I’ve
just completed reading Bart Ehrman’s Jesus,
Interrupted. It’s a good read from someone from the other side of the divide.
At least it gives one an idea of the thinking on that side. This is not my
first contact with Ehrman’s books. I had a brief contact with his book on
suffering when I was writing a paper on that subject in my Master’s programme
but this is his first book I would complete reading.
But
there is nothing new in what Ehrman wrote. Like he himself said severally,
these are issues in the public
domain, and anyone who has passed through a seminary must have heard some forms
of it, maybe he was only a little more detailed.
But
then, why don’t we talk about it on the pulpit? Very simple: they are
inconsequential.
Ehrman
has the knowledge. I may not be able to match his intellectual capacity. I’m
not as widely read as he. I’m only a pastor while he is a professor, with only
God knows how many doctorates, not to talk of his years of research. He has the
information. But information alone is not enough. One needs to move on to
understanding, and then wisdom.
Knowledge
is information; mere accumulation of information. But unprocessed information
is dangerous. There is a second level to move to—comprehension. That is what
understanding is, and then application. What do you do with the wealth of
information at your disposal after years of study and research? This is where
many scholars stumble.
Many
scholars know about God but they
don’t really know God. There is a difference between the two. The world of
research could be so demanding that you forget everything of importance to you.
I had a similar experience while I was in the Seminary. In an attempt to finish
assignment and be up to date, you have to scrape time from everything that
matters to you. Your relationship with God, your family and friends suffers.
That is the danger of scholarship. Pastors also fall into the same temptation.
Man’s Responsibility
While
there may not be any original copy of any of the book of the New Testament, the
so called autographs, that does not
rule out their existence at one point in time. We don’t have the stone plate on
which God wrote the Ten Commandments but that does not rule out the fact that God
gave us the Ten Commandments.
What
God provides, man must take possession. Man must take the responsibility. If,
according to Ehrman’s thinking, the books are truly inspired by God, He should
have taken responsibility for his preservation. You may give your children
everything they need to make it in life; the best care, the best education, the
best home, the best security, but what they become in life is still their
responsibility. You can take the horse to the river but what he does there is
his own responsibility.
I read a scripture this morning in
Joshus 21:43: “So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give
their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there.”
God gave them the land, and they took possession of
it. If God provides and man does not take his own responsibility, God should
not be blamed for not keeping his word.
God
created the Garden of Eden and put Adam and his wife there. I’m sure there were
no furniture in the Garden but there were trees (that is if Ehrman believes in
the creation story in the Bible). So until Adam is able to figure out how to
convert a tree to furniture, He will continue to sleep on the ground. God
provides, man must take responsibility.
God’s Superintendent
One
of God’s attributes is His sovereignty. He can use anyone, under any circumstance,
to accomplish his will. If He called Nebuchadnezzar, an ungodly leader for that
matter, His servant, He can use anyone to do whatever He wants done.
Nobody
claims that the Bible drops from heaven like the Muslims believe about the
Quran. God used people to do the writing. But what we are saying is that God’s
hand was on them. Of course they didn’t know they were writing the Scriptures.
For had they known, they could have doctored the materials in several ways. If
they knew they were writing what would be read thousands of miles from where
they were writing, and something to be regarded as sacred through many
generations, I tell you, they could have put a little of themselves in it,
knowing what man is. They could have embellished it in some ways to soothe
their own ego, or to demonstrate their spiritual or intellectual prowess.
But
God was using them unbeknown to them. And yet the messages of the whole Bible
rhyme. What a wonder!
Could
that explain why there were no names in the autographs? So God Himself
deliberately hid the identity of the original authors for His own purpose, that
is if the names attached to the book were not the rightful authors.
Of
course there are scribal errors, scribal additions or whatever, but these are
not sufficient to discountenance the entire Book as flawed and of no value. We
are the ones to take responsibility for that. God in His superintendent has kept
the basic tenets of the books.
Even
when he asked himself what book he would have loved to be included in the Canon
which were left out, Ehrman couldn’t come up with any. That is God’s
providence. So we have a complete book. It might appear as if it was Athanasius
that single handedly came up with the list of which books to include or exclude,
but God’s hand was on him. God uses people, as far as the work on this earth is
concerned. When He made man, He handed over the rulership and control to man.
And if He wants anything done, He has to go through man. And He can always do
that, especially when His counsel is about to be jeopardized (Prov. 19:21).
Knowledge
unguarded is dangerous. Unknown to Ehrman, all the accumulated but misplaced knowledge
had created a crack in his faith. So when confronted with the issue of
suffering, even though he could better handle this, the entire foundation of
his faith gave way under the little
weight. In his own words, “There is so much senseless pain and misery in the
world that I came to find it impossible to believe that there is a good and
loving God who is in control, despite my
knowing all the standard rejoinders that people give.”
Revelation is Gradual
What
we should have celebrated as a victory or achievement in the fourth gospel by
its high Christological view, Ehrman discountenanced as a forgery. God uses man
to their level of understanding. He used Matthew (or whosoever the author) to
the extent of his understanding. God uses men and women as they are, notwithstanding
their shortcomings, their level of understanding and their weaknesses. Moses
was not perfect when God started with him, and he was not at the end. Yet, God
still used him to the level of his ability and availability.
The
early church fathers and the apostolic fathers saw all the so called
“discrepancies” and yet they left the books untouched. They could have doctored
some of the books to make them say the same thing but they left them as they
were. Even Luke stated out rightly from the onset of his first book how he
arrived at his conclusion.
There
is one area I agree with Ehrman, saying: “… all
the books of the Bible, are distinct and should not be read as if they are all
saying the same thing.”
Each
author has his own theological agenda. Each author was writing to a particular
group. So if they appear not to be repeating themselves, should we have any
problem with that? Rather, we should celebrate that. What if the book of
Matthew is the only gospel we have on the life of Jesus (as against the four),
would that have affected the faith of Ehrman differently as it is today?
To
regard as a myth something you could not prove historically is too narrow a thinking. If you want to accept only
what you could prove then you would have to create your own world to live in.
No
Egyptian record has anything to say about the presence of the Israelites in
their land or the exodus story. Yet, does that prove that the Israelites were
never in Egypt? Individuals, organizations and civilization write history in a
way to promote their own agenda. So if no Greek or Roman author of the time has
nothing to say about the historical Jesus, that doesn’t mean Jesus was an
insignificant Jew of the first century. A figure that gave the religious
leaders of his day many sleepless nights could not be said to be insignificant.
So if they or others don’t have anything to say about him, they are just trying
to suppress the facts. It is a case of deliberate neglect.
God
has always treasured his word. That was why several times in the Old Testament
God’s instruction to Moses and his successors is to write it down and pay
attention to it. Be diligent with it. Mediate on it. So when Ehrman says that
the issue of faith has always been to worship God and nothing to do with the
word, that is quite misleading from a scholar of his caliber.
What
helps us to worship God? It is His word. What gives us understanding on how to
worship God? It is His word. Instead of us to celebrate the men that laboured
in giving us the Word, Ehrman wants us to castigate them.
My Advice to Prospective Seminarians
Seminary
should not be your first point of call after giving your life to Christ. There
are professors and scholars there that can crack your faith and wreck it if
care is not taken. There are scholars like Ehrman who don’t know what to do
with the wealth of information in their hands other than to mislead people to
become doubters and agnostics like them.
You
need to ground your faith before going to the Seminary. You need to strengthen
your relationship with God before
entering the world of knowledge. This is what will sustain you in your crisis of
faith which everyone in the Seminary faces at one point or another.
Also,
be careful in your choice of seminary or graduate school.
There are liberal
schools like Princeton where the faith of Ehrman was shattered. Do a careful
research before settling on any school.
There are many scholars who don’t know
what they believe again. The only thing still keeping them in the school is
their food. That is why they still need to confess to faith even though it’s only one very weak strand that is left.
Seminaries
also need to appraise the faith of their faculty from time to time. People
don’t remain constant. Things happen along the way. Someone that is correct
today may have cracked by next year if care is not taken. So each seminary
needs to nurture the faith of their people. There should also be rooms for
discussion and interaction where concerns are voiced and responses received.
Crisis of faith is real in the seminary, and we need to take conscious effort
to address it from time to time.
During
my time at East Asia School of Theology, EAST, we were having a theological
discussion every Friday afternoon which was quite helpful. We are able to share
and rub minds together. As a result, budding doubts are quickly dispelled. The
unfortunate thing is that not many people turned up for the meeting.
Final Word for Ehrman
There
still hope for Bart Ehrman. God does not want the death of a sinner but that
they repent. If you call on Him, He’s ready to forgive you notwithstanding the
damage you have done to His cause.
