Finished Bart Ehrman's book
Jesus, Interrupted last week. I'll skip the longest subtitle I've ever seen on something besides an article in a peer reviewed science journal and just tell you it has to do with contradictions in the Bible. That's a nitpicky criticism, but the title is my primary befuddlement about the book. I find it hard to believe the title wasn't developed in some sort of marketing meeting. The best possible title would have been something like Higher Criticism for Novices or Reading the Bible Without Worshiping the Bible. Something like that. This book has almost nothing to do with Jesus, except the development of doctrinal positions, so anyone coming to the book thinking it's about the historic Jesus or the non-historic Jesus or the cosmic Christ or the Aquarian Messiah or any other Jesusy nomenclature will be very disappointed. The title was designed to sell books, even at the risk of being misleading.
That's enough nitpicking. Ehrman is a fantastically lucid writer. He simplifies complex issues without oversimplifying. He chooses excellent examples of the "hidden contradictions" (and some aren't that hidden). He builds an excellent case, only making exaggerated or specious claims a couple times—those are to be expected in a book about hermeneutics. Some of his best work in the book is deconstructing C.S. Lewis's sad, silly trilemmic claim: Liar, Lunatic or Lord. His assessment of the development of doctrine, especially Nicene Christianity, is excellent. In short, this is a great refresher for those of us who already had this in grad school, and it's a shocking introduction for evangelicals and fundamentalists who have never heard this before.
My chief complaint about the book is twofold: Ehrman misunderstands who will read his book, and he apparently has never been a pastor. Point one first. Liberals, agnostics, and atheists will read this book. They will get something out of it. Moderates will get less out of it, assuming they read it, and I hope they do. Conservatives will do what they have always done: bury their heads in hermeneutical double speak—and lest you think I'm being unfair, this is the group who constructed and embraced the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. "Um, of course the original autographs are inerrant, but we just don't have them to show you that so you'll need to take it on faith." Ehrman says he wants conservatives to read his book and learn something about the Bible. If they do, they simply won't believe what he writes. If they do believe, they won't be conservative for long, and I've yet to meet someone who stops being a conservative evangelical because of proof. Proofs are proofs based on a prior intellectual commitment or assumption; proofs do not create intellectual commitments. I would think Ehrman understands that, but he is a classic liberal in the rationalist sense, so it's possible he still has that oddly misplaced optimism about rationality.
Point two. Any pastor who has attempted to preach the Bible the way Ehrman presents it will tell you one of two things. If she is a liberal, she will say her people are bored with the critical approach. If he is a conservative, he will say his job depends on keeping his mouth shut about such things, assuming he believes what Ehrman writes. No pastor survives who undermines the faith of his congregation. Yes, they have a responsibility to tell their people the truth, but don't believe for a second that there aren't enough other truths to talk about that won't raise the spectre of a disciplinary hearing. For those who do believe what Ehrman writes, they will choose to preach the devotional meaning of Scripture because it ensures the evangelical zealot who really believes the Chicago Statement won't make a fuss with his small group, the deacons, or the denominational headquarters. No pastor who needs to pay his bills needs an ignorant crusader who knows nothing about the Bible (although he may know every word in it) making his job more difficult.
Read the book. It's excellent. I enjoyed the refresher, and Ehrman's style is very readable. I even learned a few things I didn't know before, despite my two degrees in Bible and Theology. There is much to love about this book, but I'm afraid it won't do nearly what Ehrman hoped it would. That is a tragedy, but he can't seriously believe evangelicals will read this with an open mind. They aren't practiced at that skill and have very little experience with critical thinking, let alone critical method.
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