Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

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Peter Kirby
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Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Peter Kirby »

Between his blog and his books, Bart Ehrman is pretty busy. While his Did Jesus Exist? has been frequently dismissed for a fairly shallow approach to its question, I doubt even he considers it his best work. He's already onto another title, this one called Forgery and Counterforgery.

You can see Roger Pearse blogging through it here:

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/tag/ ... erforgery/

The review "Lies, Damned Lies, and Patristics" by David Lincicum here:

http://themarginaliareview.com/archives/520

An earlier review here at Earliest Christianity:

http://earliestchristianity.wordpress.c ... ian-texts/

I should get this book since it's quite close to my interests. So many books, so little time... ;)
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by stephan happy huller »

I really have a hard time with people who attack Bart Ehrman and claim he lacks 'credibility' (whatever that means) because they don't agree with his conclusions. I read his book on scriptural readings from Didymus the Blind once. He's very qualified. Silly people. I think I spent too much time at the other forum.
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Roger Pearse »

I ought to say that the book is very hard going. It's terribly badly written and structured, and larded with the results of a literature search carried out by a few of Ehrman's graduate assistants. That's why I haven't managed to get to grips with it much as yet: it's just awful to read in a critical way.

I've read through chapter 4, which is on forgery in antiquity as a subject. This is where he discusses whether there was a custom of writing books in the name of the master of the school. Ehrman wants to debunk this (although there are testimonies to it). It's around 60 pages, and I've been through it once, but need to do a second pass before I comment. (I have no dog in the fight, as you Yanks say; I think the NT books were written by the people named at the top of the page, so whether this thesis is true or not is immaterial to me. It seemed like a good chunk of stuff to review for methodology and conclusions).

What is obvious is that Bruce Metzger would have done a far better job on this. It's strange that Ehrman doesn't realise that he should have followed Metzger's book structure.
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Peter Kirby »

stephan happy huller wrote:I really have a hard time with people who attack Bart Ehrman and claim he lacks 'credibility' (whatever that means) because they don't agree with his conclusions. I read his book on scriptural readings from Didymus the Blind once. He's very qualified. Silly people. I think I spent too much time at the other forum.
These people didn't care about him until he tried to attack their pet theory. That set them off.
Roger Pearse wrote:I ought to say that the book is very hard going. It's terribly badly written and structured, and larded with the results of a literature search carried out by a few of Ehrman's graduate assistants. That's why I haven't managed to get to grips with it much as yet: it's just awful to read in a critical way.

I've read through chapter 4, which is on forgery in antiquity as a subject. This is where he discusses whether there was a custom of writing books in the name of the master of the school. Ehrman wants to debunk this (although there are testimonies to it). It's around 60 pages, and I've been through it once, but need to do a second pass before I comment. (I have no dog in the fight, as you Yanks say; I think the NT books were written by the people named at the top of the page, so whether this thesis is true or not is immaterial to me. It seemed like a good chunk of stuff to review for methodology and conclusions).

What is obvious is that Bruce Metzger would have done a far better job on this. It's strange that Ehrman doesn't realise that he should have followed Metzger's book structure.
Ehrman has a big following these days, popularly, so it would be nice to have as good a book as possible in their hands. I haven't read it, so I can't really comment on how good it is.
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Roger Pearse »

It reminds me rather too strongly of the kind of biblical studies book that I looked in when I was reading chemistry at university. They were obvious crap, even to my 19-year old eyes. I basically felt that they just decorated the opinions of the authors -- themselves contemptible -- with the product of a literature search. Anyone could do that; and if that was what the humanities was, then, like most scientists, I despised it.

It was nearly 20 years before I did anything further in the humanities. Then I came across T.D. Barnes, "Tertullian: a literary and historical study", which showed me what good scholarship looked like, and demonstrated that what I had read was not scholarship, as I had thought, but *bad* scholarship. Shortly afterwards I created the Tertullian Project, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I am very much afraid that the book will do no good to anyone. I can already see that it won't show people how to do scholarship; rather the reverse.

I also suspect that it will teach many people that most important ancient writers were deliberate liars -- Ehrman actually has at least one page in his book dedicated to saying more or less precisely this -- and that most interesting ancient works are forgeries; which will not exactly do much to encourage interest in, and knowledge of, ancient literature.

But I have only read about 30% of this, and it may have better parts to it. Few books are entirely useless save as waste paper.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Eric »

The greatest attribute that Ehrman has given to general readers, is a stronger foundation to see that the Christian/Judea Bible is what it is -- a collection of writings by humans interpreting their beliefs before and during their lifetime based on events and influences of what it means to believe.
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by MrMacSon »

peterkirby wrote:
stephan happy huller wrote:I really have a hard time with people who attack Bart Ehrman and claim he lacks 'credibility' (whatever that means) because they don't agree with his conclusions. I read his book on scriptural readings from Didymus the Blind once. He's very qualified. Silly people. I think I spent too much time at the other forum.
These people didn't care about him until he tried to attack their pet theory. That set them off.
Hi. I think the thing that set people off was Ehrman's Did Jesust Exist?. Because
  • a. he used a degree of ad hominem to have a go a those with an opposing view,
    b. he made some bare assertions, such as an Aramaic background for some gospels, without really providing decent argument for those assertions
    c. Did Jesust Exist? was quite a contrast to his other works, both in standard and what he had implied in them ...
    - that the bible is difficult to base much on
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Peter Kirby »

MrMacSon wrote:Hi. I think the thing that set people off was Ehrman's Did Jesust Exist?. Because
  • a. he used a degree of ad hominem to have a go a those with an opposing view,
    b. he made some bare assertions, such as an Aramaic background for some gospels, without really providing decent argument for those assertions
    c. Did Jesust Exist? was quite a contrast to his other works, both in standard and what he had implied in them ...
    - that the bible is difficult to base much on
Regrettably, I haven't read his book, so I can't make much intelligent contribution to the details of the criticism, but I have no doubt that there is more to the objections than just Ehrman's conclusions. I don't mean to be uncharitable, but I can see him not wanting to spend much time worrying over the details of this particular book. He probably knew it would sell even if it had lots of bad points.
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

I think his next book sounds like it will be much more interesting. The one in which he argues that Paul thought Jesus was an angel who descended to the flesh, then ascended again.

How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.

I think he's dancing pretty close to mythicism here, even if he doesn't realize it. He is partially attempting to reconcile Paul's apparently elevated Christology with the lower Christology of the Synoptic Gospels. I'm kind of looking forward to this one, and it doesn't sound like the kind of thing that will just be farmed out to grad students.
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Re: Ehrman's latest book: Forgery and Counterforgery

Post by avi »

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:I'm kind of looking forward to this one, and it doesn't sound like the kind of thing that will just be farmed out to grad students.
Perhaps I am wrong, Diogenes, but, in my opinion, the main problem with DJE was that Bart did not farm it out to his graduate students.

I suspect they would have protested, if he had, for they most probably, would not have accepted the "Aramaic" nonsense.

Thank you Roger, for a useful comment, and book review "in progress". I understand you have only digested a third or less, but it was constructive, in my opinion, for you to offer these comments. As Peter wrote, so many books, so little time....

avicenna
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