My assertion in a recent video at Speakers’ Corner that the gospel writers were anonymous and only attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John at the end of the 2nd century by Irenaeus has been queried. Here is a brief summary of the NT scholarship on this question.
‹ lol
Categories: Bible, Biblical scholarship, Christianity
Blogging Theology 
I used to enjoy listening to Bart Ehrman and indeed I am indebted to him because I learned allot from him. But I think there was a reason he was attracted to the Moody Bible institute. He seems to always think in all or nothing terms.
He says the Gospels are “not reliable” *even if* they were based on eyewitness accounts. But courts find eyewitness accounts to be reliable all the time. He talks about discrepancies. But again just because there are some discrepancies that does not mean courts throw out all the testimony. Reasonable people look at the differences and try to draw conclusions despite some discrepancies.
Bart Ehrman is in fact a reasonable person who does this as well. He believes the Gospels are reliable for some things. For example he would say the Gospels reliably state that a Person Named Jesus existed. He would also say they reliably state the Jesus had some sort of relationship or contact with John the baptist.
The fact is Historians have to view reliability on a spectrum. Dr. Ehrman offers different criteria that he believes Historians can use to move the reliability of up or down this spectrum. But how each of them do that is somewhat subjective.
I am not just saying Dr. Ehrman is doing this because sensationalizing the unreliability of scriptures sells more books. I am saying his mental make up could never really deal with the gray areas that well when it came to religion. He admits as much in (I believe) misquoting Jesus. He admits he really had to wrestle with whether the mustard seed was the smallest seed – since Christ referred to it as such. But other people who were Catholic or in other religious denominations did not really care. This focus on the minutia may be why he lost his faith.
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” Reasonable people look at the differences and try to draw conclusions despite some discrepancies.”
matthew:
an angel came down and floored the guards and then the guards had no fear of the angel and spread lies even though earlier on they became “as dead men” .
luke :
drops matthews angel story and prefers marks story
mark :
women ran away and said nothing to anyone
john:
mary clings to her belief that the body is stolen even after she speaks to an unrecognisable gardener.
what a comedy
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Joe,
Only a court presided over by incompetent judge would find eyewitness accounts reliable ALL THE TIME,” In regard to discrepancies, all I can say is…..man! you clearly learned nothing from Ehrman. We are not talking about a discrepancy in the criminal court case of petty theft, but rather, we are talking about the path to everlasting salvation!! If there is a discrepancy in the text I think it is important that we should know about it, as it may cast doubt on the reliability of other portions of the story. In the case of the Bible, it is not just one discrepancy in the story, but a superfluous multiplicity.
It is interesting that many of the top scholars in the field of NT historical textual criticism largely agree with his conclusions and many of the top universities teach the same. If his methodology was as subjective as you seem to think, then I am sure this would not be the case.
May Allah Guide you to the true path.
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”
Only a court presided over by incompetent judge would find eyewitness accounts reliable ALL THE TIME,”
ehrman said something like ,
if eyewitness accounts were good there would be no point of interrogation and “i saw this ” would be enough to free or convict
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Edward,
Good point.
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Bart Ehrman differentiates always between his ” radical” skeptical view and the vast majority of NT scholars’ view about Jesus and Bible.
For example, the fact that Jesus didn’t claim to be God is accepted by the vast majority of NT scholars from historical point of view.
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edward
“ehrman said something like ,
if eyewitness accounts were good there would be no point of interrogation and “i saw this ” would be enough to free or convict”
That’s a devastating blow to the hadith literature – there are extremely scant written materials for the first two centuries if islam. The entire body of islamic lietrature is based on supposed eyewitness accounts, recounted a few times and then written down decades and centuries later by people who had absolutely no contact with the supposed eyewitnesses.
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The site does not allow me to reply individually. But thank you all for the various comments.
Edward. A discrepancy is not the same as a difference. Just because 2 authors report different things that does not mean there is a discrepancy.
But lets assume there are discrepancies to address. You need to evaluate them. It is unreasonable to say “Oh my there are discrepancies so we can’t tell what is correct and what isn’t.” That is not how reasonable people look at things. Keep in mind that inspired in the christian sense does not mean the same as it does for Muslims. To the extent Muslims believe it was literally God or Gabriel speaking through Mohamed that is different than the Christian view. Christians do not think the holy spirit literally took control of the scripture authors hand and forced it to write each word. Rather for example the Catholic view is that:
“The Books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.”
That last part is important. If it has nothing to do with with the sake of our salvation then then its unclear why God would safeguard it. Many of the quibbling things Ehrman and other raise have very little to do with salvation. Such as whether the mustard seed is the smallest seed. People who get wrapped up in that miss the point of Christianity.
And just because this is dealing with salvation that is not a reason to be less reasonable than we would be with other issues. If anything we would want to be more reasonable.
Finally to say the vast majority scholars think as a historical matter Christ never made it clear he was divine is a real stretch. Is Ehrman discounting all of the Priests and Pastors who have studied the new testament and only including people who are atheists? Then ok. But then you are just picking your sample based on the views they already hold.
Miracles are the strongest proof that someone is at least supernatural if not from God. Even Ehrman strays from his normal historical analysis when he addresses Christ’s miracles. Why because if he used his historical analysis he would have to admit Christ performed miracles. And he desperately wants to avoid that so he is not ridiculed by his colleagues who are irreligious.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/05/29/ehrman-and-the-historicity-of-miracles/
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Well, I’ll ask again. If He wasn’t God, Who was He?
God is the author, ultimately, of the scriptures. They are God-breathed. Men wrote down the words He wanted us to have.
Time to confess. Being able to acknowledge His divinity based upon all the information we have about Him is not the compelling problem for me any more. It is a fascinating topic which merits my attention and diligence. But to be open, I can create 275,009 reasons–in .045 seconds and without even trying–why I shouldn’t or can’t or don’t really need to do (not right now anyway) what He’s asking me to do. Plus, in .044 seconds I can build 20 feet thick poured concrete walls with rebar every 5 inches, that block any thoughts suggesting that I am making excuses.
To do His will is the meat of my life. If I can manage to chomp away at what is on my plate today, that by itself leads to the assurance that there is a God and I’m not Him. Many will say, Lord, I was a superstar. I was wonderful. I was such a cool Christian, you got to be impressed. Right God?
My point is this. At times, I don’t like doing His will. It is very difficult. No, it is more than difficult. It is brutal, it feels degrading, it is confusing, downright scary, exhausting, painful, not exciting, lonely, agonizing-and occasionally it drags on like that not just for a minute or two, but for days, weeks, months, even years. Again, for me, doing the next right thing based upon what I do understand about His commands, that is the kind of thing that makes me wish the scriptures were way off base, you know? That’s my problem. Not that God’s words are unreliable, but that they are too demanding. I don’t know if I really want to throw the covers off today and face my boss. The fact that I am commanded by God to love and to forgive him, despite the fact that lately he’s been begging me to smash his face in, that makes me wish I could find a way to dismiss Christ as my Lord and my God, not because He didn’t really say what the New Testament claims. I have to love and to forgive everybody, including the old hag who cut me off yesterday on my way home.
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“The Fourth Gospel” apparently is the new and proper name for what was once called John’s Gospel.
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