Book Review — Bart Ehrman’s “Forged: Writing in the Name of God” by Wayne Robinson
Our own long time reader Wayne Robinson has written a great review of what sounds to be a great book. I just love the sound of this, ”Forged: Writing in the Name of God.” Music to my jaded ears… not to mention it takes the heat off me a bit. Truly this sounds like something I need to read. As an aside, if Wayne writes like this why isn’t he writing more? Enquiring minds want to know. Here’s Wayne.
When I heard of Bart Ehrman’s latest book, I immediately bought the unabridged audiobook from Audible.com, and listened to it twice. I enjoyed it so much that I then bought the Kindle version and also read it. So, by my rating system, it’s a 5 star book.
That said, I admit that when I’m trying to decide whether to buy a book, I always look at the 1 star reviews first. I always want to find out what other readers think is bad about a book rather than what they think is good.
What I like about Bart Ehrman’s books, some autobiographical detail and some repetition, other readers dislike. The style of this book is similar to that of his previous ones, so if you like his earlier books, you’ll like this one. If you disliked the earlier ones, then you won’t like this one.
It repeats a little from his previous books, but it’s largely complementary.
The theme of this book is lying in the aid of Truth. Authors producing forgeries, falsification and fabrications, and Bart Ehrman provides plenty of examples of these, some of which managed to make their way into the bible.
Forgeries were written in defence against Christianity’s greatest enemies, which were other varieties of Christianity. As soon as it started to spread into the polytheistic pagan populations of the Roman empire, it started to splinter. One god, two gods, 30 gods, 365 gods. Jesus human and divine, Jesus purely spiritual and just a phantasm like Caspar the friendly ghost, Jesus human but inhabited by a spirit which entered at baptism and left just before death on the cross.
The Peoples’/Popular Front of Judea had nothing on the early Christians.
There were many, each requiring their scripture, and each piece of scripture requiring authority. So authors wrote their scripture, reflecting whatever theology they professed and claimed falsely authorship by someone who’d know, one of the disciples, a companion of an apostle, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene …
Nowadays, authority isn’t so important. There are many sources of information to crosscheck any story. Back then, sources weren’t easily found (even the Internet didn’t exist, amazing though that might seem …) However, theists still think authority is important. When Anthony Flew went senescent and announced a conversion from atheism to a form of weak deism, believers got excited, thinking that that should cause all atheists to convert to Christianity.
Of the books that made it into the bible, the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Acts and Revelations strictly speaking aren’t forgeries. They were written anonymously. Who the authors were was probably known to the members of their communities. But once they were accepted as dogma, they had to be given authority, so authorship was guessed, it was falsified. And that doesn’t even include the later falsifications in Mark (adding an ending) and John (everyone’s favourite story which included the bit about let he who is without sin throw the first stone …)
Of the letters said to have been written by Paul, 6 are forgeries. All the letters said to have been written by Peter, James, John and Jude are also forgeries. And the forgeries were written in answer to other forgeries. For example, Peter’s letters (Peter, being an illiterate fisherman, could not have written a letter in Greek) were written in response to the Pauline forged Ephesian letter.
The highlight of the book I thought was the Pilate letters and the Pilate gospel. I’ve always thought that there should be some contemporary Roman record of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. After-all, earthquakes, a solar eclipse and a plague of zombies (as reported in Matthew) would be difficult to overlook.
The obvious forged interposition in Josephus (who was born after the death of Jesus) proffered by apologists never seemed to convince.
To my delight, Christians in the 4th century ‘found’ documents ‘proving’ the truth of the miracles and resurrection of Jesus.
Firstly, Pontius Pilate wrote two letters to the emperor. In the first, he was evidently confused by the astounding events and addressed the letter to the Emperor Claudius, forgetting that Claudius didn’t become emperor for another 10 years, Caligula was the next emperor and that Pilate was going to be dead by the time Claudius was emperor.
In his second letter, he corrected his mistake and reported to Emperor Tiberius the miracles Jesus performed during his life (curing lepers, making the blind see, raising the dead to life etc), the fact that contrary to his gentle and merciful governship he’d been forced by the perfidious Jews (and it was all their fault) to have Jesus executed.
Obviously, the Emperor Tiberius was concerned at Pilate’s report (the realisation of the true cause of the earthquakes and solar darkness experienced even in Rome was distressing) and had Pontius Pilate arrested and bought to Rome, where (to cut a long story short) he was eventually put on trial and condemned to death. Interestingly, during his trial, even the uttering of the word ‘Christ’ in the Senate was enough to cause all the 500 statues of the gods to disintegrate to dust showing Jesus’ power.
Before his execution Pilate prayed to God, and Jesus spoke to him promising him that he’d accompany Jesus at the Second Coming. When Pilate was beheaded, an angel swept down and plucked up his head presumably to take it to heaven.
And then Pontius Pilate got up, went back to Jerusalem and governed in the same bloodthirsty manner for another 5 or so years.
Hey Wayne, I’m thankful for the well written review. The book sounds fascinating and your review makes that doubly so. I definitely have to find time to read more.
Though your English spellings did give my spellchecker fits but screw that bastard. he’s always whining about something I do.
Excellent review, Wayne–thank you! And now that I have Kindle downloaded on my PC… I can just have that book in ten seconds! (well…better check the credit card statement first, I suppose…*looks at ceiling*). But definitely one I’d like to read– this is exactly the sort of thing that *needs* to be more widely known. I don’t suppose Dr. Ehrman has the main points available in tract form for easy distribution to Jehovah’s Witnesses? (
)
(I always read the one-star reviews first, too–and for the same reason!)
Kewl. I want to read this book.
Thanks Wayne, for a great review. The only one I’ve read of his is Misquoting Jesus, but this one’s now on the Ever Growing List. I can say, from the one that I’ve read, that he’s a great writer.
KK: Just a thought, but most word-processor programs have a UK English dictionary available for the spell chequer (ahem). Not sure how easy swapping back ‘n’ forth would be, though.
Oh, here’s another interesting one. I’m going to have to pick this up. (Well, as soon as I can afford it, I’m with Amy there.) Fascinating stuff, thanks for the heads up!
Just finished Chapter One of this, and I have to say It’s great stuff! What with having two Bill Bryson books on the go as well, I’m in agonising indecision every time I decide to read for a bit!
Daz,
Which Bill Bryson books are you reading? The last one I read was ‘Private Life’. I love the way Bill Bryson starts a topic, and then almost immediately moves off it, and meanders through topics of great interest before finally somehow returning to the original topic after many pages. He did the same in ‘A Short History of Almost Everything’. In the section on uranium dating of the age of the Earth, he digresses to the story of the chemist who developed lead additives for fuels and CFCs (stating the world would have been a better place if he’d never been born).
Both are re-reads. Mother Tongue, which I read years ago, and At Home: A Short History Of Private Life, which I read last year.
Yeah, his digressions are often the best bits. My favourite is still his description of cricket commentaries in Down Under, though. Well, that and the part right at the start where he describes falling asleep in a friend’s car, ’cause of jet lag.
Following on from the CFCs and leaded fuel bit, you might like Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.
Ah, but you see, the authenticity of the documents is irrelevant, because as 2 Timothy says, “All Scripture is God-breathed…” (NIV) or “All Scripture is inspired by God…” (NAS). Or 2 Peter, “no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Since god is the “true” author behind everything in there, it doesn’t matter if the people given credit were who they claim to be, or if they were even remotely connected to the events in the book. The words are there because god placed them there, therefore they can’t be false. Or at least that’s what my parents told me every time I questioned the authority of the biblical writers.
Oddly enough, they then used similar “logic” to dismiss Mormonism. Just some hick claiming to be writing down divinely inspired words. As if somehow a 2000 yr old fisherman’s journal is a more credible source then a 19th century paramilitary leader. And yet they still refuse to see the inconsistency.
As always it comes back to their favourite circular argument. The bible is true because god says its true, and we can trust the veracity of god’s word because the bible says we can. “Logic” like that is all but immune to simple facts. It boggles my mind sometimes that I believed for so long when this is the best they can put forward.
Ouch!
Hi Daz,
Yes I have read ‘Merchants of Doubt’. I thought that it was very good. I’d like to read ‘Mother Tongue’, but unfortunately it’s not available as a Kindle, yet. I read ‘Downunder’, and I became envious when he described seeing an echidna (a sort of marsupial porcupine) in King’s Park, Perth Western Australia. I used to work in the hospital just across the street, have often walked through the park, which is actually a very large area of bushland, and I have never seen an echidna, there or anywhere in the wild.
Yeah– that bit where he falls asleep in the car. I hurt myself laughing at that:-)) And I was jealous that he got to see 1) stromatolites, and 2) an echidna. *sigh* I’ll get there… eventually…
Found this on my travels around the interweb. Bart D Ehrman in a really good interview. It’s just under half an hour, but there’s no real reason to sit watching, unless you like staring at two blokes sat in chairs.
Damn ‘n’ blast it! Done it again! That was me. Does anyone know a good plugin for firefox that fills in any form it finds without the user having to remember (preferably one that I can tell it ‘this site—fill in forms, this site—don’t)?
*wanders off, muttering about memories and sieves*
That’s funny–mine is always filled in when I comment here… I wonder why?
Always? <geekiness>Filled in forms, internet history, the files Windows temporarily creates as it moves stuff about, are all contained in temp files that need cleaning out now ‘n’ then. I think you may need to read this.</geekiness>
Just coming back to let people know that I’ve posted my fourth and final argument for the existence of God on my blog. I know you guys think I’m shamelessly plugging it, but I’m really just trying to keep my word to Daz and others who thought I had no evidence to support. You won’t see me plugging any more blog posts on here, I promise. I’ll leave you all to your thoughts and comments. Thanks.
Today being Good Friday, I’d just like to clear up something from the review above:
“After-all, earthquakes, a solar eclipse and a plague of zombies (as reported in Matthew) would be difficult to overlook.”
Yes indeed! It’s surprising how, in these days of universal education, there are some who read Matthew 27:45 “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour” and jump to the conclusion that this refers to a total solar eclipse – then use it to calculate the year of the crucifixion. For the benefit of anyone not convinced, here are the reasons why, even if such a period of darkness occurred (very unlikely), it could not have been an eclipse of the sun:
1 Totality usually lasts about three minutes, not hours,
2 No solar eclipse is confined to just one country, and
3 Passover is a full moon festival, and solar eclipses can only occur at new moon. A solar eclipse at full moon is completely out of the question, as the moon would be on the wrong side of the earth.
Anyway, according to Plutarch, the assassination of Julius Caesar was accompanied by “the great comet, which shone very bright for seven nights after Caesar’s death, and then disappeared, and the dimness of the sun, whose orb continued pale and dull for the whole of that year.” Much more impressive.
Roy