Loading...Now that my book Love Thy Stranger is done, in press, being prepared for publication (March 24! You can preorder it with a price guarantee from Amazon already), and, as far as I am concerned with, over and done with, I have moved on to the next project, or projects. I THINK it will be two — a trade book for general audiences and an academic book for scholars, both on how we got the canon of the New Testament.
My tentative title, which will no doubt be changed roughly 79 times before we come up with the final one, is CREATING THE BIBLE: How We Got the Twenty-Seven Books of Christian Scripture. Three years ago or so I wrote up a prospectus for my publisher, Simon & Schuster, and shared it with blog readers. I thought it would be a good time now to put it up again along with a couple of relevant posts just to get the juices starting to flow (before I return in a few days to the “New Testament in a Nutshell Series”!).
Here’s how I started the prospectus.
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I’d like to preorder a copy. It is a topic I have long been intersted in.
I’ve been waiting my whole life for this book! Thank you!
This is the Bart book I’ve been waiting for! As an avid Bartie I’ve consumed your posts over the years, read your books and others, and I know the overall picture. It’s still one of the most fascinating and compelling issues in the history of human religiosity and Christian culture. Just today I attended the friendly, new evangelical denomination in Germany that my friends (who I was visiting) attend. The preacher referred to having ‘the word of God’ without comment or qualification, as if it was totally self-evident, and I know why, as a former evang myself. More people need to start to think about this and I really look forward to your new book as something I can recommend to them to open it all up.
Sounds very cool! Will you touch on inerrancy as well?
I’m not sure yet. I do deal with it in my recent book Armageddon (weirdly enough, the view develops at the same time and in relation to the notion that “the end is near.”
Pre-Ordered! This book sounds awesome.
Bart, you have touched on this topic elsewhere: Jesus Interrupted (chapter 6), Lost Christianities, pp. 229-246, and Lost Scriptures, p.p. 330-342. This is a rather tired-out subject. Regarding the general audiences, why not point them to the material that you’ve already written? Regarding scholars, the books on the formation of the Christian canon have become a cottage industry (I have on my bookshelf probably half a dozen). Why not just point them (scholars) to Metzger’s earlier book on the subject (and similar books)? I know you always have a lot to say, so I’m excited to hear what you have to contribute in your new book. It will undoubtedly take its place among the vast bibliography on the topic. — Bill
Are you saying that this new book is something I’ve already published? OK then!
I frequently deal in a few pages (in a book) with a major issue that requires an entire book of its own. For example, I refer in Lost Christianities to the phenomenon that I devoted an entire book to in Misquoting Jesus, e.g. And I’m very clad I wrote the latter book because the bit devoted to it in the other was not at all sufficient for anyone wanting to know about the topic.
So too, I’ve certainly talked about the canon a lot. But I’ve never discussed it at all to the extent and in the way I’ll be dealing with it here. I’m not simply going to point peole to other books, including Metzger’s, because my book will not simply be giving the same information. It will be a very different kind of book indeed, covering material that I’ve never seen covered in a canon book before. My interest is largely focused on debates over one book or another– if you want to see the kind of thing I mean, check out my chapter on why 2 Peter got into the canon and why the Apocalypse of Peter did not in my book Journeys to Heaven and Hell. This did not involve a simple regurgitation of information already available and was based on entirely new research.
Can’t wait. It’s sure to be a good one. BTW: thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment. -Bill
Dr. Ehrman
I’m arguing that the God of the first half of Jesus’ ministry gave us a good god to which we should pray the Our Father.
“He was good; and in the good no jealousy ever arises…” – Plato. Timaeus. 29e. (Plato’s good god also shows up in The Republic, Book II 379-380.)
QUESTION: What 1st and 2nd century writers other than the gospel authors embraced Middle Platonism for the notion of a good Heavenly Father god with a Logos? Philo? Celsus? Peregrinus Proteus?
Well, I looked up Platonic Theology and came up with Marsilio Fincino (1433-1499) who was highly influential on the Christian notion of God. He was head of the Platoinc Academy in Florence patronized by Cosimo de Medici. He was a cultural catalyst. Ficino’s reading of Plotinus and Proclus led him to frame creation as a continuous emanation rather than a one-time event. Catholic mystics like Ignatius of Loyola and John of the Cross absorbed Ficino’s emphasis on inner divine union. Without Ficino, the Renaissance vision of a cosmic, loving God intimately present in creation might never have taken root.
Steve, author of Historical Accuracy
Philo and Celsus, yes. Peregrinus, we don’t know. The bulk of our informatoin comes from Lucian’s satire and provides little info about his actual philosophical views.
Bart,
A great and important topic! The ‘historical’ part is still widely unknown to most people — and building on that knowledge connects to what I have often wondered. What writings the bible should contain today, based on what we have learned over the centuries? I have read some amazing works by non-Christian authors that seem to be quite worthy of being included in a revised and updated bible. So, for example, my conceptual updated New Testament part of the bible would exclude the disputed letters of Paul, Revelation and some other books, but I might also want to INCLUDE selected writings from Teilhard de Chardin or poetry/psalms from the great Muslim poet, Rumi.
Other than the Shepherd of Hermas, I am doubtful that I would want to include any of the early Christian writings that were not included in the canon.
Are there any books (early or contemporary) that you think SHOULD be ADDED to the canon if it were to be available to be rebuilt today? I am sure that are tons of great books with great messages to add, but very few that might reach a ‘canonical-worthy’ level.
My view is that the criteria for canon-formation are theologically driven, not historically, and as a historian wh os not a Christian believer, I don’t think it makes sense for me to suggest which books Christians should have in their Scriptures, if you see what I mean…
Yes. Makes perfect sense. It is not just as simple as ‘if I believed [x], I would prefer [y].’
Bart. This very well could be your most controversial book ever (in some circles). Looking forward to it (both the book and the uproar).
Why, uh, Philemon?
Great question!
If the Pastorals are forgeries, Philemon would be the only “authentic” Pauline letter addressed to an individual.
Its preservation may be explained by Onesimus, for whom the letter meant freedom. He might later have attained a role in the post-Pauline
church that allowed its inclusion among the letters to the churches.
In Revelation, the first church mentioned is Ephesus, whose “leader” is told:
” But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen” (Rev 2:4–5).
If Philemon was written in the early 60s with Paul already “old” (Philemon 1:9) by the end of the century Onesimus could indeed be the mature man addressed.
Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Ephesians, states:
“I have received your whole congregation in the person of ONESIMUS… blessed is He who granted to you… to have such a BISHOP.”
Written in the first decade of the second century, this suggests that the freed slave later became bishop of Ephesus and met Ignatius as an old man.
Dr. Ehrman, in JESUS BEFORE THE GOSPELS you talk about the importance of Proto-James in Christians’ later conceptions of the life of the Holy Family. Is there a reason why the text wouldn’t have made it into the later canon? Was it just that it was more obscure than the canonical gospels, or was there something theologically objectionable?
My sense is that it was widely recognized as having important and interesting stories, but it was not widely considered to be a kind of divine revelation early on. It’s one of the texts I’ve studied a lot, but have NOT studied in terms of it’s historical reception as potentially a canonical book; that’ll be the kind of thing I’ll have to look into in my research in the months that lie ahead (so I’ll have a more definitive answer, I hope, later)
I keep wondering how much our bible was tweaked, edited, reedited, and flat-out forged in order to make it palatable and acceptable to the Roman government.
Things like making hierarchies acceptable. Making Christ’s death on the cross acceptable and even God ordained (after all, it was the Roman government that did this), or blaming the Jews for this and making the Romans more and more innocent and helpless. Paying taxes and not directly opposing slavery. There are many other things as well.
Something I remember John Dominic Crossan saying in a documentary, that went something like, “When the Roman Emperor tells you to get together a book-bible that explains Christianity and will help hold his empire together, – … you don’t say maybe, – … You say ‘Yes Sir!’, and get right to it!”, or something like that.
Athanasius, the first person to list the canon of the bible, was exiled 5 times. The first time by Constantine. Roman emperors didn’t hold much with the separation of church and state.
So my question is: How much was the bible “tweaked” and forged to make things “acceptable” to the Roman government?
I don’t think it has been tweaked at all for the sake of the Roman government, but plenty for internal Christian disputes and issues.
I’m thinking it was for both, and for other reasons as well.
Like appeasing neighboring groups and religions, and appeasing the bully-blah-blahs who seem to turn up everywhere.
Something that I just found out recently, and it was confirmed by one of the speakers at this year’s NiNT gathering, is that the Jewish High Priests were put in place and upheld by the Roman government.
I think it’s a little (or way too) much to go on and on about who murdered *one person* 2,000 years ago, even if he is my favorite person in all of creation. However, it does look like the lion’s share of the deed falls on the Romans. This, of course, was pre-Christian Rome. No one can argue that Rome didn’t convert. Still, I wonder how much of the text was engineered to make the Romans look good and to scapegoat the Jews.