"Forged" by Bart Ehrman

by Dagney 133 Replies latest jw friends

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  PSacramento

  Leo is awesome, I pick her amazing and very cute brain as much as I can :)

  Here and TD and before he left, Narkissos, are some of the reason I stay here.

  Cool dudes like LWT and yourself are another
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  Dagney

  Aww thanks! That is very kind.

  Gosh, I do miss Nark. When I started reading here he too was one of the ones that broaden my previously narrow understanding of Biblical texts.

  There were some masterful discussions on here I will never forget. I hope the new ones take some time and look at Lady Lee's "Best Of" area (not sure that is the exact name). Great food for thought.
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  Band on the Run

  P Sacramento,

  You word things so eloquenlty. I don't believe I have any better Christianity for all the NW scholarship reading I've done. Encountering Christ in the present in my daily life is the important thing. Jesus was so vague about so many things over which we obssess. He chose fisherman, not scholars.

  My priest said he feels that when the council declared the canon closed for all time, it made a big mistake. Certainly Christ is revealing himself today just as he revealed himself to the early Christians.
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  Terry

  1.In the first 3 centuries there were persons writing definitive statements of orthodoxy and deliberately passing them off as apostolic authority.

  2.None of the accepted canonical writers stated that what THEY themselves were saying was direct inspiration from God.

  3.Any writing acquires gradual valuation over time when venerable. The fact that none of the original "scripture" writings were preserved (THE SAME WAY RELICS HAVE BEEN) indicates how ordinary they were.

  4.Later counsels with important authority declared Post Hoc the divine nature of some writings and excluded others. This was their opinion.

  5.Bart Ehrman lays out who did what and who didn't. It is up to the reader to have their wits about them
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  Terry

  You can start about fifteen minutes in to cut to the chase... Filter 1:04:43

  Bart Ehrman (3/21/11)

  Bart Ehrman Ph.D., Author, Forged and Jesus, Interrupted Alan Jones, Dean Emeritus, Grace Cathedral - Moderator Ehrman takes you on a journey to ...

  by commonwealthclub | 5 months ago | 11,830 views

  • hd

  2:01:23

  Forged-Bart Ehrman

  Interviewed by Ian Punnett on Coast to Coast AM, Bart Ehrman explains that many books of the New Testament are forgeries written by unknown authors.

  by ForBibletruth | 5 months ago | 7,797 views
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  botchtowersociety

  The arguments in Forged are nothing new. Christians have long known that some of the texts are not by the attributed authors. Eusebius made the same points and cited competing views more than 1600 years ago in his History of the Church.

  For example, I seem to recall that Eusebius took issue with the book of Revelation being attributed to the Apostle John.

  Here is some stuff I found online from his work.

  Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Chapter 3 .—The Epistles of the Apostles.

  1. One epistle of Peter, that called the first, is acknowledged as genuine. 1 And this the ancient elders 2 used freely in their own writings as an undisputed work. 3 But we have learned that his extant second Epistle does not belong to the canon; 4 yet, as it has appeared profitable to many, it has been used with the other Scriptures.

  5. Paul’s fourteen epistles are well known and undisputed. 16 It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, 17 saying that it is disputed 18 by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul. But what has been said concerning this epistle by those who lived before our time I shall quote in the proper place. 19 In regard to the so-called Acts of Paul, 20 I have not found them among the undisputed writings.
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  Terry

  Speaking of Eusebius (who wrote the official history of the Christian Church) here is a portrait of early christians attitude toward each others' differences of opinion:

  But when on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another, rulers assailing rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people, and monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation rising to the greatest height of wickedness, the divine judgment with forbearance, as is its pleasure, while the multitudes yet continued to assemble, gently and moderately harassed the episcopacy. [ 5 ]
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  Band on the Run

  I read the You Tube caption. Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral in SF was Madeleine L'Engle's son in law. Small world. She often spoke of him.

  Unless Ehrman changes the meaning of Forged within the book, he is not in line with other scholars.

  From my understanding, every writer in almost every ancient genre used someone else's name to give his book more status. I would think most people would now it was not written by the stated author. Forged is over the top but the title will sell well.

  Forged and Gnostics for Dummies will always outsell some other title.

  How did Eusebius get legitimacy? Bishops of Rome were not Bishops of Rome (Popes) then.
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  Leolaia

  The Muratonian Fragment is somewhat illuminating about the attitude of pseudonymity among early Christians; the church recognized among the general epistles the book of Wisdom, which was "written by the friends of Solomon in his honour". Here a canonical book is recognized as using pseudonymity as a literary device. At the time, it was quoted by church fathers (such as Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria) as a work by Solomon and as scripture.

  This could be further nuanced. If the work had orthodox teaching, it was more likely to have been accepted as genuine by the orthodox churches, or its pseudonymity excused as a literary device. If the work however was not 'orthodox' (such as was the case with "gnostic" works with teaching very different from that taught in orthodox churches), then its doctrinal teaching itself constituted prima facie evidence of forgery, and indications of pseudonymnity — excused in works deemed useful and with truthful teaching — would be utilized to condemn the work. A good example is Serapion's opinion of the Gospel of Peter, or "the gospel put forward by them [the heretics] in the name of Peter", which he rejected both on account of its teaching ("most of its ideas are of their [the Docetists'] school") and on account of the fact that it did not form part of orthodox received tradition ("such things as these we never received"). This is similar to the biblical approach towards prophecy: it did not matter whether a prediction really came to pass or not, for a prophecy with accepted religious teaching could be later amended or reinterpreted even if the prophecy fails, whereas prophecy with the wrong religious or political message would be rejected especially if the prediction fails (as per the Deuteronomic code, cf. Hananiah in Jeremiah whose political stance was the opposite of that of the prophet Jeremiah).
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  Band on the Run

  Does anyone know why gnosticism did not prevail? My prof said it appealed to a well educated elite. The East Coast Yuppie crowd. I also suppose it appealed to individuals more than communities. Could it have gone the other way? Excluding the Holy Spirit, what factors created orthodoxy? I am assuming there are rational reasons for the triumph of a certain teaching.

  I recall fellow students bragging about how much acid they dropped to create a psychic break. The last thing I would ever want is a psychic break. Schizoprhenics do not seem to happy campers.