, but it took many years.
If we can come out from under the black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking about the Bible, it will open one’s mind to realize that finding contradictions, errors, etc. in the Bible is not a threat to faith in God or Jesus and his teachings. The Bible was not meant to be viewed this way, and in fact, historically, most Jewish people, Jesus, and Paul did not believe in an altogether 100% true Bible or set of scriptures. Jesus was not an inerrantist, e.g. “You’ve heard it said…. but I tell you…” His teaching obviously contradicted and negated the god portrayed in much of the OT, but it also lined up with a lot of the teachings of the prophets. The Bible critiques itself (e.g. the prophets critiquing the sacrificial system), Jesus critiqued much of it, and the Jewish people routinely debated about it.
So biblical scholarship and the study of history is a good thing for faith. It separates the wheat from the chaff. And allows one to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of the scriptures and allow the good and beautiful to rise to the top, e.g. Jesus’ love ethic for neighbors and enemies, and the bad and ugly to sink to the bottom, e.g. the violent sacrificial god in Joshua, the bias against women exposed by copyists insertions and mistranslations, the doctrine of hell exposed by mistranslations and misinterpretations, etc., etc.
No, Biblical scholarship doesn’t negate the possibility of faith altogether unless you still have an all-or-nothing view of sacred texts–it’s all got to be true to believe. But that is not a reasonable view backed by history. Just like we would do with any book (or volume of books) that makes spiritual or noteworthy claims, we must do with the Bible. Look at them critically, hold them up to scholarship and a good study of history, see what is truly inspirational and magnanimous, and hold on to the good and reject the bad.
MWCamp
No, Biblical scholarship doesn’t negate the possibility of faith altogether.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
Historical King Saul, Labaya, gave obeisance to a pharaoh.
Jesus instituted the Last Supper/Holy Communion.
Even as only a metaphor, one does not make metaphors of sin.
God said in Leviticus 17: 10-11 cannibalism causes God to turn his face away and to excommunicate the offending person from the community of God.
Jesus performed his cannibalistic Last Supper, and what do you know? God was true to His word: Jesus asked, why have you forsaken me? The wicked tenants killed him.
Biblical scholarship does negate faith in Christianity.
God said this is my son in whom I am well pleased but God did not make a way for his son to live among those who killed the prophets.
That negated faith. Jesus rebelled against Yom Kippur as if he needed to be a sacrifice. Then his sacrifice needed his body and blood consumed. Jesus negated faith knowing God would turn away from him–an atheistic stance. The Messianic Revolt against Rome failed and God’s Temple was destroyed. That negated the faith. The Jewish Son of Man did not come in his glorious kingdom and Jews lost two more wars with Rome.
Your books and blog certainly can’t get me to start believing in a God, in Christian story.
Vice versa, believers must declare themselves.
In my small town, no bigger than Nazareth, before WWII everyone was a Christian. My grandfather was even sexton and I was baptized as a baby in the war.
After WWII we became a communist country, although officially, religious education was held at the school. When a rift broke out between Marshal Tito and Cardinal Stepinac, religious education was moved to the church.
Although my parents no longer went to church, they did not forbid me to go to religious education with other children. Even then I was a Chrism.
As at that time teachers and priests physically punished us children for misdeeds with a rod, more or less blows on outstretched palms. Once, while the priest went to take the rod in the sacristy, I ran away from the church, physically and emotionally. The parents of course agreed.
I was not like Paul who had been an increasingly zealous Christian since the whipping. 🙂
That’s why your blogs and books can only teach me things I didn’t know, what I was grateful for.
Along the way: what about visiting Split, Hvar, Korcula, Dubrovnik ???
Yup, I’ll be making all-too-brief stops in Split and Dubrovnik in June. I’ll be announcing the trip soon!
I believe it does all the above. Different strokes for different folks. That’s what makes people so interesting and life so challenging. What’s important is that we respect their opinions even if we disagree.
Necessary. I think so provided “faith” is defined strictly biblically Christian. But, not necessary and sufficient. The provisio is needed to account for the (really non Christian) religion of the good guy Jesus who was/is somehow still a god and which provides the cop out for a great deal of liberal Christianity. That said, I’m not real comfortable dealing with it in terms of sylogismic logic. Perhaps because thats not necessary nor …. appropriate in a situation where so much must be evaluated on the basis of reasonableness vs proven fact.
Discovered Bart Ehrman Sunday Sept. 9, 2012, when I opened up his book Jesus, Interrupted. I was unchurched but remember reading in the Preface “approach this information with an open mind.” I’ve sat back and enjoyed ever since. Ehrman continues on as a godsend.
Personally. I think faith and words on paper/papyrus/scrolls/codexes shouldn’t affect the other.
Maybe Christianity can look to something like Buddhism to see how they can come to grips with the fact that “holy scripture” isn’t necessarily a guide to Truth. Because Buddhists generally don’t do this (sometimes a bit yes).
Many of the characters in Genesis regularly knew of and interacted with the divine and never had a bible.
So why would later generations need one?
As a layperson, the biblical/historical scholarship was essential to allowing me to keep moving forward in my piecing together of what God is or is not. It certainly removed all ideas that Jesus might have been a totally fictional creation yet also allowed for permission to explore the non-magical types of perspectives on various ‘miracles’ could be discussed by putting things into ‘newer’ contexts that did not directly defy all logic or science. In this regard, I had also appreciated much of J.S. Spong’s efforts to break the mental heresy blockade against more critical analysis of the various competing building blocks involved in the development of the early written Christian documents. The seeking of knowledge and truth is a never-ending task. IMHO, this scholarship is not that close to being ‘done’ on early Christianity and on reshaping modern Christian (and Jewish) theology. Hopefully, there will be some more new ancient document discoveries someday soon.
For me, the Bible has gone from being “from” God to “about” God to finally being ‘exploring ideas about” God. Converting it from a divine object to a human work makes God, Jesus, and concepts concerning the role of divinity in human history more complex. But to me, it also makes for a richer, more interesting relationship with the divine. Galileo, Newton, and Einstein all changed the way we understood Earth’s place in the cosmos, but their discoveries didn’t affect either the force of gravity nor the orbit of the planet. We should look at understanding how our religious documents were authored, assembled, and disseminated in a similar light.
I was raised in a hard core rural fundamentalist community. It was made clear that one was either all the way in the group or all the way out. “Backsliding” was a constant worry and no compromise was acceptable. So naturally when my crisis came and I found flaws in it the whole thing crumbled for me. For in not providing any mechanism to compromise with life the group ensured it’s own destruction. My community used its beliefs as an escape from life but life is notoriously relentless and will not be denied.
No,I don’t think that our faith should change in light of truth. Truth help us to think differently, draw conclusions of religion as whole. It also helps us to be independent of ourselves and think differently of others in a religious setting. Our love for people grow even bigger. Our faith is even stronger than before. Our faith is stronger in the sense of feeling liberating from others who wants to have control over society as whole. Not only do I love people more I now show respect to others.
I think it depends on how people were initially grounded. A faith that heavily used the Bible as a dependency, would struggle to rationalize the dissonance. A faith that was largely social-example or liturgically based, not so much.
This is a tough question! First, I am a scientist (PhD in physics), so I have for years been skeptical of some tenets of the church I grew up in. It is a conservative offshoot of the Methodist church. I have for years accepted the evidence that the Earth is very old, that evolution occurred, etc. When I ran across the ideas of the JEDP hypothesis, it made sense to me. I reacted to info about the NT documents in much the same way: the various ideas as to how the gospels were put together and the ongoing studies of their components is just a fascinating insight into their history. Has that damaged my faith? I am still a member of a Christian church, singing in the choir, on the leadership team. My beliefs are probably at the most liberal extreme of my particular church. I see the knowledge I have gained from Biblical Scholarship as having enlightened my faith. But for me the trillions of galaxies with trillions of stars with several planets each, who knows how many having life, even intelligent life, is a far greater challenge for me than Biblical scholarship.
Thanks for asking Dr. Ehrmam. It’s been more than 2 years since I lost christian/religious/supernatural belief of any sort. After losing all that I had on god I realized I need to (I think) somehow reassign some meaning for this life on earth. Out of many schools of thoughts I got convinced by existentialism. Of course now I’m an atheist/skeptic/agnostic/nonstampcollector(!) for the past 2 plus years, the treatment I receive/received from my family and friends especially christians was and is a mixed bag. Everytime any religious discussions come up, I zip up my mouth tight. Because you know, some christian claims and favoring arguments (to me, most or even all, if strict scrutiny is applied) are simply fabricated work of fiction. Like Jesus promising holy spirit after his ascension to heaven. Because – the stories of Jesus appearing on multiple occasions after his crucifixion is already too heavy to bear from evidence perspective. More continued stories of his physical appearances, harder to keep stories from getting scrutinized. Solution – holy spirit comes along! No one can prove or disprove an immaterial being! Brilliant but fiction, no?! If this is how I bring my ideas, christians hate me, no wonder!
If your starting point is one of non-belief, supernatural things seem ridiculous.
Even at 6 years old, supernatural ideas seemed so ridiculous to me and to those around me that they never could have been taken seriously.
I still feel the same way at 66.
If you would have suggested to me at 6 that snakes and donkeys could talk… or dogs, I wouldn’t have believed it. I would have never believed that a sea could be parted or bread could fall out of the sky. And I don’t at 66.
But the history of this religion is absolutely fascinating.
I can’t think of another history that I’ve enjoyed more reading about and thank you.
If you are a fundamentalist, and you really believe that each word is inerrant and translated 100% correctly and meant to be taken literally : Scholarship will either make you abandon this view or doubledown, think a bunch of liberal PHDs are making things up & go into full Q-like(so to speak) denial and conspiracy.
If you are less than a full fundamentalist, believe the Bible is meant to be read nonliterally & to be interpreted, scholarship will tend deepen your religious conviction. Except when it disagrees with your view! I think people tend to view “Foolish fundamentalist’s going by faith vs. rational people who accept scholarship.” I think people use emotion in deciding and determining which scholarship they accept and don’t more than we like to admit. E.G. when (anyone but say Ehrman) says Paul wrote Galatians in the 50’s this aligns with a persons current view and so a person agrees but when he says that Peter and Cephas are two different people & this does not align and the person disagrees. They are both based on critical scholarship, by the same researcher, using the same methods. Emotion makes a person decide to accept or reject the scholarship.
I’ve heard that one of the biggest engines of conversion from belief to non belief is the seminary. Rumi Quote: Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.
When a version of God is wheeled into the public square it is rarely a sculpture where the originators chipped away the falsehoods to find the truth left underneath. It is usually a mache of anthropomorphic paper and paste with layers of unwieldy concept glopped on over and over that over time needs a heavy dose of apologetic – like putting a warped mirror in front of it to make it look straight again.
Scholarship is a chisel.. it chips away the apologetic and the human mache just to find that what was wheeled in does not exist in that way at all. Maybe something does… but it’s not found by building a concept of God as much as tearing them down.
Seeking and finding knowledge to me is gradually understanding better and better what it means to live and how to live without harming life on this planet and fellow human beings in any way. No dogma’s needed with a guiding and inexplicable planning god to praise or blame as the source of our own wisdom and excuse for our own shortcomings
Biblical scholarship doesn’t do anything to claims of faith if people don’t know about it or don’t care what it has to say. I attended Catholic schools from elementary school all the way through college, and never once did I hear mention of the Nag Hammadi texts, non-canonical gospels, or the diversity of beliefs in early Christianity. I suppose with ignorance comes a certain amount of bliss for many (most?) Christians.
What I have learned from my own experience is that it is vital that biblical scholarship be made more accessible and more widely disseminated among faith communities.
Professor, I have a question that is related to biblical scholarship. From all your years studying the Bible, Christianity, and Jesus what do you think the personality of the historical Jesus was like? Do you think he was mentally insane, a power hungry cult leader, a wise teacher, a man who felt very strongly about his beliefs, etc?
My guess is that he had a charismatic personality, was a bit of an uneducated religious genius, a wise teacher, and a committed prophet.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
In my opinion, Jesus was a composite figure of historical fiction consisting mostly of the Apostle Paul, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, a stoic sage, and the rebel Jesus of Galilee who rejected General Vespasian’s diplomacy for surrender and peace by stealing the horses of the party sent to Jesus to avoid the Battle of Galilee where the follower of Jesus were horribly defeated (when history was written by the victors, the biography of the historical Jesus, the Galilean, was rewritten to make him a person in whom Rome found no fault). Jesus’ act of salvation was Holy Communion knowing full well Leviticus 17: 10-11. After believing in Moses, King David and King Solomon, the Babylonian Exile resulting in Messianism and Apocalypticism (Tribulation of AD70 and Glorious Victory) where the Glorious Victory did not happen, we were saved from continuing any further along that path.
Consider,when the texts were written, only those with scholarship could read them and if they could get a copy. They put together a liturgy and canon to be read out loud at mass. The Daily Missal still contains every verse one would consider important. Priests have sermon outlines for each day. Not to say that was a great thing along with politics and wealth. Then came the English and other translations and the printing press. Soon everybody has a bible and deciding their faith and your heresy. Regardless, understanding verses that were composed as far back as the bronze age, is not a matter of spiritual enlightenment
I always wanted to know the truth. I intuitively knew after being raised in the church and having an interest in scripture that the inerrant God breathed word scenario was not accurate. I figured God could withstand my scrutiny so I studied, not formally but searched for answers outside of the scriptures. The more I learned the more disillusioned I became and my faith faltered. I am just left with more and more questions.
Perhaps it was never intended to be about truth. I believe that faith, prayer and applied biblical teaching is helpful to many people and I would never intentionally discourage them.
I noticed that ancient man put a lot of effort in worshiping gods. My conclusion is it gave them hope and security. It was an effort to control and or explain the uncontrollable in a harsh, dangerous world. We know better today.
I realized so much in the scriptures has been imagined by men to reinforce their belief. The whole divinity of Christ debate turns me off. I think Free Will vs Predestination is an either/or so which is it?
Free will and predestination are not necessarily at odds with one another if entropy (the arrow of time) is allowed for within Einstein’s “block” universe picture. In everyday life, we just assume that the past is fixed, as if carved in stone, and the future wide open. Do some more reading on what physicists and philosophers have to say about time.
Unrelated: I would be interested in your thoughts on why Paul and James’ conversions are not convincing evidence for the resurrection.
As a Pharisee finding it impossible to keep the law, I imagine Paul dealt with a lot of shame (Romans 7). I could see this as reason to adopt a new view of Judaism that relied on grace and simply a belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
I would be interested to see other examples of people who believed their family to be sent from God. Or any other thoughts you have on James’ conversion.
Pretty much for the same reasons that I don’t think that peole who convert to Catholicism because they’ve seen a vision of Mary means that Mary really appeared to them, or that the fact that people say that have visions of anyone who had previously consitutes evidence that they had died and were now alive again. That kind of visionary claim happens a *lot*, still today.
It took years of slow erosion but eventually facts (a lot of which came from Bart’s work) wore down 30 years of evangelical conservatism, belief in inerrancy, and young earth creationism. Once the facts were loud enough that I couldn’t live with the dissonance anymore and I got tired of the internal answers (e.g. “the wisdom of men is foolishness to God”), I concluded that there wasn’t anything left worth salvaging. In some ways growing up on the more extreme literalist end of bible teaching made it easier to discard entirely rather than tone down to something more moderate. I was always taught that it’s all 100% factually true and inerrant, so when I accepted that that wasn’t true then I felt no need to try to make sense of any of it anymore and just left it behind.
Others in my sphere have reacted differently, and have instead tried to distill the most important aspects that they really want to keep (e.g. Jesus’ example) and have rebuilt based on those aspects. I don’t personally want to do that, but they still get something out of it and don’t want to lose the community.
Oftentimes, when questions are asked, we never really answer them. In fact, most questions we ask, if you really pay attention, are never answered. Often we go on a personal rampant that reflect our understanding or beliefs within us, altogether avoiding what we’ve been asked. So, to directly answer what Bart has proposed,my answer is *YES* to some degree. I have followed Bart for a few years and have had a greater understanding of his teachings. Throughout the years,Bart has clearly stated,” I have no intentions of changing/converting anyone”. He is consistent. But, one thing you can’t ignore, the responses on some of his posts right here. People have often expressed their gratitude towards him and thanking the work/books he has done to tip/overcome their doubts. Those are testimonies, so his influence is apparent. At the end of the day, we *ALL* believe in something. Moreover, * NOONE* knows with certainty how the Universe and Humanity came to exist. We have great hypothesis of this phenomena. The best articulated theories, ususally getting convictions/support. Faith is rooted in us, from centuries past, to find a common dialogue to follow and live a coherent/harmonious life as a populous. Search continues.
Scholarship is essential to understand/teach from research,the probabilities that exist/proposed from an academic view rather than Theological. Together, faith and scholarship should work together and *NOT* impose their views on anyone, and in some ways we have seen that, to divide. I am concerned today with the ideologies that permeate in Universities, and the division that is caused between people. Students are often used to promote a way of thinking that fits all and irrational. I think,this is not organic. A greater understanding benefits all, and we have come to some conclusions/truths in that regard. Mankind has always been divisive, fighting for power over unity as hunter gatherers. But faith in a sense, brought people closer. I have no qualms in saying, people of faith have a more common goodness than people without. That comes from my experiences. Without a foundation,we are left to our own reasoning/opinions and that is usually a scary outcome. It is interesting to learn, that there is no Hebrew word for the English word “Obey”. Shema is often used, meaning hear.
– only if those faith claims were not based on an honest reasonable understanding of the biblical whole & context in the first place. The problem is, nobody will admit their understanding is otherwise yet there are more than a few conflicting claims out there and some people (NOT scholarly) tend to “pick & choose” which scholarship they will admit – provided it fits their current view. And then all the psychology of cognitive dissonance kicks in (often re financial, as well as mental, interest)! Such people usually don’t like to be reminded of the biblical direction to “study to show yourself approved”! Humans are complex!!
For me – the more scholarship the better, and I cannot thank Prof Ehrman enough for what he has opened up for so many.
When I believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, I refused to pay attention to anything that said otherwise. I really REALLY wanted to believe; I had found the rock I could take comfort and guidance from in the midst of what I saw as a frightening and often evil world. I believed that was necessary for me to be a “good person”. It was only when I began to see for myself the problems of Biblical inerrancy that I began to consider others’ views against inerrancy.
The answer should be “no”. However, in my experience, so many of what was taught by my church, religious school, and religious college is directly contradicted by modern scholarship. Because of this stark contradiction, I was led to discover “what else” I was being misled about. So in that sense, “yes” biblical scholarship damages the claims of faith.
I don’t have access to data but I strongly suspect that fundamentalist religions in general lead to more athiests than progressive religions.
No, Biblical Scholarship cannot change or damage one’s faith, if one is committed to maintaining one’s beliefs no matter what. If one is open to evidence, though, the answer is yes. Biblical Scholarship can help sharpen one’s current beliefs, deepen one’s understanding of them, aid reflection upon one’s doctrinal priorities and promote personal growth.
I myself was a devout Christian youngster. I went to seminary and served in missionary work for 20 years. In 2000, I experienced a crisis in my faith. I left church work. Eventually, I decided I was no longer a Christian. Biblical Scholarship never once shook my faith. I dismissed it all as worthless and irrelevant.
What led to my crisis of faith? The narrowness of my conservative religion, my sincere attempts to figure out who was really right, and the false expectation I had been raised with that the Bible provides us with clear and certain answers to all of life’s questions. The destruction of my faith is what led me to Biblical Scholarship, not the other way around. With its help, I was able to make sense of all that Bible knowledge that I had crammed inside my head all those years.
Dr. Ehrman,
As humans go deeper into space, what theology do you think will be used to be the ethical basis for how the earth originating travelers should behave. Or do you think it will be that they will follow orders like military orders? Is there a distance limitation or time duration which will allow them to modify their or reinterprete those codes?
It’s a great question. Lots of science fiction writers imagine they’ll come up with new religions over the centuries and millennia. And I’ll bet they’re right. And I’ll be I won’t be around to collect on my bet.
Dr. Ehrman thanks for the reply. The non sci-fi part is that except for the fact we originated here, we ARE traveling through space and these are the religions/ethics we have developed. The weird part is wondering if and how what we have developed will apply as the reliance on our home changes. Thinking of it that way does not give me much hope for a better way but does give me serious compassion for why things are the way they are.
Yes, but in 2000 years they will have developed differently.
The New Testament itself provides a definition of faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
I think that Biblical scholarship neither changes, damages nor destroys faith by this concise definition, although it completely wrecks the elaborate, layered artifice erected over centuries by earnest theologians who fully indulged their apophenia in its construction.
But I don’t think even the most devout Christian would claim that they have a complete grasp of God (whatever/whomever that is) or His ways. Nor do I believe that even the most brilliant materialist would claim that they have a complete grasp of the material world. (Dark matter, anybody?) So, Christians and materialists alike must admit that they have the conviction of things not seen. For the religious and non-religious alike, there’s much more that we don’t understand than what we do understand.
I don’t find either the negentropy principle or an anthropomorphic God to be plausible explanations for my consciousness, but I feel sure that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves and my consciousness will persist to see it fulfilled. That’s faith.
As a former fundy, I can attest that critical scholarship elicited a terrifying fear of exchanging Jesus’ love, the promise of being with him forever, and a meaningful role in the universe for an eternity in Hell. I was trapped in theological golden handcuffs and suffered from the constant beatings of incongruities, contradictions and theological mysteries I had to accept to hold on to my reformed christian doctrine that I loved so much and have a master’s degree in.
Even worse, as I understood the Bible, the verses that told us it was wrong to lean on our own understanding and that “the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing” discouraged me from taking critical assessment of the Bible seriously.
The critical scholarship of Bart and others unlocked those handcuffs. For me, with new insight into what the Bible really is, it is impossible to have a faith that is based only on its testimony.
I suppose I could have a faith that is sustained by an unseen force such as my emotions, my intuition about the world, or the Holy Spirit, but the study of comparative religions and Street Epistemology (SE) have made that untenable for me.
Nice of you “to hear your views”.
Most will eventually come to know the serious problems of the Bible.
There will two choice. Become atheists or look for another religion.
Atheists is the easiest choice. Nothing to do enjoy life and wait for death. Those who logical will look for truth perhaps another religion.
A juggler who spin a ball on his finger, head, or toe, soon the ball will stop and fall down. Need to continuously spin it to entertain. The juggler and spectators can see he control the spinning.
Similarly, earth is spinning in more complex systems to provide day and night for our pleasure, time of days and years for many purposes. Those utilize their intelligence and thinkers can see and understand that a powerful force, like the juggler, is controlling the movements of the earth, moon, sun, and entire universe. Many choose to ignore it. Unlike Angles, mankind is given the privilege of choice.
Do nothing will get nothing.
Better to search the truth to reap many benefits. Truth is easy to find. Excuse not to do will have themselves to blame.
I would strongly urge you to look at another religion that believes in Jesus. Requires little effort, need no rewards.
If “being a Christian” means “having it all figured out” then critical scholarship can be devastating. I first encountered critical scholarship in seminary (Westminster Theological Seminary in California). When you’re in seminary, very little time is available to think about these new ideas. It’s a “here’s the problem–here’s the answer” approach as you place the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle, finally “figuring it all out”.
If you’re epistic commitment is certainty, you’re headed for a fall. This was the flavor of my faith growing up in a fundamentalist church and, then, taking a right-turn into Calvinism. Such a commitment to a scholarly approach to faith comes with its own built-in booby-traps: you just can’t pick and choose which “facts” you want to believe. And, eventually, the rough edges of my uncertainty were smoothed and strengthened to the point where the center could no longer hold. Personally, I haven’t lost my faith in ‘the divine’. Just in Christianity’s ability to explain it.
Prophets of God whose mission was to guide, help their people did not ask for reward in return. “I need no rewards from you.” Anyone who ask nothing in return is an indication worthwhile to consider.
Jesus did not ask anything in return for all that he had done for his people. Those who were disappointed with Christianity should consider the advice given below by Jesus:
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” “For every one that ask receive; and he that seek find; and to him that knock it shall be opened.”
JUST ASK GOD FOR GUIDANCE, SEEK, and KNOCK and according to Jesus GOD WILL GUIDE YOU.
Many fear death. Many want to “seek” the truth. Others have commented “I didn’t want to experience eternal torment”. There are those who put in writing “I preferred the Heaven”.
There is another world religion that all their followers believe in Jesus and always honor him. Perhaps this is an option to consider seriously. It is recognized as the fastest growing religion in the world.
I too ask for no reward for this proposal.
Yes, I think the longer you do critical study & thinking about religion you spot the discrepancies, the biases of the time it was written & the culture that produced it.
This applies to all Judeo-Christian religions, likely most of the others, too. Patriarchal?—yep, anti-LGBTQ+?—yes, and the regrettable justification for slavery & cultural jingoism?—sadly, it is in there.
People of faith can cherry-pick their way around it, which also applies to cherry-picking the justifications for condoning it too. In the case of homophobia, what other than a unseen moral authority out there can explain why it’s some societal flaw, some moral failing?
For me, I finally gave up religion when I decided it just wasn’t worth the mental gymnastics I kept needing to perform to keep it in my life.
As a doctoral student in Theology at the University of Oxford back in the 1990’s, a comment in a seminar about any “theological enterprise that had not kept up-to-speed with current biblical scholarship was necessarily the weaker” was a true stomach punch. This question has been on my mind for many years and encountering Bart Ehrman’s work has aided my own reckoning with “faith”.
Recently, I’ve gone back to the late (died, July 2021) Professor Van A. Harvey’s, The Historian and the Believer (originally published 1966), where these issues are addressed critically (though I was disappointed with Harvey’s own conclusions).
[A more recent article, “Skeptifying Belief” by Harvey (you can access here via this link: https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/the-historian-and-the-believer-by-van-harvey/ ) provides an update of sorts on his position.]
In the end, Harvey’s subtitle in his work points to the issue: “The Morality of Historical Knowledge and Christian Belief.” Do believers have a moral duty to embrace the findings of historical scholarship and must they reassess their beliefs based on the evidence demonstrated from such scholarship?
If you are unfamiliar with this work, I recommend Harvey’s book as a way to approach the question raised in this post.
It’s a fantastic book. It made a huge difference to my thinking when I was in graduate school. I met his son a couple of times and was able to write Van when he was near the end. He was one smart fellow. LIke me he came out of a conservative background, but he was more philosophically oriented than me, a deep thinker.
Yes – a fantastic book and definitely “one smart fellow”. I was referred to Van Harvey via other smart fellows (Fr. Michael Himes @ Notre Dame and Fr. David Tracy @ University of Chicago). I’m more philosophically oriented but came from what I would call a “naive” background rather than conservative.
Perhaps Van Harvey’s book is worth its own dedicated post or the topic itself is worth another trade book…… 🙂
It is interesting how similar paths can lead in opposite directions. Many have said that their faith was dented or obliterated by increased understanding of science. On the other hand, a very dear friend, now long deceased, earned her bachelor’s degree in astronomy, math and physics. In graduate school, she found her plans, and her scientific atheism, interrupted by a sudden blossoming of faith that converted her into a non-traditional Christian, with very strong mystic leanings. Indeed, she became a professor of Philosophy, and taught for many years. And one must remember that Newton was a deep believer of a sort that we would certainly consider very conservative today, even determined to find a Bible code that would prove it all (which, of course, he never did find).
I suppose it depends on the specific claims of faith. For literalists, it must be an unbridgeable chasm. Hence, Christian apologists.
I think religious writings teach us about the people who wrote them, and the society they lived in. It is a reflection on the human being, and not on some god. And it teaches us about the insufferable questions that have haunted the species since at least the “Epic of Gilgamesh” (and most certainly long before the written word).
“Truth will set you free.” I started, growing up in the Evangelical Free Church and as a teenager was likely a pain with my questions. I served 23 years in the USMC. After retirement, I first worked for 2 and a half years at CRISTA Ministries as a human resources administrator. Leaving CRISTA, I was the human resources director for several non-profits and a court, my last position serving 9 years as the Director of Administrative Services for Jewish Family Service in Seattle. I am a reader. A friend got me into Borg, Crossan and Bart Erhman. Borg’s writings started to gel with my experience. Bart asks us to open our eyes/minds and follow where our discoveries take us. I also read much of Daniel Tabor’s works and especially perked up when it came to Paul preaching a Christianity likely very different from what we can surmise about Jesus’ teachings and life. I no longer call myself a Christian and am an agnostic. Fortunately for me, my wife took a similar path. I still am a moral person; not much changed there. Bart, in particular helped me along the way and reinforced my changed beliefs.
-reply continued
I too, didn’t grow up with any Bible spoken in my house (but a Bible was there.)
This got me asking for a new heuristic: did First Century Judeans consider full disclosure, honesty-at-all-costs an ideal, like they did purity?
I don’t think they did.
Romans 3:7
“But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?”
Matthew 13:11
“Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.”
There is nothing in any ancient religions about honesty>’right feeling’, afaik.
It’s even more ridiculous when people take statements under duress — Gospel authors go to great lengths to say if a statement is under duress — as not being extricating double-entendre.
So I just learned minutes ago that the story at Passover is about the Exodus. Um, Essenes are 1M% about the Reverse Exodus to the East.
I have an ever-increasing list of First Century figures, like Nabataean Galilee Queen Phaesalis, who tried or succeeded at “faking out” to escape. Yohanan ben Zakkai. 3 in Josephus. (On top of 3 others surviving the cross, 1 recovering).
Who escaped the Herodian Dynasty who didn’t fake something?
Good question. Many Christians have a personal claim of faith that is based on a childhood introduction to Christianity which has never been questioned or seriously altered. They are not scholars or ministers. They are totally “Justified by Faith” not fact.
Any suggestion that their view of faith may be out of line with any aspect of their view of truth is usually met with denial and unwillingness to investigate such alternate perspective.
So, does Biblical Scholarship Change, Damage, or Destroy the Claims of Faith? Absolutely, if they are drawn to investigate such alternate perspectives, it has the potential to change, damage or destroy their current claim of faith.
Since “faith” literally means to believe something despite the lack of evidence for it, then I would have to say no, the knowledge that scholarship provides has no effect on faith. And since knowledge is evidence, the more knowledge you have, the less faith you need to have. Thus, it is natural that scholars, whose purpose it is to produce and proliferate knowledge, are more likely to lose their faith. The really surprising thing is that so many scholars do not lose their faith.
Yes, however, simply READING the bible on my own made me become skeptical. What I appreciate about the work that you do – it helps me come to an understanding of what this book (which I put so much of my life into, until it came crashing down) is really all about. It’s like therapy!
Pardon the double dip…. But, looking at the title question again illicits another thought:
“ Does Biblical Scholarship Change, Damage, or Destroy the Claims of Faith?”
Is that the right question ?
I guess we should first stipulated which claims? The most important would seem to be the divinity of Jesus and his resurrection? But, scholarship will not, and perhaps cannot, go there. Some 2000 years of trying has yet to produce a shred if evidence for claims so extraordinary as to require extraordinary proof. So, my important take is that while no, scholarship has yet to even really well support the fanciful claims of faith, the burden of proof remains on the claimants.
Biblical scholarship changes, damages and destroys faith. Not necessarily all three for everybody, and not necessarily any of the three for some. Faith is mediated via the use of language. The Bible is the language base of Christian faith, and factual claims are being made in that language base. As biblical scholarship casts doubt on those claims, the basis for faith will be altered. The degree to which that alteration changes, damages or destroys a person’s faith is determined largely by their emotional makeup. My concern is for those for whom faith is important as a source of meaning, who have the intellectual wherewithal to consider challenges to their faith, but who lack the emotional resilience to deal with the shock. Increases in knowledge coming from science and evidence-based inquiry are key to achieving improvement in human welfare, whereas Christianity has endorsed medieval superstitions. I see the erosion of faith in all religions as necessary. Biblical scholarship assists that erosion. A faith free world is not a necessary goal. However, religious convictions cannot be permitted to curtail research or to trample upon the lives of people who do not share those convictions.
When I began learning about the discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible I began to wonder how one could be a Christian know the errors in the bible. Then I learned and listened to men and women like Dr Bruce Metzger, Dr Dale Allison and Dr Elain Pagels who all who profess a Christian faith. I wonder how they’re “coming at it?” I’d be interested to know more. They certainly approach God and the Bible differently than I am.
On teh blog I’ve had Jeff Siker answer that question. For Elaine Pagels, try her book Why Religion.
The basic answer is that only fundamentalists think the BIble has to be without any errors.
Historically it’s a strange position.
As a Muslim, Biblical scholarship and the study of the historical Jesus has given me a much better understanding of the Quran since it refers to Biblical stories so much. It’s shown me that much of the traditional Muslim understanding of Jesus is incorrect. I think this is primarily because the traditional Muslim understanding of Jesus is based on medieval exegetes of the Quran who didn’t have access to modern Biblical scholarship and took their understanding of Jesus based off of traditional Christian beliefs instead of what we now know about the historical Jesus. Of course this is not their fault, but it is something that modern Muslim scholars needs to come to terms with.
There are many Muslim teachings about Jesus I have always found completely dubious since they date from a period much after the Quran, but the biggest fundamental understanding which I now disagree with concerns Jesus’ crucifixion. Muslims believe that Jesus wasn’t crucified based off of a verse in the Quran, post-Quranic sources, and Muslim exegetes. I think this is completely off and that a careful reading of the Quran actually agrees with the Christian belief that Jesus was killed & resurrected.
Hope my comments make clear that Biblical scholarship seems to be increasing the weight of evidence towards spiritual stuff, for me.
Why didn’t anyone tell me about this, lol:
“For after all those who believed in Christ had generally come to live in Perea, in a city called Pella of the Decapolis of which it is written in the Gospel that it is situated in the neighborhood of the region of Batanaea and Basanitis…”
— Epiphanius, Panarion 30, 2, 7
Batanaea, was ruled by Nabataea in the late second century!
https://www.jstor.org/stable/600733
“In the 1st century BCE the land was acquired by Herod the Great.” Ugh, Herods.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batanaea
“The northern limits of Dushara’s worship in the eastern Empire seem to have been the Auranitis and middle Batanae”
Dushara is *the* Nabataean emblem. Lord of Heaven, like America’s Lady Liberty, or maybe idk like a certain copper-smelting god.
pdf
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/10302/1/fulltext.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiCwqbWq_rzAhWQJDQIHenYBRIQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw36ig79Qj6kqYnANBx2zRe3
Epiphanius seems to be saying that Jesus told wayfollowers to Qumran Exodus Reversus across the Jordan.
ok, back to Maestranza’s Shore! The first song is “Wading In Waist-High Water.” UM. It’s like that “water immersion ritual” archaeologists described in Petra.
But, the singer-songwriter, Robin says its a callback to “Come All Ye” — don’t add any words to that! — the Fairport Convention’s song:
https://ew.com/music/fleet-foxes-robin-pecknold-shore-track-by-track-breakdown/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/genius.com/amp/Fairport-convention-come-all-ye-lyrics
comment continued-
Is it here where I say that Shore is a well-known album? 12M+ streams on Spotify, been out for a year, Fleet Foxes has had hits for two decades. But only one Christian blog reviewed it, afaik.
Even tho Robin did his one show for it in a *church*
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/27/fleet-foxes-a-very-lonely-solstice-live-stream-review-all-is-balm
And that one Christian blogger doesn’t note any lyric as directly Christian: https://thinkchristian.net/fleet-foxes-on-the-existential-shore
And yep, I’ve sang these lyrics for a year without realizing there was anything looking similar to Christian symbology.
But I’ve now used Shore — for fun — as one launchpoint to research. It seems like the entire album is ridiculously savant of mystery-school Christianity.
The show, “A Very Lonely Solstice” ocurred on the Winter Solstice. Reminding me that Petra’s buildings were built around Winter Solstice week:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140317-petra-jordan-nabatean-sun-civilization-ancient-culture
Eisenman points out that Qumran tombs “whitening” once a year is a solar orientation. (He loses it tho, at making everything Jesus anout James. Different daddys.)
Maybe idk, Petra was built in anticipation of a reincarnating king. It’s basic reincarnation facts that you have two years before the fontanelle closes.
Matthew 2:12
“…they returned to their country…”
Ok, so, the magi came from just *one* country. Any guesses better than Nabataea?
Not sure! Astronomers are often though of as having come for the “Far East” WHo knows. Arabia?
Good scholarship is good peer review. Laplace didn’t need to interject “perturbations” as Newton suggested because he did better math.
Good scholarship opens new areas of knowledge and reduces the need for Deus ex Machina to make our human plot work if truly, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’ (As You Like It).
Studying biblical scholarship definitely changed my faith and limits the number of statements of faith that I can sign with a clear conscience.
One important thing is critical Bible scholars should be clear about what is unequivocal consensus among critical Bible scholars versus what is debated among critical Bible scholars. For example, if Bart Erhman’s proposal that Jesus never identified himself as the Messiah (Christ), who would come with the clouds of heaven (e.g. Mark 16:62), is debatable among nonbelieving critical Bible scholars, then that should be clear because that proposal cuts into the heart of Christian faith. For example, merely saying that Mark and authentic Paul taught about a literally soon apocalyptic end of the world is clear and does not by itself imply that Jesus never identified as the Christ.
Hi Bart,
I finally figured out that I grossly misunderstood you, and I need to revise the second paragraph of my above comment. I am not sure of the appropriate technical terms, but I will refer to two categories of Christology as (1) local Christology and (2) global Christology. That is, “local Christology” refers to the interpretation that the historical Jesus is misrepresented in the Synoptic Gospels and that the historical Jesus referred to himself as the next king of Israel but not the sovereign of all earthly kings (or that the historical Jesus made no messianic claims at all), and global Christology refers to the traditional interpretation that says the historical Jesus implied that he would return to rule all nations of the earth (e.g. Mark 16:62).
In this context, local Christology cuts into the heart of the Christian faith. For example, merely saying that Mark and authentic Paul taught about a literally soon apocalyptic end of the world is clear and does not by itself imply that Jesus never identified as the global Christ. And I clarify that global Christology does not imply evangelical or fundamentalist hermeneutics.
Please pardon my earlier ignorance of your scholarship 🙂
–James
Bart
Different people draw different faith conclusions from this kind of scholarship. Some think it’s irrelevant to their faith; others think it requires them to change what they believe, possibly radically; yet others think that it negates the possibility of faith altogether — either confirming the atheism they already hold or driving them to abandon their faith and become non-believers.
Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy (the Exodus, King Saul, Jesus, Paul, and Josephus)
New Testament Criticism, Ancient History, Egyptology, and Cosmology have not negated faith altogether, certainly not confirming atheism. Nothing confirms atheism. Atheism is stronger when there is only one god. There are many gods, and with so many human alliances, there are many lords. That which exists between incarnations in an existence of reincarnation is safe from earth-based inclinations towards monotheistic atheism and even polytheistic atheism.
Fields of knowledge sometimes provide valuable information.
Change, Damage, Destroy–the question is weighted against ongoing goodness.
Objection: leading–misleading–the witness.
Learning what scholars know about the Bible does not effect my faith. For those of us who believe God created us in His image, the Bible is just as it has to be – full of proofs for unbelievers that it’s not from God with all those errors while at the same time providing ample sustenance for believers. If God created us to be like Him, we are not to be as robots. He has made it possible to be free to choose..
If the Bible was a series of essays on the nature of god that would be one thing. But if it is the history of god’s interactions with mankind and it is its historical accuracy would be important in judging its validity. So yes critical scholarship that questions the historical accuracy of the Bible would be a faith killer. Christianity centers around the resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection did not happen, what is Christianity?
I’m really not sure where I stand atm, but I will say I kinda miss my closer “relationship’ with God that I once had. I feel my faith has been diminished inadvertently through study, but I sometimes wish I could take a blue pill (minus the guilt!). There is a ton of upside to faith and hope–Imo, more than agnosticism or atheism.
I think simpler people in general are happier than complex people. And those with simple faith are probably happier than complex thinkers who challenge notions of religion.
One opinion… Christianity rises or falls on the authority and general reliability of the Scriptures. Not perfect innerancy but at least innerancy in the communication of theological truth.
My two cents
“The Word of the Lord”
From my perspective as a non-fundamentalist, any downside of biblical scholarship vis-a-vis one’s faith seems to be related to the degree of investment in scripture as inerrant. If such inerrancy is total, i.e. historical and scientific as well as theological, biblical study will inevitably present a challenge. The reaction of the individual will depend on his/her investment. Many will experience a “pendulum phenomenon”…strong fundamentalist belief will swing to confusion and despair (aka “heads exploding”). IOW the higher you are, the harder you fall.
In my case, it was easy to accept scripture NOT primarily as an historic or scientific document and therefore not subject to the onus of total inerrancy . This made biblical study more liberating, focusing on meaning rather than fact. After all, Jesus (in the Synoptics) taught in parables…why cannot some scripture teach in fables?
IMO, the “..Word of the Lord” response to liturgical readings should be scrapped in recognition that the readings are the words of the human beings who wrote them and therefore subject to human imperfection.
I suppose it depends on how accessible the scholarship is to folks, which is an issue for scholarship in general. If it’s readily available, the sky is the limit in its potential impact. If they have to log into a database or sub to a particular journal, then folks are less likely to know about it because they won’t come into contact with it, which mitigates the potential impact of the findings. This is why I think your non-scholarly works, and the works of others like you, are so important. They provide access to information that may otherwise be denied or inaccessible to the general population.
Bart,
There is no doubt your books have damaged/destroyed the faith of many.
But the bottom line is: Christian leaders have failed to educate. They have failed to teach the truth about the doctrinal manipulation that has occurred in church history as well as manuscript discrepancies.
Therefore, Church leaders are the ones truly responsible for those losing faith today.
Your books have been a stab in the heart for many, you know this. Still, you have for the most part spoken truthfully abbeit outside of what you yourself would want to believe.
(It’s a nice story too good to be believed. So let’s see if it stands up to an autopsy. Let’s see if the parts add up to the whole. And when they do not; God has failed me.)
Christians do not lose their faith because of your books; they lose their faith because their church leaders have failed to teach them; keeping them ignorant of what they themselves know. They have left them disarmed, bellies exposed, to what is in fact true concerning the NT.
Christian leaders have failed to properly educate their people the buck stops with them.
The NT does not have to be perfect.
I”m not sure that I’d say my books have destroyed anyone’s faith. My books do present scholarship that make peole reflect on their views, and once they see the evidence they sometimes realize they need to change their faith perspectives. I guess that’s what happened to me too! But the evidence for most of these things has been around for a long time….
How could it not? If, as Bart says, all but the most conservative seminaries in the western world teach that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, that he taught that the end of the world as it was known was coming to an end in his or his immediate followers lives, some of you will not taste death before all I’ve said comes true, then he was wrong. The Christian god is all knowing , all every virtue, so of Jesus was wrong, he wasn’t god and therefore the very core of Christianity as it is taught today vanishes.
If the claims of faith are illogical and counter-factual then those clams NEED to be destroyed.
There is no god that protects us from each other. We must do that. There is no god that feeds us. We must do that. There is no god that cures disease or really answers prayers. There are medical professionals and coincidences. Giving up god is freeing oneself from contradiction and hypocrisy enabling the search for real truth. Just be kind and do no harm. Seven words to live by. Add in a smattering of love and god is completely irrelevant.
For me, “biblical scholarship” refers to my reading of Bart Ehrman–his undergrad text book popular books starting with God’s Problem. For me, Prof. Ehrman though is part of my later experience as a student and reader. The first lever that freed my mind from its dogmatic slumber was Emerson: “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Prof. Ehrman makes this same appeal to his audiences all the time, especially it seems to his college age audiences. “Think for yourself!” he says. My second influence is C. S. Peirce. We “fix our belief” as a way of settling the dissonance of our doubt. Peirce advocates for beliefs as tentative hypotheses. Ehrman has helped me to value (and see witnessed in his life) the Emersonian ideal of holding sacred the integrity of one’s own mind as opposed to a priori assumptions. It turns out, it’s not “believing” that takes courage, but rather “not believing.” I’m glad to have these intellectual mentors to guide me out of the grip of tradition. No, biblical scholarship has not destroyed my faith, but has freed me from the grip of what I’d already lost confidence and conviction about.
If your books didn’t destroy anyone’s faith they should have. I lost my faith while you were still a believer, because my science education and my own thinking on the subject through my first year in college had already caused me to doubt my faith. The real kicker was my freshman course in Old Testament studies, which introduced me to the documentary hypothesis in 1967. Once I became convinced that the Bible was the product of pre scientific attempts to understand the world and that these understandings were so easily overturned by science, then atheism was the obvious choice. Your books and others are just more vindication of my early conclusions. If the consensus of the best scholars is right then of course faith in any religion is completely without merit. But despite this, most people don’t have a clue how to determine what is good scholarship as Bill O’reily’s success shows. My concern is how is it possible to lead the general population to appreciate what is good scholarship and to trust it? I hope that your books and outreach are a good part of that solution.
All religious dogma/religions are of Man. The spirit within us is of nature’s god. The lie that is christianity/Islam etc would have faded long ago without childhood indoctrination and the the fear it instills.
If one accepts Bart Ehrman’s and other scholars’s conclusion that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who believed that the world as we know it would come to an end in a cataclysmic event in his own lifetime or a few decades later, then I can’t understand how one simultaneously can believe that Jesus was the son of God with all the knowledge of his omniscient father. Because this cataclysmic event never happened!
But I know that many intelligent believers are fully aware of that they have inconsistent beliefs. They apparently have a very strong emotional need to believe in Jesus as Saviour, stronger than logic and reason.
I don’t have such an emotional need, and I have no problem to be an atheist.
One would have to take the incarnation seriously, that he did not in fact have divine omniscience because he becaome fully human.
Yeah, but then it wouldn’t make sense for God to confuse everybody by allowing his incarnate Son’s message to be completely wrong.
Possible? Sure. But it wouldn’t make sense.
I have never been a believer although I thought there must be something “out there”, something bigger and core to our consciousness. I never related to religion because the religious around me never struck me as adherents to their professed theology and partly because I wasn’t raised in a religious household.
2.5 years ago, YouTube sends me a Matt Dillahunty video. He referenced you many times. Your work, and I have most of your books, brought me back into balance with the claims of theology vs. reality. I purchased the nrsv study Bible and reference it often to see what you mean when you say “x”. It’s been fascinating.
I now see the religious differently. They’re theological interpretations, while curious, don’t have a “what if they’re right?” effect on me any longer and I see the Bible in a more historical, ancient writing than a “holy book”. I feel this is healthier for me, psychologically. You have played no small role in my evolution and I am tremendously grateful to you for your work in this field. My regret is not having studied with you directly. I think I would’ve truly loved it.
Reading books by Professor Ehrman has changed my perception of the Bible, including Jesus.
For me, removing my faith lens has been far more gratifying than when I once saw the Bible through a fundamentalist lens.
It is refreshing now to be open to scholarship than to try and hang on to some literalist idea about the infallibility of the Bible.
Finding the scholarship of Mr. Ehrman is like the scripture stating, “the truth will set you free.”
I have to keep it simple since I am far behind all of you who have had classes, studied and earned degrees concerning this subject.
I look at it this way, if misinformation, fabrications and myths were the foundation of my faith, my faith was based on misinformation.
To be honest with myself, it was no different than me believing in a conspiracy theory.
We can chuckle at the people who gathered in Dallas to await the arrival of JFK jr because they believed in a wild conspiracy theory, but in reality, it is no different than me believing in Jesus floating down to earth on a cloud.
This is no different than when I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real or Jesus didn’t speak English.
After a debilitating stroke forced me to retire from my business, I figured I’d study my heart out and become super Christian, helping resolve everyone’s doubts. First I had to resolve my own, in short order I discovered Ehrmans work.
I hated Bart! Not what I was seeking, I kept reading to find holes and fallacies. Eventually I had to admit there was no basis to be a Christian. The obviously wrong quotes about these things happening in the current lifetime were the deal breakers.
Now I’m an agnostic who believes that while there may be a god/creator, there’s still no reason to believe there’s an afterlife.
Also, Upton Sinclair’s “The Profits of Religion” seems spot on though a little over wrought in places. Religion is a tool of the wealthy to con the poor into slavery, on the false promise of paradise after death.
I’m late to this blog and this post, but better late than never! My input is based on the public debates; the new scholarship has changed everyone from believers to non-believers. This is for the good because the new evidence challenges the historical assumptions of the writers’ meaning and intent.
These times are challenging for those interested in preserving the status quo. But they are great for those who want unbiased truth.
Unlike most non-believers, I don’t think I was ever a Christian in the first place. Even as a young child, I didn’t understand why my best friend in the Jehovah’s Witness church was going to hell. Then, I learned about the theory of evolution. The story of Noah’s ark and the two of each species of every animal on the planet on board was obviously not meant to be believed literally. After deciding not to take the scriptures seriously, I continued living my life using reason and compassion for my personal morality. Now that I am retired, I have time to investigate why Judaism, Islam, and Christianity arose to plague the world with their Bronze Age morality. Some might say I’m studying my confirmation bias.