As part of our ten -year anniversary on the blog, we requested special anniversary posts from scholars who had, over the years, made guest contributions; our instructions were that they could post on any topic of their choice for the event. We had a gratifying number of scholar-colleagues-friends of mine graciously respond. I’ll be posting one of them a week, and then at the end figure out a way to combine them into one big kind of anniversary blog post e-book for distribution.
Here is the first in line, written by one of my closest friends Jeff Siker, Professor Emeritus at Loyola Marymount University, an expert in New Testament studies publishing in international venues since our graduate student days oh so many decades ago. Jeff is an ordained Presbyterian minister who, like me, has trouble understanding why so many people seem to think that critical scholarship is necessarily inimical to being a Christian. On the contrary, as he says, he has one foot in the academy and the other in the church.
Here are some of his reflections, many of them of a personal nature. Luckily, though, he hasn’t told most of the stories…. {NOTE: I’ve added a couple of explanatory notes in double brackets [[BDE…]]}
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“Bibles, Boundaries, Blogs, and Bart”
Jeffrey S. Siker
Emeritus Professor of New Testament
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA
I first met Bart Ehrman way back in 1983 (yikes! – 39 years ago!), as he was in his third year of the Ph.D. program in New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, and I was just starting my first year in the program. I have vivid memories of his set-up in the graduate studies room with its long tables and each grad student having established encampments of books by way of claiming space. Bart was in the process of doing research on his dissertation topic, determining the Gospel text of Didymus the Blind (a 4th-century Alexandrian theologian) based on Gospel citations in his writings. This was before the days of computers, and I remember Bart having boxes of index cards as he was collating citations from Didymus. When he told me about his dissertation project I remember asking how one could account for the impact of Didymus’ blindness upon his citation of the Gospels. My recollection is that he answered, “Good question!” (It turned out that in addition to having a great memory, Didymus also had a kind of early braille system that allowed for more consistency in citation than one at first might imagine.) Bart was as prodigious then as he would continue to be throughout his stellar career (still ongoing!). (He was also a great racquetball player, and he regularly wiped the court with me. I did, however, once beat him in “Bible Jeopardy,” and more regularly in backgammon.)
Bart had developed strong interests in reconstructing, as best one could, not so much the original Greek version of the New Testament (could we really do much better than the eclectic texts of Aland or Metzger?), but the versions that were used by various Christian theologians and groups in the first several centuries of Christian tradition. This interest led him to explore such intriguing ideas as “orthodox corruptions of scripture,” as well as non-canonical apocryphal traditions that circulated in early Christianity (hence The Other Gospels, Lost Christianities, and Lost Scriptures).
When Bart produced his now ubiquitous textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, now in its 7th edition) it was widely adopted by many professors who taught Intro NT courses (including me), as it was and remains a thorough and engaging introduction to the literature of the New Testament, with an emphasis on the historical contexts so important for understanding these writings in their own milieu. Although the main focus of this textbook was indeed on the New Testament writings, it did also address several early non-canonical Christian writings (the Gospel of Thomas, the Protoevangelium of James, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, et al).
Along with the main textbook, Bart also published a companion Reader to go with it: The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader (2003). I remember well a conversation we had about the textbook and reader. I enjoyed using his textbook with my students for the Intro NT class, and I shared with him various aspects that the students most appreciated. He then asked if I was also using the Reader, to which I responded “No.” “Why not?,” he inquired. I answered, “Because if I used it, I’m not at all sure my students would know what was actually in the New Testament canon and what was not!” To this he replied, “Precisely!”
His point was well taken. His goal was to present early Christian writings, some of which happened to be part of the collection of writings that later became the so-called “New Testament,” but he also wanted to present the diversity of early Christian writings that were historically important to our understanding of the diversity of early Christianity, regardless of their canonical standing. His point was, and still is, that in talking about “early Christianity,” we are really talking about “early Christianities.”
In a similar vein, over the last generation of scholarship we have become more accustomed to talking about “early Judaisms” rather than some ideal monolithic “early Judaism.” Just as there were competing groups of Jewish adherents with different understandings of their faith tradition (just think of Josephus’ discussion of the various Jewish “sects” – Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the fourth philosophy, aka the Zealots), so also were there competing groups of Christian adherents with very different understandings of what it meant to belong to this religious movement. All we have to do is think of Matthew’s insistence that the Jewish law still held (“whoever relaxes the least of these commandments will be least in the kingdom of heaven”), in contrast to Paul’s insistence that Gentiles were included quite apart from Jewish law observance, or later gnostic approaches that believed Jesus was really a spiritual being who only appeared to have a physical body, or Marcionites who believed the “God of the Old Testament” was inferior to the God of love revealed in Jesus. What Bart identified as “proto-orthodoxy” eventually came to hold sway, as the Christian movement grew to become the imperially-endorsed version of the faith under and after the emperor Constantine. But such attempts at uniformity did not obfuscate the incredible diversity of views found especially in the early centuries of the larger Christian movement.
So, yes, I applaud Bart’s emphasis on the diversity of early Christian writings. And yet, I think I was also right in choosing the Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible for my students. While an historian of early Christianity should, I think, ignore canonical boundaries, as Bart sought to do, at the same time these canonical boundaries became important for the later development of the Christian tradition as the biblical canon provided the common touchstone for the ongoing formation of Christian identity (or identities!) in ways that something like the Gospel of Thomas or the Protoevangelium of James did not. Since I was teaching at a Roman Catholic university (and as a Protestant to boot!), I thought it was important for students to develop an appreciation for how the Bible functioned as an authoritative source for Christian reflection across the centuries (along with church tradition, human reasoning, and human experience — the so-called “quadrilateral” sources of authority). I still think so.
Perhaps another way to put it is that in my career as a NT scholar, who also happens to be an ordained Presbyterian minister, I think of myself as having one foot in the academy and one foot in the church. In trying to stand while straddling these two rather different institutions and cultures I believe that each helps to keep the other honest. The church must be attentive to academic scholarship lest it risk being out of touch with what the best research shows not only about Christian origins but also about how biblical interpretations have affected the developing life of various church traditions.
At the same time, it is important for academic scholarship to be attentive and responsive to what is actually going on in the world, be it a Russian invasion of Ukraine or the political appropriation of biblical texts in ways that turn their meaning upside down. (This is like Karl Barth’s “Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other.”) [[BDE: The German scholar Karl Barth was the most famous theologian of the 20th century]] This is not to say that historical reconstruction of earliest Christianity should subordinate such academic research to modern concerns and debates.
It is important to be aware of, however, and honest about ways that particular ideological approaches to historical research can affect what one sees, just as we need to be able to see how various ideologies impact the appropriations of biblical texts for our current times. We need to be wary of reading the biblical text anachronistically, as if words and translations are not dynamic and changing (just look at all the different translations for malakoi and arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6:9!) [[BDE: these are words sometimes translated as “effeminate” and “homosexual” — but the translation issues are highly complicated]]. We need to be wary of reading biblical texts of long ago onto our present situations without taking into serious account changing contexts and changing worldviews.
While I may identify my two primary conversation partners as the academy and the church, there are certainly other conversation partners with which to engage. In thinking about Bart Ehrman and the Blog he has established, I am struck that he has crafted a three-fold conversation that includes the academy (Bart’s primary home), an educated public (via the Blog) interested in Christian origins, and various communities in need. Bart’s academic credentials are rather self-evident. Bart’s determination to engage with people beyond the university proper is manifest in the dynamic character of the Blog. And the ability of the Blog structure to leverage considerable resources in service to communities in need strikes me as living well into ethical admonitions we find in Matthew 25:31-46, whether in raising funds for Ukrainian refugees and Doctors Without Borders, or in addressing the needs of the homeless and hungry in Durham and beyond through the work of The Urban Ministries of Durham, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, the Durham Literacy Center, and CARE. (It’s no coincidence that during his time in Princeton Bart volunteered and taught in an adult literacy program.)
I should perhaps also mention that Bart introduced my wife Judy to me at an SBL meeting back in 1994 in Chicago, purely out of common academic interests (Bart was Judy’s Ph.D. advisor at UNC. Judy Yates Siker has also contributed posts to this blog.). Judy and I dated cross-country for two years, and when we married in early 1997 Bart was best man in our wedding. (Well, I was the “best” man, but I think Bart would dispute that!). Since our retirement from teaching in 2018 and our move from Los Angeles to Raleigh (Judy’s a native tarheel), it has been great to be able to spend more time with Bart and his much better half, Sarah.
It is a joy to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the blog, and in so doing to celebrate the ongoing engaged academic discussions of the blog with an international community of people interested in Christian origins, a community that provides essential care for people in need both abroad and at home. And, ok, it’s a joy to celebrate Bart and his many accomplishments along the way, the Blog being one of his most cherished endeavors.
Loved this!
“… the biblical canon provided the common touchstone for the ongoing formation of Christian identity (or identities!) in ways that something like … the Protoevangelium of James did not. Since I was teaching at a Roman Catholic university …”
And yet the Protoevangelium of James (through the lens of church tradition) hugely influenced the all-important Marian devotion of Catholics. I can still remember my mother teaching me about Mary’s childhood, her parents Joachim and Anne, and my mother was not particularly devout or scholarly about religious matters. Among the devout and scholarly, especially the clerics, nuns, and monks, the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity was an all embracing myth of identity that shaped not only doctrine but even their whole lives of celibacy.
I doubt your current generation of Catholic college students is as well versed in the Protoevangelium of James as my mother apparently was!
Indeed, the Marian traditions from the Protoevangelium of James are lost on most younger Catholics. But your point is well taken, that the Protoevangelium in fact did influence Christian traditions about Mary and contributed directly to such doctrines as the immaculate conception and by extension the bodily assumption of Mary. Thanks! – Jeff
Bart, Jean and I watched the Pt webinar, Paul vs Peter, last night and both of us think it’s the best yet.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks. That was fun!
Thank you, Jeffery, for contributing this added insight into the life of your friend and colleague Bart. My first clue I might be interested in his then “recent” book “Jesus, Interrupted” came in 2017 on the web. I am a cradle agnostic (with 2 degrees in agricultural economics). Once I opened the book (at age 67) I reveled in his comment (Preface xii) “If, on the other hand, you find nothing shocking or disturbing in the book, all I ask is that you sit back and enjoy.” That I certainly have — now with a personal library of *most* of the books you have noted. Again thanks!
Thanks to you as well. I quite like your self-description as a “cradle agnostic”! Funny that we think of “cradle Catholics” (probably because of the alliteration), and not “cradle Protestants.” You see any connections between your work in agricultural economics and being agnostic?
Yes Jeffery. My parents were both agnostic and were humble farmers in Maine. Early on I wanted to learn how good, hard-working people could earn so little. I never did save the farm but got a wonderful education!
Hi Jeffrey,
Thank you for sharing. I hope that you are fielding questions, and I first want to give some background to my question.
I too am a devoted believer in Christ, and I published some as an independent scholar while my biggest strength is analytic theology.
I agree with Bart about Markan priority and the four-source hypothesis for the synoptic problem, and many other things, including that the four canonical Gospels are Greco-Roman biographies that by definition do not use modern standards of history or journalism.
But my biggest differences are that I believe that (1) Jesus identified himself as the Danielic Son of Man (Cosmic Son of Man) and (2) Jesus predicted his own death. And the latter is important for incarnational Christology.
I wonder. How do you handle Christology? (And of course you have a 200-word limit for responses in this blog, LOL)
I think it’s so difficult to get back behind the Gospels to the Historical Jesus, that I don’t have a great deal of confidence in being able to say that Jesus identified himself as the Danielic Son of Man. It strikes me as more likely that in retrospect the author of Mark (along with other early Christians) searched their scriptures for echoes that would make sense of Jesus’ life/death/res. I’ve long thought that Mark combined the notion of a present earthly prophetic Son of Man from Ezekiel with a future heavenly apocalyptic Son of Man from Daniel, and rolled them together with the suffering servant motif from Isaiah to generate his suffering Son of Man in Mk 8/9/10. Mk’s Christology does a good job of subordinating coercive power to the transformative power of a God who embraces human suffering in the person of Jesus. I find that Christology very persuasive. I think Jesus likely knew he was going to die a violent death, but I don’t think he saw it as an atonement for human sin. Jesus didn’t die _for_ our sin so much as he died _because_ of human sinfulness.
Wow!
If you remove the labels (i.e Bart “atheist” and Jeff “Christian”), it would be pretty difficult to tell you guys apart. I sense an agreement and meeting of minds on many issues.
Well, I’m better at racketball and he’s better at backgammon….
…and I did beat him once at Bible Jeopardy!!
Thanks for this, it reminds me that people can be good.
Also, it reminds me that I don’t totally understand what Christian “tradition” is. Catholicism seems to make a big deal of tradition, but perhaps also the various Protestant branches. Might BDE or a guest want to comment on that?
I’ll take a stab at it. The role of “tradition” is to provide continuity over time, even with inevitable changes. the Bible provides one such collection of formative traditions. The magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church provides another set of such traditions, seeking to interpret and apply earlier traditions to ongoing developments. Human reason and experience also provide two additional important resources for reflecting on Christian traditions. Catholics say that church teaching interprets scripture in an authoritative way. And Protestants say that scripture interprets tradition in an authoritative way. In truth, I think all Christians tend to blend scripture, tradition, reason, and experience together in ways that they feel the Spirit of God is leading them and the church. The problem, of course, is that one group says God’s Spirit is leading in one direction, and another group says this same Spirit is leading in the opposite direction! Jeremiah 27-28 come to mind (the fight between Jeremiah and Hananiah about which one of them is right about the fate of Jerusalem!).
Hi Bart,
I appreciate your conviction and honesty through your teaching, which has helped reignite my interest in the bible after many years.
I have an unassociated question, which I hope does not conflict with your thread here… but here goes.
Pentecost… or the beginning of the church after the resurrection. The Upper room… The apostles… many conversions… while we read…
Earlier in the gospels we read that Jesus sent the 70 (or 72) disciples out into the countryside (aside from the debate about what to take/not to take) who seemed to be happy with their success… so… one should guess that there must have been a lot more conversions prior to Pentecost… I think?
I am curious about whether or not there has been any narrative discovered or discussed by scholars as to what happened to the 70/72 disciples and their (possible) converts prior to the resurrection… If no discussion… would there be a reason for overlooking it in scholarly circles?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Most historical scholars do not think that there really was a mission of the 70/72; for my part, I don’t think Jesus *had* that many followers in rural Galilee (who abandoned their jobs and families to preach). In any event, even if it is historical, these apostles were being sent to instruct people that the kingdom wsa near. The deal with Pentecost, later, and after that, is that missionaries were preaching about the death of Jesus for salvation, not just the need to repent because of the comining kingdom.
Cheers Bart.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions… as I don’t like to only rely upon my own intuition. 👍
sounds like great friendship for two people with some differential views. awesome
A friend’s beautiful post!
Sadly, bible scholarship is greatly deterred by very sincere, yet delusional people like Siker, people who really believe they’re Christians… but are not. No, I’m not apologetic for referring to some scholars as delusional. The fact is, there are no genuine Christians today. Here’s why.
Genuine Christians were pre-AD70 Jews and non-Jewish descendants of the tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel who were dispersed among the nations, people who were dead under the law and its curse, had transitioned out of the old covenant and were restored to eternal life (a restored covenant relationship with their god) via Christ’s new covenant, which was only for them (Rom 11:26-27, Heb 8:8).
Some were referred to as Gentiles because they had stopped being Torah observant and had stopped practicing circumcision. They were told to remain in the same condition they were called (1 Corinthians 7:18-20) because the time of the end of the age of the old covenant religious system and temple community was near. They were gathered into Christ before the end of the age of the old covenant religious system and temple community, which was in AD70. That in a nutshell is what the entire New Testament is about.
Seems harsh. There are many who claim to articulate the “proper and correct” definition / idea of Christianity, and who judge / categorize other Christians accordingly. The Christian Right in the modern world define anyone who does not embrace their version of the faith as “nominal Christians.” Seems like a very slippery slope IMO.
It is harsh, but needed. Scholars need to be held to the same standard that other people are. They don’t get a free pass when they’re wrong. And pre-AD70 ‘Christians’ didn’t refer to people who didn’t believe as they did as ‘nominal Christians’. Pre-AD70 Christianity was a relatively small, insignificant cult of Israelite doomsday preppers who weren’t expecting the end of the planet, but the end of the covenant world of Israel, its religious system and temple community. That end came in AD70, along with the need for the gospel. The ‘Christianity’ that followed was an invention of Greek cultured people who misappropriated bits and pieces of Israel’s redemptive narrative and adapted it to their culture. Scholars either don’t know this or have known it but have not made it part of their ‘scholarship’ because they know it would upend nearly two thousand years of what people have believed is ‘Christianity’. Any scholar who would promote such a view would of course, lose their tenure, prestigious positions in universities and their name would be despised among their peers. But there are a few of us who believe it’s time for the world to know the truth.
“we requested special anniversary posts from scholars who had, over the years, made guest contributions”
This should be interesting. I have been assembling a compilation of excerpts from the blog for personal use, a Word document currently approaching 20,000 words that preserves knowledge I would like to have access to long term. (This excludes topics covered in _How Jesus Became God_ as they are preserved in the book itself.) Included in the cut are excerpts from guest posts by David Lambert, Jason Staples, James McGrath, Richard Fellows. I wonder if I’ll be moved to include more guest posts, by the same names or by others, before I am done.
Doing Critical Scholarship as a Committed Christian necessarily implies a well-established and assimilated cognitive dissonance.
Despite what certain Christians want to believe, Critical Scholarship, if done from solid and rigorous standards of evidence, is incompatible with the faith (which in various dogmas will have to be blind) that is absolutely necessary to be a committed Christian. (not ambiguous or unsure).
Critical Scholarship is an academic discipline, of the so-called human and social sciences (Humanities). Its epistemology is very firmly and in detail formulated and is, especially in the case of history, very similar to the epistemology of the natural sciences.
This epistemology rests on a naturalistic metaphysics, which does not contemplate the supernatural realm or the God in the Gaps, or the Deus ex machina at all. It is based on methodological naturalism, inquiring skepticism, in systematic doubt.
Paraphrasing R P Feynman, “Religion is a culture of faith, of certainties, of absolute truths; science, on the other hand, is a culture of doubt and inquisitive skepticism”
Doubt and skepticism (as well as curiosity) are two very powerful tools for the advancement of critical thinking and scientific knowledge; but they are very corrosive to religion and faith.