Book Review: Forged by Bart Ehrman

On my travels I read Forged: Writing in the Name of God, why the Bible's Authors are not who we think they are, by Bart Ehrman.   According to the reviews on amazon, none of the information in it is new, but it was new to me.  I knew in a general sense that the Bible had been codified hundreds of years after Christ's death, and that there was controversy over what to put in, but I didn't realize the extent of the bogus material floating around during the first few centuries.

As the title suggests, some of the Bible was not written by the people credited with it.  Not all, but some:  the gospels, Timothy 1&2, Peter 1&2, Corinthians 3, Acts, and the Apocalypse.  The basis for discrediting author attribution is mainly the mention of events too recent to be known to the supposed authors, and theological points that contradict Paul but are in line with later theology.

One big point is the anti-semitism of second century Christians, with the result that successive versions of the crucifixion story put more blame on the Jews and less on Pontius Pilate.  Another is the expectation of Christ's imminent return by the early believers, and of course later believers having to rework the theology of the second coming in light of Christ's failure to fulfill his prophesy of returning before his followers have died out.

Some of the most virulent anti-women stuff is in the two Timothy letters, so I was glad to see them discredited even though I don't have any plans to become a preacher.  I want to like Christ and his followers, even if I don't believe any of the supernatural stuff in the fairy tale.  Bart Ehrman redeems them quite a lot in this book.

The writing is a bit repetitive, especially in his frequent insistance that forgery was neither common nor condoned during the period the Bible was being written.  I got the impression that there's some great war going on in scholarship and he believed if he shouted often enough his side might win.  But... if you were to pick up the book and read a single chapter, it would make sense to you because some of the repetition sets the stage for his look at individual cases.

Chapter Four should really have been Chapter One, since he refers to it so often in the earlier chapters.  This is the chapter in which he debunks the alternative theories one by one: no, an ignorant Aramaic-speaking fisherman couldn't have dictated the gospel in perfect academic Greek style, no, scribes wouldn't have been able to make up stuff with the author's content yet in their own style, no, it wasn't common practice for followers of a teacher to use the teacher's name for their own work, etc.

Ehrman is a scholar who has read and studied the earliest texts in the original languages.  Apparently there are quite a few people who dedicate their lives to such study, and they argue amongst themselves quite a bit without the rest of us ever knowing who they are or what they argue about.  This book gives us a glimpse of that world and also the results of years of close study of Biblical and even non-Biblical texts.  Despite being a member of the ivory tower, Ehrman is able to write about his life's work in everyday language and he organized the book in such a way that a person could keep it on their bookshelf for future reference.

I recommend it with the caveat that a straight through cover-to-cover read could be a bit tedious and repetitive.  If you have an interest in how the Bible came to be and what it's really made of, you'll overlook the flaws and find this book fascinating, as I did.

Je suis arrivée

I was in Paris for the past few weeks.  It was partly business, partly fun.  I have never been there before so I was a classic American stupid tourist, but I did have a list of things to see in my free time and I saw them.  Just being there for so long I got a taste of the lifestyle there, and it wasn't really what I expected.

I was disappointed at how Catholic the country still is.  November 1 is a "national holiday."  And why would that be?  Because it's All Saints Day.  I considered going to Notre Dame Cathedral that day, but I decided to sleep late and relax instead.  That's what holidays are for!  And anyway, if I want to see how the French Catholics celebrate a holiday, I'd rather see how they celebrate St. Denis, the patron saint of Paris, who was beheaded.  I love Catholic art!  The beheaded saints are pictured holding their heads.  Kind of makes me wonder what the ceremony would be like. 

Where I was staying there were lots of immigrants from Africa.  They're presumed to be from "Morocco" but I rather doubt they all are.   Anywho, supposedly there is bigotry against the "Moroccans" but they have only themselves to blame.  If you invade a country and force the natives to learn your language you can hardly blame them for choosing your country to migrate to after their way of life has ceased to support them.  Their national motto, Liberté Egalité, Fraternité, is all over the place.  They should read it more often.

On the other hand, they were nice to me for the most part, despite my horrible pronunciation of French.

Now that I'm back, I'll do a few book reviews of the books I put on my Kindle for the trip.  Some interesting stuff on my kindle!

Taking a break

Life got super busy & will be for the next couple of weeks.  Comments will be disabled until I can blog again.  Happy Halloween, heathens!

"Fields of Faith" for Paranoid Christians Only

The "Fellowship" of Christian Athletes came up with idea to take over an athletic field in order to prosletyze and call it a "community" event to get around the Religion Clause.  One such event took place in lovely Muncie, Indiana today.  I didn't go.

According to a spokesperson who was quoted in the local paper, I was welcome.  You don't have to be an athlete to come to this.  Well, duh... it's not an athletic event, it just rents an athletic field so it can have a cool name.  It could just as well be a tent meeting.

They make sure that students run it, so they can split that hair and stay out of legal trouble too, though adults (including coaches) can help push this thing.

http://www.fieldsoffaith.com/adultleader/yourrights.php

•The FCA has the right to access an athletic stadium, field, and/or gym for Fields of Faith just like other community organizations.


•Coaches and teachers have the right to participate in Fields of Faith as private individuals.

•Coaches and teachers have the right to actively participate in Fields of Faith if it is characterized as a community event and not a student group meeting. This includes praying, reading the Word of God, and freely expressing their religious beliefs.

•Students have the right to pray, to read the Word of God, and to freely express their religious beliefs at Fields of Faith.

•An outside speaker has the right to lead prayer, share the Word of God, freely express his/her faith, and give an invitation.

•Students have the right to distribute Fields of Faith brochures and posters to other students on the same terms as they are permitted to distribute other literature of community organizations.

•Students have the right to wear clothing and accessories advertising Fields of Faith if clothing is permitted to contain other types of speech.

•Students have the right to use religious words on the advertisements for Fields of Faith

uhhh So you can call it a "community" event because why?  Because there isn't one specific church that's sponsoring it?  From their webpage on "partners:"

We desire to see athletic fields covered on one night with students challenging each other to read the Word of God and come to faith in Jesus Christ. We embrace this ministry purpose. We believe that partnering together with other ministries and churches can only strengthen the impact in communities across the country for Jesus Christ. As Kingdom-minded co-laborers, we realize that we can not do it alone, but together we commit to the following agreements:

"Kingdom" minded? Uhhh we're a democracy, not a monarchy.  Is this some dominionist code?  They repeat it again:  "We agree to help students become lifelong followers of Jesus Christ through active involvement with a local church. We are Kingdom-minded, which serves the purpose of the Church."


I really can't wrap my mind around this doublespeak.  WTF is "Kingdom-minded?"  How can something be community based and student led but yet partner with a bunch of churches with the goal of getting kids to join these churches?

The part I found particularly chilling: 

Fields of Faith follows the method used by King Josiah. Most modern rallies are built around entertainment with professional speakers and this tends to create a separation. Fields of Faith highlights local students in the program creating a powerful connection. The success of this event is rooted in its simplicity:
•Bring many people together at one time.

•Read Scripture and share personal testimonies.

•Be challenged by fellow students to read the Word of God and to follow Jesus Christ

In case there's any doubt, they explicitly state on the "overview" page: Students invite their own classmates and teammates to meet on their school’s athletic field to hear fellow students share their faith testimonies, challenge them to read the Bible and to come to faith in Jesus Christ

This sounds like peer pressure to me.  What a rotten thing to do.  We had a small group in my high school.  Out of like 4,000 students there were at most about 50 in the "God Squad."  One of them invited me to a house meeting and it was the most laughably stupid thing I've ever seen.  Apparently they've sharpened their tools and now they have "faith bands" and their own rap stars.

Student athlete doesn't really have an option to resist this pressure.  I look at it like the military prosletyzing.  Can a soldier really decide to be the only member of a unit not to participate in prayer and still be part of the unit?  Can a college football player really be a concientous objector when the prayer starts?  If you were a football player at the University of Georgia, how comfortable would you feel saying thanks but no thanks to this? 

Do the Jesus Jive

I replied to another blog about music & religiosity and it reminded me of some videos I've seen in the past.  This one is typical of voudun spirit possession.  (It starts at about 3:35)



Too white and male to get dressed up and let the spirit enter you through dance?  Then try it the Pentecostal way:



Too hot for running around? Maybe the spirit will go easy on you and let you wander around in a haze:




If you want to do your badass Jesus Jive, just be sure some people with full control of their faculties are around to catch you when you fall, and wear your emergency alert bracelet because after Gawd knocks you on your ass, nobody will call 911 until the Jesus Jive is over:

Religiosity isn't Rational

It's been proven through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748718/?tool=pubmed

Their findings:

A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks

This is why you can't talk believers out of their belief with reasoning.  They have their emotional lives and self-image involved.  You can only chip away at it.  Their leaders are so resistant to anything contrary to their "facts" being taught to their children because they know that faith can't be overturned, it can only be undone in pieces.  If children learn the truth about the real world, they'll have a self-image based on the real world, not on their fantasy world.  They will grow up, and religion doesn't want grown-ups.  Grown-ups won't get out of bed on Sunday morning and put hard-earned money into the collection plate.

They also perceive themselves in a different way than non-believers do.  They use a different part of their brain when judging themselves and others.  They also use different parts of their brain when imagining God's positive or negative emotions.  There are two parts of the brain involved for the task of self-judgment vs. putting oneself into another's mind. 

Later in life, the hippocampus shrinks more in born-agains than other believers or in non-believers.   This can lead to Alzheimers.  Why am I not surprised?

Is Ghandi in Hell?

Despite what the Bible says about "salvation," apparently American Christians are more willing to forgive people for not accepting Christ than God is:

The most striking divergence from orthodoxy, however, was first revealed in the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. That comprehensive survey of 35,000 Americans found a majority of Christians saying that people of other religions can find salvation and eternal life.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/0114/p02s02-usgn.html

So they've figured out what atheists already knew: sending good people to Hell is bad!  But if you don't have to believe in Christ to get out of going to Hell, they why do you have to believe in Christ at all?  It's not just everyday Christians anonymously admitting their disbelief, there's a controversial pastor preaching this message too:  https://www.robbell.com/lovewins/.  (I love his quote that Christian theology teaches that Jesus rescues his followers from God!)  He wants to believe that Ghandi made it to Heaven.  He also acknowledges how messed up Christianity is, and then he love-bombs.

I think the love-bombing and social network of Christianity outweighs all other considerations for a lot of Christians.  I overheard a coworker say that he gets really anxious when he travels unless he knows there's a church nearby.  That's crazy.  If he's one of God's children and God is everywhere, what difference does it make if there's a church around the corner?  The difference is that Christianity is a salve for his anxiety disorder, not a pathway to Heaven.  After all, if Heaven is so great, why not just off himself and hurry upstairs before he thinks some heretical thought and ruins his chances?

Evangelicals may be their own undoing.  There are so many splinter "denominations" and start-up churches founded by one person (like Rob Bell's) that people can pick and choose whichever one they like, or make up their own theology and appoint themselves the head of a new church.  Any storefront will do.  I've seen a jillion of these.  The megachurches are the opposite end of the spectrum.  They're not under the thumb of a central authority, either.  Even the Southern Baptist conference is losing its grip.  Mean-spirited bigotry may finally be driving believers away, but they can't let go completely, so they hook up with nicer churches.  And these new churches provide what people who no longer need to feel "chosen" need for psychological fulfillment:  a social network, a feeling of being loved, and some guidance on what constitutes right and wrong.

I admire the trend.  These people will be easier to live with than the monsters who are trying to undermine the First Amendment, turn the military into a Christian crusader army, and set science back by hundreds of years.  Now if only they will take on their nastyass cousins in court and get them to STFU about the "Christian Nation," maybe we can move on as a culture.