Went to see Bart Ehrman last night

[supernova]

Dr. Ehrman did lecture and book signing last night and it was wonderful! It was so popular, they had to switch venues from a classroom at the Catholic church to the Baptist sanctuary across the street! I think there must have been about 400 people there. They took up a donation to benefit Durham Missions; Dr. Ehrmann has known the director for many years. He talked about his work looking at the differences in the numerous versions of manuscripts of the bible. He talked about spelling mistakes, losing one's place as a scribe and repeating words or writing them out of order, or even skipping whole lines.

As a way to illustrated his topic, Dr Ehrman used the book of Mark. While he does chalk up most changes to simple copying mistakes, and the desire to perhaps gloss over certain immaterial (his opinion) inconsistencies, there was one change in meaning that does stand out to him. It's the story of Jesus healing the leper.

Here is the way that story appears today:

40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."
41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=48&chapter=1&version=31

Dr Ehrman said that the earliest versions of that story they found, read this way:

40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."
41 Filled with anger, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

The essential narrative doesn't change. The same story occurs, but the tone sure is different. Jesus got angry to heal? I don't know about you but the imperative "Be clean!" sure makes better emotional sense to me after the angry than the compassion. It challenges the more milquetoast Jesus that's out there today. Yes, I know there are other places where he gets testy. My point is maybe it's not so rare, after all.

This is the kind of subject matter that I despair will ever make it past the seminary doors. I wish I had had a recorder so that I could remember more of what he said. I didn't hear about any of this work just going to church every week. The only thing I ever got at church was standard vanilla protestant doctrine. The only reason I"ve learned about this topic at all over the years, is my own esoteric curiosity and passions. No other layperson I know is into this subject. That saddens me. When I began this journey 10 years ago, reattending church, I promised myself that I would study more fully and try to understand, to the extend that it's possible, the world in which these works were created. And what it must have felt like to be alive at that time. What was it like to be an early christian? Learning all of that provides a very different perspective than the one I got in church today. It's one I personally find more rewarding and more deeply spiritual.

Dr Ehrman himself started out as a bible-thumping Fundamentalist Evangelical (TM) and is now, as the result of his life's work, agnostic. And he signed my copy of http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0435507-7476036?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191427277&sr=1-1">Misquoting Jesus!

No disrespect to Rev Cheesehead and Rabrrrrrr, I wish, I wish, I wish this stuff was more to be found in your average church sermon and Sunday School instead of an evening lecture considered fit only for pointed headed intellectuals because the only place you'll see the annoucement is if you read the "alternative" news weekly or are a regular at the local high brow boho bookstore. If that were so, I think there would be alot less fundamentalism in this country.


P.S. - I didn't mean for this to turn into such an epistle! Thanks for reading if you made it all the way down here. :-)

Here is http://www.unc.edu/depts/rel_stud/people/facultydocs/bio-ehrman.shtml">Dr Ehrman's bio at UNC.

I have three of his books:

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Christianities-Battles-Scripture-Faiths/dp/0195182499/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/002-0435507-7476036">Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Scriptures-Books-that-Testament/dp/0195182502/ref=pd_sim_b_shvl_img_1/002-0435507-7476036"> Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament

[supernova]

1. Two more links

Here he is on the Daily Show and The Colbert Report last year:

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=23786&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_colbert_report/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true

[truedelphi]

2. I was fortunate that from time to time

In the twelve years that I attended Catholic schools, sometimes there would be a week or two spent in deciphering various versions of the text.

For instance in the new Testament when Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this earth" the original version was more like "My kingdom is not of this Culture."

The former statement implies that we need to expect that the good life will come to us only after we leave this earth - in other words, after we have died.

But in the later version, we can simply refuse to partake of the predominately Establishment culture that surrounds us and create an alternative culture and still be alive and experience the Kingdom of Jesus right here on Earth.

Big Difference!

But it is easy to see that the Establishment Culture was partial to the former version than tot he larter.

What establishment in the past two thousand years would want it known that Jesus himself is partial to a subversive Alternative Culture?

[supernova]

3. That awful Hippy!

:D I'm glad that somebody's church was doing this. Is doing this. Interesting about Culture vs Earth. That very much changes the perspective.

Maybe Buddy Jesus isn't such a joke after all. :rofl:

[truedelphi]

4. And "one toke over the line sweet Jesus!" means maybe

That flame of the Sacred Heart was there to light up some earthly happiness!

[supernova]

5. And what they would have done

with a VW bus!