Loading...In this post I explain how prospective pastors and teachers beginning work in seminaries and divinity schools start learning things about the Bible they never would have imagined – or if they did imagine it was only to reject out of hand. As with the previous post, this is an excerpt from the first chapter of my book Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them), (HarperOne, 2009).
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The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “historical-critical” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church. The devotional approach to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act? About social responsibilities? How can the Bible help make me closer to God? How does it help me to live?
The historical-critical approach has a different set of concerns
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Prof. Ehrman, thanks for this post – the clash between piety/apology and criticism/scholarship is one of many mysteries about what goes on inside the seminaries, and we hope to learn more in the next post.
What would be especially illuminating to hear:
(1) Why don’t priests tell the congregation any of this, ever?
(2) If the priests do not tell the public (re: flaws in the bible that ultimately lead to problematic education and politics, all based on mistakes) what is the most effective way for the rest of us to do it?
1. yes, that’s what my book is about. 2. By advertising the blog (!) and other avenues that discuss historical scholarship on the Bible (you might check out my courses, e.g., at http://www.bartehrman.com/courses).
Big fan of your books and blogs, but I was really hoping for better answers, especially to #2…
Well, I was using shorthand as I almost always have to do in these comments in order to even get to them all. But the reality is that hte only way to spread this kind of knowledge is by talking about it with people who don’t know it and to support the endeavors that are trying to do just that, via blogs, podcasts, videos, public speaking events, books, and so on.
The minister in the mainline Protestant Church I grew up in during the 1970s openly taught what we called “higher criticism,” and boy did I not agree! I was fully onboard with what my parents taught me which was pretty much the standard Evangelical inerrancy line. Like minded church members formed an adult Sunday School class which was like a mini-Evangelical congregation. I attended an Evangelical Christian college and didn’t accept the historical critical approach until well into adulthood, and only incrementally over a couple decades.
When I was a kid 4-7, we lived in Bridgewater Township, whatever church we went to: not Holy Spirit, Holy Cow!
” the congregation any of this, ever?
(2) If the priests do not tell the public (re: flaws in the bible”
In Shanghai @ the 3 Self-patriotic State Church (government run or controlled), the female Pastors would teach as if CA Sunday school [or Pharisaic] to keep the 5 thousand members in control rather than giving them hope.
That’s what the Expat fellowship did often give very unbiblical interpretations of a passage & how it was OK to sin [another fallacy] coping in society.
So the Expat fellowship was like a liberal, yet prudish Western Church & the Chinese side like a YMCA like a place of meeting & life rather than somewhere to give one’s whole life to. As preacher’s neither followed their messages.
& what I could gather from the home churches was another top down bureaucracy, over right living & closer fellowship on the foreigners & local Chinese.
Nothing like me Wholly to be an overcomer!
Dr Ehrman most has elevated my pain from this “I was not chosen & rejected” yet maintaining that virtue STRANGE walk.
Professor ehrman, is there anywhere i could read in detail about ALL these issues you mention (not just some). My knowledge of the bible has always come from religious parties, I’d like to read from a different perspective like yours too so to have a more balanced and truthful opinion
Thanks
A good place to start would be that book; you might check out my other books and my courses as well, as http://www.bartehrman.com/courses
Among my books, my textbook on the New Testament, now in the 8th ed., might be especially useful, particularly because at the end of each chapter I give bibliogrpahy of other important books by other scholars (but accessible to non-scholars) to look at.
The best way to reveal the truth is to gradually reveal it.
Scholars’ critical study of the Bible and dissemination of the results of critical research to the public have prepared them for the ultimate truth.
After reading though the new testament many times (in greek) I have never found a passage that describes the entire total destruction (like the flood) of the earth at Christs “coming”. I’m pretty sure from interviews ( I have seen of you speaking on this topic) you would disagree with me.
Would you refer me to a verse, and even more specifically a word/s (greek) in that verse that brought you to your opinion on this specific topic.
I’d say the disappearance of the sun, moon, and stars in Matthew 24:29 would be an example; the heaven and earth are said to “go away” to be replaced by a new heaven and earth in Rev. 21:1-2. It’s not that the world is blown up; it is replaced.
Professor Ehrman,
Is it true a few bodies of the first century Palestine were found with nails still embedded in bone after crucifixion? If so, does it not lead us to believe crucified victims could be recovered from the Romans some time after death and buried? And would not a beloved master’s body be recovered, even from a common grave, to be given a proper burial?
Denis Marcoux
Only one has been found with the nail in it. This does show that at least in this oneinstance, some time after his death (how long after? There’s no way to tell) his relatives were allowed to take his remains and bury them. We don’t have any other information (e.g., about teachers/masters; it appears that normally it would have been relatives)
Hi Bart,
This post and the post in Sep 1 (Who Counts as a Christian) present an opportunity for me to raise a matter that I really wanted to discuss before, which is to argue that the “Criterion-of-Dissimilarity” (CoD) is probably not a valid criterion for authenticity.
I gathered that you defined CoD as: If a tradition about Jesus is dissimilar to what the early Christians would have wanted to say about him, then it more likely is historically accurate …… But how do we know what the early Christians would have wanted to say “if” we really don’t know much about these early Christians?
The classical example for the use of this criterion is the authenticity of the baptism of Jesus “because most early Christians appear to have believed that a person who was baptized was spiritually inferior to the one who was doing the baptizing” (see Wiki: criterion-of-dissimilarity).
However, this tradition might have multiple attestation, but let us ignore this, and concentrate only on the CoD angle. So the question here would be: Is this belief (the inferior issue) was in the mind of James-the-Just, or the Nazarenes, or even Mark?
We don’t really know!
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But we know the opinion of Matthew, but he is one among many.
However, we know clearly that this belief was held by the Pauline sect which developed into the Trinity, which ended up being the mainstream of Christianity at the 4th century.
So, CoD “might” be applied to the Trinitarians, but cannot be applied into the early Christians because we don’t know exactly the beliefs of the early Christians, and actually (from your recent posts), it is hard even to define the early Christians.
Furthermore, the CoD might be in contradiction with the criterion-of-embarrassment:
1# Mark wrote his Gospel, and we don’t know exactly his believe system, and we don’t even know his identity.
2# Then his work was copied and circulated by “unprofessional” scribes (who probably didn’t understand fully what they were coping) for about a century.
3# Then churches were established and they have acquired the service of many professional scribes, however it was probably too embarrassing for these churches (and scribes) to be seen as altering the holy text, and it was probably easier for them to invent an interpretation rather than altering the text.
Therefore, even the CoD here cannot be fully applied to this stage of Christianity.
It’s similar to a modern court room. If a mother on the witness stand blows her sons alibi out of the water, one might assume she didn’t really want to do so but had to because she was under oath. But there may well be cases where she hated the kid and wanted him locked up. So we can’t *know*. This criterion, as with all criteria dealing with the past, can help establish probabilities, but not certainties. History aint a chemistry experiment that can produce virtual certitude. But if there are no criteria, there’s no way to reconstruct the past; and if we can’t do that, well, we’re screwed. Maybe we are indeed screwed. But, well, it doesn’t seem … probable.
Multiple attestation and background analysis (i.e. contextual credibility) were regarded by many to be almost objective tools for assessing authenticity, and they were/are both used in courts and historical analysis. But I am not sure if the Criterion-of-Dissimilarity (CoD) had ever been used as tool for assessing authenticity in courts or in historical events other than the New Testament.
Now … the CoD is a very good tool for highlighting anomalies (and in this case it will highlight the anomalies between the text and the appeared beliefs). and it is always always fun to study anomalies. However, each anomaly need to be assessed by its own merit, and I don’t think that CoD can be used as a tool for assessing authenticity as of the discussion in my previous comment.
Oh, sure it is in courts. A witness who presents testimony contrary to their best interests is far more important to a court case than one who says exactly what suits their interests.
Understood. If we have two witnesses A & B and A has a personal interest in his testimony, while B’s testimony goes against his own interest then it would seem that B’s testimony is likely more credible than A’s. However, I don’t think the judge can make a ruling solely based on this observation; he cannot simply say: based on the CoD (or its equivalent in court), I will accept the testimony of B over A. Of course if the “background check” of “A” revealed that “A” lied before in the court then the judge can easily dismiss A’s testimony.
This is exactly my point: the concept of “multiple attestation” has an equivalent in the court which is “multiple witnesses” and ruling can be based on it. Similarly, the “contextual credibility” has an equivalent in the court, which is the background check, and ruling can be based on it. But I don’t think there is a legal concept in the court that is equivalent to CoD, and even if there is (and I doubt that), still, I don’t think ruling can be based on it.
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However, the CoD in the previous example (the testimony of A & B) can highlight an anomaly that could encourage the legal system to look deeper into things, but I don’t think we can just use this CoD to rule that B’s testimony is right and A’s is wrong.
Having said all of that, then returning back to the main issue, CoD cannot be used for assessing the authenticity of Jesus sayings because we truly don’t know the interests and the believe system of the early Christians, and as per your recent posts, it seems that we cannot even define the early Christians.
We only know (in good level of confidence) the believe system of the Pauline sect that developed later into the trinity sect, which ended up dominating the Christian world. Therefore, CoD *could* be used for this sect, but this cannot give any degree of authenticity for Jesus sayings because this sect came after the first early Christians, and we really don’t know much about these early Christians.
Hi Bart,
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I’ve been reflecting on the historical critical method for a while now, and the strong focus on ‘the originals’. And maybe it’s because I come from a a culture with no textual tradition at all, only an oral tradition, but although this is interesting, it doesn’t feel as ‘final’ as it does to others?
Like to me, it’s certainly interesting to observe the various sources underneath the stories in the Torah, but at some point, someone(s) intentionally decided to weave them together and add their editorial notes, and present them to us as a constructed anthology. Isn’t there value in engaging with the redacted whole? Because sometimes historical critical literature comes across as treating the redactors as having simply sat there with scissors and glue, pasting a little J here and a little P there and so on, having no independent mind of their own.
Similarly with the New Testament right? It’s certainly interesting and valid scholarship to analyze Matthew into Mk, Q, M. But at some point, someone, or someones decided to weave together these materials, and ‘arrange them into an orderly account’ 🙂 and they probably devoted time and thought to it.
Yes, I completely agree. There are indeed people interested ONLY in issues of sources and don’t give a flip about the final product. there are others who care only about the final product and don’t give a flip about the sources. I think insisting that one or the other approach is the only correct, useful, instructive, or interesting one is bonkers. I believe in doing both, BUT doing them both while recognizing they are DIFFERENT procedurally and in what hte results can tell us.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks so much. I probably expressed a more extreme version than my real views. Your talks on the historical critical method are what first got me interested in the Bible at all! I think I’m just frustrated with Christians obsessing about The Originals™️. And I understand why they do it – if it’s an article of faith that John the son of Zebedee wrote the Gospel of John, of course what he had to say would matter more than what a random scribe from the fifth century wanted to insert. It’s just sad to me that for a fundamentalist christian, if one could convince them that the woman taken in adultery is a later insertion, it would suddenly be devalued, because it’s a beautiful and powerful story.
Shouldn’t that count for something too? Or perhaps a more extreme example with the woman taken in adultery. Sure, the story was not in the ‘original’ John. But someone consciously decided to give to us a version that had the story where it now is, so that the text we have today is one with that story. Doesn’t that count for something?
And maybe this comes down to questions of fairness/justice. Because I guess it is indeed, as you have argued at times, unjust to put words into an author’s mouth. And the author of John didn’t write the Pericope Adulterae. So perhaps, I just have different notions of ‘ownership’ of a text, coming from a non-western oral dominant cultural context? Because I don’t particularly care about the ‘authorly’ originals, because I’m used to these things changing over time, and if the changes/redactions/editioralizing makes the new version better (now that’s a fraught word, isn’t it? Maybe continuing to be relevant to contemporary readers is what I’m going for?) then I’m inclined to say “Who cares what the original John wrote?”
Sorry for the long ramble! Curious to hear your thoughts.
Yup, it counts for a lot. The most recent very long and detailed analysis of hte passage by Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman was almost entirely not about whether hte passage was original but about it’s impact over the centuries. So it depends what you’re interested in: what John had to say? Then, no he didn’t say that. How the passage influenced theology and practice and even politics over the centuries? Then it doesn’t matter if John said it.
“Pericope Adulterae” – It looks like the first word is Greek and the second is Latin. 1) Is this right? and 2) Is it common to mix languages in naming parts of a bible?
Ah, now that’s a good question! You’re right about the etymologies (Greek/Latin); I will point out though that “pericope” does creep into Ecclesiastical Latin (Jerome uses it), so I don’t know whether the phrase goes back that far or not — but that would be the reason (that is the period when church fathers started talking about it). I’ll ask my friend Jennifer Knust who has written an entire book on the pericope. (BTW, your questoin immediately raised for me another modern anomaly of mixing I’ve never figured out: Why are the designations BC (Before Christ, English) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin). Wish I knew…
Ah, now that’s a good question! You’re right about the etymologies (Greek/Latin); I will point out though that “pericope” does creep into Ecclesiastical Latin (Jerome uses it), so I don’t know whether the phrase goes back that far or not — but that would be the reason (that is the period when church fathers started talking about it). I’ll ask my friend Jennifer Knust who has written an entire book on the pericope. (BTW, your questoin immediately raised for me another modern anomaly of mixing I’ve never figured out: Why are the designations BC (Before Christ, English) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin). Wish I knew…
The time designations associated with the birth of Jesus (BC/AD) were not coined simultaneously. AD was used earlier by the Roman monk Dionysius Exiguus in the 500s CE and BC was used later by the English monk Bede in the 700s CE. An English replacement for the confessional term AD would have had to overcome a highly resistant ecclesiastical tradition and thus it has remained with us up to the modern secular system of BCE/CE. Sadly, I’ve had too many brilliant college students identify AD as “After Death,” leaving their teacher wondering how they would account for some 30-odd missing years.
I knew that bit about AD. What I don’t know is how/when/why BC came to accompany it.
“But before long, as students see more and more of the evidence, many of them find that their faith in the inerrancy and absolute historical truthfulness of the Bible begins to waver.”
But still many/most/all pastors graduate from seminary, are hired by churches and do not say anything to the congregations about what they have learned. Instead, the pastors tell the church members what they want to hear. I have to assume the pastors do this in order to keep their jobs and paycheck.
Do you have any other thoughts?
Yup. It’s what my books about! But it isn’t just about keeping a job and income. It’s about what really matters for the life of hte church and a person’s individual faith. Does trust that God is good and will bring about a good world depend on whether Mark and John contradict each other on what time of day Jesus died? Well, no, not at all.
Dr. Ehrman,
I can’t help but ask for some example questions from the “baby Bible” exam.
I’m guessing they’re different from the pop quiz you give: https://ehrmanblog.org/my-faux-pop-quiz-this-semester/
I wish I had a copy!!
In response to the question, “(1) Why don’t priests tell the congregation any of this, ever?”
I’ve seen comments on this blog that clergy who insist on contradicting what their parishioners believe, soon find themselves out of a job. One comment was first-person, I believe – it happened to the writer of the comment.
Yup, it absolutely happens. Often when a pastor is a bit hamfisted about it, but even those who are gentle can find themselves in hot water with church members and lay-leaders who want nothing but “that ole time religion”