Bart Ehrman's New Book - Greg Jones Comments

University of North Carolina religion professor Bart Ehrman writes in the first paragraph of his new book Jesus, Interrupted that while the Bible "is the most widely purchased, extensively read, and deeply revered book in the history of Western Civilization" it is also likely the most "thoroughly misunderstood, especially by the lay reading public."  This sentence, while in some sense factually true, bears within it a seed of what's wrong with Bart Ehrman's entire project.  

That is further demonstrated by his claim that "scholars of the Bible have made significant progress in understanding the Bible over the past two hundred years, building on archeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of the ancient Hebrew and Greek languages in which the books of Scripture were originally written, and deep and penetrating historical, literary, and textual analyses."

What's wrong with these two sentences?  Allow me to elucidate.  

While it is true that the Christian Bible is clearly the most influential single body of writing in Western Civilization, Western Civilization may not necessarily be that important to the Bible (either its form or its interpretation).  After all, Christians have cherished the Bible since antiquity in a cosmos of various and exotic cultures not all considered to be particularly Western - Celtic, Egyptian and Ethiopian to name just three.  Indeed, it is almost certainly true (as modern scholarship upholds) that nearly all of the books of Scripture were composed by Jewish people living in Africa and Asia.  The Bible is much more properly understood to be a world book than merely a 'Western' property.  

Which gets to Ehrman's entire problem: he continues to define the meaning of the phrase "understanding the Bible" in terms of the rationalistic, historical-critical, skeptical methods of the modern West -- even though the Bible was not written, edited or even now largely read by persons who share that hermeneutic.  

Factually speaking, the recent discoveries made by scientists have not been of things never before known.  No, much of what has been done is to restore a degree of familiarity with the languages and contexts of the ancient world which -- well -- the ancients were totally familiar with by virtue of being alive then.  To put a plain point on it -- the knowledge of Scripture that Paul exhibits, for example, when he wrote his own letters (which would become Scripture themselves) is of a degree that I seriously doubt whether Ehrman could even come close.  Paul, after all, is likely to have been versant in biblical Hebrew, as well as Aramaic, Greek and Latin.  As a trained bible scholar -- a Pharisee -- Paul probably had committed the Scriptures to memory to a large degree, as well as a large oral tradition, and he would have been exposed to manuscripts far more 'original' than any Ehrman has ever seen.

 

Of course, Paul wasn't the only one.  Folks like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Jerome -- to name three -- all likely knew far more about Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and the cultural/physical contexts in which the Bible arose than today's scientists will ever know. 

 

Second, the notion that modern Western scholars somehow better "understand the Bible" is likewise predicated on a definition that frankly is unacceptable to any believing Christian (or Jew.)  For we who believe in the God of the Bible -- "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord."  In other words, "understanding the Bible" is a goal which can only be reached (however partially in this life) by prayerful study of the Bible from within the community of faith.  

That's right: no individual, no matter how scholarly - can "understand the Bible."  The Bible belongs not to the 'public' or the individual reader, but to the Church (or in the case of the Hebrew Scriptures to faithful Jews.)  It is the Church which together -- with one heart and one mind -- engages the Bible.  We use the God given gifts of memory, reason and skill in this pursuit.  We recognize that from time to time we will have to accept tensions, disagreements and what logical inconsistencies.  We do this trusting that the goal is Spirit-inspired Wisdom, not 'man-based knowledge.'

For Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, mainline Protestants, and Jews, the Bible is much more complex and inspiring than the paper-thin, literalistic book of straw that Ehrman likes to knock down.  We don't deny the many inconsistencies between the two testaments, three original languages, multiple literary genres and sixty-six individual books which comprise the sacred library of Scripture.  Rather, we uphold these in tension, just as we likewise uphold the incredible depths of intrabiblical harmony which also cohere these many pieces of writing together into something we recognize as inspired by God's genius.  

I have said this before (the last time he wrote a book with almost the exact same content), but I'll say it again: Ehrman is a fundamentalist who's lost his faith, but has found nowhere else to look but back, and there with a bitter and critical eye.