Interesting review on Amazon on the
Bart Ehrman book:
The Question is Unanswered April 11, 2012
By Thomas in CC
Being someone with an undergradauate degree in Classics, and one year of graduate theology, I have a passing interest in the topic of Jesus' life and the life of early Christianity. Despite holding an accepting view, or concession rather, that Jesus the historical figure did exist, I am fully aware of the limits to making absolute conclusions in this regard. When I heard the interview on NPR regarding this book, I was like, "Oh, this should be an interesting read and either answer some questions I have had lingering on this topic; or it should help me further develop my already existing opinions in one way or the other." Well, the uncritical review I have of this book is simply that the book does not answer the question the title presents. After reading this book, I am no more convinced of Jesus' historical existence now than I had in the past.
Critically speaking, the book is a terrible read, and rife with the author's own narcissism. He fails to make a constructive arguments against those who posit theories denying the historical existence of Jesus. The author presents several theories in published works on behalf of who he pens the "mythicists," and rather than address the false logic or evidence supporting those theories, he largely relies on ad hominen attacks. For example, Ehrman states that one theorist has some very good ideas, but, and I paraphrase, he states something to the effect that, "Although he appears to know a great deal about the subject matter, he only has a bachelor's degree in classics and so really should have no voice in the dialogue." Ehrman also goes on to make statements that none of the mythicists really have the training or formal education in the field of New Testament studies to have an opinion. My opinion is that Ehrman tries to discredit the so-called mythicists in an attempt to dismiss their theories. Ehrman fails to adress the arguments of those he seeks to contest in this book in favor of dismissing them on their training and formal education in the field of NT studies. However, Ehrman does note that there is at least one high powered scholar, named Price, who has the scholarly credentials, training, and education to make contributions to the dialogue on the topic of the historical Jesus, but maintains a mythicist hypothesis. Ehrman's response to Price is, "He is wrong, because almost everyone else believes Jesus existed."
It's also tiresome to read Ehrman's constant speculation about how this current book will be received by those who read it. Hardly a chapter goes by where Erhman doesn't subject the reader to hear his trite fantasies about how some people, who used to hate his work, will now applaud him, while others will remain disappointed that he does not champion an evangelical approach to the Bible or its historicity. Again, do I as an independent reader really want to read several paragraphs a chapter about such nonsense that only conerns Erhman's fascination with his own reputation? Erhman also never fails to nauseate the reader by constant repetition that he is a scholar, he is now an agnostic teetering on atheism, and how absurd he thinks evangelical Christians are in their approach to the bible. Trust me when I say, this form of self speak in a book is excessive, narcissistic, and wastes the time of the reader who spent money for a well researched book.
Ehrman's arguments for the existence of Jesus are also very weak. And, despite his no-holds-barred approach on making disparaging comments to his perceived academic opponents, Ehrman makes no convincingly new arguments himself. Further, as someone with only an undergraduate degree in Classics and one year of graduate theology (I have a Masters and PhD in Counseling), I can honestly say that reading Ehrman's book has not taught me anything significant that I didn't already know or haven't heard before reading this.
Ehrman's argument for the historical Jesus is basically founded on a premise where he calculates that 99.99% of "scholars" accept that Jesus was a historical figure. So, after creating a credential about who is a scholar and who is not, Ehrman writes that the people who fall under this criteria for admission to the Schola Magna of New Testament studies largely accept Jesus as a historical figure. In Erhman's reasoning, if people who have formal training and education in New Testament studies accept the historical Jesus as fact, then it must be so because such people are much smarter and more educated than anyone else on the topic. I don't think I need to explain to anyone how unsound an argument this is, but, nonetheless, the self appointed expert Ehrman uses it.
There were other gross inaccuracies in the book as well. To mention that the New Testament was written in Greek is no surprise. However, Ehrman says, "It was written in very good Greek." Now, I am no Greek expert, but I took a few classes in classical Greek. The Greek of the New Testament, Koine Greek, was communicated to me by multiple professors in my classics program, as a very low and poorly written style of classical Greek. Using Erhman's argument, I would say that most Greek Scholars would widely disagree with Erhman's statement that New testament Greek is very good Greek. I had a classics professor who laughed when I asked him if he thought about using the NT as source for a class on classical Greek.
Lastly, one other Ehrman argument that is really an insult to a serious student of classical literature of any kind, especially biblical literature, is with regard to source material used to validate the existence of a historical Jesus. Ehrman does, and quite well, address the difficulty with saying Jesus was/is a historical figure by lack of existing contemporary archaeological and written sources. Ehrman cocnedes that the New Testament is the best, and biggest, source for validating Jesus' past existence. Ehrman further concedes that the NT was written decades or more after Jesus reportedly lived, and so validates that there was no real contemporary written proof for Jesus. Ehrman then fantastically cites that although the NT comes much later than Jesus' reported life and death, the NT itself is drawn from sources that existed at the time Jesus existed. He cites the Q sources, the Mark source, and the M and L source. These are reportedly written sources during Jesus' time by his disciples and contemporaries. The problem here is that none of these sources are identifiable. The Q source is a theoretical source text that was first mentioned more than 15 centuries after the creation of the gospels. It is purely theoretical/speculative, and it was created by a German NT scholar to explain commonalities in the Gospel narrartives. There is no "proof" - arachaological or 3rd party written sources - that there ever was/is a Q source predating the Gospels and contributing to the gospel narratives. Again, a german scholar centuries after the Gospels were written and consolidated speculated that there must be some pre-Gospel written source he named "Quelle." Such a source came from this man's best guess/hypothesis, and nothing else. Paul, who started his work only a decade or so after Jesus's death never cites the "Q" source, no evidence has yielded that early Christians relied on a "Q" source, none of them used a "Q" source to communicate their religious narrative, no early Christian community used the "Q" source for religious rituals/services, and none of the Gospels themselves even mention the "Q" source. At least the Gospels exist in real time, but these suppositional pre-Gospel source texts (viz., the Q source, etc...) are purely theoretical and speculative. I would hardly think that a serious scholar would present them as "proof" of contemporary writings at the time of Jesus. One would first have to prove that the Q source actually existed before it could be used as proof for Jesus' existence, which Ehrman does not do.
All in all, the book is not only a waste of time, but it does nothing other than reveal how impoverished the discourse is on the topic of the historical Jesus. Avoid the Book! Save your money and buy an ice cream or something else with it.
Topic: How did Christianity succeed?