Many of you know that Bart Ehrman has made something of a small fortune on arguing that early scribes “corrupted” the transmission of the Greek New Testament by making “orthodox corrections” [read: changes that reflected orthodox predilections about Jesus] during the process. Since Ehrman seems unable to avoid a television camera, his views have made their way into the popular culture, with the result that non-specialists assume all his claims are right and that his arguments cannot be overturned. Neither is the case. I’ve posted some critiques of Ehrman before (here and over on the Naked Bible), so news of this new book, edited by New Testament textual critic Dan Wallace, is germane for those interested: Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament. The link leads to the ETC blog, which has a link to purchase it. All that said, the essays are technical, and so those new to NT textual criticism might be better off beginning with an introduction to the discipline, such as one of these:
On the Presumed Corruption of the Greek New Testament
Excellent! I look forward to studying this.
Hello Michael, I thank you for this blog: I find it very instructional as the facts you displayed
are the ones usually accepted by today thinkers..
i recently read Josephus whom impressed me much about the Antiquities of Jews ( this although I dont believe chapter 18 writings about Jesus as it is very controversial.
However I fell on this article about a missing part in the Gospel of Mark,, any thought about this? Also as far as NT translation to greek is concerned, i dont believe the scribes made many mistakes; what concern me is the contrversy regarding canonical and non canon gospels, and what was the criterias for accepting the gospels.
According to the U.S. Biblical scholar, Morton Smith, of Columbia University, a fragment of manuscript he found at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem in 1958,
showed that the full text of St. Mark chapter 10 (between verses 34 and 35 in the standard version of the Bible) contains a passage which includes the following text. —
“And the youth, looking upon him (Jesus), loved him and beseeched that he might remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God”.
http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/All%20About%20Church%20Articles/The-Strange-Case-of-the-Secret-Gospel-of-Mark.htm
Personnaly, I wouldnt care whether Jesus was gay or not; it would not be my reason to disbelieve him being a messiah or God. I am satistified with Jewish traditionalists whom said that the Isaiah prediction were realized in the time of Babylon. Its the lack of historicity re Jesus that is cause of my concern.
Well, there were LOTs of mistakes in the transmission of the New Testament. 6000 or so manuscripts and they don’t all agree, so there’s no mystery there. The abundance of data, though, makes it relatively possible for textual critics to evaluate the New Testament and determine “best readings” for its content. But most of the differences are meaningless (did the original say “Jesus went TO the temple” or “Jesus went TOWARD the temple”? Who cares).
Secret Mark is still hotly debated in academic circles. Recently, a strong but circumstantial case has been made that it is a forgery. Most of the current discussion on the subject (like at academic conferences and in journals) is revolving around the forgery case. Here is the book arguing for forgery:
http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Hoax-Morton-Smiths-Invention/dp/1932792481
It is interesting that Robert Price, one of the few (of two I know) scholars who don’t believe Jesus existed reviewed the book quite favorably:
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/reviews/carlson_gospel_hoax.htm
Opposition to the forgery case has come from Scott Brown (http://www.bib-arch.org/scholars-study/secret-mark-handwriting-response-brown.asp) and Peter Jeffrey (http://www.bib-arch.org/scholars-study/secret-mark-handwriting-response-jeffery-2.asp). See Tony Brown’s blog for more responses to the forgery case (http://www.tonyburke.ca/apocryphicity/category/secret-mark/).
All the debate aside, there is nothing in the content that says Jesus was gay. Even if one accepts it as authentic, homosexuality has to be read INTO the content. The white robe and nakedness under the robe may be ritual description of some *intellectual* initiation, akin to what is known of Gnostic initiation. Greek and Coptic writers have words to describe sexual contact, and none of them are in the passage. And if it was authentic, it’s not like there is any evidence that it would be canonical. It would be an original but aberrant piece of thought about Jesus (at best), since it would stand alone in this phraseology.
Hi Michael, thanks for the links,I am satisfied its an hoax. However it makes Jesus rather boring. We now he drank at some events and thats it. no banging at all, did not even get married.
A few gospels in which he appears to attack the 3 sects existing at the time of josephus and no other authors writings about him. At first glance, it look like the gospel writers had some political agenda as they tend to shield the Romans from being blamed for anything, (was it for fear of repercussions ?) The Romans put him to death and its the Jews who were accused and when Romans destroyed the temple its another Jew Herod which was accused for its destruction.
In insight, Jeus did not teach much more than beliefs that were existing at the time, except that he extended and preached among the meeks, the sick etc..
I think your look at Jesus is pretty skewered. He was quite counter-cultural, and a number of his teachings got him into serious trouble — that wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t out of the norm. All one needs to do is be familiar with the OT and Second temple period theology to know that some of what he says is startling.
indeed very skewered. The Essenes appeared to be the sect whom believes in a coming Messiah. Jesus however was slightly different than the one foretold. Apart from father prayer of the Essenes and the one taugh by Jesus, there isnt much similarities.. he attacked many beliefs.
Also of consideration, is the facts that the Gospels were written a number of years after his death and outside these gospel the historicity is lacking. There is Josephus book 18 on Jesus that look like a forgery..
I am also concerned that the predictions of the destruction about the second temple were written after the fact..
My faith is lacking,may be i am trying to rebuild it with old stones..
This isn’t meant to be critical, but it sounds like you’ve been reading too much Baigent and Leigh (and other Jesus revisionist nonsense) and not enough scholarly stuff on Jesus. This is the sort of material that isn’t submitted to peer review because it would not be taken seriously. Messianism was something known and expected and believed all over the Jewish world, and much earlier than the first century. The historicity of Jesus hardly depends on Josephus, either (and forgery really isn’t the right way to describe the manuscript issues there).
@ Michael. it is difficult for me to separate religion and politics.. Even Pontius Pilate apparently took issues of jurisdiction referring the case to Herod. Given the gospels in general, the only concern the romans seems have is to whether Jesus was king of jews. They also appeared fearful of rebellions.. Of his trial no accounts apart from Josephus and it is short for story.
Its the Romans that put him to death and who destroyed the “Second Temple” and its the Jews that were blamed..
I do not belive Jeus was born from a virgin..would you believe it?
It isn’t like the Romans or the Jews kept running accounts of criminal trials, period. *We* expect that because of the centrality of Jesus to *our* later history. For Rome and the Judeans, he was just another criminal. No on site reporting. That’s our world, not theirs.
Both parties get blamed in the New Testament, because they both bore responsibility. Ultimately, Pilate bears the most because he had the most authority and acted on what he knew was an innocent man. The Jews didn’t think Jesus innocent (and frankly Jesus was guilty of the crimes they accused him of in terms of how they defined blasphemy).
I don’t do theology on this blog.
fart ehrman was at it again on coast to coast last week-march 19th with cringing syncophant ian puppet trashing the textual reliability of the n.t. books.-what’s so funny now is the current movement picking up that the old testament books are not so reliable now. lol because most of the scholars and pseudo scholars who trash the n.t. are doing so to discredit jesus/yeshua and worship the infallibility of the old testament books- and now comes a ground movement questioning the reliability of the so called infallible masoretic text.
so he was on C2C with Ian? Wasn’t watching the programming. That’s sad.