Half of New Testament forged, Bible scholar says

[poiuytrewq0987]

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/2011/0...iref=obnetwork

[Magister Eckhart]

He's an agnostic who couldn't deal with the fact that evil exists. Hardly worthy of the title "biblical scholar". He is living proof that heresy can only lead to unbelief, emphasizing the terrible danger evangelical Christianity and fundamentalist "born-again" Christians put the faith in every day they are allowed to go on spouting their nonsensical blasphemy. They are to Christianity what Wicca is to Heathenry.

Give people the texts of the scripture and they'll come up with anything, and be able to argue it convincingly using detailed exegesis. Just look at Lanz von Liebenfels: he crafted an entire worldview of Jewish ape-men and Aryan god-men warring against one another, with a new history of the world replete with grotesque bestiality cults based entirely on a detailed and exhaustive learned exegesis of Christian and Jewish scripture that, if taken alone and out of context, can be quite convincing. Liebenfels, I might add, was an ordained priest with a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies from the University of Vienna, one of the most renowned Universities in Europe at the turn of the century.

Being able to read and do detailed, learned exegesis of scripture doesn't make any person any less of a fringe kook or worth listening to, unless you already buy into their fringe ideas and ideologies, as Liebenfels' followers did for him and as CNN almost certainly does for this atheist, being fundamentally atheistic and anti-religious as they are. It's not the first time the left has turned its guns against Christianity in America, it won't be the last.

[Boudica]

How could this man possibly know if Jesus's disciples were illiterate or not? Jesus lived 2,000 years ago, it is practically impossible for this man to know such detailed information like this. Where is the proof that they were illiterate, which is such a large claim from this man? Even if his disciples were illiterate (which there is no hard evidence of) there could have been people that wrote for them. So many scholars, historians, etc have this bullshit know it all mentality, it really pisses me off.

[Curtis24]

At this point, does it even matter?

[Magister Eckhart]

At this point, does it even matter?

Yes.

[Óttar]

He's an agnostic who couldn't deal with the fact that evil exists. Hardly worthy of the title "biblical scholar". He is living proof that heresy can only lead to unbelief, emphasizing the terrible danger evangelical Christianity and fundamentalist "born-again" Christians put the faith in every day they are allowed to go on spouting their nonsensical blasphemy.

Wait, so he has to be completely in accord with "orthodoxy" in order to be taken seriously as a scholar ? That doesn't make much sense to me.

How could this man possibly know if Jesus's disciples were illiterate or not? Jesus lived 2,000 years ago, it is practically impossible for this man to know such detailed information like this.

Have you actually read the book? Scholars can know a lot about societies in the past and whether particular people were likely to be literate or not.

He claims writers would forge documents in order to confirm a particular theological view for "the greater good." People had different ways of looking at the world back then and considering that peoples' view of the world was colored by superstition and 'supernatural' considerations, I don't doubt for a moment, that they would apply a "The ends justify the means" philosophy.

In the past, Christians would cite a supposed reference to Josephus to prove that Jesus was a historical person, but upon further scrutiny it was shown that this reference was dubious. I'm sure this wouldn't stop a zealous Catholic or some other Christian from continuing to allude to this dubious reference attributed to Josephus.

To this day the Catholic Church pretends the Shroud of Turin is real. It generates revenue and tourism for the church, and maintains those seduced by tradition in their grip.

Unfortunately I doubt the average believer takes such rational considerations into account. People will continue to believe that hopping around St. Elmo's fire, beads, holy water, massive palatial churches encrusted with gold and marble, priests with gilded vestments, solid gold chalices, and a woman crowned with stars while standing on a moon and a snake have to do with a Hebrew man who walked around in the desert 2,000 years ago because it makes them feel good. And the fact that 1 billion+ people pay lip service to it, apparently must make it correct.

Ignorance is bliss.

[Magister Eckhart]

Wait, so he has to be completely in accord with "orthodoxy" in order to be taken seriously as a scholar ? That doesn't make much sense to me.

I wouldn't give much credence to a Hare Krishna or a Moony commentary on the Koran, or a Fundamentalist Christian's "scholarly" writing on the Bhagavad-Gita.

However, you miss the point. The point is, he's being paraded as some kind of expert because he's a "biblical scholar" with a Ph.D. and provocative ideas. A lot of theorists have had PhDs and provocative ideas, that doesn't make them worth listening to. The fact of the matter is that he has no right to call himself a Bible scholar. He's a literary critic at best.

This book will be used to reinforce already extant doubt in sceptics and regarded by believers as valueless: it's a meaningless gesture that is ultimately meant only to be a provocative attack on Christianity, made acceptable by the general disregard for tradition, tendency towards irreligion, and vulgarity of thought and deed that defines our age.

[Boudica]

Have you actually read the book? Scholars can know a lot about societies in the past and whether particular people were likely to be literate or not.

He claims writers would forge documents in order to confirm a particular theological view for "the greater good." People had different ways of looking at the world back then and considering that peoples' view of the world was colored by superstition and 'supernatural' considerations, I don't doubt for a moment, that they would apply a "The ends justify the means" philosophy.

In the past, Christians would cite a supposed reference to Josephus to prove that Jesus was a historical person, but upon further scrutiny it was shown that this reference was dubious. I'm sure this wouldn't stop a zealous Catholic or some other Christian from continuing to allude to this dubious reference attributed to Josephus.

To this day the Catholic Church pretends the Shroud of Turin is real. It generates revenue and tourism for the church, and maintains those seduced by tradition in their grip.

Unfortunately I doubt the average believer takes such rational considerations into account. People will continue to believe that hopping around St. Elmo's fire, beads, holy water, massive palatial churches encrusted with gold and marble, priests with gilded vestments, solid gold chalices, and a woman crowned with stars while standing on a moon and a snake have to do with a Hebrew man who walked around in the desert 2,000 years ago because it makes them feel good. And the fact that 1 billion+ people pay lip service to it, apparently must make it correct.

Ignorance is bliss.

When you say "have you actually read the book", if you're referring to the bible, yes I have, as a child I went to Catholic school if that tells you enough. What I am saying is unbiased, I'm not a Christian, I'm just a person who can't stand scholars that make large unprovable claims, yet say that they are fact. You said "Scholars can know a lot about societies in the past and whether particular people were likely to be literate or not.", Scholars only know about that time (2,000 years ago) from things they have found from that time, for example writings and artifacts. As you can imagine, since in A.D. 70 the Romans invaded and destroyed most of Jerusalem and Israel, and cities were practically burned to the ground, many writings from that time are not available to us today, most of the writings from that time are biblical writings. This being said, it is highly unlikely that this man would be able to know if the 12 disciples from 2,000 years ago were literate or not. Besides, every Hebrew child was required to memorize the first five books of the Torah before they were 12, to memorize they had to read. They also talked about it and were required to write their thoughts as part of their schooling. To say that Paul was illiterate is just silly in it's self because he was under tutelage to become one of the religious leaders of his day before he became a Christian, and he was a Roman citizen.

I'm sure that a number of things in the Bible have been rewritten, etc, like you said and for the reasons that you mentioned, I will not dispute that, it's only logical. However I will argue this man's claims because there is no substantial evidence supporting them. It has always irked me when scholars do this, it's as if they think that they were actually there during that time or something. Everything that scholars, historians, etc know about the times they speak of is from what they have read which was written by other people or in some cases person.

[Psychonaut]

Is this news? Nine years ago when I was taking NT classes, we were learning that many of the NT texts were written pseudonymously after the fact—with Mathew and Luke being derived from an earlier Q Gospel.

[Cato]

Q Gospel

Which exists only in theory as a result of textual criticism of the synoptics. An actual copy of Q has never been uncovered.