I get asked a lot about my various books, and I often mention one of my books when no one has asked (you may have noticed). It occurred to me that it might be useful for me to present some blog posts on what each book is about.
Probably my best known academic book was The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford University Press, 1993). Twenty years after it was published I was asked to do a second edition, in which I would explain where the thing had originally come from (in my head) and what had happened in the field since it’s original publication.
Here is the Afterword to the 2nd edition (slightly edited) where I try to explain why I wrote it and what I was trying to accomplish with it. (It includes reflections on an alleged “original text” of the New Testament).
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So far in my life I have been unable to completely let go of theism and Christianity. One huge reason for this is not having anything to take its place. The replacement would need to be something I could be strongly invested in, both intellectually and emotionally.
Lately I’ve been wondering if one way of dealing with this is to be strongly invested in criticizing theism and Christianity. Otherwise, it’s too easy to slip back under the warm blanket of religious faith. And one thing that makes it easy is that religious faith is so intellectually “slippery.” For example, many Christians say that it’s “possible” that their beliefs are true while avoiding the question of whether it’s “likely.” The resurrection may be a good example.
It seems like a mistake to be focused on a negative approach to religion rather than on a positive replacement, eg, humanism. But the negative approach is at least liberating, eg, from oppressive Christian morality, intellectual contortions from trying to justify Christianity, and the terrors of hell. Maybe once one is liberated it’s rather easy to be satisfied with life without religion.
Does this resonate with your experience?
I’d say that taking a critical approach to religion is not only liberating (it isn’t always, I suppose) but also can do a lot of real practical good. If the bible, e.g., is used to do serious harm (slavery, oppression of women, anti-lgbtq, etc. etc.) then showing it’s serious problems is good for the world, not just for inner well-being.
My personal solution, in practice over a decade now: regularly attend and be deeply involved in my church while keeping my non-theism to myself. Nothing in the Nicene Creed is disprovable even if highly implausible, so I still say “I believe” in good conscience. Belief can be a feeling or a membership requirement. Reality is what it is regardless of my feelings or verbal statement of faith. My closest friends are in my church. I value the fellowship. I know how to speak the language. No need to bring up the tiny parts we disagree on (like the actual existence of God and the historical resurrection of Jesus). Not recommending this for anyone else, but it works for me, at least for now, so thought I’d share.
Okay, first of all, “neutestamentlers” is a hell of a word. If I met a deer with a pair of neutestamentlers growing out of its head, I would get out of its way.
Yeah, I made it up. It’s tongue-in-cheek, poking a bit of fun at us NT scholars for taking ourselves so seriously.
Hello Professor Ehrman, I hope you are doing well!
1. A Twitter user posted an excerpt from Segal’s work (Dreams, Riddles, and Visions) comparing Ps. 68:5, Ps. 104:3 and Isa. 19:1 (All MT) to Daniel 7:14. The suggestion was that there is a trinitarian antecedent in these texts due to the first verses in the Hebrew Bible mentioning Yahweh as riding the clouds and Daniel 7:14 as “one like man” also riding clouds. My question is if this is justified and if “riding the clouds” is something seen as exclusive to Yahweh to even suggest such a parallel?
2. A second more controversial question is that it is clear that the canonical gospel writers equated Jesus with Daniel 7:14, but what us the current strongest scholarly opinion on the identity of this “one like man”?
Thank you so much for your time Dr.!
1. This is Alan Segal? His other book is even more direct, Two Powers in Heaven, where he shows there was a Jewish tradition of another divine being of equal status with God. But I don’t think there’s anything like a docrine of the trinity — where there are three distinct beings, all fully God, equal in power, glory, and everything ele, and yet only one God.
2. The two main opinions (I assume you mean about the interpretatoin of Dan. 7:14 itself) is that either he is a great angel such as Michael, or that the term refers do the nation of Israel itself. I strongly think the latter, given how the term is interpreted later in the chapter. Israel will be given rule over the world in the place of these wild beasts.
“This quiet place” where life and suffering were “of far less ultimate moment than a single footnote in a dim academic journal establishing the priority of a manuscript or restoring a lost iota subscript.” – Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers. A view of Oxford in 1935.
As a sad comment, according to Google, Eldon Epp died last year. (Obviously not applicable to when this foreword was written!)
Are you sure about that? Surely I would have heard. He and I worked closely together for many years.
Never mind! Upon further investigation, I retract my comment. There are in fact two separate people named Eldon J. Epp who are involved in Christianity, and it was a different one who died in 2023. (It seems Eldon JOHN Epp died, who was also a Mennonite pastor, but Eldon Jay Epp is alive and well.)
…there was an “In Honor Of” event/document for Epp, but it notes that he is still alive.
There was a Reverend Eldon John Epp that passed away last year, but not Eldon Jay Epp.
Perhaps this is covered elsewhere in the blog, and perhaps this is a naive question, but what would it mean for a text not to have an original version?
I accept that “original text” is problematic for a multi-author work redacted from multiple sources whose authors (and redactors) are unknown and working at different times (e.g. the book of Isaiah). Looking for the original text of such a work does seem like wandering Mexico in search of the one authentic taco.
However, I believe that most of the books of the NT are single-author works (even if not the author they claim to be), so the autograph would have the only reasonable claim to be the original text. We should always doubt whether we had ever reconstructed the text of the autograph, but it seems clear there had to be one.
Perhaps in some cases the autograph version was not the most influential or most circulated version, but those factors shouldn’t cause it to lose the distinction of being the original text, should they?
Yup, these are some of the problems. Another is what “autograph” actually means, since one can think of options.
So . . . when does the 2nd Ed. arrive for order or in the local B&N?
It was done years ago, and almost certainly would need to be purchased online.