I continue to get very good questions about all sorts of things we deal with on the blog. Here are a few that have come in recently.
QUESTION:
In a recent episode of your Misquoting Jesus Podcast I understood you to say that despite many errors and contradictions in the bible no doctrine is affected because it can always be found elsewhere in the text. I always believed that this was in fact not the case regarding the Trinity. If 1 John 5:7-8 does not truly belong in scripture, as I have heard claimed, I thought that there is no other place where Father, Son and Spirit are said to be One. Please can you put me right on this.
RESPONSE:
Ah, I wasn’t referring to errors and contradictions in the Bible, but to textual changes made by scribes. No one change of any scribe has a decisive effect on any major Christian doctrine. That’s because doctrines are never based simply on one verse or another, but on an entire sweep of biblical passages and theological reasoning.
To that end: scribes did indeed add the explicit statement of the doctrine of the trinity in 1 John 5:7-8 — it wasn’t in 1 John as originally written. But
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Alan Kirk has criticized your use of memory studies in *Jesus Before the Gospels*. As I understand him, he argues that you emphasize distortion and individual chains of transmission while giving insufficient attention to two countervailing factors: Bartlett’s finding that traditions can rather quickly acquire a relatively stable schematic form, and Vansina’s later emphasis on communal controls over oral transmission.
Do you think this criticism requires any modification of your argument? Could the Jesus tradition have remained relatively stable in its basic structure within early Christian communities while still being reshaped by worship, controversy, and missionary needs? If so, how would historians distinguish such controlled adaptation from more substantial distortion or invention?
My own tentative impression is that the Jesus tradition may have been preserved with some degree of stability within early communities, while also being reshaped by faith, worship, controversy, and missionary needs.
I would be grateful to hear how you would respond to Kirk’s criticism.
Not really. I’m not going to respond at length, but if you read the studies I cite, you can see how firmly they are held by experts. I don’t know of any mistakes I made in any of the studies I cite or the examples I gave. For what it’s worth, I asked Daniel Schachter, chair of the Department of Psychology at Harvard and author of one of the great classics in the field of false memory (“Seven Sins of Memory”) to read my manuscript in advance to make sure I wasn’t making any mistakes. He did so and said that it was totally fine; he had a couple of minor suggestions about how to word a few things, and I made the changes. There are all sorts of reasons scholars disapprove of books in fields they themselves work in. I don’t know Allan Kirk or what drives his own analyses.
Thank you, Bart, for your response!
I will read The Seven Sins of Memory first. I’m sure it will be very edifying for me and may also help resolve some of the lingering questions and uneasiness I have had about this issue.
It is true that, when a scholar from another discipline draws on a field in which someone is an expert, the expert may sometimes react for reasons that are not entirely academic. Perhaps something like that may be involved in Kirk’s reaction as well, although, of course, I have no way of knowing.
In any case, I very much appreciate your clarification and the references you have given me.
Oh, yes, it happens all the time. And I too wondered if Kirk thought I was impinging on his turf. And often it does happen that a non-expert completely botches it when it comes to discussing things beyond her/his ken. That’s why I always spend a lot of time reading the most important literature in a field I wasn’t well-trained in and having a disinterested expert make sure I haven’t blown it. I don’t recall him or anyone else reporting any actual mistakes I made in the book.
I think that portrayal of Jesus/Paul is an oversimplification that creates a sharper opposition between Jesus and Paul than the evidence supports. Paul certainly taught that Christ’s death was central to how God deals with human sin, but that does not mean he believed repentance was unnecessary or that people were forgiven simply because an atoning sacrifice existed. Paul says that God’s kindness is meant to lead people to repentance (Romans 2:4), that “godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation” (2 Corinthians 7:10), and describes conversion as people turning “from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).
The statement also oversimplifies Jesus. Jesus certainly preached repentance and forgiveness, but he also spoke of his own death in redemptive terms; as giving his life “as a ransom for many” and shedding his blood “for the forgiveness of sins.” So the connection between Jesus’s death and forgiveness is not simply a Pauline invention.
A better understanding is that both Jesus and Paul taught repentance and turning to God, while Paul developed more extensively the theological significance of Christ’s death as central to God’s saving and forgiving work.
The Gospels have Jesus preaching about forgiveness and God’s kingdom coming on earth and at the same time seem to put forward the idea of Jesus’ death as a necessary atonement for sin – which seems to be Paul’s message. These seem like two very different theologies to me. Did Paul come up with the “theory” of atonement or was this a later theological development?
The doctrine of atonment arose before Paul, apparently as soon as the followers of Jesus believed God had raised him from the dead. That must have meant, they reasoned, that he really was the Chosen One of God. But they they had explain why God would allow or even require him to be crucified. The immediately conclusion was “as a sacrifice” (since that was so deeply rooted in ancient religious traditions: the God’s require bloody death a sacrifice). As a result, the disciples began to preach atonement, even though jesus himself preached forgiveness.
Bart – I am agreeing to accompany my wife and the local Baptish Church (and some members thereof – pastor included) on a trip to Israel in 2027. I think the trip worthwhile to a history enthusiast like me…..However, I found your work about 4 to 5 years ago and I am, quite frankly, convinced by your research and conclusions. I’ve read 4 of your books, read your blog regularly and have watched numerous episodes of Misquoting Jesus. I doubt much of the New Testament (although I have shared that with very few people) but I do find aspects of church attendance worthwhile/fulfilling (small southern community in mountains of extreme Northeast Georgia). Any thoughts/suggestions/”don’t miss this” for me in advance of my trip? Obviously I have some time in advance AND if your advice is simply RELAX and ENJOY YOURSELF – I won’t be offended. I am a fan of your huge body of work and your contributions to my way of thinking.
I do hope the situation has calmed down significantly by then. I’d suggest that if you go, you soak it all in and possibly read up on what archaelogists such as Jodi Magness, Eric Meyers, James Strange etc. actually say about places you’re going to. One problem is often that tour guides — even completely atheist Israelis — will mold what they say in light of what good evangelical American Christians are expecting to hear, even if it’s not basedon fact.
And read Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, chapters 40-52 (circa), on the promised land…and the last chapters on Egypt! Bon voyage!!!
Dr. Ehrman,
With the seed and plant analogy 1 Corinthians 15:35-38 Paul is illustrating that: When the body of a believer is buried, it is like planting a seed that will germinate as a resurrection body, which parallels the plant in the analogy. Is this correct?
…the emphasis here is the term germinate, which I think is an articulate and accurate way to put it, although not often used…
Yup, I’d say so. You’re sowed a dead seed; you’re raised in an amazing and everliving body.
Hello Dr Ehrman,
Speaking of God’s Sovereignity..
Have you ever read anything by James White? I was recommended by a friend to his popular works. How is his scholarship? Not sure if worth my time yet
Thank you
James White the apologist? I’m afraid he’s not a scholar (and I don’t believe he’s ever written any works of scholarship, but only apologetic works) I had a public debate with him many years ago that you can find on Youtube.
With regard to the question concerning the Trinity, as I understand it, it is essential that the THREE ARE ONE. If the verse which maintains that, the Johanine Comma, has been found to have been added and is not original to the scriptures then there is no place where the three are said to be one. It seems to me therefore that we cannot get round that by saying there are passages which claim in this place or that that Jesus and God are one or that the spirit is aligned with one or the other. If the three are mentioned together as with ‘In the name of the Father and of the son and of the holy spirit’ (but not specifically they are one) that is no different from appealing to 3 Hindu gods, for example.
Did Jesus and his followers basically learn the bible by heart? If they wanted to look up something what were their options?
It’s not clear how much they knew the Bible. Jesus is attested citing or referring to parts of it (e.g. Pentateuc, Isiah), but there’s nothing to suggest that he knew it extensiveyl. All of them wojld hve heard passages read and discussed in Synaoguge, and that’s where their source of information would have come, since none of them (except possibly Jesus) was likely able to read.
Regarding the “requirement” of a bloody sacrifice: it’s true that Paul’s letter to the Hebrews states, “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). But there are passages in the Old Testament that say otherwise. One example is Leviticus 5:11, which states that a person who couldn’t afford an animal for a sin offering, could offer fine flour. Another example is Psalm 51:16-17, which says, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, you, God, will not despise.” And in Hosea 6:6. it is written: “For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” In light of such passages, doesn’t it appear that Paul’s statement to the Hebrews was simply an attempt to justify the dogma of the crucifixion as a “necessary” sacrifice?
It’s unlikely that Paul wrote Hebrews — it’s almost universally thought among critical scholars that it wasn’t he, for lots of reasons); but whoever wrote it certainly had views of atonement that are not shared by all authors of the Hebrew Bible. That, of course, is true throughout the NT, since the authors of the Hebrew Bible had different views about lots and lots of things. My sense is that Christians picked up on the necessity of atonement because the earliest followers of Jesus believed he was raised from the dead becaus esome of them clained ot have seen him alive afterward ,and that they then had to explain who God would allow or even have his Chosen One crucified– and that naturaly answer to them, given the sacrificial nature of Judaism and all ancient religion — was that it must have been for hsi own purposes — that is, atonement for sin. (Otherwise he wouldn’t need to die.) The author of Hebrews shares that view.