I was breezing through some old posts and came across this one from many years ago; I’d forgotten all about it, but it still make me smile and scratch my head.
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Several readers of this blog have pointed me to an article in the conservative journal First Things; the article (a review of a book by the evangelical scholar Craig Blomberg) was written by Louis Markos, an English professor at Houston Baptist University. The title is called “Ehrman Errant.” I must say, that did not sound like a promising beginning.
I had never heard of Louis Markos before – had certainly never met him, talked with him about myself or my life, shared with him my views of important topics, spent time to see how he ticked and to let him see how I do. I don’t know the man, and he doesn’t know me. And so it was with some considerable surprise that I read the beginning of his article.
“I feel great pity for Bart Ehrman.”
So, from someone I don’t know, that’s a bit of a shocker. I can understand why a friend of mine might have felt some (but not great?) pity for me at some points of my life – when I had such an impossible time, for years, finding any kind of a teaching position even though I had a PhD from a very fine program; when my father died at the sad young age of 65; when I went through a divorce and was forced, then, not to see my kids grow up every day. There have been bad times in my life, and my friends have been beside me through them.
But that’s not why Dr. Markos feels “great pity” (not some pity – but great pity). No, he feels great pity for me because when I was a fundamentalist I was the wrong kind of fundamentalist; if I had been the right kind of fundamentalist I never would have left fundamentalism: the kinds of things that I found to be highly problematic about fundamentalism are problematic only for the kind of fundamentalist that I was. And if I had remained the right kind of fundamentalist, I would still hold to the truth, and my life would be fantastic and not to be pitied — as opposed to the life I live now which is, evidently, greatly to be pitied.
I really can’t help but think that if Dr. Markos knew anything at all about my life, he wouldn’t consider pity, great or small, to be the most obvious or appropriate response to it. My life is flat-out fantastic, in every respect. There are hard times, and sad times, and grievous times (in this past few months, e.g.), but my life is great and I relish it. I hope Dr. Markos’s life is as good as mine. But if he spends his time pitying people he’s never met, whose lives he doesn’t know, then I wonder what kind of life he actually has. On the other hand, frankly, I don’t wonder too much, since I tend not to pity people I know nothing about, at least happy and content people.
In any event, Dr. Markos goes on to explain the source of his great pity for my pathetic life:
It appears that the kind of fundamentalism in which the Christian believer [Ehrman] turned biblical debunker was raised did not prepare him for the challenges he would face in college. He was taught, rightly, that there are no contradictions in the Bible, but he was trained, quite falsely, to interpret the non-contradictory nature of the Bible in modern, scientific, post-Enlightenment terms. That is to say, he was encouraged to test the truth of the Bible against a verification system that has only existed for some 250 years.
I find this statement so puzzling on so many levels that I don’t know where to start. His basic point is that we can’t judge the Bible by modern forms of thinking, logic, evidence, modes of verification, scientific knowledge, and so on, but by the intellectual terms that were available before the Enlightenment. That is, we should not read the Bible as intelligent modern people but as pre-modern people. And if we do that, we won’t have any problems with it, and we’ll see that in fact there are no contradictions (from the perspective of ignorant pre-modern people). So, I am to be “greatly pitied” because I never realized that the most valid approach to the Bible is that of uninformed pre-Enlightenment people.
Right. OK, so as I said. Where to start?
First off, let me state that when Dr. Markos indicates that I was raised in the kind of fundamentalism that insisted on modern modes of analysis and verification and that this did not prepare me for college, he shows that he doesn’t know the first thing about my life. The fundamentalism I acquired was precisely in college (Moody Bible Institute). (Before that I was an avid Episcopalian and presumably, then, much more to be pitied!) My kind of fundamentalism was one that says there are no mistakes in the Bible of any kind, doctrinally, ethically, historically, scientifically. There are no absolute contradictions (even though there may be places that look like contradictions: these can be reconciled). There are no scientific errors (The world really was created in six 24-hour days, with evenings and mornings; Adam and Eve really were the first human beings). There are no historical mistakes (Quirinius really was the governor of Syria when Herod was King of Judea). Everything the Bible affirms to be true is true. This was what I learned precisely *in* college. Strikingly, it’s the kind of fundamentalism that Dr. Markos himself appears to embrace, as I’ll explain in a later post.
Second, let me say that the clear implication that Dr. Markos makes – that I don’t realize that there are differences between modern modes of verification and ancient modes – is ludicrous. I spend my entire career teaching students that modern forms of rationality (including the kind Dr. Markos subscribes to, I might add), would not have been possible prior to the Enlightenment, and that the ancient world saw things quite differently. For ancient readers, it would have been no scientific problem for God to make the “sun stand still” in the book of Joshua so that the Israelites could continue the slaughter of their enemies (they would have no moral problem with the passage either. Damn Canaanites: they deserved to be slaughtered!). Modern scientists might wonder how that could happen since (a) it is the earth that is rotating, not the sun moving, and b) stopping the earth from rotating for a long afternoon would have destroyed the planet. Ancient people didn’t have that problem.
Third, I should say that it does indeed seem appropriate to me to study the Bible not only to see what the ancients would have made of it or to see what they would have found problematic about it, but also to see what we moderns can make of it and find problematic in it. If we want to know whether it is possible for the “sun to stand still” – do we want to ask that as ancient people as modern scientists? Do we want to adopt ancient views of things because those were the views of the Bible and the times of the Bible? Let’s think about it for a second. Suppose you have a hammering toothache. Since you want to live and think like they did in biblical times, do you want to implement the solution for your toothache that they had in ancient times? Or to you prefer to go to a modern dentist who has, for example, a handy supply of xylocaine?
My point: of *course* biblical authors had different ways of evaluating truth claims and of accepting historical, geographical, scientific views than we do today. Am I really to be (greatly) pitied for thinking that modern people should think like modern people? Of course we should work to see how ancient people read and understood their texts – that’s my day job, it’s what I do all the time. But to say that since ancient people didn’t see problems in the stories they told (e.g., that there was a flood that covered the entire world killing everything on it; or that an angel of death destroyed on one night all the firstborn children in all of Egypt; or that someone made an iron axehead float on the water – pick your passage) we shouldn’t see those problems either is a case of naivete of the worst sort.
I’ll say more about Dr. Markos’s little article in the next post, just because I can’t help myself….
Do you pity Dr Markos? After all, you don’t believe in the resurrection, and if Christ is not risen… (1 Cor 15).
Nope, don’t pity him. He’s welcome to believe what he wants, so long as he doesn’t hurt others by doing so….
Question unrelated: I know you have your book about heaven and hell and argue that our modern conception of spiritual “place in the sky” heaven is not what Jesus was talking about… but I was watching one kid f your videos and you reminded me that jesus assures one of the thieves during his death that they will be together in paradise… is this not our place in the sky heaven? Thanks for all the content and happy holidays
Right! That is in the Gospel of Luke. In my book I explain what the situation is: this is almost certainly not something the historical Jesus said (for one thing, among many others, who was taking notes?), but reflects the (later) views of Luke.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
Thanks for a really interesting read!
Why was it so difficult to find a teaching job after getting your PhD?
Thanks!
Lots of reasons. There were tons of people with PhDs in NT at the time on the market; and my area of expertise (Greek manuscripts) was not at all what anyone was interested in, since there are never undergraduate classes like that.
It strikes me that some people seem to have a hard time believing that anyone who doesn’t believe like they do can lead a good, productive, and above all happy life. And Christians aren’t alone in this. There are traditional Buddhists who believe that teaching meditation to soldiers is immoral; essentially saying that those in the military deserve their suffering while those outside the military do not. It’s a strange position to hold while maintaining your compassion for all beings.
Ehrman’s original post: 2014.
I looked up this guy Markos. Once again driven home: no correlation between intelligence and susceptibility to religious nonsense. He is no dummy, indeed a real scholar (English literature, poetry, and more), a Great Courses lecturer. Writes columns for “The imaginative Conservative,” e.g., ‘How to Bring Millennials Back to Church.’
A disconnect which I can’t comprehend, despite the fact of kabillion others like him. See: the just retired NIH chief Francis Collins, mapper of the human genome, discoverer of the cystic fibrosis gene, strong advocate for COVID vaccination, etc. etc. Former atheist but for the majority of his life a committed staunch Christian.
I think your life has to be really sad, in order to sit down and write a piece about how sad is someone else’s life.
Yes, some great arguments on your side, Dr Ehrman. I think the dentist one is particularly powerful. I have used something similar in arguments with people who still insist on a male only priesthood in the Roman Catholic church (based on 2000 year old scientific ideas about women). Unfortunately such people just don’t get it. They are happy to use Aristotle for their gender science but not Galen for their appendectomy 🙂
PS. Merry Christmas to you and everyone on the blog.
The Orthodox Church also doesn’t allow female priests because apparently Mary mother of Jesus said so.
I have great pity for Dr. Markos because he is the wrong kind of English professor, the kind who sticks his nose into areas that knows nothing about (science, history, logic, etc. I hesitate to inquire how much he knows about teaching literature and writing, for that matter.)
I wonder if he is trying to say “verificationism” rather than “verification.” That is, maybe he thinks you are a verificationist or empiricist and is criticizing your philosophy of how we can know things and how we can speak meaningfully about things. I am not going to read his article to find out though.
The argument that it is essential to be the “right kind of fundamentalist” makes God look pretty weak. A God that sets it up so that being born into the exactly right family in the exactly right community, going to the exactly right church and attending the exactly right university doesn’t seem to want to the worshipped very badly. In fact She would be doing almost everything She could to stay hidden and make sure that as few of Her creation believes in Her as possible which out actually turning out the lights and pulling the blinds.
This not the kind of God that people like Dr. Markos have been yelling at me about since my teen years.
Prof Ehrman you are the devil in many a pantheon. Recently apologist S J Thompson (whose advanced degree appears to be in business finance) accuses you of driving an “eisegetical bus” in pointing out the discrepancies between the gospel resurrection accounts. She then offers a “reconciliation”. Mercifully perhaps I don’t have space to quote the entire thing but some quotes will give the flavor of it.
“While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene traveled to the tomb, where she found it to be empty, so she went to tell the disciples (John) and those who had been with Jesus wept (Mark). At dawn (Matthew and Luke), just after sunrise (Mark), she returned to the tomb with other women…where they found the angels (Mark). Some of the women returned to the apostles and told them about the angels, while Mary Magdalene may have lingered…
Mary Magdalene started crying in front of the angels she saw in the tomb (John). Then Jesus appeared to her telling her to go back to the apostles to let them know… Mary the mother of James joined her and they left (Matthew). Jesus suddenly appeared again… ”
For the whole attempt go here- https://christian-apologist.com/2021/12/19/
Yeah, that’s the kind of game I used to play too. I hope that first time Mary went she took a flashlight…
Great response to Dr. Markos Bart. Has anyone (including Bart) had a chance to read the new book published by Harvard University Press “The Making of the Bible” by Konrad Schmid and
Jens Schröter, translated by Peter Lewis. If so, please comment and let us know if it is a worthwhile read.
See reviews and TOC at https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248380&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=Schmid&utm_id=NYRB&fbclid=IwAR03XSWsCWMQT6HDVrZgQEoArsfq9I0XL0DhuhTRQd-ES2s_gfQwbGwEQFQ.
I wrote a blurb for it. I think it’s very good — they are fine scholars.
I will read it if I get my hands on it.
I just saw that Bart has reviewed the Schmid and Jens Schorter book in the list of the reviews at the site I cited in my last post.
I look at the legacy of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Copernicus and Darwin in regard to the challenges their propositions presented to the theological dogma of their times. Much as Thomas Kuhn proposed, any threat to the intellectual status quo is met with resistance until the momentum becomes irrepressable, and the paradigm shifts.
The Catholic Church did an amazing job keeping Pauline Christianity “on message” for 1450 years. Any theological shifts were small and gradual, until Martin Luther led to the theological floodgates opening again.
Dr Markos’ “form of fundamentalism” would not be as robust and beyond critique as he leads us to believe.
Christianity is the religion about Jesus, not of Jesus. As the Gospel of Mark infers, his initial followers did not understand how special Jesus was, and the faithful have been trying to work out what his message was ever since.
God must have known that we humans would eventually learn how to analyze information rationally and objectively, so why didn’t He write a book without mistakes and contradictions, and then we all, pre- and post-Enlightenment would be willing to accept it. Ah, maybe he’s testing us, making us choose between rational thought and incredible ancient stories. Perhaps He is more interested in sorting us out than in saving us. Bummer.
Bart, you may not be aware that you and Dr. Markos have something significant in common – He has taught Teaching Company courses! I listened to one of them, From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author, a few months ago and it was excellent. The course is a historical survey of the theories of literary criticism, including literary criticism approaches to the Bible. He mentioned in passing that he is a Baptist, but the course is highly erudite and has not a trace of the condescending attitude that he showed toward you. He also came across as a very friendly guy. It is hard to square this course with his article about you.
I bet he had a field day with post-modernism! And he’s clearly not to be pitied!
There is an element of the human psyche that “feels good” when someone believes/is told they are superior to others. It may be innate or learned… I’m not a psychologists – and I think its something we mature out of. But it seems one way to appeal to groups (and perhaps sell books to them) is to laud the audience superiority by invoking their pity of some selected down-trodden. Of course the pity is false. More likely the author is very happy you are there to write about…. Otherwise he might have to make you up….
“If we want to know whether it is possible for the “sun to stand still” – do we want to ask that as ancient people as modern scientists?” Could it be perhaps that the sun to stand still of the ancient time was what we modern scientists would refer to as the solstice??
Just asking.
Does the sun stop at the solstice?
The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol (“sun”) and sistere (“to stand still”), because at the solstices, the Sun’s declination appears to “stand still”; that is, the seasonal movement of the Sun’s daily path (as seen from Earth) pauses at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction.
In the story the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and stayed there so the Israelites could continue and then finish slaughtering their enemies in the course of their battle; the idea of the sun/constellations “stopping” is found throughout ancient mythologies (my favorite is the play of Plautus, Amphytrion). In every case the stoppage lasts a long time. So I don’t think it can be the solstice.
Thank you so much for sharing over the years. On a totally separate vein from your post, have you read the work of or heard of Dr Robyn Faith Walsh? And if so have you an opinion or impression to share? Listening to an interview she seems to have interesting ideas regarding formation of early Christian literature that seem to intersect with some of what I’ve understood your points to be.
https://robynfaithwalsh.com/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08K3NVXTZ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
I”ve read some of her work; she has a very impressive book — she’s a bona fide scholar.
Bart, I have come to expect this from some Christians. In fact, I grew up with this. I come from a fundamentalist Restorationist background, especially in the Stone-Campbell tradition. I remember hearing from one of my parents that Baptists aren’t saved. Why? Because Baptists supposedly vote their members in and the Bible doesn’t teach this. “That’s not Christian; they’re not saved” is what this parent of mine said. When I visited an Episcopalian Church, this very parent started whining because I was apparently now a member and I was no longer a Christian. However, I had visited a few times only, never declared that I was one of them, never indicated a desire to join, etc.
I have had Christians express pity for me when I left the Christian faith at age 24. However, I was greatly relieved and joyful when I renounced my faith. I was now a freethinker (I converted to deism) and I could think for myself without any church dogma or authoritarians policing what I thought and believed to be true. Quite frankly, I wince when I look back on my fundamentalist years. One of these days, I am probably going to write a memoir.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
Whenever I watch you give a lecture on zoom, I am always intrigued by your bookshelf and what’s on it! Have you ever considered a blog post-bookshelf tour?
Thanks!!
Ha! The room I’m in has my *wife’s* books on the shelves. I’m a biliophile, but she’s OFF THE CHARTS. Of the thousands of scholars I know and know of, I don’t know anyone who reads as much as her…
So, his line of reasoning is that you shouldn’t have learned to apply reason to determine the truth of things you were being asked to believe. And this is an attempt to prove, with logic and reason, that your approach is unsound? It would seem Markos has managed to discharge every round while his pistol is still in it’s holster.
So if we were to judge the Bible by the standards of pre-Enlightenment ideas of truth and revelation there are no contradictions? Someone tell Peter Abelard and dozens of other medieval theologians!
Yeah, I know…. Or go back to Origen!
As always, I think you’re remarkably polite. Some swearwords come to mind, and you didn’t use them.
Bart, don’t you suppose this guy pities you, not because of your “pathetic life,” but because you’re no longer saved and thus headed for you-know-where?
(If hell were real, and he undoubtedly believes it is, then pity would be an appropriate emotion, wouldn’t it?)
Maybe so. I suppose so. But I assume he doesn’t publish an article on *everyone* he thinks is going to hell, since that would be over six billion people! What he says is not that he pities me because I”m going to hell but because I don’t understand the Bible the way he does.
I would like you to write a book to help us who are progressive Christians find the words and strategies to counter effectively the fundamentalist perspective. I have an MDiv degree but my fundy friends seem to have quick responses that are carefully memorized or simply say that God guides us in our Bible study and we must follow God’s guidance. My son is an evangelical minister and won’t even discuss this issue with me. This is very frustrating and I often despair that we can’t discuss these issues rationally and peacefully. Bart, I’ve been following you and studying your books for well over 10 years. Thank you so much for the help your work has given me in better understanding these issues,
I’ve often wondered what the right kind of fundamentalist is. That is, who has the one true church? Should I join the Church of God (I believe there are 6 different denominations with the same name), the Assemblies of God, the Church of Christ, or the Church of God in Christ? Obviously the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ are too liberal. But then there’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. How many right kinds are there? Or were the Roman Catholics right all along that they are the one true church? Perhaps Prof. Markos has the answer to this perplexing question.
notice nothing on right living as in pharisaic codes. but just controlling people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v92fSL3E8KA preachers spouting non-NT & not-OT principles
thank you, as it continually flows!