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4 Misconceptions Christians Spread About The New Testament (feat. Dr. Bart Ehrman)
30th Nov. 2021 | Genetically Modified Skeptic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMc8FVlOZZg

O 0:30 What exactly are the qualifications of Bart Ehrman supposed to be?

New Testament scholar ... sure. Probably he does know a bit about textual variants found in manuscripts, and that two passages of John (adulteress and trinitarian version of witnesses above) are lacking from Sinaiticus.

But he also defends the kind of scholarship - if you like to call it that - where all tradition actually surrounding a work is suspect, while in fact, in general, the main clue to author assignation remains precisely tradition. And when I say "in general" I mean for non-NT works, like tragedies of Sophocles or comedies of Plautus.

I 0:55 Yes, it is.

Even supposing we had more than just one source, Josephus, who can have had Jewish reasons to misplace Quirinus in time, so we could be sure Quirinus actually arrived on the scene when Herod was already dead, the verb in Luke was "egeneto" and one could argue the word here actually for once, as previously in Classic Attic, means "became" and that Quirinus' first census was a reuse of one that had actually taken place before he came - so the meaning would be "this census [later] became Quirinus' first one" (because he reused it).

Roman administration had a charmingly amateurish side to it - at least that side would have been charming to the administrators, not always to those administrated. Before you go on a rant on Roman administration being so famous, did you know the guys who took taxes had already paid the tax in Rome, where it went to the highest bidder, and then they pressed the provincials in order to get back the investment and ideally (very usually) some more? (Roman roads are certainly great, but they were built by actual architects, not by the administrators personally).

II 1:05 "historic versus legendary"

The dichotomy supposes that history and legend are two different genres ... legend is usually history, often enough accurate history, and history can be inaccurate without being legendary, as happens by fake geekism (the guy Greene who wanted to do away with the name Hastings in the famous battle), simple mistakes, or propagandistic goals (including in modern academia, confer the case of Marcan priority).

It seems a countryman of mine or a Dane commented here and then took his comment away.

I'll cite before I answer:

// Lars Pallesen
The dichotomy supposes that history and legend are two different genres ... because they are. Very much so in fact. Noah's ark ain't history, you know. Or perhaps you don't? //

I very much don't "know" Noah's ark "not being history," I'am an eager defender of its historic accuracy, actually. And, that partly from pagan legends parallel to the Biblical account.

III 1:58 If you give me a choice between traditional view and a modern view dating from enlightenment or 19th C, I usually take the former one.

IV 2:29 How about the CHURCH named the Gospels, on authorising them, according to the authors the CHURCH knew to be such?

2:41 At least one of the Gospels does claim to be by an eyewitness, see John for Crucifixion. And before you start saying the author is claiming someone else was in his opinion the eyewitness, no, he lent his pen to those around him, so they can say "we know" - a bit more intricate, but actually same procedure as the Church naming the Gospels. And btw, that occasion, those borrowing the pen would have shared the hagiographer's inerrancy, but that's a theological note. For history, it's sufficient, they gave the attestation.

2:50 Third person narrative by participants is far from unknown, see Moses and Caesar.

V 3:11 A good competence in Greek does not argue they lived outside Palestine.

St. Luke did, and he visited Palestine to make the research.

3:23 Our Lord's followers all lived in Palestine - correct. Very correct for the period when they were so.

They all spoke Aramaic. Correct.

"we have no indication that any of them were educated"

Matthew = Levi = the tax collector. A Levite would be highly educated. He'd certainly know the Mosaic law in Hebrew. A tax collector would on top of that have a good grasp of the languages spoken by Romans.

John has more likelihood to be a Cohen, one of the lesser disciples, than a fisherman, one of the twelve, according to the research of Jean Colson CSS, who published his work L'Énigme du disciple que Jésus aimait in 1968. A Cohen would also be highly educated. And by the time he traditionally wrote the Gospel - namely after Patmos - he would have been outside Palestine for quite some time.

The argument seems so taken from the highly nationalistic 19th C. where fishermen in Europe very rarely left their home, unless they went to US or Canada ...

3:31 First, the John who was mentioned in Acts would have been a fisherman. Another John is mentioned as one among the Cohanim same passage.

Second, the text doesn't state the disciples were illiterate as a matter of fact, but that the priests saw them to be so. That is, they were reading the Torah habitually with the help of Targums in Aramaic, arguably many of which were provided by Jesus. Like Peter said his name was Kephas, and not that his name was, probably identic in meaning, Kaiaphas. Hence illiterate. As illiterate as someone speaking Cockney. Now, some people speak Cockney and do know how to read.

Third, the four fishermen disciples who were called first were not as literate as Matthew, see above. So, the argument assumes the chief disciples would be the most literate when they weren't.

3:36 Now seeing the constancy of Peter and of John, understanding that they were illiterate and ignorant men, they wondered; and they knew them that they had been with Jesus.

For "understanding" Vulgate has comperto quod - the illiteracy is the opinion of the men mentioned in verse 6 : Et Annas princeps sacerdotum, et Caiphas, et Joannes, et Alexander, et quotquot erant de genere sacerdotali.

It's obviously also about the Hebrew context and says nothing about their competence in Greek.

3:41 "they don't know the alphabet"

This is not quite the only meaning of "agrammatos" ...

Debates or just repartees:

I

the not so discrete wolf

I'm wanting an theist to answer this Question "what is the difference between me claiming that a bright pink invisible unicorn can cure everything because of a book said so and you claiming that a god (an invisible being said to of created anything) is real because one book said so?"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

This : the book we refer to, or rather books, were by their own first audience considered as history.

Now, facts can be historic and still badly analysed (confer pagans doing history in the Odyssey), but if a man tells a four day old corpse to come out and the former corpse does, what are chances there is even so no God?

Austin Stonecash

@Hans-Georg Lundahl so by this logic we have to accept all the supernatural claims of the Odyssey? Why does a book being written and believed by people mean it MUST be true?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Austin Stonecash There are some claims in the Odyssey that we need not accept, since only witness to them was Ulysses and he could have lied.

As to Athena, I don't know if "she" was guardian angel, demon, or perhaps a witch performing the shapeshift or several of these turn in turn. We need not accept she was born when Zeus had a headache and Hephaistos cured him by opening his head with a hammer.

I definitely would accept the claims of Iliad I, but I would assign to Apollon / Apollyon the role of a demon, same as the demon given the latter name in the Apocalypse.

I did not say "must be true" I said "historic" - some historic facts are fake, even though the overall text is historic. The reason is, it is way easier for a work essentially historic to be later on considered as fiction (especially when the style of writing and analysing historic events has changed) than for a work that is fictional to acquire the status of historic.

Fictional doesn't mean simply not true, it means not true but pretended to be true for well understood purposes of entertainment.

II

Tony Barreto

I am a happy Christian believer and I agree that these are all misconceptions. My faith does not depend on a literal interpretation of biblical stories. I believe the stories are divinely inspired and point to a transcendental reality that is fully compatible with rational thinking. If you are curious about this point of view, I would recommend starting with John Vervaeke and then checking out Jonathan Pageau. Best wishes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I believe the stories are divinely inspired and point to a transcendental reality that is fully compatible with rational thinking."

Why would rational thinking not be compatible with a literal interpretation of biblical stories?

III

Helen Ellsworth

Image someone telling a story about someone, 30, 40 years ago, how accurate would that be? ........ not very,

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The sequence of pregnant events arguably would be fairly accurate.

Besides, what is your rationale for putting that many years between events and Gospels?

IV

JiveDadson

The gospels occasionally give detailed accounts of characters' internal thoughts, in addition to events where there were no witnesses (other than Satan). In fiction, that is called the third person omniscient point of view.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Would you mind giving examples?

Matthew and Luke chapters 4, the disciples would obviously have taken Jesus' word for what happened with Satan.

Examples where Jesus tells what certain think, well, we would be accepting Jesus as omniscient, more than just a human eyewitness.

Motives of Judas - very clear in retrospect, after one knew of his treason.

Are there any others that would be a real issue?

Sam Miller

Not only that but there are parts to the story where no one is present. Mark has the resurrection narrative with women discovering the empty tomb and not telling anyone. How would Mark know this? How would anyone know this? That’s not first hand account eye witness testimony.

Omnitroph

@Sam Miller Not telling anyone IMMEDIATELY, but they would have afterwards.

Sam Miller

@Omnitroph not according to the gospel of Mark. Read the last chapter

Omnitroph

@Sam Miller "They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."
Does it mean that they lived in constant fear for the rest of their lives and took their secret to the grave? No, of course not. It means that in the immediate aftermath of the event, they said nothing, only later sharing their story.

Robin Harwood

Satan told them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Sam Miller I second Omnitroph.

We have the eyewitness testimony of the women, and arguably it ended with "we told no one" - problem solved.

Leo Yohansen

The gospels also present speeches that could never have been instantly written down or memorized to have been recalled later to be put into a gospel account. That's why the claim that the accounts had been inspired by the holy spirit is made even though there are no witnesses to that either.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Leo Yohansen That claim would have diverse merits for diverse speeches.

And remember, the environment was well versed in the art of instant memorisation. For instance, in John 3 a Pharisee of an older generation (not the one to which Jesus said over and over "woe to ye Pharisees" but the one which had been astonished in the Temple when He was twelve years) is there, and if Nicodemus became a Christian, he is obviously the one St. John knew the speech from. It is also a hypothesis that St. John was not one of the Twelve, but the host at the Last Supper, and that means he could have been the host of Jesus when Nicodemus came as well. By the way, St. Nicodemus, both RC and EO consider him a saint ...

But overall, it was a given in historiography at the time that the historiographer was giving his wording of what someone had said, often for embellishment, while it was also generally a given that the speaker sought to embellish his words when speaking - this means the actual wording in a historic text and when spoken need not strictly coincide.

The content would.

As the Gospel of John was originally written in Greek, only Matthew had an Aramaic or Hebrew first version, and Nicodemus arguably spoke Aramaic, the fact of translating is already a remove from actual wording, while giving same content.

Leo Yohansen

@Hans-Georg Lundahl 1. There is no such thing as the 'art of instant memorization'.

2. Trying to justify how the information of a fictional account had been transmitted by speculating about characters in the fictional account is useless. Especially when the characters in the account are made to use the title 'Rabbi' (John 3:2, 3:26) which hadn't been used until after 70 CE, when Rabbinic Judaism had been established decades after the time portrayed in the gospel accounts. In other words, no gospel accounts had been written before 70 CE and no supposed eyewitnesses would have been around after.

3. Speaking about actual wording going from spoken to written is already redundant as the words couldn't have been instantly memorized in the first place. No one had stood by listening to something like The Sermon on the Mount being spoken while instantly memorizing it as it was still being spoken.

4. There was no Aramaic first version of Matthew. The author of the gospel ascribed to Matthew had written the account in Greek and had used the gospel ascribed to Mark as his template. That's why the gospels ascribed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the synoptic accounts.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Leo Yohansen "1. There is no such thing as the 'art of instant memorization'."

There certainly is. Twelve people take turns to hear a phrase, repeat it several times over, then their turn comes again - for instance. But the fact is, the more you try to memorise in situations where you have to get it instantly, the better you get.

"2. Trying to justify how the information of a fictional account had been transmitted by speculating about characters in the fictional account is useless. Especially when the characters in the account are made to use the title 'Rabbi' (John 3:2, 3:26) which hadn't been used until after 70 CE, when Rabbinic Judaism had been established decades after the time portrayed in the gospel accounts. In other words, no gospel accounts had been written before 70 CE and no supposed eyewitnesses would have been around after."

a) Would you mind telling me when the transition from fictional characters in the Church to actual characters in the Church occurred? You do admit that St. Irenaeus of Lyons is an actual person, right?
b) "which hadn't been used until after 70 CE," - I happen to think you are wrong, the title is older than Rabbinic Judaism.

"3. Speaking about actual wording going from spoken to written is already redundant as the words couldn't have been instantly memorized in the first place. No one had stood by listening to something like The Sermon on the Mount being spoken while instantly memorizing it as it was still being spoken."

If there are sufficient people taking turns or if the one preaching the sermon repeats it in front of the disciples sufficiently long, yes, there is.

"4. There was no Aramaic first version of Matthew. The author of the gospel ascribed to Matthew had written the account in Greek and had used the gospel ascribed to Mark as his template. That's why the gospels ascribed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the synoptic accounts."

a) The actual reason is that they are very akin in storyline compared to St. John's Gospel;
b) the theory of Markan priority is unhistorical, an invention from 19th C. Germany, and useful from start for apostates like Bismarck;
c) and the historic tradition is that St. Matthew was the first Gospeller and that he first wrote in Aramaic before adding a Greek translation, incumbent on you to explain why the Church got this wrong.

V

Bart Stewart

Four questions answered out of about a million that could have been chosen. There are so many problems with Christianity you have to wonder how it got so big in the first place. Maybe it was this -- It became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and later the Holy Roman Empire, and at that point if you didn't express enthusiastic support for it, you got a visit from the King's men. The guys with the swords.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Not true more than half of the time.

And other truth : if you were too enthusiastic, you get a visit from the king's men, since he wasn't (heard of St. Thomas Becket?)

Bart Stewart

@Hans-Georg Lundahl "Not true more than half the time?" So, maybe 48.07% of the time? I'm not as precise as you but for the average person (Not some high-ranking cleric who got in trouble with an insane king) you had to be Christian back in the good old days, back when we were "great." Heretics were burned. That's why l say - No Theocracy in America!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Bart Stewart "you had to be a Christian" (under pain of death penalty) was true c. half the time. If you go between 313 and 1820, it was the latter half of the period that Inquisitors had any say.

By then Christianity was already well intrenched so most who could have rejected it without bad consequences didn't - meaning this initial success needs another explanation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

calculated, added

I found out, this approach took me back to 1066 - so, make it less than the second half of the period.

VI 3:47 "written thirty to sixty years later by other people."

John was actually written up to seventy years later by ... an eyewitness.

But the others starting out only thirty years later and Matthew not being the St. Matthew who is described as Levi ... simple reconstruction, nothing like tradition from those likeliest to know.

3:50 "who had heard stories of Jesus in circulation"

• 1) the reconstruction without tradition goes on
• 2) the idea doesn't help to explain how these four became canonic
• 3) and contradicts what tradition says of each Gospel : I and IV by eyewitnesses, II by a secretary of one, namely St. Marc worked as secretary to St. Peter, III by one who was not content with stories in circulation but went to original eyewitnesses.

VII 4:19 Here we are into semantics.

Are Marcionites Christians?

While there were people unlike all claiming to be Christian today, more or less, like Marcionites and Gnostics, the people we have the Bible from are not these, and they are theologically united as Catholics, some would say Orthodox.

phil coombes

Only because the Council of Niceae decided which gospels were "true" & which not, & then set about enforcing the party line...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@phil coombes er ... no.

The guys who had widely different NT canons were definitely out of the Church before the Council of Nicaea.

While it seems Marcionites still existed, they were not "a party" within the Christian Church then anymore than David Koresh was a party within the Roman Catholic Church a bit more recently.

phil coombes

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Having done a bit of reading *cough*, I take your point that the Biblical canon was not tidily assembled by an ecclesiastical Board of Directors (albeit with Divine assistance in the vetting) as popular myth would have us believe, but I do claim in mitigation that this seemed completely plausible, in the light of subsequent Church actions against those deemed guilty of daring to harbour different opinions, as exactly the sort of behaviour the Church Fathers were capable of indulging in...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@phil coombes In fact:

• 1) there were somewhat differring canons East and West, and this was evened out by the councils of Rome and Carthage (some decades after Nicaea) - it didn't concern the Gospels but some in the East were not accepting the Apocalypse and some in the West were not accepting for instance Hebrews, if I recall correctly;
• 2) the Church actions you call subsequent are from the II Millennium.

VIII 4:53 I suppose Bart Ehrman is referring to Galatians chapter 2.

Especially verse 14. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as the Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?

Now, while most of the commentators say St. Peter went somewhat too far in accomodation in discipline, some have claimed that St. Paul consistently calls him "Peter" and that the Cephas here mentioned is another guy.

Obviously there were things to sort out, and we do not have in the traditions of the papacy or the letters of St. Peter any reason to consider he permanently disagreed with St. Paul.

IX 5:01 Yes, I know 3rd and 4th C. had their fair share of heresies.

There was a Catholic Church that withstood these and later on withstood Protestantism and Modernism ...

X 7:57 Obviously Catholics did tend to accept either Apostolic Creed (West) or Didaché (East, I think) ... but not necessarily as on par with NT Scripture, notably in questions of liturgy.

It's not just a question of what you quote as certain truth, it is also about what you can read during Holy Mass.

XI 8:24 First, Matthew is from the thirties.

Second, the Church acted as a mass medium.

Third, "legend" doesn't mean "made-up"

"it takes no time to make up stories"

But it would take some time to get rid of those able to contradict them if false.

"all of us have stories about us that are not true, and often they are told the next day"

And nearly always by adversaries who take no time to check with you. Or at best loose supporters.

Church structure allowed to eliminate this potential source of errors (twelve had lived 3 years, 6 months with Jesus, and were chiefs etc.)

9:09 Bart, sounds like adversaries, not your best supporter club ... usually, I trust adversarial legend less than supporter legend.

10:07 Generally, if you were from Pompei, you were a citizen of Rome and Pompei. If you were from Galilee, you were a citizen of Galilee and a subject of Rome (this later changed).

St. Joseph would have creatively reinterpreted "from your own city" as what it would mean in a Hebrew context. As Herod's Judah was at the time a protectorate, this might have avoided him an actual census, if the Gospeller's "the whole world" is tongue in cheek about Augustus' wording.

10:12 "was there really a star"

Certainly not a naturally occurring one. I don't believe that miraculous stories are legendary accretions, in general, they could sometimes be outright lies, but they are not the kind of "genre shift" you get with legend transmission changing a story.

I kind of bet, none of the false stories about Bart's life contain any miracles.