Loading...The writings of the New Testament do not provide good evidence that Christianity started out as an original unity, only to come to be fragmented with the passage of time into the second and third Christian centuries — so I argued in the previous post. Quite the contrary. And yet having them all in the same book (between covers) does seem to readers to suggest an overarching unity. That’s what I want to talk about here.
For the most part, the books of the NT are the earliest Christian writings we have, and most of the books can probably be dated to the first Christian century. Probably not 2 Peter. Possibly not Acts. But the others? Probably. Only a couple of other Christian books are to be dated this early. None of the other Gospels (including the Gospel of Thomas, I would say). But 1 Clement, is usually dated to the mid 90s CE and the Didache in its final form may be from around 100 CE (they are both in the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers and are proto-orthodox).
The four problems with thinking the books of the New Testament demonstrate early Christian unity are that:
1) The kind of obvious point to many readers, that these books themselves are often arguing against alternative Christian points of view that are disrupting the early churches;
2) These books themselves present a remarkably wide range of views, some of them at odds with one another (a point I’ve continually tried to show on the blog);
3) Insofar as there is a basic unity among these books (or at least a lot of them) it is because these are the books that later orthodox church fathers deemed scripture and worked to preserve (so that all other books from the time– whatever they were, whomever they were written by, whatever they said — have been lost to history); and
4) The formation of these 27 books into one book itself tamed the diversity found among the books.
In this post I would like to elaborate this final point in particular, but with reference to the previous ones.
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
With regard to faith versus works for eternal life, how did Luther explain away the sayings of Jesus in this regard, e.g., to the rich young man in Matthew 19 and in the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25?
He’d probably say they were beig faithful to the preaching of Jesus which shows they had faith in him. I’m not sure what he would say if confronted with current historical-critical analyses of the passages.
“But what happens when Matthew and Paul are both made part of the same book, written by the same author, especially if that author is God? Then the differences are smoothed over in people’s minds. They don’t expect to find any differences. And so they don’t find any differences. Everything is made to reconcile with everything else. That’s why people still today do not see obvious discrepancies that are staring them in the face unless someone points them out to them. ”
I agree. But I would add that most church attenders do not study much on their own and are told by their pastors that there are no discrepancies and that if anyone (including a learned scholar) tells them otherwise, that person is absolutely wrong and trying to lead them astray.
From what I have read, many pastors know that there are discrepancies but for the sake of keeping their jobs and “due to the church members not being able to handle that information” they do not share it with their congregations.
It seems the internet has helped inform (and maybe misinform) more people about the discrepancies in the Bible.
First impressions are critical. My first impressions of the Bible were from the one that was a comic book in Sunday School in the 1950’s. Rest assured it betrayed no inconsistencies I could see. Actually, in retrospect, I doubt Jesus looked like Robert Taylor or that he was usually (ever) that clean. That consistent view of the Bible stuck with me until I did look at it more critically – honestly looking for faults from an emerging viewpoint of skepticism. I just realized that that skepticism, which matured into doubt, was triggered as a teenager not by inconsistency but by the supernatural stories.
Of course Jesus didn’t look like Robert Taylor!!! He looked like Jeffrey Hunter.
Ah, one of the worst Jesus movies ever made.
The NT contents were written in less than a century. The Hebrew Scriptures cover almost a thousand-year span, even more clearly by different authors representing different eras and viewpoints, and yet some apologists insist that here too, there are no contradictions because God is the (ultimate) author.
Yup. God doesn’t change so he can take as long as he likes to write an inerrant book….
god wasn’t the author, the spirit was the editor. As ST Paul says of the scriptures, that is the OT- the Jerusalem Bible. The NT was compiled books & letters after 300AD. As the church I grew up in called- enemies of God.
Probably up to 2015 even, I believed the writers of the NT could derive OT prophesies since God the Spirit made sure everything was accordingly.
Like “Jesus didn’t Sin” WE can’t do such stuff. But he is the author & creator so how he defines it goes …
Which brings us to the interview of Elon Musk last Thursday & spinning it … nevertheless, does his logic not sound similar toTrump?
Interesting post! I’m looking forward to the next one!
This isn’t a question, it’s a topic idea for either one of your shorter more casual thrivecart lectures or the misquoting Jesus blog. The topic is ways that Christians commonly go against Jesus’ teachings in the NT or things people assume the NT says that it just doesn’t. For example, when laws limit group prayers lead by coaches at public schools, some Christians say they are being targeted because they can’t exercise their faith. Contrasted to Jesus being quoted saying to not pray in public to be seen like the hypocrites, but to go in a room by yourself, or seems odd that, assuming my interpretation of that vers is correct, a religion who’s text opposes public prayer would feel targeted by laws that prevent students from feeling obligated to pray publicly in front of a stadium of people. Or things like Christians talking about biblical family values when Jesus said he came to divide families and Paul encouraged people to stay unmarried of they could.
YUP! I’ve thought about doing a course or thread of posts or some such thing on the topic, dealing with such things as Jesus’ views of family, of abortion, of, well, capitalism, etc.
“most of the books can probably be dated to the first Christian century …Possibly NOT Acts….”
Wooow, is that new? I always thought you did not agree with dating Acts on the second century!
“the Didache in its final form may be from around 100 CE …”
What do you mean by “final form”?
The Didache, as we have it now, seems to be a collage of ideas from different times
Concerning the eucharist it says:
“We give you thanks, our Father, for the holy vine of your servant David which you made known to us through your servant Jesus.”
Jesus as God’s servant , just as David, and mentioned after him…
A very “low” christology , this would point to a very early dating…
But on the other hand concerning baptism:
“But if you have neither, then pour water on the head three times, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
This reference to the trinity points to a much later dating…
In Matthew Jesus says the righteousness of his followers must exceed that of the Pharisees. Nowhere does he say they must follow the Jewish law better than them.
One frequently overlooked passage is Matthew 23:1-3.
Rather worth hoping for an afterlife so one could be present at Paul’s first interview with the Reformers.
Yeah, that’d be good….
From a 21st century perspective, it seems like many heresies are not that much different from orthodoxy: Arianism, mono-physitism, controversies about the Trinity, donatism, Christ’s two natures and single will (or is it vice-versa?).
Would you say that many of these heresies fit within the diversity present in the NT approximately as well as orthodoxy fits those diversities? From a 21st century perspective they seem like tempests in a teapot.
On the other hand, what I think of as the gnostic or gnostic-influenced heresies seem much different from orthodoxy. I’m not sure they fit within NT diversity except in minor ways. I’m thinking for example of Marcion (though my memory may be faulty). Isn’t he the one who had both an OT and a NT God and accepted just Paul as part of the canon? Even though it’s influenced by a sizable piece of what became the NT canon it seems like a major departure from the NT canon as a whole.
The Ebionites are the only heresy I can think of that really emerges from the diversity within the NT but that is also greatly different from orthodoxy.
I’d say that most forms of Christian belief, as diverse as they are, can lay claim to the writings of the New Testament. A big part of the problem is that written texts do not interpret themselves. They are interpreted by humans who have varying assumptions, perspectives, backgrounds, worldviews, beliefs, ideas, etc — and usually an interpreter doesn’t know they are interpreting in light of these things. they think it’s jsut what the text *says*. To most historical readers today, with our assumptions, perspectives, etc…. some ancient views seem much closer to what the authors had in mind than others. On the other hand, the authors would not recognize our modern historical canons of interpretatoin. So it’s a bit of a paradox/dilemma.
Professor Ehrman. In the story of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus says (if I am interpreting this story correctly) that if you do good works you will “inherit the kingdom prepared for you” and if you do not perform good works you “will go away into eternal punishment”. Even though Jesus predicts his own death and resurrection four times in Matthew (I believe) before this, he does not mention anything in this story about achieving salvation through his death and resurrection. Two questions. Do you think the author of Matthew knew of Paul’s Christology concerning salvation when he wrote this story? And two, if I am interpreting this story correctly aren’t Protestant Christians taking the word of Paul over the word of Jesus concerning the matter of salvation? Thank you.
1 Yes, Matthew has the same understanding as Paul in broad terms: Jesus’ death and resurrection are the way of salvation. The remarkable thing is that he kept a story told by Jesus that runs contrary to this view. (And this shows it is almost certainly a story of Jesus hisef!) 2. Yup. In my view most definitely, not just Protestants but virtually al Christians agree with Paul instead of Jesus about salvatoin. I talk about that in my online Course: Jesus and Paul: the Great Divide.
Your stated Problem #3 above is, & has been for quite some time now, for me the most convincing argument re any internal unity within the NT. Even broader, since the early church needed to retain the Hebrew bible & rebrand it as their OT, the argument applies again.
This is THE point that I find conserv. evang. / fundamentalists hate to concede : that it was the church itself which effectively wrote what became the Bible – as the decreed Holy Book – since it curated what was in / out, leaving others in these later times to ascribe the magical label of ‘Word of God”. It’s just nonsense.
It seems to me the character of the letters are very different in tone than the gospels. To me the gospels seem to be a mix of Jesus’s moralistic teaching with miracle after miracle after miracle, to me it gets tedious and makes the gospels unbelievable to have so many miracles. So combining the books may have taken away from the constant story of miracles and made it more appealing to some. Was there lack of acceptance at any point of these incredulous tales? And how do you think these tales developed? were they common in writing at the time? and would this have been considered a common thing to include such miraculous embellishments in the writing of oral histories of the time?
Among Christians I’d say the stories were always accepted as authentic. They developed especially as Christians wanted to celebrate and proclaim that Jesus really was the Son of God, as evident in the miraculous deeds he performed. I deal with this issue in my book Jesus Before the Gospels.
Great post!!
Since you mention Luther here, I want to take the opportunity to ask about this:
I read somewhere that Luther doubted that 600 000 men participated in the Exodus. Do you know if it is true that he doubted that?
Also: Isn’t it believed among many Christians that if you have faith in God and accept that Jesus died on the cross to atone your sins, then you will become a better person and do more good deeds? So that faith and deeds are connected.
I’m afraid I don’t remember what Luther said about htat. And yes, most Christians — including Paul — thought that faith in Christ will lead to a superior moral life.
There is no real contradiction …i think. Paul argue’s that faith alone justifies a person. But like a seed that becomes a plant/tree/fruit , faith is the ‘seed’ towards a harvest of good works. This is a gift from God and the good works that follow are not born out of the clever mindset of pious men that try to ‘outsmart’ the law , but a spiritual growth from seed – fruit as a unity of grace. The good works are a sign that it all started with the seed of faith . When those good works never appear , there was never a Divine faith ‘seed’ to begin with. This way we can easily see through certain holy claims when the works/fruit never appear.