Re: [asa] The tomb of Jesus?

David wrote:
 
'five Bart Ehrman books, including "Lost Christianities," "Lost Scriptures," "Misquoting Jesus," "Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene," and "The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot." Ehrman, of course, is a leading proponent of the view that there was no center of orthodoxy in the early church, and that the Gnostic sects in particular were genuine heirs of the early Christian tradition before they were stomped out by the patriarchy.'
 
From Phil:
David, I want to ask you about this, because I don't understand how Ehrman can believe this. Several years ago I re-read the NT with a critical eye to understand how credible it is as a historical record (apart from faith). I got the very strong impression that Paul is a credible historical figure and that his epistles (at least the majority of them) are certainly credible records of what he believed and what he was doing. Likewise it seemed that it would have been hard for Paul to have misunderstood the gospel as being taught by the other Apostles -- Peter, in particular -- and that it is very likely that he was representing the views of the other Apostles, apart from the secondary disagreements over whether Jewish Christians should keep the Jewish law, and if so then why and how, etc. It also seemed entirely credible that Mark represents the oral tradition of the earliest days of Christianity, that its pericopes were bite-sized in order to facilitate memorization so tha
 t Mark was essentially the catechism of the early church, and that therefore it was natural that later compilations (Matthew and Luke in particular) would be based upon that catechism. Finally it seemed entirely credible that Luke really was Paul's companion as described in Acts and that during his stay in Jerusalem (while Paul was jailed) he really did have access to the eyewitnesses as he claimed at the start of his gospel, and that he book really does represent the result of his honest investigation. It all seemed very credible, and because of the strong witness by Paul in particular I don't understand how anybody could believe that the earliest understanding of the gospel was any different than what we have today.
 
So here is my question: what is your assessment of people like Ehrman? Why do they believe as they do? I understand that there do exist these non-canonical gospels, and that Gnostic sects really did develop, etc., but why do people like Ehrman disregard Paul's witness and his agreement with such an early gospel as Mark, etc., and attempt to justify these heterodox views? What is your assessment of Ehrman's success of failure at doing so?
 
Thanks!
Phil M.
 
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Received on Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:04:31 -0500