It is available at: http://www.amazon.com/
A 456-page volume with few color illustrations. Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Bart Ehrman mixes his leaven (or poison if you prefer) and it influences the whole; it is designed for a first or second-year collegiate text. Save your money. For years, I've had little use for Ehrman. Not sure why it's even kept on the shelf.
Chapter 1: What is the New Testament? Early Christians and Their Literature—Canon of Scripture
• Diversity of Early Christianity—Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament
Mr. Erhman’s setup of “diversity” is that—a setup. He plays Pentecostalists v. Roman Catholic Masses, Greek monks v. Baptistic tent revivalism, an Episcopalian v. a Jehovah’s witness, and an Appalachian snake handler v. a NE Presbyterian.
Convenient for Mr. Erhman’s controlling conviction: substantive diversity within the Catholic Church that was overcome by the conquering party, the “Proto-Orthodox.” He’ll need this as he seeks to overcome and overthrow canonical authority. This emerges as he develops—straight out of the shoot—Jewish adoptionism, Marcionism, Gnosticism, and the “Proto-Orthodox.”
Jewish adoptionists. They believed that Jesus was a righteous man, died for the sins of His people, rose from the dead, and reigns in heaven. But, Jesus was “adopted,” “empowered” and “became” the Son of God at His baptism. He was not divine nor born of a Virgin. They rejected Matthew 1-2. Further, He was not the Unbegotten Son, second Person of the Trinity. They were advocates of retaining the Old Testament customs and laws.
Marcionites. They were scattered around the Mediterranean in the 2nd century. Paul was the true apostle, not the Jewish apostles. He postulated the angry, OT deity versus the NT God of mercy (sounds like 19th-20th century liberals). Paul had been a good Jew intent on keeping the law, but gave way to “freedom” from the OT. “Eye for an eye” gives way to “turn the other cheek.” Joshua conquest of Jericho gives way to “love your enemy.” Jesus had no part with the OT God.
Gnostics. A diverse and varied group: Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor and Rome. Some Gnostics agreed with Marcionites. Others saw Jesus as two Persons: one divine and the other human. Some Gnostic systems had 32 gods and others 365 gods. Like Marcion, the God of the OT was inherently evil. The material world was evil. Salvation was by “knowledge” and secret, mystical passwords. They avoided grammatical-historical reading of the Scriptures in favor of sub-textual underpinnings and meanings. The old elastic and subjectivistic principle like Mr. Ehrman himself.
Proto-Orthodox. According to Mr. Erhman, these people “won the debate.” Some believe these were the original Churchmen while others believe believe these developed over time. (Make room to assert that Christology developed rather than was implicit and explicit in the canonical writings.) These people believed Jesus was fully divine and fully human (ya’ think Bart?). They interpreted canonical writings “straightforwardly.” (Ya' think Bart?) They attempted to “control the development of the canon to control the faith.” The Proto-orthodox “inherited the canon.”
Mr. Erhman’s opening chapter is a set-up for the unsuspecting and untrained student. He barely and rarely mentions the OT. He does a quick fly-by over the Gospels, Acts and Epistles with a few liberal inserts—er, telling outbursts—subtly woven into the presentation (e.g. “the last 200 years” of interpretation with all that that means, the canon-makers and developed men of the 19th-20 century schools). Again, I have little use for this man...qua man.
• New Testament Canon—Common Era and Before the Common Era, Layout of the New Testament
The standard trope about BCE rather than BC and CE rather than AD. Then, he gives a chart of NT books. Blah, blah.
• Summary and implications
(1) Diversity trumps the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Bart needs to euthanize the apostles. (2) A wide set of writings were in circulation. Sorta like the Gnostics are quasi-equals with the Apostles, right Bart? (3) The canon was formed and forced upon the Church by the Proto-orthodox. That's right, Bart, the Apostles stuffed their writings down everyone's mouth. (4) The canon was not settled until the 4th century. Not quite, Bart.
• Additional resources: the historian and the believer. Erhman offers some sort of apology to students who were reared to believe the NT is authoritative, inspired and governing. Then, he offers the standard trope of faith v. history, or, the disseverance of faith from historical facts (drink deeply from the Bultmannian crisis). With standard hubris, he--Erhman--can only talk as a “professional historian” in order to “reconstruct what happened in the past.” Tell it to the Apostles who wrote the Gospels…men of faith and historical fact. I don't know why I keep such junk on the shelf.
No comments:
Post a Comment