There is something wonderful about the parables that Jesus used to teach those around him. I think their effectiveness is rooted in our ability to relate to them in some way. Whether we find ourselves identifying with the "hero" or the "villian", through that act of identification we learn something about ourselves. Sometimes we learn that we too are desperately in need of mercy, while other times we learn that too often we fail to extend to others the very mercy that we ourselves have received.
That is the situation I find myself in as I read the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. When I am truly honest with myself, I find that this parable is a battleground between my own captalistic, free-market way of seeing the world around me, and God's economy of grace. It's not that I have given up the ghost on free-market economies. It's just that too often I think I try to apply the world's way of seeing things, to God's way of doing things. This is one of those parables that causes me to rethink how I envision grace, and in the process to reconsider how I see others who like myself, are so dependent on its accessibility.
I think the tendency to see this parable in economic terms is present because the context itself is one of labor micro-economics. All of us have at some point in our lives probably held a job that paid by the hour, and so we know that the whole system that determines compensation is based on some combination of how long you work, and the skills you possess to complete the task at hand. The parable starts out innoucuous enough, with the landowner of a vineyard hiring some day-laborers. I should point out that the vineyard had a long iconic history as a way of describing Israel, particualarly in the book of Isaiah, so while as I mentioned the parable starts out innocent enough, we still imagine that when its all said and done there are going to be some deeper meanings that we can take away from this quanit little story about a picking grapes.
As we probably suspected would eventually happen, the story begins to get tense when the landowner makes several more trips throughout the day to pick up more workers. The tension comes to a head when the end of the day arrives and the wages are distributed to the workers. Imagine the surprise of the workers who had toiled all day, in the hot sun no less, when they received the same amount as those who had just started working a few hours ago!
Our knee-jerk reaction, or at least my knee-jerk reaction, is to immediately sympathize with the laborers who put in a full day's work. I mean, what kind of system is this? How is it fair that a few hours of work merits the same pay as an entire day spent toiling in the heat?
The reason I have never been able to fully appreciate the message of this parable is summed up succintly by that word that I used in the previous sentence, merit. You see, this isn't a story about merit, it's a story about the reversal of human expectations in the kingdom of God. Lest we think that it is actually about merit, there are a few things that we should consider more closely:
- Those who worked the entire day received the exact wage that they had agreed to when they were first hired. If there is any injustice here, it is not because these workers have received less than they deserved. In fact, they received exactly what they were told they would receive, the standard wage for a day's work (in this context a denarius).
- Those who are picked up later are available because of a lack of work elsewhere. For some reason, I have always made the assumption that these men were lay-abouts, the bottom of the barrel sort of worker that the landowner basically presses into service. Actually it is quite the opposite, as the landowner asks one of the men directly "why do you stand here idle all day?", to which the man replies "because no one has hired us." (Matthew 20:6-7) What we have here is not a lack of initiative, but rather a lack of opportunity.
- A lot has changed since 1st-century Palestine. Today we have things like unemployment insurance, welfare, and social security to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens, and those at a disadvantage are taken care of. In the context of this parable, there was no such thing. Sure, the religious helped out when they could through charitible giving, but there was not a systematic safety net administered by the government. To put it simply, if you didn't work you didn't eat, and you probably didn't have a roof over your head for very long either. As we have learned through our nation's current economic struggles, the lack of employment is not always connected to laziness, but sometimes is a product of the lack of opportunity. In Jesus' world, the lazy and the down-on-their-luck were in the same metaphorical boat. Poverty, hunger, and homelessness were indiscriminate.
Taking these things into consideration, it is easier to see that there is more at work here than originally meets the eye. In going out multiple times in search of laborers, the landowner is actually showing a type of grace that manifests itself in the opportunity to earn a living. Many commentators believe that he goes out not because the job is bigger than he originally thought, but because he is wanting to employ as many people as possible. It sounds ludicrous at first, especially when considered in light of sound business principles, but then again how many business owners do you know that pay someone a full day's wage for a few hours of work? If we truly want to understand what Jesus is trying to tell us, we have to lay aside our understanding of how the world works, and instead embrace Jesus words at the very beginning of the passage, "the kingdom of heaven is like..." Jesus is not describing some business venture in the world of agriculture. If he were, the problem of scarcity would surely come crashing down on a landowner who hired too many workers, and paid them too much. The whole point of what Jesus is trying to say is that in the kingdom of heaven, the problem of scarcity does not exist. Many of us have to compete for contracts or other types of business in our jobs. We compete because there is only so much business to go around. Similarly, we compete for jobs themselves because as we have learned all too well recently, there are not enough of them to go around. However, we must diligently guard against allowing the way we view things in the workplace to slowly creep into the way we view things in our churches. We must never compete for grace the way we compete for business or for jobs.
I doubt that those laborers who worked all day would ever admit to trying to deny the other workers an opportunity to feed their families. And yet, when you boil it down that's exactly what they were doing. Because they viewed the other laborers as competition, they objected to the showing of grace to those men (and perhaps women, who knows). The ironic thing about it is that they were the first to be shown grace, the moment that they were selected by the landowner to work in the vineyard. "But they earned that money fair and square!" you may be thinking. True enough, but only because they were given the opportunity to work.
Theories abound as to who Jesus was "really talking to" when he taught using this parable. Perhaps he was trying to send a message to the original twelve, the apostles who, on seeing so many other disciples begin to follow Jesus, were jockeying for position and favor. Or, maybe Jesus was speaking to Jewish-Christians whom he knew would be more than a little unsettled by the future prospect of Gentiles joining their ranks. It may even be that he was simply speaking to those "lifers" who looked suspiciously on anyone whose sudden, near-death conversion seemed to closely resemble the workers who put in little work, but received substantial wages nonetheless. Whomever Jesus was trying to reach through this parable- and whether or not it was any or all of the aforementioned we can all certainly agree that on the most fundamental level he was speaking to all of us- His message resonates to this day. You see, it's not really about the laborers. It's about a God who continuously searches for more laborers to work in his vineyard. It's about a God who gives us opportunities not because he has to, but because he wants to. It's about a God who gives to us based on our need, not on what we have earned. And most of all, it's about a God whose economy of grace has never been, and will never be subject to the laws of scarcity.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Matthew 1:18-25: Fatherhood as faithful response
Parenthood, whether it be as a mother or as a father, is nothing less than a life-long ministry. A few weeks ago I shared some thoughts on motherhood as an act of faith, thoughts that were born out of reflection on Mary's story as we find it in Luke. This past Sunday I took a very similar approach as we considered fatherhood through the lens of faith, except of course this time our subject was Joseph rather than Mary, and the context was the gospel of Matthew rather than the gospel of Luke.
The more you study the gospels, the more you appreciate the reasons why we have more than one. Each gospel gives us a different perspective on the story of Jesus. Often times that difference in perspective is the result of experiencing the story through different characters in the narrative. While Joseph is hardly mentioned in Luke, in Matthew he takes a more central role, particularly in the period leading up to Jesus' birth. The story of Joseph reveals to us that while motherhood and fatherhood are both roles to be accepted in faith, they are also roles that differ in significant ways.
One of the things that is pretty noticeable in Matthew is that Joseph's response is less passive than Mary's. That is not to say that Mary wasn't involved, as we know she was the most involved of all! However, Mary's action is of the passive kind. After assenting to play the role of Jesus' mother, she has no choice but to be actively involved, as she spends every minute of the next nine months carrying the Messiah in her womb. Joseph on the other hand, must make a choice to be involved. His participation in the story is in no way guaranteed, a reality that is driven home by the notable absence of so many fathers in the world around us today.
As we study Joseph's story, we are told by Matthew that it is actually the beginning of Jesus story, at least in terms of Jesus life as the incarnate Word. Matthew uses the Greek word "genesis" in verse 18 to described the "beginning" of Jesus. Some translations, including the one I use (the ESV), translate this as "birth". However, when Matthew wants to refer to "birth" as in the act of bearing a child, he uses an entirely different word. No, here Matthew is telling us of the beginning of Jesus, linking it to events in the life of Joseph that take place months before Jesus' actual birth. This tells us something very powerful about the role of the father, namely that the decisions that a father makes- specifically the decision as to whether to play an active role in their child's life- begin impacting the child even before they are born.
As you might imagine, the story begins to get a little messy here, as Mary turns up pregnant before her and Joseph have come together as husband and wife. Engagement and marriage worked differently in Jesus' day and time than it does in ours. For us, breaking off an engagement is a social, but not legal or religious act. For them, an engagement functioned as part of the marriage. Once you were engaged, you were as good as married in the eyes of the law, the difference being that the girl continued to live with her parents during the period of engagement, usually because she wasn't old enough to marry and begin to bear children. The transitioning of the girl from her family's house to that of her husband marked the transition from engagement to marriage, but again, there was no legal change. That's why when Mary is discovered to be pregnant, Joseph must decide how he will go about divorcing her. According to the law, divorcing Mary was the right thing to do, which is why Joseph is referred to as a "righteous" man, he desires to follow the law. And yet, he has options in terms of how he goes about adhering to the law, and we see Joseph's character come out in the method that he chooses. He decides to divorce Mary quietly, with only the necessary number of witnesses present, rather than divorcing her in a showy trial that would have no doubt brought more embarrassment on Mary, exposing her to even more public ridicule. Through Joseph's actions a theme emerges that will appear in Matthew a number of times, the theme of following the law while maintaining compassion and showing mercy whenever possible.
Before Joseph can take this more compassionate course of action, he is visited by an angel in a dream. Wehave read and heard the angel's proclamation numerous times, more than likely in the context of the Christmas story. While the angel's message tells us a good deal about who it is Mary will give birth to, it also tells us a few things about Joseph. First of all, he is of the lineage of David. This is important because it is through Joseph that Jesus will be able to claim David as his ancestor. Second, we learn that Joseph should go-ahead with his marriage to Mary, because despite all appearances, she is innocent of any wrong-doing. In fact, it is actually quite the opposite, as through faith Mary has consented to give birth to the Messiah. Joseph is told explicitly that it was actually the Holy Spirit that caused Mary to conceive the child (since this is about Joseph I will refrain from going into detail about the parallels present between Genesis 1 and the story of Jesus "genesis", but they are glaringly present). As Joseph attempts to digest what he has just learned, he is told that there is a specific action that he must take, in addition to moving forward with his marriage to Mary. He must name the child Jesus. While it's easy to get caught up in Jesus' name and it's etymology ("Yahweh saves"), the act of naming Jesus is just important. You see, in naming Jesus Joseph is quite literally claiming him as his own son, and formally adopting him as his heir. While this didn't put Jesus in line to inherit much money, it did make Him a descendent and heir of the Davidic line, justifying His claim to be the Davidic Messiah. Again, we learn something extremely important about the father-child relationship. Being a father has a lot less to do about biological kinship and bloodlines, and a lot more to do with love, provision, and a supporting presence. The fact that the Savior of the world was an adopted child should not go unnoticed, and should teach us that in the eyes of God there is nothing incomplete or lacking in the relationships built between adoptive parents and adoptive children. In fact, God has used and continues to use those relationships in very powerful ways to achieve his purposes.
In all probability Joseph was dead by the time Jesus began his ministry. The lifespan of a male in 1st-century Palestine was brief when compared to lifespans today. And yet, by all accounts Joseph made great use of the time that he had with Jesus. If all we know of Joseph is that he sought to please God while also showing compassion to those around him, and that he literally gave everything he had, including his lineage, to a child through adoption, then we know enough to see that Joseph is someone worth emulating. I have no doubt that our world would be a better place if every man followed Joseph in making the conscientious decision to be involved in the life of their child, and to see fatherhood not as a role determined by bloodlines and DNA, but as a nurturing relationship built on selfless love and compassion.
The more you study the gospels, the more you appreciate the reasons why we have more than one. Each gospel gives us a different perspective on the story of Jesus. Often times that difference in perspective is the result of experiencing the story through different characters in the narrative. While Joseph is hardly mentioned in Luke, in Matthew he takes a more central role, particularly in the period leading up to Jesus' birth. The story of Joseph reveals to us that while motherhood and fatherhood are both roles to be accepted in faith, they are also roles that differ in significant ways.
One of the things that is pretty noticeable in Matthew is that Joseph's response is less passive than Mary's. That is not to say that Mary wasn't involved, as we know she was the most involved of all! However, Mary's action is of the passive kind. After assenting to play the role of Jesus' mother, she has no choice but to be actively involved, as she spends every minute of the next nine months carrying the Messiah in her womb. Joseph on the other hand, must make a choice to be involved. His participation in the story is in no way guaranteed, a reality that is driven home by the notable absence of so many fathers in the world around us today.
As we study Joseph's story, we are told by Matthew that it is actually the beginning of Jesus story, at least in terms of Jesus life as the incarnate Word. Matthew uses the Greek word "genesis" in verse 18 to described the "beginning" of Jesus. Some translations, including the one I use (the ESV), translate this as "birth". However, when Matthew wants to refer to "birth" as in the act of bearing a child, he uses an entirely different word. No, here Matthew is telling us of the beginning of Jesus, linking it to events in the life of Joseph that take place months before Jesus' actual birth. This tells us something very powerful about the role of the father, namely that the decisions that a father makes- specifically the decision as to whether to play an active role in their child's life- begin impacting the child even before they are born.
As you might imagine, the story begins to get a little messy here, as Mary turns up pregnant before her and Joseph have come together as husband and wife. Engagement and marriage worked differently in Jesus' day and time than it does in ours. For us, breaking off an engagement is a social, but not legal or religious act. For them, an engagement functioned as part of the marriage. Once you were engaged, you were as good as married in the eyes of the law, the difference being that the girl continued to live with her parents during the period of engagement, usually because she wasn't old enough to marry and begin to bear children. The transitioning of the girl from her family's house to that of her husband marked the transition from engagement to marriage, but again, there was no legal change. That's why when Mary is discovered to be pregnant, Joseph must decide how he will go about divorcing her. According to the law, divorcing Mary was the right thing to do, which is why Joseph is referred to as a "righteous" man, he desires to follow the law. And yet, he has options in terms of how he goes about adhering to the law, and we see Joseph's character come out in the method that he chooses. He decides to divorce Mary quietly, with only the necessary number of witnesses present, rather than divorcing her in a showy trial that would have no doubt brought more embarrassment on Mary, exposing her to even more public ridicule. Through Joseph's actions a theme emerges that will appear in Matthew a number of times, the theme of following the law while maintaining compassion and showing mercy whenever possible.
Before Joseph can take this more compassionate course of action, he is visited by an angel in a dream. Wehave read and heard the angel's proclamation numerous times, more than likely in the context of the Christmas story. While the angel's message tells us a good deal about who it is Mary will give birth to, it also tells us a few things about Joseph. First of all, he is of the lineage of David. This is important because it is through Joseph that Jesus will be able to claim David as his ancestor. Second, we learn that Joseph should go-ahead with his marriage to Mary, because despite all appearances, she is innocent of any wrong-doing. In fact, it is actually quite the opposite, as through faith Mary has consented to give birth to the Messiah. Joseph is told explicitly that it was actually the Holy Spirit that caused Mary to conceive the child (since this is about Joseph I will refrain from going into detail about the parallels present between Genesis 1 and the story of Jesus "genesis", but they are glaringly present). As Joseph attempts to digest what he has just learned, he is told that there is a specific action that he must take, in addition to moving forward with his marriage to Mary. He must name the child Jesus. While it's easy to get caught up in Jesus' name and it's etymology ("Yahweh saves"), the act of naming Jesus is just important. You see, in naming Jesus Joseph is quite literally claiming him as his own son, and formally adopting him as his heir. While this didn't put Jesus in line to inherit much money, it did make Him a descendent and heir of the Davidic line, justifying His claim to be the Davidic Messiah. Again, we learn something extremely important about the father-child relationship. Being a father has a lot less to do about biological kinship and bloodlines, and a lot more to do with love, provision, and a supporting presence. The fact that the Savior of the world was an adopted child should not go unnoticed, and should teach us that in the eyes of God there is nothing incomplete or lacking in the relationships built between adoptive parents and adoptive children. In fact, God has used and continues to use those relationships in very powerful ways to achieve his purposes.
In all probability Joseph was dead by the time Jesus began his ministry. The lifespan of a male in 1st-century Palestine was brief when compared to lifespans today. And yet, by all accounts Joseph made great use of the time that he had with Jesus. If all we know of Joseph is that he sought to please God while also showing compassion to those around him, and that he literally gave everything he had, including his lineage, to a child through adoption, then we know enough to see that Joseph is someone worth emulating. I have no doubt that our world would be a better place if every man followed Joseph in making the conscientious decision to be involved in the life of their child, and to see fatherhood not as a role determined by bloodlines and DNA, but as a nurturing relationship built on selfless love and compassion.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Ephesians 4:1-16: Unity as Action and the Goal of Our Growth
Sixteen verses of Paul usually offers a lot of fodder for sermons, Bible studies, or blogs. In this particular passage, there are two things that really stand out to me.
Unity as Action:
It's easy to think of unity as something that either exists or doesn't exist, either we are united or we aren't. While this may to be true to some extent, I think such a simplistic view masks the deeper reality of what it means to be unified. We don't go from being united to disunited in a single move, but rather it is generally a series of moves that erodes our togetherness. I came to this realization as I read the first three verse of Ephesians 4:
"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (italics mine)
I am not sure that I have ever thought of myself as being eager to maintain unity. Usually unity becomes a casualty because of the very fact that we are not eager to maintain it. It isn't that we dislike unity, but if we have to choose between having things our way and unity, unity seems to almost always lose out.
So how do we maintain unity? An interesting example of what it means to maintain unity can be found in our own history as a nation. In 1764, leaders from various American colonies began setting up committees of correspondence to establish a unified response to new British economic policies that many saw as oppressive. The key here is the year, 1764. That's six years before the Boston Massacre, and nine years before the Boston Tea Party. It's also a full twelve years before American independence would be declared in 1776. The early American patriots sought to establish and maintain unity long before they ever thought of declaring independence. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't spent years laying the groundwork that they did. Could they have ever hoped to accomplish such a momentous task as successfully rebelling against the most power empire on earth?
It seems to me that the church has gotten into the practice of taking unity for granted. Far from being eager to maintain it, we usually assume that it will just happen. If we really want unity to be a reality in our churches and among our churches, we should take Paul's advice and show the same eagerness in maintaining our unity in Christ that we show in maintaining the physical things we make use of everyday, including our bodies. The best way to think of unity is as an action, rather than as a state of being.
The Goal of our Growth:
The other thing in this passage that really stands out is that Christ is the goal of our growth. Paul puts it this way:
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 (italics mine)
Have you ever seen a baby with a really big head? Of course you have, they all have really big heads! Well, they can't exactly hold those big ole' watermelons up on their own at first, it takes time. In fact, one of the milestones in a babies growth is when their neck muscles develop to the extent that they can control their head. It's a natural process. No one asks why the head doesn't shrink to the size of the babies body, because we know that eventually the body will grow into the head.
From what I can tell, the same thing is happening here. Christ doesn't decrease in His perfection or nature in order to meet us where we are as a body, rather, we as a body are to grow into Christ who is our head. With the working of the Spirit, the process should be as natural as that of a baby slowly growing into the over-sized head it's born with. Don't get me wrong, we will never be equal partners with Christ in this venture. But that is precisely the point. By making Christ the goal, God has ensured that our growth will be continuous. We will never reach a point where we as the body are perfectly proportioned, but that shouldn't stop us from trying. When Christ is our goal, then baptism is the beginning, not the end of our journey to Christ-likeness.
It's only sixteen verses, but within those sixteen verses we are commissioned in a project that will span our entire lives (and then some), for unity will never come easy, and we will never look completely like Christ. But then again, that's what makes the effort worthwhile.
Unity as Action:
It's easy to think of unity as something that either exists or doesn't exist, either we are united or we aren't. While this may to be true to some extent, I think such a simplistic view masks the deeper reality of what it means to be unified. We don't go from being united to disunited in a single move, but rather it is generally a series of moves that erodes our togetherness. I came to this realization as I read the first three verse of Ephesians 4:
"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (italics mine)
I am not sure that I have ever thought of myself as being eager to maintain unity. Usually unity becomes a casualty because of the very fact that we are not eager to maintain it. It isn't that we dislike unity, but if we have to choose between having things our way and unity, unity seems to almost always lose out.
So how do we maintain unity? An interesting example of what it means to maintain unity can be found in our own history as a nation. In 1764, leaders from various American colonies began setting up committees of correspondence to establish a unified response to new British economic policies that many saw as oppressive. The key here is the year, 1764. That's six years before the Boston Massacre, and nine years before the Boston Tea Party. It's also a full twelve years before American independence would be declared in 1776. The early American patriots sought to establish and maintain unity long before they ever thought of declaring independence. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't spent years laying the groundwork that they did. Could they have ever hoped to accomplish such a momentous task as successfully rebelling against the most power empire on earth?
It seems to me that the church has gotten into the practice of taking unity for granted. Far from being eager to maintain it, we usually assume that it will just happen. If we really want unity to be a reality in our churches and among our churches, we should take Paul's advice and show the same eagerness in maintaining our unity in Christ that we show in maintaining the physical things we make use of everyday, including our bodies. The best way to think of unity is as an action, rather than as a state of being.
The Goal of our Growth:
The other thing in this passage that really stands out is that Christ is the goal of our growth. Paul puts it this way:
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 (italics mine)
Have you ever seen a baby with a really big head? Of course you have, they all have really big heads! Well, they can't exactly hold those big ole' watermelons up on their own at first, it takes time. In fact, one of the milestones in a babies growth is when their neck muscles develop to the extent that they can control their head. It's a natural process. No one asks why the head doesn't shrink to the size of the babies body, because we know that eventually the body will grow into the head.
From what I can tell, the same thing is happening here. Christ doesn't decrease in His perfection or nature in order to meet us where we are as a body, rather, we as a body are to grow into Christ who is our head. With the working of the Spirit, the process should be as natural as that of a baby slowly growing into the over-sized head it's born with. Don't get me wrong, we will never be equal partners with Christ in this venture. But that is precisely the point. By making Christ the goal, God has ensured that our growth will be continuous. We will never reach a point where we as the body are perfectly proportioned, but that shouldn't stop us from trying. When Christ is our goal, then baptism is the beginning, not the end of our journey to Christ-likeness.
It's only sixteen verses, but within those sixteen verses we are commissioned in a project that will span our entire lives (and then some), for unity will never come easy, and we will never look completely like Christ. But then again, that's what makes the effort worthwhile.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Half the New Testament is forged??
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/comment-page-25/?iref=obnetwork
The link above is to an article on CNN introducing Bart Ehrman's newest book, "Forged", in which he argues that half of the New Testament was forged, written by authors assuming an identity in order to gain a wider reading, and take on a more authoritative voice. Normally I prefer to leave discussions like this in the seminary classroom, where there is the time and background knowledge necessary to address the task in depth, and at length. However, when Ehrman's ideas make it on the front page of CNN, it is time to at least offer a counter-argument as to why Ehrman's views are at misguided at best.
First of all, this is not some new, ground-breaking argument that Ehrman is making. If anything, he is playing on the skepticism of the age to cash-in on over a centuries worth of debate. Furthermore, if you have any knowledge of who Ehrman is, it becomes obvious that he has the proverbial ax to grind. Just as Christians objectivity is often called into question because of their faith, I would argue that Ehrman's objectivity is far from certain, especially in light of his admitted shift from Christian to agnostic. Christians may have a lot at stake in proving the authenticity of their sacred texts, but Ehrman has a lot at stake as well, since discrediting the Bible justifies his own loss of faith. In keeping with that idea, it is important that we as Christians not respond to Ehrman's argument with mere quoting of scripture. While that may do for those of us in the faith, it won't go far in answering non-Christian critics whose trust of the Bible must be bolstered if they are to come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ.
When you get down to it, there are a number of things not taken into consideration by Ehrman. Most of them are a direct result of a type of intellectual snobbery, a snobbery that finds its roots in the idea that people in the era of the New Testament could not have been as advanced as we are today. To quote the article:
"Ehrman reserves most of his scrutiny for the writings of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament. He says that only about half of the New Testament letters attributed to Paul – 7 of 13 - were actually written by him. Paul's remaining books are forgeries, Ehrman says. His proof: inconsistencies in the language, choice of words and blatant contradiction in doctrine."
I find it interesting that in our own day, one of the first things you learn in a writing class is to vary your language and vocabulary. The use of synonyms is encouraged. And yet here, half of Paul's letters are being thrown out on the basis that the vocabulary and style differ. Granted, there are some words that are extremely important in the letters of Paul. However, to assume that Paul would use the exact same style and the exact same vocabulary given the varied nature of his audiences smacks of the intellectual elitism I mentioned earlier. Ben Witherington, in his critique of Ehrman's book, points out that Ehrman fails to show any knowledge of how the scribal system worked in the first century A.D.
(If you want to read the critique of someone way smarter and more learned on the subject than myself, you can find Witherington's response here:
http://www.patheos.com/community/bibleandculture/2011/03/30/forged-bart-ehrmans-new-salvo-the-introduction/)
Witherington's mention of scribal practice brings up another assumption indirectly made by Ehrman. Many of Paul's letters contain a personal greeting in Paul's own hand at the end of the letter. Ehrman seems to assume that no one in the church at Colossae (Ehrman's list of forgeries is most likely Ephesians, Colossians, I & II Timothy, Titus, and II Thessalonians) would recognize that the hand-writing wasn't Paul's. Even if they had never met Paul, they surely knew the person that the letter was sent through. In fact, in order for Ehrman's argument to be true, many of the Christian churches of the first century would have to be full of extremely gullible people. Wouldn't these churches be skeptical when decades after Paul's death, letters supposedly written to them started cropping up? Ehrman's argument rests on the assumption that early Christian communities couldn't detect authenticity, and had no collective sense of their own history. In fact, the very reason why the epistles found in the New Testament were chosen- over the forgeries that were undoubtedly floating around- was that they had a verifiable history and authenticity.
I am sure that there are those who would argue with much of what I have said. I have intentionally left out referencing the work of the Holy Spirit, not because I don't think it's relevant, but rather because I think Ehrman's view can be discredited without referring to the work of God. Undoubtedly, many unbelievers are skeptical when we chalk up the unexplainable to "God's will" or "divine intervention". Do I believe that God was at work in a very real way when the New Testament was put together? Absolutely. But I also think that the origins and authorship of the New Testament can be defending and explained on Ehrman's home-turf, with the use of reason in the realm of the academy. Better scholars than Ehrman, such as Luke Timothy Johnson and N.T. Wright, have proven as much. The real point is not who wrote what book, but rather what was written in each book. Being able to explain in a reasoned way why Paul actually wrote the letters of Paul, and how "unlettered" men could have given us the gospel doesn't detract from the mystery. The Bible is inspired not because of who wrote it, but because of the story it tells. For my money no man, letter or unlettered, could tell the story of Jesus as we find it in the Gospel of John, unless the love of God was his muse. The very idea that "the Word became flesh", that in humility God would dwell among His people in human form, is so far beyond the realm of human imagination that it is by it's very essence, proof of divine inspiration.
The link above is to an article on CNN introducing Bart Ehrman's newest book, "Forged", in which he argues that half of the New Testament was forged, written by authors assuming an identity in order to gain a wider reading, and take on a more authoritative voice. Normally I prefer to leave discussions like this in the seminary classroom, where there is the time and background knowledge necessary to address the task in depth, and at length. However, when Ehrman's ideas make it on the front page of CNN, it is time to at least offer a counter-argument as to why Ehrman's views are at misguided at best.
First of all, this is not some new, ground-breaking argument that Ehrman is making. If anything, he is playing on the skepticism of the age to cash-in on over a centuries worth of debate. Furthermore, if you have any knowledge of who Ehrman is, it becomes obvious that he has the proverbial ax to grind. Just as Christians objectivity is often called into question because of their faith, I would argue that Ehrman's objectivity is far from certain, especially in light of his admitted shift from Christian to agnostic. Christians may have a lot at stake in proving the authenticity of their sacred texts, but Ehrman has a lot at stake as well, since discrediting the Bible justifies his own loss of faith. In keeping with that idea, it is important that we as Christians not respond to Ehrman's argument with mere quoting of scripture. While that may do for those of us in the faith, it won't go far in answering non-Christian critics whose trust of the Bible must be bolstered if they are to come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ.
When you get down to it, there are a number of things not taken into consideration by Ehrman. Most of them are a direct result of a type of intellectual snobbery, a snobbery that finds its roots in the idea that people in the era of the New Testament could not have been as advanced as we are today. To quote the article:
"Ehrman reserves most of his scrutiny for the writings of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament. He says that only about half of the New Testament letters attributed to Paul – 7 of 13 - were actually written by him. Paul's remaining books are forgeries, Ehrman says. His proof: inconsistencies in the language, choice of words and blatant contradiction in doctrine."
I find it interesting that in our own day, one of the first things you learn in a writing class is to vary your language and vocabulary. The use of synonyms is encouraged. And yet here, half of Paul's letters are being thrown out on the basis that the vocabulary and style differ. Granted, there are some words that are extremely important in the letters of Paul. However, to assume that Paul would use the exact same style and the exact same vocabulary given the varied nature of his audiences smacks of the intellectual elitism I mentioned earlier. Ben Witherington, in his critique of Ehrman's book, points out that Ehrman fails to show any knowledge of how the scribal system worked in the first century A.D.
(If you want to read the critique of someone way smarter and more learned on the subject than myself, you can find Witherington's response here:
http://www.patheos.com/community/bibleandculture/2011/03/30/forged-bart-ehrmans-new-salvo-the-introduction/)
Witherington's mention of scribal practice brings up another assumption indirectly made by Ehrman. Many of Paul's letters contain a personal greeting in Paul's own hand at the end of the letter. Ehrman seems to assume that no one in the church at Colossae (Ehrman's list of forgeries is most likely Ephesians, Colossians, I & II Timothy, Titus, and II Thessalonians) would recognize that the hand-writing wasn't Paul's. Even if they had never met Paul, they surely knew the person that the letter was sent through. In fact, in order for Ehrman's argument to be true, many of the Christian churches of the first century would have to be full of extremely gullible people. Wouldn't these churches be skeptical when decades after Paul's death, letters supposedly written to them started cropping up? Ehrman's argument rests on the assumption that early Christian communities couldn't detect authenticity, and had no collective sense of their own history. In fact, the very reason why the epistles found in the New Testament were chosen- over the forgeries that were undoubtedly floating around- was that they had a verifiable history and authenticity.
I am sure that there are those who would argue with much of what I have said. I have intentionally left out referencing the work of the Holy Spirit, not because I don't think it's relevant, but rather because I think Ehrman's view can be discredited without referring to the work of God. Undoubtedly, many unbelievers are skeptical when we chalk up the unexplainable to "God's will" or "divine intervention". Do I believe that God was at work in a very real way when the New Testament was put together? Absolutely. But I also think that the origins and authorship of the New Testament can be defending and explained on Ehrman's home-turf, with the use of reason in the realm of the academy. Better scholars than Ehrman, such as Luke Timothy Johnson and N.T. Wright, have proven as much. The real point is not who wrote what book, but rather what was written in each book. Being able to explain in a reasoned way why Paul actually wrote the letters of Paul, and how "unlettered" men could have given us the gospel doesn't detract from the mystery. The Bible is inspired not because of who wrote it, but because of the story it tells. For my money no man, letter or unlettered, could tell the story of Jesus as we find it in the Gospel of John, unless the love of God was his muse. The very idea that "the Word became flesh", that in humility God would dwell among His people in human form, is so far beyond the realm of human imagination that it is by it's very essence, proof of divine inspiration.
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