Continuing from Segment 9 – Forgeries in the New Testament, Paul gives us another insight into the monumental work by bible scholar, Bart Ehrman.
You can buy the book here: Forged: Writing in the Name of God–why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
Categories: Bible, Biblical scholarship, Books, Christianity, Recommended Reading
Blogging Theology 
The evidence put forward here for 2 Peter being a forgery is complete conjecture.
1. The early Christians believed Jesus would return in their lifetime but 2 Peter indicates a long period. Therefore 2 Peter was not written by Peter. The error here is that Jesus and the early Christians did not say Jesus would return in their lifetime.
2. Paul’s letters are treated as scripture in 2 Peter but this is a later development therefore 2 Peter was not written by Peter. The error here is that Paul addresses all of his letters as an apostle and expects them to be treated as authoritative. It is conjecture to say early Christians did not treat them that way.
3. 2 Peter is well written but Peter was a Galilean fisherman and could not write this well. Again pure conjecture and simply a failure to read the NT. 1 Peter 5:12 explains that Peter had scribes and church history records Mark wrote for Peter too.
4. Church leaders hide liberal scholarship from Christians. No they do not. The arguments of liberal scholarship are simply weak.
All of these arguments are old and have been answered for decades. The are helpfully dealt with in books like “An Introduction to the NT by Carson, Moo, and Morris – and by simply reading the Bible!
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“1. The early Christians believed Jesus would return in their lifetime but 2 Peter indicates a long period. Therefore 2 Peter was not written by Peter. The error here is that Jesus and the early Christians did not say Jesus would return in their lifetime.”
Response – “Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
““And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”””
““What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.””
“2. Paul’s letters are treated as scripture in 2 Peter but this is a later development therefore 2 Peter was not written by Peter. The error here is that Paul addresses all of his letters as an apostle and expects them to be treated as authoritative. It is conjecture to say early Christians did not treat them that way.”
Response – Actually, it is conjecture to say that early Christians treated Paul’s letters as scripture. Scholars like the late Bruce Metzger recognized that canonization was a gradual development:
“Bruce M Metzger, a noted authority on the New Testament, analyzing the Apostolic Fathers viz., Clement of Rome, Ignatius, the Didache, fragments of Papias, Barnabas, Hermas of Rome, and the so-called 2 Clement concludes the following:
Clement Of Rome
By way of summary, we see that Clement’s Bible is the Old Testament, to which he refers repeated as Scripture, quoting it with more or less exactness. Clement also makes occasional reference to certain words of Jesus; though they are authoritative to him, he does not appear to enquire how their authenticity is ensured. In two of the three instances that he speaks of remembering ‘the words’ of Christ or of the Lord Jesus, it seems that he has a written record in mind, but he does not call it a ‘gospel’. He knows several of Paul’s epistles, and values them highly for their content; the same can be said of the Epistle of the Hebrews with which he is well acquainted. Although these writings obviously possess for Clement considerable significance, he never refers to them as authoritative ‘Scripture’.[16]
Ignatius Of Antioch
The upshot of all this is that the primary authority for Ignatius was the apostolic preaching about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, though it made little difference to him whether it was oral or written. He certainly knew a collection of Paul’s epistles, including (in the order of frequency of his use of them) 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Romans, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians. It is probable that he knew the Gospels according to Matthew and John, and perhaps also Luke. There is no evidence that he regarded any of these Gospels or Epistles as ‘Scripture’.[17]”
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/BibleTex.html#Fathers
“3. 2 Peter is well written but Peter was a Galilean fisherman and could not write this well. Again pure conjecture and simply a failure to read the NT. 1 Peter 5:12 explains that Peter had scribes and church history records Mark wrote for Peter too.”
Response – Actually, 1 Peter 5:12 says that Peter wrote the letter “with the help of Silas”. There is no indication that he dictated the letter in its entirety for Silas to write down.
“4. Church leaders hide liberal scholarship from Christians. No they do not. The arguments of liberal scholarship are simply weak.”
Response – Um, yes they do. That is why most Christians are surprised to hear that passages like the pericope of the adulteress are later additions.
“All of these arguments are old and have been answered for decades. The are helpfully dealt with in books like “An Introduction to the NT by Carson, Moo, and Morris – and by simply reading the Bible!”
Response – Yes, read the Bible and you will see that it is not “inspired”.
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None of the verses you give prove your point. Please read them.
> “Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
“This generation” refers to those upon signs come. All of these signs did not come with Jesus’ disciples. For example:
Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
The gospel still has not gone to all nations today, how much less in the disciples’ day.
> ““And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”””
Jesus is speaking about his resurrection and ascension as the Messiah king. The kingdom has come with the Messiah at the right hand of God. They kingdom has come.
> ““What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.””
Why are you quoting this? It is simply saying that this world is passing away and we should live for the age to come. It does not mention a generation at all.
> Actually, it is conjecture to say that early Christians treated Paul’s letters as scripture.
Why? They claim authority and had the consensus of the early church. Christians did not start using Paul’s letter because of the canon but the canon reflected what people were already using.
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yes, paul thought jesus was coming back in his life time.
“The gospel still has not gone to all nations today, how much less in the disciples’ day.”
quote :
At the Great Commission, the disciples were sent out to plant the seeds. For a generation, they cultivated the seeds. But then it was harvest time, when the Son of Man came and the angels were sent out (not to cultivate) but to “gather” the elect. The harvest, according to Mark 4:28, is “at once,” i.e., quick. That’s what “gather the elect” means
quote :
Note that in the very argument Warren makes, he undermines himself. He notes that Mark 13:10 and Matt 24:14 say that the gospel will be proclaimed “throughout the whole world,” and that then “the end will come.” He then makes my argument for me, showing that the word used for “whole world” was a term referring to the Roman realm. So, according to Warren, “the gospel will be proclaimed throughout the Roman realm, and then the end will come.”
The simple fact that Warren is unable to face up to is that the authors of the Gospels, and of the Hebrew Bible texts, didn’t know how big the world really was. So when they spoke of “all the nations of the earth,” they were just speaking about the nations they knew existed.
quote :
Yes, that is what it’s called. That’s all I’ll grant. Yes, the growing of the kingdom is gradual, according to Mark 4:28, but the gathering of the harvest is instantaneous, according to Mark 4:28. This is what Warren isn’t allowed to see because of his commitment to a silly eschatology. At the Great Commission, the disciples were sent out to plant the seeds. For a generation, they cultivated the seeds. But then it was harvest time, when the Son of Man came and the angels were sent out (not to cultivate) but to “gather” the elect. The harvest, according to Mark 4:28, is “at once,” i.e., quick. That’s what “gather the elect” means. It’s not difficult to understand, unless you have some commitment that would make it impossible for you to accept this, like, say, a commitment to the view that Jesus could not possibly have been wrong
quote :
When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. (Matt. 10:23)
quote :
This is nonsense. Again, they are sent to gather in, not to evangelize. If you’ll recall, Christ’s messengers were already sent out to the four corners of the earth to evangelize some forty years past, at the Great Commission. What this describes is not a planting of seeds, but a reaping of the harvest from the seeds that have already been planted.
And while yes, the angels in Mark 8 are angels of judgment, my point stands: the event is the same in both passages (the coming of the Son of Man), and thus it stands to reason that the “angels” in both passages refer to celestial, not human, beings. Obviously some of the angels are tasked with judgment, while others are tasked with gathering in the elect. What is clear is that in no case is there any mention of evangelism in these Son of Man passages. As I pointed out, the evangelism to the world had already been commissioned a generation before this event
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“Jesus and the early Christians did not say Jesus would return in their lifetime.”
Of course they believed that.
“and by simply reading the Bible!”
Exactly
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““This generation” refers to those upon signs come. All of these signs did not come with Jesus’ disciples. For example:
Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
The gospel still has not gone to all nations today, how much less in the disciples’ day.”
Response – First of all, you are assuming that Christians in the first century knew the geography of the Earth and how big it was. I doubt that they knew of the existence of North or South America or Australia. As far as they knew, the “world” was made up of the territories of the Roman empire and some territories outside of it.
Second, according to Paul, the gospel had been preached to “all nations”:
“But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’” (Romans 10:16-18)
“Jesus is speaking about his resurrection and ascension as the Messiah king. The kingdom has come with the Messiah at the right hand of God. They kingdom has come.”
Response – Where does it say that?
“Why are you quoting this? It is simply saying that this world is passing away and we should live for the age to come. It does not mention a generation at all.”
Response – It is clear from this passage that Paul was convinced that the end was near. His answer to the question of marriage was that Christians could get married, but that since “the time [was] short”, it was probably better not to. Why would he have said that if he was not convinced that the end was near? Surely, he was not speaking to Christians 2,000 years later, who are still waiting for the end to come!
Finally, 1 John 2:18 was even more crystal-clear that the end-times were here:
“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.”
The author did not say that the “last hour” was coming. He said it was already here. In other words, as Paul said it, time was short indeed.
“Why? They claim authority and had the consensus of the early church. Christians did not start using Paul’s letter because of the canon but the canon reflected what people were already using.”
Response – Not at all. The “canon” does not include many books which people were already using.
As Metzger pointed out, even though Paul’s letters were used as “authoritative” sources of teaching, there is no indication that it they were regarded as “scripture”.
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LOL!!
Surah 83:13
Forgeries indeed.
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LOL!! Trey is getting desperate and so tries to divert attention from the forgeries in his book to the Holy Quran!!
The Meccan pagans knew some of the stories of the previous prophets, so when they were recited in the Quran, they reacted as if they were just stories that they had heard for generations.
In contrast, your book has many clear forgeries. Don’t run away from the truth. 🙂
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Faiz
So, so, dumb.
The quran contains stories from man-made sources like the talmud. Worse still, it contains stories from christian apocrypha that even early christians knew were fake and forged – the infancy gospel comes to mind.
LOL.
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Trey,
So, so, dumb.
The Quran corrects the ridiculous stories of the Bible. For example, there is no talking snake in the Garden. There is no white-haired “God” either.
The irony of your claim is that your Bible is full of stories that originate from questionable sources. These could be pagan sources, and yes, even Apocrypha! Here is some direct evidence. Enjoy!
1. The Book of Jude (a canonical book) makes reference to the book of Enoch (an apocryphal book). Jude 1:14-15 states:
“Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.””
Scholars have recognized that this passage is taken from 1 Enoch 1:9.[3]
2. John 7:38 quotes an unknown source and refers to it as “scripture”:
“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
3. Luke 11:49 quotes God from an unknown source:
“Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’”
4. James 4:5 quotes an unknown source and refers to it as “scripture”:
“Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?”
Where are these verses from? Why are they referred to as “scripture”? If the canon had been accepted hundreds of years before, why do the Christian authors of the above books quote non-canonical books?
5. Numbers 21:14 mentions a book known as the “Book of the Wars of the Lord”:
“The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. That is why the Book of the Wars of the Lord says…”[7]
The exact nature of this book is not known, as even believers in the Bible will admit. In the well-known Christian commentary “Barnes’ Notes on the Bible”, it is stated:
“Of “the book of the wars of the Lord” nothing is known except what may be gathered from the passage before us. It was apparently a collection of sacred odes commemorative of that triumphant progress of God’s people which this chapter records.”[8]
6. Joshua quoted from the Book of Jashar:
“On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!”[12]
http://quranandbible.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-history-of-bible-and-quran.html
http://quranandbible.blogspot.com/2014/02/response-to-christian-on-history-of.html
Educate yourself, little man. You’re way out of your league!
LOL.
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It is truly an intellectual Scandal within the church. Of course, we know the reason why Pastors and Ministers prefer deception rather than to teach the scholarly truth about the Bible. If the laymen in the pue’s knew these historical facts, and hidden truths about their own religion, there would be a mass exodus away from Christianity. This is the reason that Christianity is dying in Europe, and why it is now stagnating in America and other western Countries. The only places that Christianity is growing is in areas that are relatively uneducated (Africa), or don’t have a long past experience with Christianity (the orient), and don’t have access to translations historical textual critique. Once those works become available in African, Chinese, and other languages, Christianity will again resume its long slow death and decline.
Just a matter of time.
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Cerberus, rest assured that your idiocy makes people laugh at you, myself included! 😉
Christianity is dying because people are opening their eyes to the deception of your religion. Get over it.
Islam, on the other hand, is growing despite all the negative press alhamdulillah. Going back to the source is the antidote to the problem of terrorism. Its no wonder that the terrorists know so little about Islam.
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Lol, what evidence is there for this? Most recent studies have shown that while Christianity loses millions of adherents, Islam actually has a net gain from conversions.
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If Mohammed was honest he would have quoted his sources like the bible does.
The word scripture can only refer to scripture itself, i.e one of the 66 books. A reference to scripture must not necessarily mean that words are repeated verbatim. A concept can be expressed in a different form in another place within the same scripture.
There is no hard evidence that the book of Enoch was written before the NT.
” For example, there is no talking snake in the Garden. ”
How do you know? Were you there?
“There is no white-haired “God” either. ”
Not meant to be taken literally. More red herrings and strawmen.
So much for what you call “evidence”.
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LOL, another pathetic attempt by Ignoramus to save the Bible.
Your so-called “scripture” quotes unknown sources and refers to them as “scripture”. Yet, no one has any idea what these sources were. So, it would appear that your “scripture” is incomplete and some of it has been lost.
The book of Enoch was found among the Dead Sea scrolls. That precedes the New Testament by 2 centuries. Nice try… 😉
So, a talking snake misled Adam and Eve and not Satan?
The “white-haired” god was not “to be taken literally”? How do you know? Whether it was literal or not, the fact remains that the imagery is borrowed from pagan mythology. The scene with the “son of man” approaching the “Ancient of Days” is borrowed directly from the myth about El and Baal. You just don’t want to acknowledge the facts because it is inconvenient. Shame, shame, shame!!
As it stands, though, there is no reason to think that the imagery is “not to be taken literally”. Daniel had a literal vision, you simpleton! Was the vision just a hallucination or did Daniel actually see God? If he saw God, then how can his description be metaphorical?
So much for your pathetic mental gymnastics.
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“The book of Enoch was found among the Dead Sea scrolls. That precedes the New Testament by 2 centuries. Nice try… ”
The scrolls and manuscripts found there were carbon dated between 300 bc and 300 ad. Just cos the book of Enoch was found there proves nothing. And carbon dating is not “hard evidence”. It’s just an attempt to arrive at an approximation based on a method which cannot be proven to be 100 per cent reliable or valid. Unprovable assumptions underlie the method.
“A literal vision”. lol, that’s a new one. Faiz can be creative when tries.
” Was the vision just a hallucination or did Daniel actually see God?”
He saw a representation of God. Obviously as the Father and Holy Spirit cannot be seen because they are spirits they have to be represented by something which can be seen in order for them to be identified in distinction to the Son of Man.
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