Christians sometimes say that there are just three options as to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Bart Ehrman adds a fourth option: legend. Ehrman is a Biblical scholar and author of “Misquoting Jesus.”
His book strikes at the heart of Christian faith. For the Bible is considered to be the inerrant Word of God. But the problem is, we don’t know what those words were. There is no original trustworthy Biblical text. All we have are copies of copies of texts that were changed countless times over the centuries, sometimes from simple clerical error, sometimes purposely.
Ehrman once was a devout evangelical. Now he is an agnostic. His scholarship caused him to realize that the words of the Bible can’t be trusted. There’s no proof that Jesus was divine, that he was resurrected from the dead, that he performed miracles, that belief in him results in salvation.
You can believe in Jesus if you like. You can also believe in the Easter Bunny. Or Santa Claus. Or leprechauns. If it makes you feel good to believe in a legend, do it. Just don’t expect that other people should take you seriously or respect your ill-founded faith. Ehrman writes:
Occasionally I see a bumper sticker that reads: “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” My response is always, What if God didn’t say it? What if the book you take as giving you God’s words instead contains human words? What if the Bible doesn’t give a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age—abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, religious supremacy, Western-style democracy, and the like?
What if we have to figure out how to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol—or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty?
Reading “Misquoting Jesus” was a real eye-opener for me. This is billed as the first book about modern Biblical textual criticism that is aimed at general readers, not scholars. I’d always been skeptical that the gospels bore much resemblance to what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually said (leaving aside the bigger question as to whether what they said is true).
Now I know that my skepticism is well-founded. I suspect that most Christians think the Bible they read on Sunday was written soon after Jesus’ death and has come down to us unaltered. Nothing could be further from the truth. If their Christian faith rests on the words of the Bible, it is resting on slippery sand. Ehrman says this about Biblical texts:
Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later—much later…If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don’t have the very words of scripture?…It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are!
There are several worthy candidates for the title of World’s Craziest Major Religion. I go back and forth trying to decide which faith deserves this dishonorable honor. Usually Christianity and Islam run neck and neck in my mind. I’ll give this to Islam, though: at least the modern day Koran is, to my understanding, unchanged from the days of Mohammed. Muslim beliefs may be weird, but at least they’re consistently weird.
Christianity, by contrast, is a mish-mash of dogma that has been cobbled together over the centuries. Little, if any, can be reliably traced to Jesus. There’s little doubt that if Jesus returned to earth today and took a look at the Christian faith he’d say, “What the hell is that all about?”
Ehrman has rejected a religion that no longer made sense to him. He talks a bit about his personal journey from faith to faithlessness in “Misquoting Jesus” but mostly keeps himself in the background. As a continuation to this post I’ll include a fascinating Washington Post review of his book that provides a fuller picture of Ehrman, the man.
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