DrZoidberg

The message was far from clear to begin with... so... um... yeah. I'd argue that it has.

But that's always been a non-argument. How's that not just wishful thinking?

In Lost Christianities he puts forward a theory that Jesus' original project was to interpret the old testament correctly. At the time of Jesus' life there was several Old Testaments floating about and the first New Testament was originally just articles regarding how to interpret it correctly, and which Old Testament was the right one.

When I read the Old Testament critically I think its obviously just plain old Paganism. There's loads of things we've been culturally conditioned to read into it, that aren't there. Probably, just like Jesus was. If he existed.

Ehrman also points out the pretty obvious conclusion that if we take the text literally its full of contradictions. So we have to read it allegorically. But any thinking person realises that an allegorical text can mean absolutely anything. It means what ever the reader wants it to read. How is this a guide for anyone? How isn't this just a carte blanches to do anything, because that's what we always can talk ourselves into believing God wants? It's always in the Bible!!!

Roger Pearse

Can I ask whether you're sure about this? I myself believe that Ehrman is encouraging this kind of obscurantism towards ancient texts, based on what I see people who like his conclusions learn from his books, such as this. But when I say so, people tend to deny it!

So, can you confirm whether he says this or not?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

DrZoidberg

Spreading knowledge about problems with reading ancient texts is not obscurantism. It's the opposite. It's the people spreading the common Bible, (the Vulgate Bible) who can be argued to be obscurantists, because they're spreading one corrupt and updated copy as if it isn't. Or to see it from the theists point of view; he's helping Christians to figure out what God really wants. If I personally was Christian, I'd just welcome research like this. Sure it doesn't make life any easier. But the truth rarely does.

Roger Pearse

I'm afraid that to argue that texts are not transmitted from antiquity is most certainly obscurantism. The rediscovery of ancient texts at the renaissance was the beginning of the modern world; Cicero, most notably, but all the classical texts, and then the Greek texts. Most of the manuscripts accessible to the Florentine humanists were late, often very corrupt, by modern standards, yet they changed the world and brought the modern world into existence.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

DrZoidberg

I think its too many fancy words here, because I don't understand what you are trying to say.

2-J

That the ancient texts, whether bad copies or not, had a good, beneficial or productive effect is quite irrelevant to the Christian problem. Which is, of course, that it's important that at least the sense of the original has been preserved. The alleged fact that Cicero and other texts brought the modern world into existence is not dependent upon those texts having been transmitted accurately across the ages.

Roger Pearse

The same, I'm afraid, applies to every ancient text.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

DrZoidberg

Whether or not we have one, two or many Gods of varying power is a pretty critical detail as far as Christian doctrine is concerned. They describe radically different worlds. If we trust Ehrman, any of these can be equally true based on what we know of early Christianity.

Roger Pearse

I'm sorry if I was unclear. We depend, for everything we have in the modern world, on the change of approach and attitudes to the world that we call the renaissance. This is the origin of all modern society, science, art and culture.

This was provoked by the humanists reading the largely neglected works of the Latin writers, especially Cicero, and imbibing from them the atmosphere of antiquity, it's attitude of questioning, its hostility to absolutism, and what came next, its technology, and so forth.

That is to say, our whole world is based on something which itself was based on the presumption that texts are transmitted more or less accurately from antiquity. This is not a proof that they are (which we may obtain by comparison of ancient and medieval manuscripts); but to deny this is certainly obscurantist, in that it strikes at the whole basis on which the modern world was built, the study of the classics, etc.

Some may feel that throwing away the ancient world is a small price to pay for the confidence to enjoy their vices. But it seems an unnecessary price to pay, to me.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

2-J

- edit for jumping the gun