Forgering Ahead: Bart Ehrman and NT Pseudepigraphy

As I mentioned previously, Bart Ehrman graced our fair city and gave the inaugural David L. Dungan Memorial Lecture, "Does the New Testament Contain Forgeries? The Surprising Claim of Modern Scholars." Ehrman's point was, in a word, Yes, the New Testament does contain forgeries. This doesn't strike me as one of modern scholarship's "surprising claims"; it is, after all, well over two hundred years old. But Ehrman's point—and he may be right here—is that the results of the work of "modern scholars" has not been as widely diffused as we might like. Of course, Ehrman presents the results of modern scholarship in rather tendentious terms (I don't think you have to be a fundamentalist or even conservative Christian to agree with this); it would be "surprising" if NT scholars began calling pseudepigraphal (falsely inscribed) texts "forgeries."

At any rate, Ehrman's lecture is available on the University of Tennessee's website; see here for the video (including the Q&A that followed), which is linked with Ehrman's PowerPoint. An even dozen of my institution's faculty, staff, and students attended the lecture on Thursday, 27 January, and last night (9 February) we met—along with some interested students who weren't able to attend the lecture—to discuss Ehrman's claims. I think a helpful and encouraging discussion followed, and on top of that we got to eat dinner together. Score!

I prepared written notes for last night's discussion. First I tried to summarize Ehrman's lecture to remind us what we heard (or to catch up any students who weren't able to hear Ehrman in person); then I responded to two aspects of the lecture ([i] his use of the term, forgery, and [ii] his tabulation of NT documents). Of course, there were other things to respond to, but I limited my prepared remarks to these two. You're welcome to look over my comments; if you have any additional insights, any questions, or if I misrepresent Ehrman or respond inappropriately to him, please feel free to leave a comment here.

Can We Trust the New Testament? A Response to Bart D. Ehrman

Bart Ehrman in Knoxville

The University of Tennessee has created a new lectureship, the David L. Dungan Memorial Lecture. The inaugural lecture, "Does The New Testament Contain Forgeries? The Surprising Claims of Modern Scholars," will be presented by Bart D. Ehrman at the University Center auditorium at 5.00 pm on Thursday, 27 January 2011. The UT press release is available here.

best analogy

Not many blog posts merit reposting. This one does.

Best Analogy Ever? The Bible is like a Software License

HT to Rev. Jeremy Smith for this great analogy:

[HT: James McGrath]

Markan forgery

Biblical scholar Margaret Mitchell and an inter-disciplinary team have subjected a purportedly medieval manuscript of Mark's gospel to close analysis and have determined that it is a nineteenth- or early twentieth-century forgery. The story is available in The Art Newspaper, along with a helpful affirmation that even forgeries are valuable learning opportunities:

Mitchell, a biblical scholar, undertook the task of analysing the text and found it to include the same errors contained in an edition of the Greek New Testament published by Philipp Buttmann in 1856. This led her to conclude that the creator of the Archaic Mark used Buttmann’s text as a guide for his forgery. “I’ve been asked repeatedly if I’m disappointed that the work is a forgery. I’m not. There is no longer a question mark after the date of the manuscript and that is tremendously satisfying,” said Mitchell.

The university intends to preserve the codex and encourage its use for further research into the forger’s techniques. “Those who study forgeries may be the largest beneficiaries of our scholarship,” said Mitchell.

[HT: Bible and Interpretation]

a survey you should take

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is planning a new online Bible resource, called "The World of the Bible: exploring people, places, and passage," and aimed at "general audiences." They're looking for input from people who constitute "general audiences," and they've developed a survey "to assess their current level of familiarity with and interest in the Bible." You can find the survey here.

This is your chance to let the leading professional society of biblical scholars—of diverse political, cultural, and theological backgrounds—know what your needs for such a resource might be. I highly recommend everyone give your two (or three) cents.

Was Paul a Jew?

The Tablet has an essay entitled, "Was Paul a Jew?" which picks up the discussion of Pamela Eisenbaum's new book, Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle (New York: HarperOne, 2009). I'm sympathetic to Eisenbaum's larger program (which I've encountered in Gabriella Gelardini's edited volume on Hebrews [see my comments here]), though I think there are problems with some of her details. Nonetheless, Stanley Stowers's blurb is about as positive as I could ever hope to receive; Stowers says:

Eisenbaum shows the implausibility of the common interpretation of Paul that pits a Christian essence against a superficial or rejected Jewish hull. The book's great accomplishment is to show us a historically plausible picture of a fully Jewish Paul who was also fully committed to Christ.

So I'm interested. Even so, the Tablet's essay, linked above, reveals more about the ways of thinking about Paul (and other Western symbols) in popular media than it does about the historical Paul and those who knew and/or remembered him in the first century or so of Christian history. Here's a blurb which illustrates both the nuance that I hope to see more of in our own reflection of Paul and the over-simplification that persists on seeing Christianity and Judaism as separable (or worse, separate!) "things":

If all this is true, it follows that when Paul condemns Jews, he is aiming his barbs at my meddling fellow Jewish missionaries of Christ, not the Jews, a people I harshly reject. And when he speaks of Judaism having been superseded, he means Judaism as a lifestyle to be aspired to by pagans, not Judaism as practiced by Jews. (In Acts, Jews do persecute Paul for preaching the gospel. But Acts doesn’t count as a source for Paul, since the man who probably wrote it, Luke, came along nearly half a century after him, by which point the Jesus movement was busily suppressing its Jewish roots.) (original italics)

[HT: Bible and Interpretation]

Who wrote the DSS

This isn't new, but it's worth re-posting here. Smithsonian.com published a brief essay, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?" Given the recent mentions of Raphael Golb in the press (not to mention in the American judicial system), Who wrote the DSS? is a rather important question.

[HT: Bible and Interpretation]

The end is nigh!

This will come as a shock to some of you, but apparently Hollywood has it wrong. The world isn't going to end in 2012. For the real "times and seasons" (which, I thought, was not for us to know; thank God I, too, was mistaken), see Harold Camping, of Family Radio fame. (I've never heard of Family Radio.)

Camping, 88, has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he'd found: The world will end May 21, 2011.

Unfortunately for my students, the Spring 2010 semester ends either on 1 May (MA New Testament students) or 13 May (undergraduate students). So . . . none of your assignments will be affected by the Parousia. Thankfully for me, final grades for non-graduating students don't have to be submitted until 24 May 2010. So no grading for me!

Thank you, Jesus!

UPDATE: So . . . I didn't pay attention to the difference between 2010 and 2011. I guess I'll have to do this semester's grading, and the next's, too. But in the Spring 2011, I'm letting the grading pile up on my desk!

[HT: Bible and Interpretation]

gender and reviewing books

Susan O'Doherty, on InsideHigherEd.com's Mama PhD blog, has a post on Gender and Book Reviews. (The issue regards the gender of the author being reviewed rather than the gender of the reviewer.) Given the recent discussion regarding gender and biblioblogging, I wonder if biblical scholars have noted (or ought to have noted) a similar phenomenon. Do we review books written by female and male scholars differently? Do we use different criteria and descriptors when reviewing books written by one gender over against the other?

A quick glance at my CV shows one review of a female author (Sidnie White Crawford's Rewritting Scripture in Second Temple Times [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008]; my review appeared in the Stone-Campbell Journal) and eight reviews of male authors. I have three more reviews in the queue, one of which is edited by two scholars, one female and one male. In addition, I have made comments on this blog on a number of books, most recently a series of comments on Gabriella Gelardini's edited volume on Hebrews (comments here). I'm not suggesting I'm not a part of the phenomenon O'Doherty addresses; I'm simply pointing to the data that would help make that determination.

So what of it? Do you male scholars suspect you or anyone else out there reviews books authored by female scholars differently? Do you female scholars feel your work isn't evaluated in the same terms or against the same standards as your male colleagues? If so, could we agree that this is a significantly more pressing problem than the gender gap among bloggers?

more on the Bibs department at Sheffield

Alison Bygrave (the insider voice from the department) has posted the following update regarding the Biblical Studies department at The University of Sheffield[.]:

The University of Sheffield has today confirmed its position with regard to the future of the Department of Biblical Studies. In the light of concerns regarding inadequate consultation, as well as feedback from staff and students, the Department of Biblical Studies is no longer under review and a proposal that it should be reconfigured as a Postgraduate Centre has been withdrawn.

Instead the University has asked the Faculty of Arts and Humanities to consider, as a matter of urgency, a short, medium and longer term plan for the Department. With regard to the undergraduate intake for 2010, the University can confirm that it will recruit students for this year onto single and dual honours degrees in Biblical Studies. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities are working with colleagues to ensure that these students are appropriately supported, including through the recruitment of additional staff.

Looking to the future, the University recognises the outstanding reputation of the Department of Biblical Studies in Sheffield for scholarship and a superb student experience, and has confidence that all concerned will work together to enhance this for future students.

Professor Mike Braddick
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

This is obviously good news. For all of you in any way responsible for making decisions at an institutional level, let this be a lesson to you that consulting people involved in a decision is always a wise thing to do before making that decision. I'm no organizational psychologist, but this seems to be one of the most frequently overlooked principles of, well, common decency.

HT: Bryan Lee

Biblical Studies at The University of Sheffield (or not, whatever)

Thank you to everyone who has sent me e-mails over the last week or so regarding the news that The University of Sheffield[.] is considering closing the undergraduate wing of the Biblical Studies department, a move that most (quite rightly) suspect would result in the end of biblical scholarship at Sheffield. The news was published on 8 Oct on the Students' Union website (via Education Officer Holly Taylor's blog). Subsequently, support for the department has exploded, with Jim West (posts available here), Mark Goodacre, Doug Chaplin, and many others following events and commentary. There is also a Facebook group and a website for those interested.

I have waited to comment on the situation in part because I'm really not sure what's going on and in part because I don't have access to the most reliable information. My opinions, therefore, are based less on solid facts and more on my impressions and observations from living and working in the department for over two years and with continued work in the department for an additional two-and-a-half years. Even so, the Bibs department has been the University's neglected step-child for some time, from a general lack of support for replacing faculty to a general view of the physical space inhabited by the Bibs department (on the 11th floor of the Arts Tower) as expansion potential for the Philosophy department (on the 12th floor). The department, admittedly, hasn't maximized the use of its space, but that problem could have been addressed without threatening the department as whole.

Despite all of this, the Biblical Studies department at The University of Sheffield[.] has a worldwide reputation and is a leading institution in terms of defining and embodying biblical scholarship. Its RAE scores attest the quality scholarship fostered by the department's faculty, to say nothing of the work put out by its graduates (myself included). Unlike many (most?) other theology and/or religion departments across the UK, the Bibs department is not religiously affiliated, and this has been the source of some criticism from circles to which I belong. But in my experience, this world-renowned, unaffiliated department was a welcoming, nurturing, and stimulating environment for biblical scholarship even for a conservative, confessional scholar such as I am. Sheffield is a truly unique place to pursue biblical scholarship, and the loss of the Biblical Studies department would be a loss both to The University and to professional biblical research.

just some thoughts

Standard study of the gospel tradition assumed that the gospel tradition was making a break from "Judaism." But "Judaism" is an essentialist modern concept, a largely European Christian scholarly construct, like Orientalism. It is not clear that "Judaism" has any historical referent, at least not until late antiquity at the earliest. (Horsley, Jesus in Context, 110)

I'm sympathetic to Horsley's point here, especially since it comes in his discussion of "social memory and gospel traditions" (109–25). But I think he's made it a bit too bluntly (i.e., without precision), and so some refinement seems in order.

1. First, "standard study of the gospel tradition" continues to assume that "the gospel tradition was making a break from 'Judaism,'" so I question the past-tense assumed. A mere quibble, perhaps, but the contemporary awareness of (and even emphasis upon) the variegated expression of "Judaism" in the late second Temple period hasn't corrected the problem Horsley's identifying here.


2. Second, I'm not sure it's helpful to say that "'Judaism' is an essentialist modern concept," but rather that gospels and Jesus scholarship have essentialized "Judaism," and that essentialization has had some unfortunate effects on our understanding of all things Christian origins and second Temple Jewish. Again, a mere quibble, perhaps. But "Judaism" [Ἰουδαϊσμός; Ioudaismos] was a category available in the ancient, non-European world (see, of course, Gal 1.14). The problem isn't the concept but our analytical use of that concept.


3. "European" and "Christian," perhaps, but I'm skeptical that "Judaism" is "a largely . . . scholarly construct," whether or not like Orientalism. Horsley's discussion might be focused on scholarly essentializations of Judaism, and rightly so, but the problem seems rather more cultural than simply scholarly. This is yet another instance in which scholarship in the humanities has a significant opportunity to identify a blind spot in our larger cultural context, to illuminate that blind spot, and to speak meaningfully about the very real problems with which that blind spot has been associated throughout Western civilization (anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, of course, but also more general questions about how we interact with "the Other").


4. And so I wouldn't say that "it is not clear that 'Judaism' has any historical referent" prior to late antiquity (again, see Gal 1.14). Instead, I happily note the opportunity to quote The Princess Bride with respect to New Testament scholars' (and others') use of Judaism: "You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

a[nother] new Bible

A comment on one of Michael Bird's posts on Euangelion announced the publication of this Bible. Can anyone make the argument that this is a good idea, from the standpoint of seeking to understand the Bible? Or is the point, rather, to foster a particular understanding of America? And if the latter, are you actually reading the Bible if you read this Bible?

text of the Apocalypse of Gabriel

Over at The Forbidden Gospels Blog, April DeConick posted a notice (which has since been taken offline and replaced with this) that the full translation (as well as the reconstructed Hebrew text) of the Apocalypse of Gabriel is available online [follow the link for the .pdf to access the Hebrew text].

I haven't looked at the Hebrew text, but after reading through the English translation (and being impressed by the amount of work still to do on this text, of course), I am even more convinced that the significance of this text for understanding Christian Origins and the earliest kerygma of Jesus' resurrection is on a par with Josephus's account of the Golden Eagle incident (War 1.648–655; Ant. 17.149–167) or Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. That's not to say that, if authentic, the Apocalypse of Gabriel isn't still momentously important. But its significance for Christian Origins needs to be kept in perspective. Unfortunately, perspective doesn't sell news stories.

Bible figurines

I love Precious Moments.

Resurrection, BC[E]

First, two preliminary comments.

1. It's a bitter-sweet thing to see the Bible in the news. On the one hand, our hearts are strangely warmed to see national and even international attention explicitly focused on The Book that We Love, and yet being in the news is rarely a sign of something good. In the case of the Bible, either we find (a) someone who similarly cherishes The Book that We Love speaking embarrassingly or uninformedly (á la Robertson or Dobson, et al.), or (b) someone who castigates said Book, often (though not not necessarily) from a similarly uninformed perspective.
2. I have attempted to avoid commenting on the story I comment upon here simply because the evidence is neither widely accessible, nor has it been subjected to the scrutiny of the scholarly community. Whether you trust them or loathe them, genuine, bona fide biblical scholars are human and liable to make untenable claims (see here for a recent and poignant example). The contribution biblical scholars make to wider cultural appropriations of the Bible is found precisely in the scholarly community, which reigns in its wilder elements and moves much mores deliberately (= slowly) precisely to avoid some of the embarrassing possibilities that have been actualized in recent years (examples here, here, and here). But this issue has since invaded even my seldom-used Facebook inbox, a sure sign that some sort of comment is in order.

That said, I have been following some (certainly not very much) of the media buzz regarding the so-called "Gabriel's [Vision of] Revelation."¹ On the basis of two news items from either side of the Atlantic — one in The Times Online, the other from Time (as in the magazine) — it appears that this story is destined to go the route of the sensationalized biblical news stories that ignite the public imagination and then fades before the scholarly discussion can moderate the popular claims made about this newly discovered tablet. But so far as the public's attention is still focused on this find, a few observations will help thoughtful inquirers (Christian or otherwise) properly assess the significance of this text.

First, the headlines and by-lines attached to these stories seriously misrepresent the actual text in question, even as reconstructed and interpreted by Israel Knohl, the chief proponent of the view that this text refers to a dying-and-rising messianic figure. For example, above the story on Time's website, we read:

A first-century BC tablet, thought to originate from the Jordanian bank of the Dead Sea, that tells the story of a Messiah who rose again after three days from the grave[.]

I immediately have two problems. First, nowhere in the actual report of the tablet's text does it refer to the figure in question as "Messiah." This is especially significant because scholars have been demonstrating for over two decades that messianic speculation in Second Temple Judaism was extremely variegated and disparate, with different Jewish groups nourishing (and being nourished by) different ideas regarding the messiah. This variety and diversity is only multiplied when we include speculation focused on people who aren't identified as "Messiah." And though the news piece doesn't acknowledge this problem, even Israel Knohl seems to be aware of it:

Professor Knohl contends that the tablet proves that messianic followers possessed the paradigm of their leader rising from the grave before Jesus was born.

Notice that, in this quote, the term "messianic" refers to Jesus' followers, not Simon's (see below); all that can be said about the potential parallel this text provides is that Jesus' followers could refer to another group's "leader" experiencing death and resurrection.

Second, in the blurb quoted above, we have a very serious problem with verb tense. The article on Time's website refers to "a Messiah [and we've already noted the problems with this label] who rose again after three days from the grave." But, according to the report, this is precisely what is not included in the text. [nb: Here lies one of the problems of commenting on a text without actually having access to that text; my comments here are based solely on the news pieces linked to above and may be mitigated by the actual text itself.] Here is the report in The Times:

Israel Knohl, a biblical studies professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argued yesterday that line 80 of the text revealed Gabriel telling an historic Jewish rebel named Simon, who was killed by the Romans four years before the birth of Christ: “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

Notice that, according to Knohl's own reconstruction (which itself is a matter of debate), the text reports a promise from the angel Gabriel to Simon that he would live after three days. As any biblical scholar knows (and this is not rhetoric; this actually is a very basic point among scholars), there are important generic differences between an angelic promise about what would happen and a narrative reporting what has happened. Note that I am not saying one is more historically reliable or accurate than the other, only that there are important differences here. Case in point: Famously, Mark's gospel contains multiple "passion predictions" in which Jesus tells his hapless disciples that he would die and, three days later, rise again. But the gospel also goes on to narrate that resurrection (however incompletely and cryptically, given the ending of that text at 16.8). But, at least according to the news pieces I've seen, nowhere does "Gabriel's [Vision of] Revelation" narrate Simon's resurrection.

There are more problems besides. Notice the claim that Prof. Knohl is actually interested in making by way of this text (which, by the way, is the very same point he made in his 2002 book prior to the discovery of this text; such neat confluences between hypothesis and evidence should automatically raise red flags):

Professor Knohl . . . said that New Testament writers could have adapted a widely held messianic story in Judaism to Jesus and his followers. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.” [my emphasis]

Again, the problem is subtle but important. Scholars have long been resistant to the idea of a pre-Christian Jewish motif of a dying-and-rising messianic figure precisely because the evidence for such a motif was lacking. But even if this text proves that some Jews in the decades before Jesus' birth anticipated a "suffering Messiah" (again, remember the problems that attend to our use of "Messiah" here), the very fact that this text is so distinct from the rest of the extant evidence is significant in itself! That is, even if "Gabriel's [Vision of] Revelation" says exactly what Prof. Knohl claims it says, this does not in any way suggest such a motif was "a widely held messianic story." In fact, it would seem to be a very marginal messianic story, at least until it was taken up by later Christian tradents. But again, there are important generic differences between the Christian stories about Jesus and the angelic promise to Simon.²

As I am already getting weary of commenting on this story, perhaps only one more point will suffice. Here is an extended passage from Time's article:

This, in turn, undermines one of the strongest literary arguments employed by Christians over centuries to support the historicity of the Resurrection (in which they believe on faith): the specificity and novelty of the idea that the Messiah would die on a Friday and rise on a Sunday. Who could make such stuff up? But, as Knohl told TIME, maybe the Christians had a model to work from. The idea of a "dying and rising messiah appears in some Jewish texts, but until now, everyone thought that was the impact of Christianity on Judaism," he says. "But for the first time, we have proof that it was the other way around. The concept was there before Jesus." If so, he goes on, "this should shake our basic view of Christianity. . . . What happens in the New Testament [could have been] adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."

The problem here is precisely with Knohl's evaluation of the significance of "Gabriel's [Vision of] Revelation," even if we grant his reconstruction tout court. While many Christians may indeed make arguments for the resurrection on the basis that such ideas were unheard of prior to the earliest Christians' proclamation that Jesus had risen from the dead, many (perhaps even most) Christians — and especially scholars from a wide spectrum of confessional perspectives — have long insisted that both the event of Jesus' resurrection and his followers' reports of the resurrection were influenced by and took up motifs from "an earlier messiah story." Thus Philip is reported to have explained to an Ethiopian eunuch that Isa. 53 speaks of Jesus' death and resurrection (cf. Acts 8.26–40), Peter is remembered as telling a crowd in Jerusalem that all the prophets had foretold of the Messiah's suffering (cf. Acts 3.18), and Jesus himself is said to have explained to the two disciples travelling to Emmaus and to the disciples as a group that what happened to him was foretold by Moses and all the prophets (cf. Luke 24.25–27, 45–48). More examples could be given. Far from "skak[ing] our view our basic view of Christianity," this text is yet another example of what the NT itself claims happened.

I was pleased to see that Time had consulted with Ben Witherington to provide some balance to Knohl's over-enthused claims. Surely the precise details of the text written on this stone tablet will require further analysis, as will the tablet's significance for modern confessional and scholarly perceptions of Christianity, both as an ancient phenomenon and in its current expressions. The Times's piece similarly acknowledges that other scholars have real concerns about Knohl's reconstruction. We can only hope that the wider public, whether Christian, atheist, or otherwise, can appreciate the surprisingly nuanced comment found at the end of the first paragraph in Time's article:

Such a contentious reading of the 87-line tablet depends on creative interpretation of a smudged passage, making it the latest entry in the woulda/coulda/shoulda category of possible New Testament artifacts; they are useful to prove less-spectacular points and to stir discussion on the big ones, but probably not to settle them nor shake anyone's faith.

UPDATE: Thanks to our surly-colleague-who-shall-not-be-named, I have become aware of a post on this very issue by one Rachel Lucas, who claims, "I am not a Christian nor am I a biblical scholar," and yet clearly sees one of the problems with such sensational reporting. Would that the world's journalists learn to grasp more firmly and clearly what the rest of us find so obvious.

---

¹ The square brackets are necessary because, as with most things regarding this "Dead Sea Stone," there is no agreement in the news pieces regarding the title of this text. This should come as no surprise, since in actual fact there isn't any agreement regarding the contents of this text!

² This point applies equally to the similar statement found in Time's piece: "If true, this could mean that Jesus' followers had access to a well-established paradigm when they decreed that Christ himself rose on the third day" (my emphasis). One smudgy reference on one stone tablet does not "a well-established paradigm" make.