capnkirk

Ehrman is heading in the direction his studies have led him. It is as simple as that. It is my observation that believers who seriously don't want what Ehrman is saying to be true cannot/will-not perceive him as being objective because they have too much emotional investment in his being wrong. Remember that Ehrman himself started out from the place where you now stand, but finally the weight of evidence forced him to let go of his dearly held presumptions. He has had the benefit of direct inspection and study of the earliest Greek manuscripts and direct access to many other experts in the field; he has been immersed in this study for many years. Perhaps it will take a similar effort for you to let go of your own emotionally held preconceptions, but unless you already have a compelling need to find out, I doubt it will happen.

I thank you for your referal, but I feel that I have a better handle on the historical aspects than Roger does, and by a fair margin.

capnkirk

I believe Magdlyn has responded to you on this point. I will only add that the reasons there are no surviving manuscripts from that period stem from the lowly/sometimes-outlawed status (that Magdlyn described) of the movement at the time.

No, Ehrman has not made these claims. See my response below the next quote sequence.
Ehrman has, however, published Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (or via: amazon.co.uk), (which I have also read) which investigates the “battles of the pen” in the first centuries documenting how the proto-orthodox underpinnings of modern Christianity were simply one of many understandings of the teachings of Christ and the apostles. The diversity of modern Christianity pales in comparison the ideological divides between the ancient Ebionites, Marcionites, Ascetics, Montanists, Gnostics, the proto-orthodox, and numerous other groups, all of whom claimed to hold the correct interpretation of the Christian faith. It relates the story of these conflicts, culiminating in the eventual victory of the proto-orthodox over their rivals.

I simply invited you to ponder for a moment a scenario where a different faction won the battle for the right to claim orthodoxy…much as people today speculate how different the world would be had so-and-so won such-and-such war.

At another point you asked me for examples of “holy ‘books’” that failed to make it into canon. Here is a partial list which should be sufficient to illustrate my point that the present canon discarded more than a few arguably inspired works:

Signs Gospel, Oxyrhynchus 840 and 1224 Gospels, Gospel of Thomas, Secret Mark, Epistle of Barnabus, Gospel of the Egyptians, the Christian Sibyllines, the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Secret Book of James, Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of the Nasoreans, Shepherd of Hermes, Apocryphon of John, Gospel of Mary, Dialogue of the Savior, Gospel of the Savior, 2nd Apocalypse of James, Gospel of Judas, Acts of Peter, Acts of John, Acts of Paul, Acts of Andrew, Acts of Peter and the Twelve, Acts of Pilate, Acts of Thomas,

Magdlyn

Depends on which fathers. They can get so tiresome with their political pissing matches.

That site and the related one, http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/, contain original works of theology, gospels, acts, apocalypses, wisdom literature, eisegesis and the like.

D'you want something like this?

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/fathers/

or

http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html

capnkirk

Magdlyn,

Did you realize that this link is edited by Roger Pearse? :huh:

Roger Pearse

Yes, that was the one that I had in mind, and it seems that http://www.tertullian.org/fathers is a more up to date version of it, looking at the "what's new".

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I'm afraid that this is not correct.

Have a quick look at my website before you commit yourself too strongly to this one:

http://www.tertullian.org

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers

I am, in fact, a manuscripts enthusiast.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Your friend is, I hope, in the process of acquiring an education in humility.

How would you explain the Bodmer and Chester Beatty papyrus books of the New Testament from this period?

The reasons why manuscripts of all texts -- not just biblical ones -- do not exist from the 1st-3rd centuries (a few biblical papyri aside) are rather different. Papyrus is a material which does not lend itself to preservation, except in the special conditions of Egypt. In addition there was a change to the technology in the 4th century, when the modern book form replaced the roll, and consequently older fragile rolls were disposed of and parchment codices took their place. Some of these codices have survived, although infrequently. I can think of a Lactantius, and of course the 5th decade of Livy.

The persecution under Diocletian probably didn't help, but the numbers of books destroyed in it cannot be any real problem compared to these two issues.

I thought not, since they were too babyish for words. But the post rather insinuated that he did, you see, so I thought it worth clarifying.

Unfortunately such revisionism is very tedious to those of us who know the Fathers well. We've all seen this sort of inversion of history before, and it relies on a simple trick, which is this.

1. Label as 'Christian' any group involved in controversy in early Christianity, Christian or not, regardless of whether the early Christians agreed.

2. Having included Christian and non-Christian groups under the label 'Christian', assert that Christianity was 'diverse'.

We could play the same game ourselves. Let's assert that the term 'scholar' belongs to anyone who claims it. Then we can show that scholarship is not concerned with academic rigour, and jeer away at the slovenly standards of the discipline.

Such games with words are for children. If there is one thing that early Christianity was obsessed with it was right doctrine. This is why anti-heretical literature forms such a large part of ante-nicene literature.

The heresies, by their very nature, are not alternative Christianities. They arise by the intrusion of contemporary societal values into the church. But when times change, society changes, and these heresies lose the backing that gave them strength, and wither.

The 2nd century was the age of gnosticism. By the 4th century they barely made an impact. The 4th century was the time of Arianism; but by the end of that century the Arians had become merely a shadow of themselves. And so it goes on.

The idea that Jesus of Nazareth did not teach anything in particular is a curious one, but too silly for words.

Document the use of all of these in the Fathers, and remove any that are not found in them <hint>. After all, if they were never part of the use of the church, in what sense did they 'fail to be included'?

Ancient forgeries were ignored then and are ignored now.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

capnkirk

The more you post, the more you appear to be as orthodox and closed-minded as the Early Church Fathers themselves were. If it doesn't fit your orthodoxy, then it must be a forgery. LOL

There are plenty of contributors here with the patience to respond as long as you continue to post...alas, I am not one of them.

Enterprise...out

Johnny Skeptic

Sure, known forgeries were and are ignored, but what about unknown forgeries? What about innocent but inaccurate revelations?

I am certainly no expert, but I would not be surprised if 1st and 2nd Corinthians were written in the 2nd century. That is because of the dramatic differences between those books and the Gospels. Paul seems to know nothing of many of Jesus' most important teachings.

If a God exists, you are not going to find him in copies of copies of ancient documents. Early humans did not have access to writings. How did they know anything about God? Any God who wanted to contact people would appear to them in person. No other ways would make any sense.

sky4it

I am glad you brought this topic up. Your statement that Ehrman started out in the place I know stand is 100 percent completely incorrect. I doubt you would be interested, but Ehrman and I share one thing in common, as a teenager I wrestled with the same conclusions as Ehrman, Having listened to a ding dong like Victor Paul Weirwille, I engaged in studying Greek at a Lutheran School, and micromanaging texts. (Interesting that Ehrman and I had the same problem yet came to vastly different conclussions) After studying less Greek and more what the text was saying, I came to the conclussion that the Bible (the inspired word of God) was a tool in the Creators hand and that the way in which it was in our hands was by design. Why? Once again (and there are many scriptures) the Bible testifies to itself that the mission or ministry or disepensation (or whatever you want to call it) is not of the letter but of the Spirit Since this is the testimony of the text unto itself; I would suggest to you it is not I who is in need of playing catchup with Ehrman as you so eloquently suggested, but that Ehrman is way behind. Unless of course Ehrman's best feature in life is to sit around wading through texts as a conduit of personal hygiene, in which case all I can say is that looks like a rather boring career to me.