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Erikaspirit16
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So going back to my post #28, no one has told me which quotation is Bart Ehrman and which is the catechism…and no cheating by googling. Just look at what is said.
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deMontfort
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I really have no patience with apostates and Catholics-in-name-only. Continued interaction with the poster in question is very likely going to lead to me losing my temper and saying very uncharitable things to him/her. The conversation is therefor over. Any attempts to address posts to me will be interpreted as attempts to bait and will be flagged as harassment.
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bobperk
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The first quote is from the CCC since Ehrman is not going to refer to the Bible as Sacred Scripture.
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Gorgias
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Pshaw. You’ve picked the most tame Ehrman quote out there. Yes, even a blind squirrel will find a nut, once in a while. But, Ehrman really does assert things that are in complete opposition to Church teaching!
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Erikaspirit16
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You get a heart. You are correct! But other than “Sacred Scripture,” they are almost identical.
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Erikaspirit16
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It may be tame, but it’s also the core of the matter–inspiration and revelation. What Ehrman has to say is almost a paraphrase of the Catholic catechism. You may be right about him being in complete opposition to the Church in certain matters, although I’ve read five of his books, and I can’t recall anything offhand.
Where he and I part company are in the two areas I mentioned before: Ehrman, although I think he calls himself “an agnostic atheist” now, still thinks that God MUST be an active, tinkering God, constantly intervening in the universe he created. So he has a big problem with evil–esp. natural disasters, sickness, etc. that have no relation to men’s actions. This has always baffled me–we can’t even fully understand the natural world we see around us, and yet we have the hubris to declare that if we can’t understand the mind of God we won’t believe in him. Not logical to me, but that’s basically Ehrman’s position. And then of course his earlier fundamentalism comes through where he thinks that any discrepancy, error, or inaccuracy in the Bible somehow “proves” that the Bible is not a revelation from God. In his view, the entire Bible is a united whole, and if you find an error in one sentence, that proves the whole thing is wrong. And of course that is not the Catholic view–as Dei verbum and its paraphrase in the catechism says, revelation is that truth that God wanted to communicate for the sake of salvation. If you think that it matters if the stone was rolled away from the entrance on Easter morning or not, that the position of the stone somehow defines God’s message of salvation, then you’re beyond hope.
And yes, I have caught Bart being disingenuous on occasion. I remember one Biblical quotation (can’t remember what it was right now), and I thought to myself “I’ve never heard it quite like that.” I went to my Oxford Parallel Bible that gives about 8 translations, and none of them were Bart’s version. I delved into it a bit deeper and found where he had gotten his quotation: one manuscript of many that was not particularly more authoritative than the other versions. But he presented it as if it were the ONLY version, whereas the general scholarly community saw it as an isolated variant. That’s playing fast and loose with the truth.
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billsherman
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Ehrman, it must be noted, is a historian. In this matter, he approaches the Gospels using the methodology of historians. He is asking questions like: “Based on historical sources, what can we prove about Jesus of Nazareth?” He then uses those sources, primarily the Gospels, to provide a historical answer. Those answers will sometimes differ from theological answers, because they are fundamentally different disciplines using fundamentally different methods.
Those looking to answer a theological question (i.e. has Jesus existed always existed?) using historical methods will never arrive at a convincing answer. Likewise, those using theological methods to answer a historical question (i.e. was Jesus born in Bethlehem?) will also be left unsatisfied.
I recommend everyone read this short interview with Fr. John P. Meier, in my opinion the greatest scholar of the historical Jesus working today https://www.franciscanmedia.org/finding-the-historical-jesus-an-interview-with-john-p-meier/ . In it, he has this to say:
“I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed. Go all the way back to Reimarus, through Schleiermacher, all the way down the line through Bultmann, Kasemann, Bornkamm. These are basically people who are theologians, doing a more modern type of Christology [a faith-based study of Jesus Christ].”
Fr. Meier has gone to great lengths to show that history and theology involve separate methods, and should not be confused as often as they are. The first few chapters of volume one his book “A Marginal Jew” flesh out this idea in far more detail.
This is a long-winded way of saying that if you are going to try and refute Ehrman’s argument here, you will need to do so by attacking his history, not his theology. Appeals to the Catechism, Tradition, Dogma, creeds, etc. won’t work, instead you will have to show how he misinterprets the various Gospels and is wrong about the authors’ intent. Scholarship is always about disagreement, but quality scholarship is always about quality disagreement.
Those looking to answer a theological question (i.e. has Jesus existed always existed?) using historical methods will never arrive at a convincing answer. Likewise, those using theological methods to answer a historical question (i.e. was Jesus born in Bethlehem?) will also be left unsatisfied.
I recommend everyone read this short interview with Fr. John P. Meier, in my opinion the greatest scholar of the historical Jesus working today https://www.franciscanmedia.org/finding-the-historical-jesus-an-interview-with-john-p-meier/ . In it, he has this to say:
“I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed. Go all the way back to Reimarus, through Schleiermacher, all the way down the line through Bultmann, Kasemann, Bornkamm. These are basically people who are theologians, doing a more modern type of Christology [a faith-based study of Jesus Christ].”
Fr. Meier has gone to great lengths to show that history and theology involve separate methods, and should not be confused as often as they are. The first few chapters of volume one his book “A Marginal Jew” flesh out this idea in far more detail.
This is a long-winded way of saying that if you are going to try and refute Ehrman’s argument here, you will need to do so by attacking his history, not his theology. Appeals to the Catechism, Tradition, Dogma, creeds, etc. won’t work, instead you will have to show how he misinterprets the various Gospels and is wrong about the authors’ intent. Scholarship is always about disagreement, but quality scholarship is always about quality disagreement.
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Gorgias
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Are you sure you read them, then?
He disputes the authorship, the inspiration, and many interpretations found therein. It’s not too difficult to find the spots where he differs from the Church. You can pretty much open to any page and find one or more…
That’s what turned me off from him, too. He takes the approach of “Ancient Aliens” – throw something out for us to look at, without proving the veracity of the claim, and then in the next breath, he uses it as the factual underpinning for even more wild claims. Not. Good. Scholarship.
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Gorgias
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That’s not how he frames up his discipline. He’s a New Testament scholar, by his own claims.
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jlhargus
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If John just made it up then the entire bible is unreliable.
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FiveLinden
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If I was going to write a book about someone I thought was God I would have mentioned it specifically and prominently, as John did.
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HarryStotle
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Given that Ehrman is, minimally, agnostic the first quote referring to what God speaks and wants to reveal wouldn’t be in alignment with Ehrman’s lack of theological belief.
Now it is possible that the first quote is taken out of context and Ehrman was making some kind of point about how the text is interpreted or situated within a religious context, but clearly the quote does not express Ehrman’s view on the actual significance of the text nor would he be supporting any claims that the text is divinely inspired.
So if the first is a quote from Ehrman it doesn’t actually represent his views.
If the second is from the CCC, the quotation is likewise leaving out crucial parts of the text that would provide a very different overall picture if they were included.
Either way, you are playing a shell game with the text.
What is your point, exactly?
Is it that Ehrman holds, in the depths of his heart, resolutely Catholic beliefs about Scripture?
Or is it that the writers of the Catechism agree fully with Ehrman’s views on Scripture?
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HarryStotle
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Yup.
And Satan didn’t merely “almost” paraphrase the word God, he quoted it verbatim.
What’s your point?
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HarryStotle
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If you were a first century Jew, and you heard and saw the things that Jesus said and did in the Synoptics, you would have thought Jesus WAS claiming to be God “specifically and prominently” in his every word and deed as reported by Matthew, Mark and Luke.Benadam:
If I was going to write a book about someone I thought was God I would have mentioned it specifically and prominently, as John did.
The problem is that you are not a first century Jew and neither do you know Scripture well enough to see it.
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Benadam
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Something to understand about belief and faith is to know that the act of discovery almost guarantees ascent. At the very least it allows one to make an interior decision without external noise. Consider this, if you were God could you go out and tell anyone and they believe it or would you have to let them discover that for themselves? The authors of the synoptics fit their accounts to the good of their audiences. As time granted it became fitting to proclaim Christ’s divinity more plainly. as John did.
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FiveLinden
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So they knew Christ was God, they just decided to keep it a secret for a while? And Paul? Did he ever mention this?
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Benadam
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You must not have understood my post.
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HarryStotle
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Even Jesus kept his divinity secret through much of his ministry, in the sense that he enjoined silence on those who had figured it out. To everyone else he spoke in riddles and parables both revealing and concealing who he was. That is why he kept asking, “Who do you say I Am?” That in itself is a riddle since the sacred name of God is I Am.Benadam:
So they knew Christ was God, they just decided to keep it a secret for a while? And Paul? Did he ever mention this?
Why did he speak in riddles?
He knew that if he openly proclaimed his role as Messiah, along with the fact that he is God, he would have given both the Jewish authorities and the Roman governors the judicial evidence they needed to execute him. He did reveal his divinity surreptitiously to those who would take the knowledge as it was intended to be understood. He also needed time (three years) to instruct his disciples to carry out what would become their ministry – to found his Church.
Again, Jesus’ mission to the Jewish people of his time is the context within which his words and actions are to be understood.
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Gorgias
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I’m thinking that including the chief priest’s assertion of blasphemy, upon hearing Jesus’ answer (in Mt 26:64-65, which sets Jesus as sitting at God’s right hand and coming down on the clouds) would be a clear enough indication that not only is Jesus declaring Himself to be God, but that the Sanhedrin recognized that He was making that claim.
That seems “specific and prominent” enough to me.
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kainosktisis
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Yes, when in high school long ago, I believe they’d referred to this as the Messianic Sectet.
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