Adding Truth To Faith

BART EHRMAN Had a born again experience when he was sixteen, and decided to pursue a career in the ministry. He graduated from the esteemed Moody Theological Institute, then went on to earn a doctorate in Div9nity from Princeton. You couldn't ask for a better education in the Christian faith, perfect for several careers, including academic and ministerial. At Princeton, the Bible, the Christian faith, and the history of the church are studied critically, scientifically, objectively, historically, rather from a purely devotional viewpoint. So much so tat along the way, more than a few theological students lose their faith, when factual documented history reveals the religion to have emerged in circumstances that appear entirely human and political, not divine. This happened to Ehrman. He became an agnostic with a superb education in Christianity. he says it wasn't the historical knowledge which changed him; it was the problem of seeking to reconcile a benevolent god with immense human suffering. He weathered the thousands of factual errors and internal contradiction found in the Bible, but not the concept of an all omnipotent deity who allows great suffering. Today he is the dean of the North Carolina University school of Divinity at Chapel Hill. he has written many best selling, controversial books about religious history. They are best sellers because they are fascinating, well written, well written, and, to those of faith, shocking. "Jesus Interrupted" is perhaps the best. it details the factual problems in the bible, just as they do in the Princeton curriculum. At least half of all documents which shed light on church history have been discovered within the past one hundred years; modern scholars have an abundance of evidence with which to work. We would be blessed if the New Testament had been written by Jesus himself, but, alas, history is not that kind, and Jesus was almost certainly illiterate, as were all of his disciples. Instead, the bible was written and rewritten, altered and edited by thousands of people over a period of hundreds of years. Nobody knows who wrote the gospels, and nobody ever will. We do know that whoever their authors were, they lived in large cities, spoke and read ancient Greek fluently, and did their work from secondary, tertiary, or even fourth hand sources. Ehrman is careful to point out that knowing the truth about the origins of the Christian religion need not destroy anyone's faith, but that if we do not approach it from on objective point of view, we are at risk of falling victim to a morass of misconceptions. Ehrman is only controversial precisely because his scholarship is predicated on critical analysis, not blind faith. For that reason, one might hope that his brand of scholarship gains a permanent foothold upon the academic community, as well as the rest of us.