Robert,
In post 59, your defense of Bart Ehrman’s “Forged: Writing in the Name of God–Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are” epitomizes how you and I view the subject of this thread from irreconcilable perspectives. You say he does not owe his readers an explanation of the views of Eusebius, including why Ehrman’s views should be accepted as superior because it is “a book written for a popular audience, not a work of scholarship.” You may be right from the standpoint of current academic protocols, but, if so, I think the protocol, at least in this case, is wrong from the standpoint of common sense and decency. In fact, from my standpoint, the protocol you describe is exactly backward. Academics reading “Forged” would already have knowledge of Eusebius and other ancient sources whether Ehrman wrote the book or not, but many readers in a popular audience would not have that knowledge and therefore be left to assume that there’s no logical or factual basis to have ever believed in the traditional authorial ascriptions of the New Testament. That’s simply not true.
You have been zealous to defend the honor of academia throughout this discussion, and that is your right. But my interest is not in condemning or exonerating academia; rather, it is in correctly ascertaining authorship of the New Testament texts. The individual points you seem interested in contesting leave me feeling drawn farther and farther away from that goal. This doesn’t make me right and you wrong, but it does result in the dialogue between us becoming increasingly unproductive from my measurements.
Porphyry, in Post 60 you asked:
“I have to pop back in to ask, can you provide a citation of the place where the church of Thessalonica made this claim? (‘the most ancient churches, including those of Thessalonica, are on record as having claimed both letters were from Paul.’)”
You’re not familiar enough with Eusebius to know what I’m talking about?
Porphyry, in post 63 you said:
“You said they went on the record making a claim. I simply asked where they did that.”
Yes, I know…and I simply asked if you were not familiar enough with Eusebius to know what I’m talking about. My curiosity is warranted given that up to this point you’ve demonstrated yourself to be well-educated on ancient sources referenced in this discussion, and yet anyone familiar with Eusebius would already know the answer to the question you’re asking me. Therefore, I ask again: ‘You’re not familiar enough with Eusebius to know what I’m talking about?” Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.
Robert, in post 64 you said:
“No, I did not say that it was superior because it was written for a popular audience. I was responding to your criticism of Ehrman as a scholar, merely pointing out that it was not a work of scholarship, but merely written for a popular audience. Ehrman’s popular book was the example you gave of your criticism of modern scholars in general as ignoring the testimony of the ancients. My point was that if you want to criticize modern scholarly works, you should actually read scholarly works, not popular works.”
I understood your point the first time you made it. And still do.
“It is not clear that you have yet understood, so I’m not sure if your criticism of academic protocols as indecent and backward really applies.”
It does, but I do not expect you to agree with me.
“Academics wouldn’t read “Forged.” I haven’t, so I can’t speak to Bart’s specific focus in that book, but he does not typically write for or against apologists gathering evidence for the matters that you consider controversial and that need to be addressed. Unless and until you address scholarly works, your criticism now seems reduced to criticizing one scholar for not having written the popular book that you would have wanted him to write. You can best take that up with Bart and his publisher if you like.”
It was my main point to you yesterday that you and I are just operating on different frequencies misunderstanding each other right and left. This paragraph is a paramount example of that difference. I don’t even know how to begin a response to it.
“I don’t think that’s really true. You said nothing at all about seeking an answer to the questions of authorship; rather you started this thread defending a position and polemicizing against modern scholars for their preposterous position, which you later also called shameful. Remember?”
I do, but let’s just agree to disagree that I’ve “said nothing at all about seeking an answer to the questions of authorship.”
“Oh, you still have not clarified why you consider this to be a polemical, ie, controversial topic. If it’s not because your an apologist for a conservative Christian faith perspective, then why is it controversial for you?”
I have given up hope of clarifying this, or any other, issue to your satisfaction. As for myself, I am fully satisfied that I began this thread, and have continued in it, because of my interest in history and truth rather than because of my, or anyone else’s, faith stance. But if you wish to continue thinking otherwise, that’s okay with me. Let’s just please not try to discuss it anymore.
Mike, you approach these texts from a prior faith position, I get it. The texts can’t contradict because they can’t contradict. So they don’t contradict. As for authorship issues let me recommend, not Ehrman’s popular work, but his scholarly monographs.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Pricey but sometimes you have to take a deep dive rather then merely skim the surface. These works are Ehrman’s real scholarly claim to fame in the field.
I sat on the fence for years about Ephesians but reading F&CF convinced me that it is not authentically Pauline. Not just ideas that differ but through technical linguistic analysis. Every author leaves an indelible grammatical fingerprint. Word count, Word order. The author of Ephesians uses some of the same words/ideas as Paul but means different things by them. But Ephesians is at least debatable. There’s a reason nobody but fundamentalists think Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles. Comparing them to Romans or Corinthians is like comparing Faulkner to Hemingway. Even if you didn’t know the latter names nobody reading them would confuse them. Nobody would think they were the same author.
As far as ‘James’ goes, Ehrman thinks it was an attempt to make his audience think he was the brother of Jesus, i.e., a deliberate forgery. Ehrman has an ingenious argument. Who am I to disagree? Yet I quibble. I agree it was not written by the brother of Jesus, but does it realy claim to be? The author never associates himself with that James, instead refering to himself as a ‘teacher’. And there’s nothing in the letter that couldn’t have been written by any Jewish Christian in the first century. No characteristically “Jamesian” tropes.
if you were not familiar enough with Eusebius to know what I’m talking about.
I have no idea what you are referring to.
yet anyone familiar with Eusebius would already know the answer to the question you’re asking me.
Then I must be ignorant of Eusebius.
Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.
I await your answer.
Robert, in post 67, you said:
“I’ve asked you the question several times now, and you refuse to answer. The issue is not me thinking otherwise, but your refusal to answer a simple question.”
I can only repeat to you what I wrote to you the last time you asked this question: ‘I have given up hope of clarifying this, or any other, issue to your satisfaction. As for myself, I am fully satisfied that I began this thread, and have continued in it, because of my interest in history and truth rather than because of my, or anyone else’s, faith stance. But if you wish to continue thinking otherwise, that’s okay with me. Let’s just please not try to discuss it anymore.’
Stephen, regarding what you wrote to me in post 68: You’re just telling me to read more modern scholarship on NT authors. That’s not addressing the question of the thread. Now, I’ll concede that what you’re saying is an implicit answer to the question and that answer for you is “modern scholars,” but I was looking for answers more substantive than that. For example, an explanation of why ancient scholars (e.g. Eusebius, Athanasius, or Augustine) either didn’t notice, or wouldn’t act upon, Faulkner-Hemingway differences that matter to modern scholars (e.g. you and Bart).
To whom it may concern on this thread:
Because you think I have faith, you think you have me figured out. I do have faith in Jesus Christ, so you’re right about that. But you don’t have me figured out. For one thing, I don’t believe in the ancient NT authorial ascriptions because of my faith, but rather because it makes the most sense to me from a historiographical point of view. In other words, it’s not my faith that leads to my view of history, it’s the other way around. That’s why I’ve eschewed any discussion of faith on the thread. I want it to be purely about history so that believer and nonbeliever can interact on a level playing field.
Porphyry, with regard to your post 69, the citation is “Church History 3:25,” but without a familiarity with the rest of the book, you won’t be able to fully appreciate it.
I would direct your attention to that quotation I previously offered from Eusebius (back in post 19)–the one where I had claimed something was demonstrable, you demanded I demonstrate it, I offered a quotation from Eusebius, you replied that it was irrelevant even though it demonstrated precisely what I’d claimed and that you had demanded I demonstrate, etc.–that quotation was from the very chapter you just cited.
So you knew all along that I knew the passage you had in mind, even as you gleefully implied I’m too ill-informed–“anyone familiar with Eusebius would already know the answer to the question you’re asking me”.
The reason I didn’t know what you were talking about is not that I didn’t know the passage (as you obviously knew given that my quoting that passage was at the center of a drawn out exchange between us), it was that the passage doesn’t say anything like what you claimed it says.
I want it to be purely about history so that believer and nonbeliever can interact on a level playing field.
If that is so, why do you treat the NT canon differently than other purportedly early and authoritative Christian writings? Why are you so ready to accept at face value the Fathers’ insistence that the works of the NT were handed down as divine in a verifiable chain of custody (though that chain is only directly verifiable to them, not to us)? Why give them every benefit of the doubt at every turn (when they speak of the canon), why accept it when they simply say, “trust us,” when they have in other cases (outside of the canon) shown themselves credulous and questionable? Why do you go so far as to insist that it is not just false but preposterous to harbor doubts about their unverifiable claims, especially given that there are numerous other cases in which they, as a group, demonstrably failed to sniff out fraud?
The undeniable fact that none of the texts you listed made it into the New Testament is testimony that the ancient churches were successful in vetting apostolic writings.
The reason I haven’t given cases of forgeries in the NT canon, and instead just gave examples of spurious works outside of the canon, is not that I don’t think there are forgeries in the NT nor is it that I can’t give reasons to doubt the authenticity of NT texts but because I seriously doubt that any argument that there are forgeries in the NT would move you. It is not that I think the Church of the first four centuries did such a stand up job sniffing out spurious works and excluding them from the canon; it is that I rather suspect it will be a waste of our time to argue the point (as I think your exchange with Steven showed).
Instead I simply want to highlight to you that you are putting implicit faith (religious or otherwise) in people who have not earned blind trust, but whose judgement deserves to be questioned. As Robert has tried to show, you are making assumptions, and you are writing off as irrelevant any data that draw those assumptions into question.
You complained that no one engaged the passage you cited in Augustine, and that you described as your own, (contra Faustum 33,6). I’ll go ahead and address it now.
As to Augustine’s argument as a whole it proves too much. It amounts to saying that no pseudepigraphal works will spread for very long without being uncovered as a forgeries. Of course we know that isn’t true. Forgeries have spread widely and over a long time, and they have sometimes gained wide reception. The argument is simply a bad argument.
As to Augustine’s more particular observation that we know the authenticity of a work because the author himself published it widely in his own life, that point is sound in itself, yet applied to the NT, it is question-begging. We have no record of the NT books during the lives of the purported authors–nor does Augustine even claim to provide any such evidence. We have no external attestation of the books of the NT until–at the earliest–decades after they are purported to have been written. And we have no clear attestation of their authorship until later still. So we cannot say, for example, this book was widely known as the Gospel of Mark during Mark’s own life, when he and his intimates were alive to contest the attribution. Again, the argument is unsound, more rhetoric than logic.
Stephen, regarding what you wrote to me in post 68: You’re just telling me to read more modern scholarship on NT authors. That’s not addressing the question of the thread. Now, I’ll concede that what you’re saying is an implicit answer to the question and that answer for you is “modern scholars,” but I was looking for answers more substantive than that. For example, an explanation of why ancient scholars (e.g. Eusebius, Athanasius, or Augustine) either didn’t notice, or wouldn’t act upon, Faulkner-Hemingway differences that matter to modern scholars (e.g. you and Bart).
Well I’m responding to your position which privileges the perspective of certain ancient writers simply because they are closer in time to the date of original compositions. I’m trying to show that that assumption of privilege is unwarranted. I included the links for anyone who wishes to investigate why modern critical scholars have come to the conclusions they have.
Because you think I have faith, you think you have me figured out. I do have faith in Jesus Christ, so you’re right about that. But you don’t have me figured out. For one thing, I don’t believe in the ancient NT authorial ascriptions because of my faith, but rather because it makes the most sense to me from a historiographical point of view. In other words, it’s not my faith that leads to my view of history, it’s the other way around. That’s why I’ve eschewed any discussion of faith on the thread. I want it to be purely about history so that believer and nonbeliever can interact on a level playing field.
We are all prisoners of our own perspective. I’ve never met anyone holding your views who did not approach it as a believer. On the other hand, I know of scads of people who have deeply held religious beliefs who accept the results of critical scholarship. The truth is, we have no idea of the provenance of the gospels. We are able to discern clues from the text. By the time we get to Eusebius, Athanasius, or Augustine certain thresholds have already been passed. It just seems odd to appeal to these authorities without acknowledging their previously held faith positions. And winners write the histories. Any ancient dissent would have been suppressed if it existed. There was no “level” playing field.
Robert, in post 74 you said:
“I’m not as well read as Porphyry, but I’ve read Eusebius’ Church History in its entirety and parts of it in Greek, when that’s helpful. It does not say what you claim it says. The ancient churches of Thessalonica are not on record as having claimed both letters were from Paul. That is merely you’re assumption.”
Can you elaborate? Eusebius’s justification for the 20 books that were “recognized” in CH 3:25 is based on testimony from apostolic succession churches, Thessalonica being among them. If that’s an assumption, I don’t see how you assume anything else. What do you assume his argument to be if not that? Or if you assume that’s his argument but don’t believe him, what’s your rationale for not taking his words at face value?
Porphyry, in post 75 you said:
“the passage doesn’t say anything like what you claimed it says.”
I assume you’re speaking here of CH 3:25. If so, please explain how that passage cannot be saying that Thessalonica vouched for Paul’s two letters to them because it’s not intuitive to me.
Porphyry, in post 76, you said:
“If that is so, why do you treat the NT canon differently than other purportedly early and authoritative Christian writings?”
Because, according to Eusebius, Athanasius, Augustine and others, those 27 texts are all the apostolic texts they could find.
“Why are you so ready to accept at face value the Fathers’ insistence that the works of the NT were handed down as divine in a verifiable chain of custody…?
I’m not concerned with whether they were thought “divine.” I’m concerned with whether they were thought authentically apostolic.
“(though that chain is only directly verifiable to them, not to us)”
The fact that we can’t verify what they’re saying doesn’t bother me unless we have reason to believe they are not telling the truth.
“Why give them every benefit of the doubt at every turn,… why accept it when they simply say, “trust us,” when they have in other cases (outside of the canon) shown themselves credulous and questionable?”
I’m not giving them every benefit of the doubt at every turn. I just think they deserve a fair hearing.
“Why do you go so far as to insist that it is not just false but preposterous to harbor doubts about their unverifiable claims, especially given that there are numerous other cases in which they, as a group, demonstrably failed to sniff out fraud?
I only think it’s preposterous to ignore them.
“(when they speak of the canon)”
I’m not concerned with the canon per se; I’m concerned with authorship.
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