Half of New Testament forged, Bible scholar says

[cleanhippie]

(CNN) - A frail man sits in chains inside a dank, cold prison cell. He has escaped death before but now realizes that his execution is drawing near.

“I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come,” the man –the Apostle Paul - says in the Bible's 2 Timothy. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”

The passage is one of the most dramatic scenes in the New Testament. Paul, the most prolific New Testament author, is saying goodbye from a Roman prison cell before being beheaded. His goodbye veers from loneliness to defiance and, finally, to joy.

There’s one just one problem - Paul didn’t write those words. In fact, virtually half the New Testament was written by impostors taking on the names of apostles like Paul. At least according to Bart D. Ehrman, a renowned biblical scholar, who makes the charges in his new book “Forged.”

“There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,” says Ehrman, an expert on ancient biblical manuscripts.In “Forged,” Ehrman claims that:

* At least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries.

* The New Testament books attributed to Jesus’ disciples could not have been written by them because they were illiterate.

* Many of the New Testament’s forgeries were manufactured by early Christian leaders trying to settle theological feuds.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/

[xchrom]

1. It's one of the things that members of the faith have to come

To grips with.

It's been a topic in the episcopal church for a good number of years now.

[humblebum]

2. Oh, how convenient. A while back you gave Bart Ehrman no credibility.

And now you are using him as paramount expert. Classically hysterical.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=301047&mesg_id=301047

[Festivito]

21. This does show self-deception, pointing at others to things actually pertaining to themselves.

You always see just what you want to see.

When you already believe the conclusion, is easy to create the storyline.

It's a shame that a certain group of posters create such foolish incivility and do not or cannot see their own blinders while tirelessly calling attention to the blinders they see on others -- and getting away with it constantly.

This book should prove very interesting.

[laconicsax]

23. Cleanhippie said nothing of the sort in that thread.

Others argued that Ehrman was a theologian and not a historian, but nothing in that thread supports your claim.

[humblebum]

26. Excuse me. He participated in it too. post #82. nt

[laconicsax]

31. Umm...that post isn't about Ehrman in the least.

Did you think I wouldn't read it

You (81): "The difference is that the validity of Christianity does not rely on total objectivity."
cleanhippie (82): "And that is what makes it invalid."

[cleanhippie]

32. Yeah, he knows it, you know it, and I know it, but that has never stopped him before.

Why should it now?

:shrug:

[humblebum]

34. The subject of the thread is Ehrman. it directly refers back to him.NT

[laconicsax]

35. Are you Bart Ehrman?

Because the only way a comment directed directly to you refers back to Ehrman is if you're Bart Ehrman.

[humblebum]

37. Since we were discussing the veracity of Bart Ehrman, and my

opinion was being questioned, yes it did directly concern him.

[laconicsax]

38. Umm...that's not at all what was being discussed.

Neither your comments nor cleanhipppie's mentioned Ehrman, and the subject was clearly the validity of subjective evidence.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cleanhippie]

41. I think we all know that, but its being ignored...

because it doesn't fit the agenda.

[Angry Dragon]

3. I am seeing all kinds of christian heads explode

it is not a good sight


This should go over well in churches around the world

[cleanhippie]

4. One just did right above you. ^^^

[humblebum]

5. You are the one trying to have it both ways, not me.

Me thinks someone is attempting to demean another group of people as his life's hobby. I think it's very telling about the atheistic mentality, when objective evidence for something that happened less than a century ago is totally rejected, while proof is claimed for the debunking of something that happened 20 centuries ago. Funny how that works.

[cleanhippie]

6. Boom! What a mess.

:nuke:

Is that what it looked like, bum?

[humblebum]

10. No, it's more like one of your little 'laughing militant atheist guys' nt

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cleanhippie]

42. That makes no sense.

[laconicsax]

44. Don't you remember?

:rofl: <--- He thinks this is a militant atheist.

[cleanhippie]

46. Oh, so THAT is what a "militant atheist" looks like?

[darkstar3]

43. Look at the juxtaposition of your second and third sentences.

Can anyone here name the psychological phenomenon that causes such a thing?

[Thats my opinion]

54. please read 53 n/t

[Hawkowl]

7. Just "half"?

:rofl: That is why it is called "faith"! Imagine a game of Chinese telephone over 2000 years in a dozen different languages. I don't think the "New Testament" even faintly resembles an accurate depiction of illiterate, early, Christianity.

[Warpy]

8. They've actually known about the Pauline forgeries for years

since a lot of "his" antiwoman statements appear in different places in different source texts, and that's just one example.

I'll say it again: anyone who considers the bible the inerrant word of gawd has never bothered to sit down and read it cover to cover.

[humblebum]

14. Actually that's bunk and a tool of skeptics. Fact is, there is no proof.

The differences in the character of his speeches is accounted for by his attitude changing somewhat over the years as is normal for people, and Paul was speaking to a wide range of different cultures and he was a accomodating to those differences in order to deliver the gospel. He even states in Romans that differences in keeping the Sabbath, in food eaten, and ways of worship are quite acceptable and that differences are to be tolerated.

Ockham's razor needs to be applied here. IOW, Paul wrote most or all of what is claimed. Makes the most sense.

[Leontius]

22. There's quite a lot of doubt about Pauls' authorship

of parts of 2Cor and 1Tim.

[humblebum]

24. If Paul did not write 2nd Corinthians then some one did an

excellent job of imitating him, because that is one of his autobiographical books. However, it is known that Paul used scribes that he dictated to for some of his writings and parts of writings. Tertius is mentioned as one of the scribes.

[laconicsax]

25. Hmm, you're really invested in the Bible being true and authentic.

Surely your faith could stand the Bible not being true--that's why they call it faith, after all.

[humblebum]

28. I know that there have been changes and things added, but

I do not believe this is part of it. And any evidence to the contrary is strictly subjective and opinionated, but anyone claiming objective proof is simply being deceptive. Writing in those days was a major undertaking, so to assume that there were a lot of imposters trying to imitate Paul to fool people 2000 years after the fact id foolish.

[laconicsax]

29. So you trust Ehrman as long as he agrees with you.

Interesting.

[humblebum]

33. I can certainly say the same thing about you. Interesting.

[laconicsax]

36. You could if you were willing to be openly dishonest. n/t

[darkstar3]

45. So you choose, in this instance, not to accept evidence you classify as "subjective",

then berate others for refusing to accept subjective evidence (mostly hearsay) for other things?

[humblebum]

47. It's ALL subjective if it happened two thousand years ago. nt

[darkstar3]

48. Hey look! You just demonstrated why

your evidence for God is worthless to anyone but you.

[humblebum]

49. That would be true if I was alone in my beliefs. However, there are more believers

than not. Subjective evidence is not the absence of evidence.

[darkstar3]

50. Now can you guess which fallacy you just invoked?

[humblebum]

51. Hardly a fallacy when I am said to be the only believer.

Now that is a definite fallacy. Guess which kind.

[darkstar3]

52. No one said you were the only believer.

So now you're up to two fallacies. The first was argumentum ad populum. The second was a red herring.

So do you even know why you reject the evidence for Paul's forgeries yet accept the far less convincing evidence for God?

[cleanhippie]

57. Oh, me! Me! Darkstar, call on me, I know the answer!

Because where you see contradiction, he sees confirmation?



:rofl:

[humblebum]

62. Um? Maybe I am reading it wrong but when it be said that

"your evidence for God is worthless to anyone but you." - the anyone but you part does kinda leave me as a group of one.

[darkstar3]

66. Your evidence is subjective. Others might believe in God,

but not because they believe your subjective, personal experience. It's because they believe their own.

[humblebum]

68. There is no other but subjective. nt

[darkstar3]

70. Solipsistic. The verdict is in and objective reality does indeed exist.

[humblebum]

71. Objective evidence of diety? There is neither objective evidence for or against diety. nt

[darkstar3]

72. If you're going to ask yourself questions and then answer yourself,

you may never lack someone to talk to, but that doesn't mean you're having a disucssion.

[cleanhippie]

55. There are more people that do NOT believe in your god than those that do.

So you just proved your own point 100% wrong.


Nice job

[humblebum]

60. Since I never stated otherwise, I guess you kinda screwed up again, huh? nt

[cleanhippie]

61. Every time you "guess" anything, you get it wrong.

Nut keep trying, you'll get it right eventually.

Maybe.



But probably not.

[bengalherder]

73. He was still anti-woman

or at least his forger was.

And I have to care about Paul and his religion and not speak ill of them why?

[MADem]

9. Only half? Gee!

I'm sorry--I can't buy most of it as anything beyond a work of allegory and fiction.

There's one thing in the whole story that just does not, cannot, ring true. What self-respecting Jewish male in his thirties would be UNMARRIED and CHILDLESS at that stage in his life? His mother would be all over him.

And I mean, come on, Sonny is up on the cross, and Mom and "some whore" are boo-hooing at his feet? Please. That was no whore, that was his WIFE....of course, that scenario made a bit of a mess for the men in dresses who wanted a patriarchal religion. Putting women up in there as anything other than servants/handmaidens was problematic for them.

I actually heard, somewhere--can't remember where and too lazy to look for it--that most of that fairy tale was written about three hundred years after the Crucifixion....and all the "good parts" were left out!!!

Of course, most religions are fairy tales, crafted to appeal to easily led people in a simpler time. Islam has their main guy riding a horse in the sky!

A little travellin' music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsZL10oxPwY

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Actually, it was more like 100 years later that they were written, not 300 years

It was 300 years later that the Church hierarchy decided which books would be canonical.

And see my post below for further clarification.

[MADem]

13. Eh, whatever. It's all bullshit.

I am not referring to the teachings of that guy that some people called Jesus Christ, mind you. He seemed to have some pretty good ideas--he was helpful, he was kind, he liked social programs (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, etc.), he never seemed to be mean to anyone who didn't absolutely deserve it.

I'm referring to the shenanigans of the assholes in dresses and silly hats who took possession of his following after his death. Those bastards have some 'splainin' to do.

[Thats my opinion]

75. not that's a rational response.

out of sheer ignorance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Old news, really old news

And "forgery," which implies criminal intent, is not the correct word for a common practice in the ancient world, not only in the Mediterranean region but also in China and Japan.

No non-fundie scholar thinks that the disciples wrote the Gospels themselves. It's widely accepted that the Christian communities felt the need to write down the accounts of Jesus as the first generation died out. Mark was the broad outline, the Reader's Digest version of the story, and Matthew and Luke based their accounts on its outline, with Matthew focusing on Jewish audiences and Luke on Gentile ones. John, the latest of the Gospels, is the story reinterpreted in terms of Greek philosophy.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were common names. Some Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John other than the disciples may have written the Gospels and then later generations mistakenly attributed them to the disciples.

And as I have mentioned on another thread, it was common in ancient times to give one's own writings greater publicity by attributing them to a famous person.

We know, for example, that John of the Gospels and John of Revelation were not the same person. People who have studied Greek tell me that their writing styles couldn't be more different, with Gospel John sounding educated and elegant and Revelation John not so much. Their styles are so different that it's like taking a passage of Hemingway and a passage of James Agee and asking if they were written by the same person.

Attribution is always iffy in ancient and even in less-ancient times. The "Trumpet Voluntary" that is often used as a wedding march was attributed to Henry Purcell (17th century) for years before someone finally discovered that it was written by one Jeremiah Clarke.

This news may upset some fundies and evangelicals, but they need to be upset.

[laconicsax]

27. It may be old, but it definitely bears repeating.

You may have noticed that frequently, when non-believers call into question the veracity of the Bible, especially the NT, they are rebutted with a wholesale denial of what is asserted in the OP.

[okasha]

85. There are at least four Johns in the NT.

The first is John the Baptizer, to whom no writings are attributed.

A second is the apostle John Zebedee, the fisherman. He probably was illiterate or at least no more than basically educated.

The third is John the Elder, author of Revelations and the two Epistles that bear his name.

The possible fourth is the unnamed "beloved disciple" who was very likely a Jewish priest (he has entree to the house of Caiaphas in the middle of the night; at the tomb he hangs back until he is sure there is no corpse within to make him ritually impure) and who may well have been the source of much of the narrative material in the fourth gospel, the earliest fragment of which dates to late first, early second century.

As for "forgery"--it was pretty much a universal habit well into the Middle Ages to attribute authorship to a more authoritative source than the actual writer. (Witness the so-called "prophecies of Merlin.") It was, in its time, a perfectly respectable practice.

And yes, this "news" has a very long white beard.

[dmallind]

16. Well certainly old news, but despite the claims of DU apologists, new news to most.

Again and again DU believers pretend that the vast majority of their correligionists are not the gullible shallow magical thinkers almost entirely ignorant of their own faith that any survey or test proves them to be.

[Thats my opinion]

58. that is why I have always been in the theological education business nt

[aquart]

17. Where do they get this "illiterate" ?

Do they think Jews only began to value education when we hit Europe?

But I agree about the forgery. Wildly creative, those early Christians.

[dmallind]

19. But the disciples are, with a couple of exceptions, identified as humble manual workers

that demographic would be almost certainly illiterate, and certainly incapable of some of the often elegant Greek in the gospels.

[aquart]

63. "almost certainly"?

IOW, you don't know what "manual workers" knew. ALL work was manual at the time, btw.

Scribal work was particularly "manual."

Since I have no respect of any kind for Paul, I would think it's a hoot and a hollar if Mr. I-saw-Jesus-on-the-road-to-Damascus-with-no-witnesses has a reputation based on another kind of fraud. But I think he was literate and his backstory pretty much whole cloth.

I dunno about elegant Greek. I thought the early stuff was Aramaic but I could be thinking Old Testament. I do know they had a solid OT background because there's evidence the Psalms were used as prophecy and some of the Jesus stories tailored to fit. But most intriguing is the possibility of a long scribal tradition of hidden meanings and words locked in words from as far back as Sumerian times which was somehow continued in the shaping of the Jesus myth. How that could have happened without the scribal class, I have no idea. The puns are invisible in the spoken word, they show up in writing.

[dmallind]

84. Dunno why you're protesting me so much but it's without merit

Almost certainly is as sccurate a statement as can be made. We have no idea if these people even existed, and even less what their real names and achievements were, but as described they mostly came from a class that had exceptionally low literacy. The only way a fisherman for example would become literate would have been a blazing intellect that managed to work it out from first principles despite having the chance to even see a book very rarely and little rest from backbreaking labor to work on it. We know this not only from the dearth of writings from such workers (despite many well preserved priestly and official writings) but from descriptions of populations which the Roman empire was quite obsessive about. Tbe individual disciples then? Nobody can say, but a literate one would be about as likely as finding an expert on Tang Dynasty ceramics doing the grunt work down a South African diamond mine. Almost certain failure then.

And by your standard all work is manual today - as for example I use my hands to enter in spreadsheet formulae or ERP input, but everybody and his dog knows what is meant by a manual worker and would laugh at me if I claimed to be one. Why that understanding falls down somewhere in the intervening 2000 years or so or why it would be applied to a tax collector I have no clue.

Other than a few direct quotes of people's speech and an idiom or two in Aramaic, the NT is written almlost entirely in Koine Greek in its earliest examplers. This in itself is not that weird, as it was the common lingua franca of that part of the empire, and the idea after all was to spread the story. It's not even a stretch that ill-educated Jews would know enough to get by in it really, as they would have to work and trade with non-Aramaic speakers. Consider them maybe the equivalent of street vendors in a place dominated by western tourists today. They would lmost certainly speak some English obviously - same thing with Greek for the disciples. But some of the writing is quite poetic and well-crafted - hardly in the likely range of such speakers. It would be like a Cairo market stall vendor writing Harry Potter.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

86. The spoken language of the time was Aramaic, but the New Testament was written in Greek

the reason being that Greek was the "international language" of the Mediterranean area. If you wanted something to be read by as many people as possible, you wrote it in Greek. Even most literate Romans spoke Greek.

Paul is supposed to have been a tentmaker and a student of the rabbi Gamaliel. This would fit in with the pattern observed throughout Jewish history, where most males earned their living by manual labor but had studied the Torah and Talmud in their youth. (I suppose it's similar to what we see in travelogues about boys in remote Middle Eastern villages studying the Koran today.)

Now since it is unlikely that the actual disciples wrote any of the Gospels themselves, it doesn't matter whether they were literate or not, but they may well have been if the ancient Judean villages were like Middle Eastern villages today in having boys learn the scriptures of their religion.

(Matthew contains the most direct quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, because it was written to appeal to a Jewish audience.)

[ChadwickHenryWard]

67. Acts 4:13

Peter and John are explicitly referred to as "illiterate." I don't believe it is usually translated that way, though. "Illiterate" could just mean poorly educated, rough around the edges, etc.

[msongs]

20. ancient texts doctored and bastardized to suit the needs of clerics? unheard of lol nt

[Angry Dragon]

30. It is my understanding that none of the books of the Bible

had a title nor had an author name attached
So everything is all guess work anyway

Does anyone know where the original books are located??

[edhopper]

40. I got em

they're in the basement. I think I'll put them on Ebay.

[Thats my opinion]

56. The earliest copies we have are in monastary libraries

of Mt. Athos in Greece--where I have been- and in a couple of other ancient libraries and museums. The earliest extant copies are Greek Uncials dating from the last part of the third century.

[tiny elvis]

80. vaticanus and sinaiticus are from fourth century

all other greek uncials are later
an uncial from athos, now in usa, is eighth century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_uncial_codices

there are extant parts of john from the second century, parts of other gospels from the third century
http://www.textexcavation.com/gospelmanuscripts.html

i think we should take the concrete hints
john got a jump on the earlier gospels in distribution
john was nearly new when the papyri were made
that is why they are the earliest copies
the vaticanus and sinaiticus compilations were probably among the first
that is why they are the earliest extant
the earliest written quotes from gospels, in the second century, are wildly different from the canon

before the end of the second century the synoptic gospels were obscure
john may have popularized the synoptics

[aquart]

65. The original books of the Bible? The Torah?

[Angry Dragon]

69. The Bible

and the ones that did not get put in because they did not fit the story line

[Thats my opinion]

76. The Torah , or books of Moses,

are not the earliest Biblical writings--by a long shot. They were collected from a variety of manuscripts far later.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

88. Yes, and Deuteronomy wasn't even written in the same era as

the other books of the Torah.

[aquart]

91. When was it written?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

92. The current opinion is that it was compiled after the Jewish people returned

from exile in Babylon as a means of reinforcing the traditions for the two or so generations who had grown up in a foreign environment.

[aquart]

90. Duh.

[Thats my opinion]

53. Forgery is a pejorative loaded term.

In the ancient world it was a common literary device to write something in someone else's name. The reasons are too complex for detailing here. We have known for centuries that Paul did not write either i and 2 Timothy and Titus--and probably not
2 Thessalonians and maybe one or two others. Plato wrote nothing ascribed to Plato. Go through ancient literature and that is what you will see.

I am reminded of Will Rogers (I think it was he) who commented that he had heard that Isaiah did not write the book of Isaiah at all, but it was written by someone else with the same name. There are at least three Isaiah combined in the one book.

[darkstar3]

59. Tone argument.

Waste of reading time.

[aquart]

64. Good, good point.

[laconicsax]

74. Is it not an apt description here?

What would you call it if Fred Phelps wrote a new Gospel of Phillip (or maybe Thaddeus) or letter attributed to Paul that vehemently condemned homosexuality and paid to have it published in a new edition of the New Testament? Would you call it a forgery?

[Thats my opinion]

77. you may already know it,

but there are sophisticated scholarly ways to evaluate manuscripts. They are higher and lower criticism.

[darkstar3]

78. That was a stirring reply,

but unfortunately, while all answers are replies, not all replies are answers. You did not answer the question.

[laconicsax]

79. As darkstar pointed out, you haven't answered my question.

What would you call Phelps' Gospel of Thaddeus or Letter to the Athenians?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

87. Well for one thing, Phelps would be unable to write in Koine Greek

and since the English language didn't exist in any form during Paul's time, the forgery would be uncovered pretty quickly.

[laconicsax]

89. Yes, it would be a forgery.

Thank you.

[humblebum]

81. You answered the question just as it should be answered.

Though I don't necessarily agree with your assessment, there is nothing objectively proven, nor can there be. It is all speculation. The greatest offense though is that of claiming definitive proof of something, when in fact it is debatable.

[trotsky]

82. Yet it's an accurate one.

And you admit such.

[rrneck]

83. Just wait till Oprah finds out. nt