Bart Ehrman

The works of Bart Ehrman have been creating something of a stir over on the Church of the Brethren progressive listserve, Voices for an Open Spirit (VOS). Yesterday I posted this as a reply to a couple of evanglical blog reviews to Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. PJ Williams is the evangelical blogger (You can read his review of Ehrman's book here). Part of the issue on the VOS list was that Ehrman has apparently identified himself as an agnostic, and that troubles some. It doesn't trouble me any as long as the scholarship is good. It is. Anyway my post, and I will comment more if anything comes along over there worthwhile:

Thanks for the links to the reviews of Ehrman. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the full posts, in particular the blog of PJ Williams. I admit to being ignorant of evangelical scholarship and assume you are quoting these posts because you think they represent well-thought-out reviews.

I have a couple of comments and then a question.

First, one of the essential criticisms of Erhman in these posts seems to be that Erhman misrepresents or doesn't understand or oversimplifies the evangelical notion of the divine inspiration of the scriptures. This may be true, but a quick reading of Williams' reply to Ehrman along with the handful of writers who responded to Williams leads me to believe that (even a handful of)evangelicals do not agree among themselves what constitutes inspiration of the scriptures.

My sense is that Ehrman takes aim at what I would call the common-sense, lay-persons view of divine inspiration, also promulgated by the prominent TV preachers, that God inspired the original writers who then wrote down the words of God. This happened in a "privileged" time when God was working in the world in a unique way, and what was witnessed and recorded was inspired and recorded essentially without error. This seems to have been Ehrman's early view himself as a new born-again Christian. My hunch is that many Christians of all stripes have this view and are completely unaware that there even are textual variants, are but vaguely aware that there are differences in the texts on things like the birth stories of Jesus but don't think them important...

And, that most pastors are perfectly happy to allow people to stay ignorant because it stirs up trouble. (My question, to follow in a moment, pertains to this issue.)

Second, a week or so ago I said in a post that I believe that once you go down the road of biblical scholarship, ala Ehrman, it is pretty hard to put the genie back into the bottle. This issue is addressed in the snippet of conversation that follows from Williams' blog when C. Stirling Bartholomew wishes that someone would aggressively take on Ehrman's "project." Williams replies that this is not easy because evangelical textual criticism is not in a "very good state," in part because "Ehrman is only able to make his argument so plausible because he begins from an existing consensus about textual criticism that is itself not particularly conducive to evangelical belief." Jay: I.E., the "existing consensus" of modern biblical scholarship is dangerous to one's faith. The quote follows:

>>C. Stirling Bartholomew said...

>>Ehrman exaggerates the problem for verbal inspiration posed by textual variants. However, there seems to be no way to avoid some level of residual uncertainty about the original reading in a minute fraction of the NT text. So what should I say to a 21 year old bible student who asks about Ehrman's argument?

>>The stock and trade answer, no doubtful reading places orthodox theology at risk, leaves Ehrman's objection essentially untouched. I would like to see a more aggressive deconstruction of Ehrman's project. Why should we let him go on year after year publishing these books without a substantive and devastating reply?

>>Someone with a orderly logical mind needs to show us why Ehrman's argument that uncertainty about some readings in the NT text does not render useless the notion of verbal inspiration. I have been looking on the web for an answer to this and all I can come up with is the textbook stuff I was taught 30 years ago in seminary.

>>P J Williams said...

>>C. Stirling Bartholomew,
>>I agree that Ehrman needs some more substantive reply. However, we should not be tempted into any premature reply. Evangelical textual criticism is not, in my view, currently in a very good state. This is partly because we have been too content with cosy, but not ultimately satisfactory, replies. There is no easy cut-off between 'doctrinal' and 'non-doctrinal' variants since, in historic evangelical theology, history and doctrine are linked. Ehrman is only able to make his argument so plausible because he begins from an existing consensus about textual criticism that is itself not particularly conducive to evangelical belief.<<

Jay: Thinking about this just makes me wonder about how much middle ground there is anymore between conservatives and liberals on the "authority" of the scriptures.

But, then, I also wonder, and this is my question(s): who really reads this stuff anyway? I now know... that some evangelical biblical scholars are reading Ehrman and feeling the need to reply. But who else is buying his books? And why? And how many pastors are using this kind of material in their bible studies and sermons? Do those of us who are pastors feel any need to have our church members be aware of biblical scholarship? How do we answer those who have genuine questions about the inconsistencies in the scriptures when they discover them? And, to those progressive pastors on this list, how much have we contributed to "losing" the middle of Christianity to popular conservatism because we haven't done the hard work over the years of educating our folks about how to read the bible with a "critical" and thoughtful eye?