There's a new book by Bart D. Ehrman (
Misquoting Jesus) on the shelves titled
Jesus, Interrupted. Here's an excerpt of his opening remarks:
Scholars have made significant progress in understanding the Bible over the past two hundred years, building on archaeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages in which the books of Scripture were originally written, and deep and penetrating historical, literary, and textual analysis. This is a massive scholarly endeavor. Thousands of scholars just in North America along continue to do serious research in the field, and the results of their studies are regularly and routinely taught, both to graduate students in universities and to prospective pastors attending seminaries in preparation for the ministry.
Early Hebrew cosmological model Yet such views of the Bible are virtually unknown by the population at large. In no small measure this is because those of us who spend our professional lives studying the Bible have not done a good job communicating this knowledge to the general public and because many of the pastors who learned this material in the seminary have, for a variety of reasons, not shared it with their parishioners once they take up positions in the church. (Churches, of course, are the most obvious places where the Bible is - or, rather, ought to be - taught and discussed.) As a result, not only are most Americans (increasingly) ignorant of the contents of the Bible, but they are almost completely in the dark about what scholars have been saying about the Bible for the past two centuries. This book is meant to help redress that problem. It could be seen as my attempt to let the cat out of the bag.
To be fair, I've not read this book. My mom forwarded a review of it to me and I thought it had some ideas worth discussing as a post. The cover of the book has the following highlights:
- The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works.
- The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later.
- Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions.
- Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians.
From the reviews I've seen, Ehrman makes a (not so new) case that each of the books of the Bible were written at different times by different people for different purposes. In other words, those that hold the Bible to be a complete and integrally woven book are mistaken when they try to force pieces to fit together that would, on the surface, appear contradictory (like the varying accounts of Christ's death, burial and resurrection). He closes his book with the following:
It would be impossible...to argue that the Bible is a unified whole, inerrant in all its parts, inspired by God in every way. It can't be that. There are too many divergences, discrepancies, contradictions; too many alternative ways of looking at the same issue, alternatives that often are at odds with one another. The Bible is not a unity, it is a massive plurality. God did not write the Bible, people did.
I've heard this view presented many times. I've also heard the view of scriptural integrity and inerrancy presented many times. But here is one side nugget that caught my eye: How often do you hear the Bible being taught in church from a historic, archaeological, literary and textual perspective? Honestly, I've heard the word parsing, including what certain Greek and Hebrew words mean, to the point I am weary of it. I'd also venture to say I've heard a little about the history of Bible in church. But ... I'd be hard pressed to come up with a time I've heard archaeological or literary perspectives presented. This brings me to my question for you:
Do ministers deliberately avoid teaching things about the Bible that they learned in college or seminary? If so, why?
Scholars have made significant progress in understanding the Bible over the past two hundred years, building on archaeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages in which the books of Scripture were originally written, and deep and penetrating historical, literary, and textual analysis. This is a massive scholarly endeavor. Thousands of scholars just in North America along continue to do serious research in the field, and the results of their studies are regularly and routinely taught, both to graduate students in universities and to prospective pastors attending seminaries in preparation for the ministry.
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Comments (32)
Could you give us a short list, say 10 or 15 of these divergences, discrepancies or contradictions that way we can know where it is you're coming from?
I would say that most of the Bible is 100% accurate and the inaccuracies are due to misinterpretation/mistranslation. It is posts like this that cause those who are ignorant to what the bible says to question what they do know, or to say "YEAH, that's right" without any knowledge of what you are even speaking of. So, give us that list of discrepancies so those who are ignorant of them can learn.
@MichaelCavaness@xanga - You'd have to ask Bart Ehrman, since HumbleWalk was quoting him. And really H.W. is more asking about archaeological and literary approaches to the Bible than about any discrepancies.
"There are too many divergences, discrepancies, contradictions; too many alternative ways of looking at the same issue, alternatives that often are at odds with one another. The Bible is not a unity, it is a massive plurality. God did not write the Bible, people did."
There is beauty and unity amid chaos. Americans for example, hold varying views... and yet we are all part of the same nation.
It is a fallacy to assume that divergence and conflicting views fracture the whole. Many people wrote the same book from different perspectives. These different accounts may conflict, but so does life. The bible is not fractured because it presents many different views... it is complete and whole because it presents different views.
If the bible only showed one person's perspective of an event, then the the bible would be incomplete because it is only presenting one side of the story.
Life is conflict, but out of conflict comes unity.
In my humble opinion...it is the scholars that mess up the meaning and beauty of the Bible. They become "learned" to the point that they think they have found some "new" truth or interpretation. I always remember the passage that says "God has chosen the simple things to confound the wise" It is amazing to think that throughout every major translation of the Bible, every fundamental truth has remained the same. It is amazing that actually there are no contradictions at all, instead it is the interpreter who decides they that they think there is some idea that contradicts their own ideals or principles.
For example...read James 2. The truths found within contradict nothing of the rest of the scriptures unless someone wants to hold to a belief that contradicts James 2.
That is where contradiction enters in. When a truth violates someone's own idea, they call it a contradiction.
//
Do ministers deliberately avoid teaching things about the Bible that they learned in college or seminary? If so, why?//
The more complicated the subject, the more likely it is that (1) innocent people will misunderstand it and (2) morons will twist it.
@QuantumStorm@xanga - That is exactly what I wanted to say, but in a nicer way- heh
Some pastors like keeping the congregation using only the pastors view points so they dont tell them. some pastors dont think the church is ready so they dont tell stuff. but as far as the discrepincies go, they go away once you start looking into culture and what the meaning behind stuff was in the old testament. or they focus on diffrent parts of the same event. or their were diffrent events that were similar so they look like they are giving diffrent answers for the same account when really they are giving the answers for diffrent accounts and we interpret it wrongly. take for example the feading of the 5 thousand, there was another time that Jesus did this where less people were there. When Judas died there were two diffrent accounts, but they were showing diffrent prophecies so they concentrated on diffrent aspects. one concentrated on judas hanging himself, while another one concentrated on him falling head long and his bowels bursting everywhere. when read they seem to offer diffrent stories of how Judas died but in reality its just diffrent parts fo the story were concentrated on. Judas hung himself, and then the rope broke and he fell headlong and his bowels spilled out. that is easily misinterpreted. or the diffrence between Old and New testament. If you do not realize that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament law and start the age of grace then you will see contradictions everywhere, but if you look at it correctly there are no discrepencies. all that to say if you actually study what is going on and get a correct cultural understading and realize that they are telling diffrent parts of the same story the contradictions go away.
This is interesting...I've never thought about that before!
The solution to the riddle is almost painfully obvious: Of course people who are "ignorant of the contents of the Bible" will by logical necessity be "in the dark about what scholars have been saying about the Bible for the past two centuries." Really? No way! In other news, studies show that people who have never read Shakespeare are also completely uninformed about literary scholarship on Hamlet. We don't need any pastoral conspiracy theory to explain that.
(You might make a case that certain scholars are better acquainted with scholarly opinions on Scripture than they are with the Bible itself, but that's another matter.)
I think Ehrman (as usual) does have a valid point but overstates his case to go for the sensational conclusion. While it's definitely true that too many people are woefully uninformed about the Bible in general (see "Preaching to the Converted") and historical context in particular, there is no shortage of thoughtful Christian communicators who are able to present sound current scholarship and theology in a very accessible way-- N. T. Wright comes immediately to mind. (I'm not sure yet whether I agree with all his theology--I need to read more of it--but he is a top-flight scholar and a darned good communicator.)
As for the rest, just take the first sentence of that preceding paragraph and apply it to the rest of the points in the Ehrman quotations above. It makes a very handy summary of recent scholarship.
Once you start talking about corruption and coverup then I have nothing more to say to you.
I think pastors, especially, don't teach a lot of the stuff about the bible they learned in seminary because it's so much harder to understand. Most churches are becoming more seeker friendly, and the message gets dumbed down so these people understand it.
The answer is obviously yes, some ministers do. Usually not about archaeological evidences but about doctrinal evidences.
To be honest most seminaries and schools are eliminating their archaeology courses. This is, imo, a travesty because of the vast amounts of evidences supporting what is recorded in scriptures as true.
If you are asking if there are contradictions in the Bible, the answer is no. There are not. The man you were quoting from said that it would be impossible to argue that the Bible is unified. I know nothing about him, but from this statement I understand that he is likely operating under extreme bias.
I am not going to list the many evidences to support this because it is not my specific field of study and I am no scholar in this field. I have done enough research into it that I can suggest that if you are truly interested in seeing scholarly evidence, both historical and archaeological, Kyle Butt and Eric Lyons are two scholars that do a phenomenal job at presenting strong evidence to support the 100% unquestionable legitimacy of the Bible. http://www.apologeticspress.org/ is a good place to go for a lot of this kind of information.
Interesting post.
@ChrisRusso@xanga - Thanks Chris! You read as well as you think and write.
as an archaeology student who's taken a number of classes on Biblical scholarship and history, i'd have to say: yes. it amazes me how many Christians are so uneducated about the history of their faith.
i saw a wonderful debate between Ehrman and some theologian. the latter kept egging the former on to make a declaration as to whether he actually had any kind of faith. nevermind that the debate's topic was Biblical authorship, and that Ehrman is a historian and not a theologian... i think that's where the miscommunication lies. so many Christians today rest their faith on how accurate something is, rather than on the impact of the message. and then when the accuracy is challenged, they simply cannot cope. if your whole belief system falls apart because there are inconsistencies in the Bible (and there are tons), your faith was never strong to begin with.
@MichaelCavaness@xanga - well, if you want an excellent book on the subject, check out How to Read the Bible, by Kugel. i took a class on the Torah and it was my textbook. but to throw out a few examples: different details for the two Genesis accounts of Creation; different pairs of animals God tells Noah to get on the Ark; and my personal favorite... whether Judas hangs himself, or explodes.
Some do. Reasons vary.
Some people aren't interested. It takes more preparation. It doesn't always fit their alliterative outline. They feel that they have more pressing subjects.
I think that there is a time and a place.
As a pastor, many scholarly ideas are interwoven into sermons in subtle ways. However, I have approximately 20 minutes worth of time (maybe 30, if i stretch it). If I run longer than that, I will be losing people's attention.
Further, I am not preaching to masters level educated people, as a seminary professor would, nor am I even necessarily preaching to people who are educated to the point that they could grasp a 400 level lecture.
what I have to work with, once a week, is 20 ish minutes, and a group of varyingly educated persons, that all need to be brought to a conclusion in a way that they can all understand (or at least most).
Now, in that time, I am not going to waste my time explaining the latest article from Biblical Archaeology Quarterly. Instead, that is a matter for Bible Study groups (which are not going to be by and large directed by pastors, but by laypeople who chose their own curriculum), or perhaps seminars or even coursework.
the demands of this author are frankly, elitist and unreasonable. Although it is possible to teach Kerygma to the congregation, and it is even possible to teach theology over time, it is not possible to speak and preach and keep up with all the latest findings and theology from the past century. Karl Barth's works alone would take an entire career to preach through, let alone throwing in Moltmann, Bonhoffer, teach about the Tubingen school, and so many others.
This is not a conspiracy, nor is it a matter of incompetence - it's a matter of simple triage.
The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works.
Incorrect. Take for example all of Paul's epistles and compare them to Hebrews, with the idea of a great high priest, a better covenant than the first one, and justification by faith, without which it's impossible to please God.
Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions.
This almost sounds like a line from one of Paul's letters (I forget to which church exactly), where some were of Apollos, some of Peter, others of Paul, etc. I wouldn't think Jesus represented any "religion." The idea of religion has to do with humans trying to impress God and be acceptable to Him. Jesus literally is God incarnate. He didn't teach about alternate ways to make yourself holy and acceptable.
Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the
divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later
theologians.
If you've read Isaiah 53, then the first point (about a Messiah not suffering) is bogus. John 1 makes the divinity of Jesus pretty clear. So does the actual prayer of Jesus in John 17. The trinity is a harder one, because it's not explicitly mentioned in those terms. You can see signs of it from the creation (the Holy Spirit is there, hovering above the waters), and let's make man in OUR image (plural). The best theological way I've heard it phrased is that a God of love has to be more than one person (love requires a relationship, prior to anything else coming into existence). It's also interesting how people continually seek some kind of unity amongst all of the diversity in the world, when God Himself is a unity of diverse functions and three persons. You wouldn't have that with a singular God (one person in one essence), but a tri-unity fits the bill.
It would be impossible...to argue that the Bible is a unified
whole, inerrant in all its parts, inspired by God in every way. It
can't be that. There are too many divergences, discrepancies,
contradictions; too many alternative ways of looking at the same issue,
alternatives that often are at odds with one another. The Bible is not
a unity, it is a massive plurality. God did not write the Bible, people
did.
I wonder what was omitted by that ellipsis? This mainly makes a claim without providing evidence of the discrepancies, contradictions, etc. Alternative ways of looking at an issue don't automatically mean God didn't inspire the Bible. Some of those issues (like having the Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday) aren't all that important to the overall message and can come down to a matter of preference. I wouldn't think that God only wants one denomination who all worship in the same way. He's infinitely creative, meaning that churches, countries and other cultures can all reflect that creativity.
The person who made this statement either sounds like he hasn't read the Bible, or he hasn't read it in faith. If humans were going to write a holy book, why include the parts where we as humans mess up? Why have God at the center of it all and give Him the glory? Why say that we have fallen short and can't save ourselves? None of it would make sense or be taken seriously.
In terms of whether scholars and pastors have "secret knowledge" that they keep to themselves, who knows? Only God would be sure. I do admit that sometimes I'm disappointed by not having a more complete view of how faith integrates with history, archaeology, politics, philosophy and other disciplines. Most of my knowledge about the overlapping in those areas has come from my own investigations. Pastors do have a huge role, but if a believer is only being fed once a week for 20 minutes, I'd say it's their own fault and they should take more initiative, or pray for God to reveal these other things. The strength of the church as a whole depends on it!
Bart Ehrman recently declared that he is an agnostic.
I do believe that they do. Really, think of it. A lot of people believe that the government is hiding numerous things from the public; I don't have much of an opinion on that, I haven't looked into it. It's because people A) Wouldn't understand it B) Would twist it around C) Would freak out.
I've heard that things are hidden (things from the Bible) from the general public because it would confuse us all to bits. You know, things that are so amazingly different from what we believe is right. Things that would throw us for a loop.
I'd like to hear about that stuff.
I applaud your entry.
As a current seminarian who thought I'd be going to seminary to "learn all the right answers" (even if I was told not to expect that)... that's not exactly it. I have discovered that what many seminarians learn they feel like they're forced to keep to themselves. Why? Because of the comment section on this post.
It's is a modern fallicy that doctrines and theologies have always been constant.
The gospels don't all have to say the same thing to all have meaning. But people accept the doctrine that there is "internal cohesion". The letters and gospels don't stop being important just because they don't all agree. They just tell the same story a little (or a lot) differently. It takes a lot of courage to be willing to say things that most people are not saying.
So to answer your question: yes, seminarians and scholars tend to keep these things to themselves because they cannot join a mainstream denomination unless they slip by in their ordination process.
I hope that the church can change, and really be willing to be taught by the text. But the text may not say what you think it does... you just have to be willing to trust God all the way through.
@JadedJanissary@xanga - wow.
that says a lot. preaching a sermon is like doing triage.
how do u feel about that?
@brownize221@xanga - Umm, ok, i guess.
After coming to Christ 6 years ago, I do admit that I am utterly amazed at the shallowness of many Christian's knowledge of the Bible, archeologically, theologically, historically, linguistically, etc. I think if I were simply satisfied with going to church on Sunday, I probably would not grow much in those areas as well. It took a lot of my own effort to find and read books, sermons, and lecture series on various topics (church history, biblical history, archeological findings, apologetic on the Bible, etc) A lot of the high school students at my church can't even name all the Bible stories, let alone understanding their historical or theological significance.
The question was:
Do ministers deliberately avoid teaching things about the Bible that they learned in college or seminary? If so, why?
My question is...
Why would any one who claims to be a follower of Christ, follow the teachings of any man?
True followers need to follow The Anointed One, and not opinions and teachings of man. HE left His plan for us, He (Christ) left his footsteps as it were for us to walk in, being led of His Spirit, not man.
Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
What is confusing is how many people want to remain sheeple! If all those who are called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, would not seek a following, but rather focus on unity of the faith, the perfecting of saints so that..........the saints would what? Do the work of the ministry too!
True leaders point to The Anointed way, and say that is the way, follow the way truth and life. Sadly many want followers of themselves, and even more sadly, many are content with a second hand relationship. Ask them why they believe what they believe, they'll tell you, their pastor taught them that! Why my parents always were members of this or that church, we own a pew in it! Hey, maybe even we own that church because we poured our money into it.
There is only ONE body of Messiah, with HIM being the head. Religions and cemeterys, oops seminary's have one goal..........followers of man, they can bury, who trust them for their relationship with The Most High.
Folks we each have to answer for what the Spirit taught us, not man!
back to the question:
Do ministers deliberately avoid teaching things about the Bible that they learned in college or seminary? If so, why?
College or seminary's are NOT the Spirit, and anyone seeking for wisdom will NEVER be denied by the Father. Trust the Almighty and not man to lead you. You'll never be denied truth from HIM
Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Eph 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Eph 4:16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Hope
I would've said something very similar to what Jaded-something already said.
Ehrman may like to suggest that scholars are keeping the public out of the debate deliberately for ill-will. That's not at all the case. The exegesis, archaeology and the other sciences related to biblical criticism involve compartmentalized languages that are intelligible to people who have some basic grasp of these fields, mostly those who are of a learning in humanities or sociology. Most of the church (and most of the rest of the world) are laymen who lack the background to study them.
But there are plenty of resources available to individual Christians who want to research ancient greek/roman/jewish history at the time of Jesus (IVPress, Books&Culture, Eerdman, etc.) Richard Bauckham has a book called "The Gospels for All Christians" which gives a good response to the ideas of Ehrman. For an online reading, check out http://personal1.stthomas.edu/dtlandry/bauckham.htm