I just lost a long post, once again technologically challenged. All I was doing was copying text to save it to the clipboard to prevent losing it, and in that process I deleted it all. Madness, madness, all technology is madness. I’ll try again, but don’t know if I have the strength and time.
You know you’re in trouble, as a layman, when the books you are reading have heavy doses of words like docetism, ascetecism, gnosticism, redaction, etc. Recently I have been reading various scholarly books about the formation of the New Testament. I began doing this about three years ago as research for my book Doctor Luke’s Assistant. And, it proof of Frost’s contention that “way leads on to way,” I’ve gone way beyond that to looking at other books of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, thinking of sequel upon sequel. But I digress.
As I read these scholarly works, I can’t get away from the feeling that the purpose of these scholars is to denigrate the New Testament and, by extension, Christianity. It seems like the scholarship is done with an end in mind, to prove something harmful to the acceptance of the book. For example, these scholars seem determined to prove that certain books could not have been written by the apostles to whom they were attributed. Why is that important? Because as the canon of the New Testament was being agreed to over a period of a few centuries, one criteria was that the books in the canon had to be written by an apostle or by one who knew Jesus or by one like Paul, to whom God spoke directly in the era of the apostles. So, if the scholars can prove the apostles didn’t write the books attributed to them, they prove the canon was criteria was not adhered to, the canon is thus flawed, the New Testament is flawed, and the foundation of Christianity is brought down a couple of notches. To me, the scholarship seems structured toward that specific conclusion, either purposely or as part of a mob mentality, a conclusion that will not help Christianity. I say this realizing I don’t have the credentials, have not read all the manuscript fragments, have not read many of the attestations of the early church writers. Possibly I’m discerning this in my spirit, or possibly it’s pseudo scholarship on my part. Nevertheless, this is my impression, so I’ll write about it. This will take me several posts to get through and, hopefully, make my point.
Case in point: The book I have at hand is The New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman, a professor at the University of North Carolina. Oops, if he’s a professor, I probably should call him Doctor Ehrman–although nowhere in the book is he called Doctor, so maybe not. Ehrman seems determined to bring down the New Testament. An example is how he treats Jesus’ use of “Son of Man”. Ehrman would ask, when Jesus said, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven,” to whom was he referring? Here’s a quote from the book.
“It appears that Jesus expected the kingdom to be brought by one whom he called the Son of Man. Scholars have engaged in long and acrimonious debates about how to understand this designation. Is it a title for a figure that Jews would generally understand…? Is it a general description of “a human-like being”? Is it a self-reference, a circumlocution for the pronoun “I”? Moreover, did Jesus actually use the term? Or did the Christians come up with it and attribute it to Jesus? If Jesus did use it, did he actually refer to himself as the Son of Man?”
I’m sorry the debate of the scholars has been so long and acrimonious. The laymen haven’t had any problem understanding that Jesus was talking about himself.
This is just an example. I have at least two others in mind to discuss. I’ll use Ehrman’s book, and perhaps a library book if I can get to the post before it’s due. I’ll probably make the scholars angry, but since they are not likely to be flocking to this blog, I don’t really care.
Stay tuned.
