When I began reading Bart Ehrman’s new book on the historicity of Jesus, I expected that it would reflect the kinds of scholarly controls that I am familiar with in his other books. However, all one has to do is to turn the next page in his Jesus book to be confronted by another example of bias. I’m not really interested in the historicity of Jesus. To me the question is largely irrelevant. The sources are too tainted, and should be acknowledged to be so, to qualify as sources of reliable historical data. The idea that there was a man who was actually, as Christians have claimed for two thousand years less a decade or two, a representative of a god, is about as implausible as Santa Claus making his once yearly journey to the homes of all the boys and girls in the world. So, whether there was an historical person at the centre of the myth — and that needs to be stressed — at the centre of the myth – of the Son of God, is completely irrelevant to anything that should concern you or me. If there was such a person, he lived a long time ago, and is only loosely connected with the mythology that Christians built up around him. If there wasn’t such a person, the myths remain roughly the same, and have the same import. The mythical Jesus of miracles and profound teachings (most of them, as it happens, borrowed), and his questionable morals, is forever beyond the reach of history. If there was a man, he would not recognise the mythology that grew up around his single human life. The birth and the passion stories are almost entirely prophecy historicised. The rest of the story is composed of sayings and deeds which can only with difficulty be ascribed to a human being. The importance of Jesus is the importance of the mythology that grew up around the name of a man who may or may not have lived in first century Judaea. Trying to pin it on a man is a hopeless gesture of faith or faction. I see no point in it.
However, as I was saying, all that it took is the turn of a page, and one is faced immediately with a problem. I have already pointed out in an earlier post what I consider to be a lapse in judgement on Ehrman’s part. But this one is, if anything, more serious; for it shows much more clearly than the last the biased mind at work. Now, mind you, I understand that Ehrman speaks as a unbeliever. He doesn’t believe, any more than do I, that there was a man in first century Palestine who was the veritable Son of God, and who was crucified for the sake of humankind, to free them from sin and death. All you have to do is to watch someone you love suffer for years and die to disabuse yourself of any such fiction. But it does rather rub salt into the wounds to have someone who claims not to believe going a long way out of his way to suggest, beyond all reason, that there was a human being at the centre of that particularly repulsive mythology.
So, when I read this, only a page or so later from the point that I had reached before my last outburst against Ehrman’s book, I literally had to say to myself, “Someone is trying much too hard to make his case.” Here’s the passage. He’s speaking about the gospels:
The fact that their books later became documents of faith has no bearing on the question of whether the books can still be used for historical purposes. [73, Kindle]
And then, on the next page, he refers to things written about George Washington by his friends:
We don’t dismiss early American accounts of the Revolutionary War simply because they were written by Americans. [74]
No, of course we don’t. But Ehrman is playing a trick on his readers, and he, as a scholar, should not do that in a book aimed at a lay audience. The difference is this. The books (the gospels) he is referring to did not later become documents of faith. They were documents of faith the moment they were written, and Ehrman knows that. It may be that some of the things written about Washington were biased, too, by the role that he played in the War of Independence, but there is an important difference. No one was attributing to Washington superhuman powers, or felial relationship to a deity. But that attribution is made of Jesus, and it was made with the intention that the words written about him should guide people in their religious faith. It is simply dishonest to suggest otherwise.
Now, that’s all I’m going to write on this occasion. I had started to read the book again, and this is the first thing that confronted me, and I found it extremely troubling. Why, I wondered, would a scholar of Ehrman’s reputation, make such an elementary mistake? And then I wondered whether it was, after all, a mistake at all. He is setting out to make a case. Before he comes to Washington, he says this:
But the reality is that Luke inherited oral traditions about Jesus and his connection with Nazareth, and he recorded what he heard.
How does Ehrman know this? Does he really know there was an oral tradition that connected Jesus with Nazareth? How could he know that? Where would the evidence of this oral tradition be found? As an historian, is he confident that he has represented the truth as he knows it to be? Oral traditions, unless they are written down by some eager anthropologist, usually undergo transformation and loss. There is certainly no such oral tradition still extant. So, this is a supposition on his part. Does he know that it is an oral tradition that “Luke” (whoever wrote the gospel so named) depended upon when he took such pains to get Jesus to Bethlehem? Remember that Matthew had the equal and opposite problem — getting Jesus from Bethlehem to Nazareth. Or did both Matthew and Luke depend independently upon a tradition of the interpretation of prophecy, that Jesus was a “Nazirite“? Whichever way it happened, there is no way that Ehrman can know that there was an oral tradition upon which Luke relied. Nor should he suggest that the gospel that Luke wrote (whoever he was) subsequently became a religious text, instead of simply an historical record of the time. The gospels are religious texts all the way down from the very start. The suggestion that they are historical in the sense that the notes of someone recording some deed or saying of Washington’s is completely out of order in this context.
Ehrman’s errors in this book are almost too manifest to itemize; but, if you wish to read a blow by blow takedown of his thesis, here are a few interesting links:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/earl-dohertys-response-to-bart-ehrmans-case-against-mythicism-introduction/
Doherty makes his case in 29 installments so it is not a brief rebuttal; nevertheless, he pretty thoroughly refutes Ehrman. Ehrman appears to have either not read the mythicist literature or deliberately misrepresents it. Too bad really, as I think it is a very interesting if perhaps unresolvable question. Ehrman appears to have badly fumbled on this one, writing like some sort of Lee Strobel style apologist.
- evan
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I consider the Bible a dubious historical source not so much because it was written (or even later taken?) as a document of faith. I am far more concerned with the magical miracles and internal contradictions. No doubt there are kernels of actual history here and there, but I can think of no way to separate them from the myths or un-bend the distortions placed on them by the authors. Clearly the various authors were more concerned with creating a narrative than recording actual events, or they would not include so many supernatural things that could never be verified and so few concrete things that could lend them credibility.
Ehrman is perilously close to being an apologist for religion he doesn’t believe in.
Yes, Daryl, that’s exactly what I think. And when you consider that the consensus to scholars that the appeals to includes mainly believers that belief nears certainty, in my mind. But he is also careless, and does not treat his readers with the respect they deserve.
Thank you for the links Evan. I was familiar with Carrier’s, but not with Doherty’s. I just wish all these things were not so long. I do not really (as I have said) care a great deal whether there was a man at the origin of the myth. It is after all almost all myth, and cannot have the singificance that Christians attribute to it. The same kind of thing applies, with variations, to the founders of all religions.
I think Ehrman has been consistent with his opinion (or is it belief?) in a historical Jesus, even if that historical Jesus is a sentence summary among other possible historical Jesuses. Personally, I think trying to make Biblical canon historical is absurd and futile, but I understand that borrowing methodology from history and the sciences yields a better understanding of how the Bible texts came about.
It used to be of interest to me, but I agree with you Eric, that the matter is rather pointless. What probably motivates atheists is that they use their better knowledge of the Bible to argue against Christians in their debates.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, the following are the historically accurate parts of the gospels.
1. There were people named Augustus, Quirinius, Herod (Agrippa and Antipas), and Pilate. Also, John the Baptist.
2. There are real places named, such as Jerusalem, Nazareth, etc.
That’s it. Real historical people – two mentioned in passing – and some real places.
Aside from the execution of John the Baptist by Herod, here is not one single historically verifiable event described in the gospels. Not one.
No census. And most certainly not one that required people to leave their home towns (such a demand would defeat the purpose of a census in the first place).
No mention anywhere of someone overturning the money-changing tables.
No preacher gathering thousands and thousands to hear him speak.
No triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
No arrest, no trial. No freeing of a rebel named Barabbas. No execution.
Even setting aside the myths, you can’t connect a single person named “Jesus” with any historical event described in the gospels because the events themselves never happened.
It’s like trying to find a ghost in an invisible haunted house.
A quick Google reveals the following, which, no doubt, is completely irrelevant to Dr Ehrman’s biases:
Education: Princeton Theological Seminary, Wheaton College, Moody Bible Institute
Just sayin’.
Dr. Ehrman is not a theist. He currently describes himself as agnostic. He also clearly states that his interest in an historical Jesus is in no way an attempt to promote the half-god-with-superpowers.
People change. He has with regard to his theism.
This doesn’t absolve him from his many errors in this current book.
Frank Zindler has just posted a provocative piece taking Dr. Ehrman to task for his “Jesus of Nowhere-Specific”…
http://thejesusmysteriesforum.blogspot.ca/2012/08/frank-r-zindlers-bart-ehrman-and.html
It is interesting that in his previous books Dr. Ehrman dismissed the reliability of the Birth Narratives in the Gospels, explaining that they were written to refute the Docetist and Gnostic heresies. In this most recent book though, he seems to need these passages to support his thesis that Jesus really did exist. This seems to be a significant about-face for him.
I understand that many will find these endless arguments tiresome and irrelevant. As a former fundamentalist Christian, I can’t help but be fascinated by the subject. It is all too clear that the organized “Church” has been quite happy to manufacture relics, and “evidence” to support the faith of its adherents; but it is impressive to see that this practice appears to go back to the very beginning of the Christian faith. It may be that the very putative “founder” of the faith is a back-dated and manufactured myth. (This ‘faith’ BTW, does not really make an appearance on the world stage until the second century C.E.)
Like an itch you can’t help scratching, the possibility that the Jesus of the Gospels is nothing more than a pious literary creation is something I cannot resist exploring.
-evan
The same argument applies to oral tradition. Oral traditions weren’t kept around because people were disinterested objective historians. Oral tradition — especially Christian oral tradition — would only function to promote a particular faith or dogma. Any tradition that had no currency for a particular community’s dogmas would not be kept around and repeated to the next generation.
“Dr. Ehrman is not a theist. He currently describes himself as agnostic. He also clearly states that his interest in an historical Jesus is in no way an attempt to promote the half-god-with-superpowers.
People change. He has with regard to his theism. “
I don’t know what Bart Ehrman’s religious views were then, or what they happen to be now, and I don’t care, because they are irrelevant. What is relevant, however, are his biases against non historicalism and where they may have formed.
Dr. Ehrman is well known for challenging the bible on many fronts. You can read his books and see if you can spot a presuppositionalist bias in there. I can’t.
In my opinion, Dr. Ehrman has a blind spot with regard to the existence of the alleged Jesus of Nazareth, a putative first century Messianic preacher and revolutionary in ancient Israel. His latest book on the subject was met with fairly large doses of skepticism and derision — but not because he concluded there was a “real” Jesus. He was criticized because he played fast and loose with the historical facts, and for his egregiously sloppy writing.
He may well be right in the end, and the messiah myth was built around a single person. I frankly don’t think the evidence is on Dr. Ehrman’s side. I’m more inclined to believe the evidence supports a Jesus-as-composite-character. Certainly most of the sayings attributed to Jesus can be sourced to others (Rabbi Hillel, John the Baptist, others). Which is what Dr. Ehrman has pointed out in his other books.
I think the man can be wrong without being accused of being biased.
For heaven’s sake, Kevin, his bias was there, dripping acid, for all the world to see in his HuffPo article, his book, and his blog. Comparing mythicists to Holocaust deniers and creationists, asserting they are all antireligionists who can’t be trusted, are extremists, can’t find university positions and for a good reason, implies they are insane etc, etc. All this while quite obviously knowing little to nothing about the actual mythicist case.
If Ehrman is not biased, then the rest of whole world is at a 45 degree cant.