Status
Coming Soon
Call number
Collection
Publication
HarperOne (2012), Edition: Reprint, 320 pages
Description
"In FORGED New York Times bestselling author, Bart Ehrman, reveals another hidden scandal of the Bible. For centuries, scholars have known that not all of the books in the New Testament are authentic while the general public has been blissfully unaware. The books of the New Testament are widely assumed to be written accounts of Jesus's life by those who knew him best. However, if the Gospels and letters were not written by memebers of Jesus's inner circle--but by later writers with differing agendas in rival communitites--then the authority of the Bible collapses. Based on new, original research, Ehrman takes the reader on a journey to the ancient world and the forgery battles that raged throughout the Roman Empire. The popular myth is that "writing in the name of another" was a common, accepted practice in antiquity. Not so argues Ehrman. Forgery was as scandalous then as it is now. And yet, at a time when all documents and letters where copied by hand and circulated freely with little or no authorial control, identifying who actually penned a piece of writing-be it political, historical, or religious-was fraught with uncertainty. FORGED exposes the forged letters written in the name of Jesus's disciples for the expressed purpose of gaining acceptance in the early church...which is exactly what happened and why we have the Bible we read today"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member LancasterWays
Note: I am not a scholar of the New Testament or early Christianity. Nor am I in any way invested in the "truth" of the Gospel. This review is written from the perspective of an interested amateur.
Ehrman, in Forged, argues that the Gospels, among other New Testament and ancient Christian texts, are
I don't take issue with Ehrman's claims; I think it unlikely that the Gospels were written by the disciples/apostles (I am not an expert with the terminology) to whom they're attributed. Jesus' earliest followers, after all, were socioeconomically similar to himself: Illiterate Jewish peasants. They lacked the knowledge necessary to produce sophisticated texts in Greek. (Ehrman notes that the Gospels themselves were at first anonymous, but attributes that to the fact that the authors were known to the communities for which they were writing. Thus, when other names were falsely attributed to the Gospels, it was for the purpose of deception: To lend further authority to the viewpoints espoused by them.)
What is problematic for me is Ehrman's methodology. Ehrman's argument is based almost exclusively on textual analysis. (As are most works in the social sciences and humanities.) That in and of itself is not a problem. When Ehrman points out that a text couldn't have been written by an author because that author was almost certainly dead by the time it was written, I accept that. Likewise with the argument regarding the illiteracy of their supposed authors. I have trouble accepting Ehrman's other arguments: Evidence that texts are forged is to be found in their style and viewpoints.
I have no knowledge of Greek, but I am leery of his use of "style" of evidence of forgery. Certainly in can be done. But arguing that a particular book is a forgery because it doesn't match the style of other books known to be by an author (e.g., Paul), or part of a book, a few verses, for instance, are forged because they don't match the style of the rest of the book, is more difficult for me to accept. People are inconsistent. Styles change. An author writing one text now and another ten years from now might appear to be a different author. Or, as Ehrman himself notes, scribes sometimes altered texts. Is it not possible that the copies of the texts we have are so altered? That they added bits and pieces and their own flourishes to the texts with which they worked?
Ehrman repeatedly states that forgery was frowned upon in the ancient world. He bases that on the statements of elite ancient authors. Presumably they spoke so vociferously against forging because it happened all the time. Who did most of the writing? Scribes. Is it possible, then, that the people doing the copying had a different view of their interaction with the text? What was the intellectual and moral world of the scribe? It is impossible to know.
Ehrman cites a study that concluded one of Paul's epistles was forged based on a word-for-word statistical comparison of all of the letters known to be by Paul. The conclusion: So many words are different in this one letter that it almost certainly wasn't written by the apostle. I find this an intriguing method, and the findings are compelling. (More compelling, to me, than readers saying styles don't match.) But what is the degree of difference among texts by other known authors? Have similar studies been done on Cicero or other ancients for whom we have a sizable corpus of written work? Such a task should be easy enough with the help of a computer. If no similar studies have been done, then we are taking this argument out of context, and without that context, how can we be confident in it?
Ehrman likewise cites the inconsistency of theological viewpoints in certain of Paul's letters in order to demonstrate that they are inauthentic. This makes a certain sort of sense: Surely a leader in the community wouldn't express contradictory beliefs. Except that they do. All the time. It's called politics. And surely Paul must have been a politician (to and among his particular constituency) as he was a spiritual leader. Even putting aside Paul's need to minister to a fractious polity, we must admit that people are by nature inconsistent; they frequently contradict themselves, sometimes baldly. And beliefs develop and evolve over time. This must have been so among early Christianity, which was not yet an established intellectual and religious tradition.
Ehrman is either unaware of or indifferent to such concerns. (Or, as a scholar, realizes that my objections are so silly that they needn't be addressed.) His style is so ardent that other possibilities are immediately dismissed when raised. That, and his need to limit the scope of his argument for the sake of brevity, reduce the effectiveness of Forged, which reads more like an article or essay stretched to the length of a book.
Ehrman, in Forged, argues that the Gospels, among other New Testament and ancient Christian texts, are
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forgeries. Simply put, the Gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; nor were certain of the epistles attributed to Paul really authored by the apostle. Rather, these texts were written by other Christians using the names of their more famous counterparts in order to "prove" the "truth" of their historical or theological beliefs. I don't take issue with Ehrman's claims; I think it unlikely that the Gospels were written by the disciples/apostles (I am not an expert with the terminology) to whom they're attributed. Jesus' earliest followers, after all, were socioeconomically similar to himself: Illiterate Jewish peasants. They lacked the knowledge necessary to produce sophisticated texts in Greek. (Ehrman notes that the Gospels themselves were at first anonymous, but attributes that to the fact that the authors were known to the communities for which they were writing. Thus, when other names were falsely attributed to the Gospels, it was for the purpose of deception: To lend further authority to the viewpoints espoused by them.)
What is problematic for me is Ehrman's methodology. Ehrman's argument is based almost exclusively on textual analysis. (As are most works in the social sciences and humanities.) That in and of itself is not a problem. When Ehrman points out that a text couldn't have been written by an author because that author was almost certainly dead by the time it was written, I accept that. Likewise with the argument regarding the illiteracy of their supposed authors. I have trouble accepting Ehrman's other arguments: Evidence that texts are forged is to be found in their style and viewpoints.
I have no knowledge of Greek, but I am leery of his use of "style" of evidence of forgery. Certainly in can be done. But arguing that a particular book is a forgery because it doesn't match the style of other books known to be by an author (e.g., Paul), or part of a book, a few verses, for instance, are forged because they don't match the style of the rest of the book, is more difficult for me to accept. People are inconsistent. Styles change. An author writing one text now and another ten years from now might appear to be a different author. Or, as Ehrman himself notes, scribes sometimes altered texts. Is it not possible that the copies of the texts we have are so altered? That they added bits and pieces and their own flourishes to the texts with which they worked?
Ehrman repeatedly states that forgery was frowned upon in the ancient world. He bases that on the statements of elite ancient authors. Presumably they spoke so vociferously against forging because it happened all the time. Who did most of the writing? Scribes. Is it possible, then, that the people doing the copying had a different view of their interaction with the text? What was the intellectual and moral world of the scribe? It is impossible to know.
Ehrman cites a study that concluded one of Paul's epistles was forged based on a word-for-word statistical comparison of all of the letters known to be by Paul. The conclusion: So many words are different in this one letter that it almost certainly wasn't written by the apostle. I find this an intriguing method, and the findings are compelling. (More compelling, to me, than readers saying styles don't match.) But what is the degree of difference among texts by other known authors? Have similar studies been done on Cicero or other ancients for whom we have a sizable corpus of written work? Such a task should be easy enough with the help of a computer. If no similar studies have been done, then we are taking this argument out of context, and without that context, how can we be confident in it?
Ehrman likewise cites the inconsistency of theological viewpoints in certain of Paul's letters in order to demonstrate that they are inauthentic. This makes a certain sort of sense: Surely a leader in the community wouldn't express contradictory beliefs. Except that they do. All the time. It's called politics. And surely Paul must have been a politician (to and among his particular constituency) as he was a spiritual leader. Even putting aside Paul's need to minister to a fractious polity, we must admit that people are by nature inconsistent; they frequently contradict themselves, sometimes baldly. And beliefs develop and evolve over time. This must have been so among early Christianity, which was not yet an established intellectual and religious tradition.
Ehrman is either unaware of or indifferent to such concerns. (Or, as a scholar, realizes that my objections are so silly that they needn't be addressed.) His style is so ardent that other possibilities are immediately dismissed when raised. That, and his need to limit the scope of his argument for the sake of brevity, reduce the effectiveness of Forged, which reads more like an article or essay stretched to the length of a book.
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LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
Bart D. Ehrman is an accomplished and eminent scholar of biblical criticism. He is one of those "liberal" thinkers who has been able to get past the fiction that Jesus was a god, but not the contrivance that he was a man. In Forged Ehrman treats the subject of authorial mendacity in early Christian
Ehrman importantly addresses the widespread misconceptions that the ancient world somehow possessed a more benign view of literary forgery, falsification, and plagiarism. As he shows, there are ancient writings which remonstrate against these practices. Just like modern readers, those of antiquity expected authors to represent themselves accurately in their texts.
In the final chapter of the book, Ehrman even jumps forward to the modern period with three examples of Christian pseudepigrapha from the 19th century, to demonstrate that the behavior we see in writings from early Christianity isn't alien to the sort of forgeries that have been created in later ages.
Forgery holds out as an "irony" the contrast between the stated ideal of Christianity in communicating divinely-ordained truth and the actual literary practices of the authors of Christian scripture. In his recurring discussions of motive, Ehrman tends to gloss over the obvious possibility that many, perhaps most, of these writers were in fact not sincere as they tampered with the facts in order to promote their preferred sects and doctrines.
While informed by extensive research and supplying references for further study, Forged is itself a popularizing rather than a scholarly book. It is a fast read and a valuable orientation to the realities of biblical authorship in the Christian world.
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literature, not excepting the New Testament canon. As he demonstrates, there are scores of ancient Christian texts whose authors willfully misrepresent their identities, and are thus forgeries. He does carefully distinguish such forgery from false or merely erroneous attributions, all of which have been lumped customarily into the category of "pseudepigraphal" writings.Ehrman importantly addresses the widespread misconceptions that the ancient world somehow possessed a more benign view of literary forgery, falsification, and plagiarism. As he shows, there are ancient writings which remonstrate against these practices. Just like modern readers, those of antiquity expected authors to represent themselves accurately in their texts.
In the final chapter of the book, Ehrman even jumps forward to the modern period with three examples of Christian pseudepigrapha from the 19th century, to demonstrate that the behavior we see in writings from early Christianity isn't alien to the sort of forgeries that have been created in later ages.
Forgery holds out as an "irony" the contrast between the stated ideal of Christianity in communicating divinely-ordained truth and the actual literary practices of the authors of Christian scripture. In his recurring discussions of motive, Ehrman tends to gloss over the obvious possibility that many, perhaps most, of these writers were in fact not sincere as they tampered with the facts in order to promote their preferred sects and doctrines.
While informed by extensive research and supplying references for further study, Forged is itself a popularizing rather than a scholarly book. It is a fast read and a valuable orientation to the realities of biblical authorship in the Christian world.
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LibraryThing member adpaton
Most people accept that the New Testament was not necessarily written by the apostles but what makes university professor and former fundamental Christian Bart Ehrman’s book Forged so engaging is the entertaining quality of his writing.
Pseudo epigraphy refers to works written under a false name:
He also claims six of the epistles of St Paul are forgeries and that despite it being proved fraudulent, the Catholic Church still uses the First Book of Timothy as the scriptural basis for her exclusion of women from the priesthood. A somewhat controversial but really interesting read.
Pseudo epigraphy refers to works written under a false name:
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this consists of wrongly attributed anonymous writings, and to deliberate forgeries: it is to the later category Ehrman relegates the letters credited to Peter, whom he claims was illiterate. He also claims six of the epistles of St Paul are forgeries and that despite it being proved fraudulent, the Catholic Church still uses the First Book of Timothy as the scriptural basis for her exclusion of women from the priesthood. A somewhat controversial but really interesting read.
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LibraryThing member DSeanW
Find Ehrman consistently thoughtful and persuasive across all of his books I have read - this one is no exception.
LibraryThing member Zylphan
I enjoyed this book. I always learn so much from his books.
LibraryThing member True54Blue
I've given this book one star because it doesn't even attempt to prove its subtitle. First, the majority of the material referred to was never considered part of the Bible and mostly comes from centuries later. Second, there isn't even any mention that the authors claimed to be writing in the name
Overall I also found the book poorly structured. The material is arranged categorically by reputed author. So Peter's biblical epistles are in the same chapter with gnostic documents from centuries later, etc. This really confuses the issue and combines material written across hundreds of years for very different purposes.
The purpose of this book would seem to be cast aspersion on the New Testament by demonstrating that its authors knowingly 'forged'='lied' by using someone else's name in order to convince others that their view of the Truth was the right one. I think a better title for this book would be "Forged: Writing in the Name of an Apostle - Why It is Always Wrong to Use Someone's Name, Even if We Think It's for a Good Cause."
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of God - even in the case of the New Testament writings that he rejects the authors don't claim divine authority in the sense of an Old Testament prophet. Third, if the Bible's authors aren't who we think they are, is that their fault or ours? The gospels never claim to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so they certainly can't be forged. Given the title one would expect Ehrman to engage in interaction with other scholars showing why Peter didn't write 'his' letters, etc. However, he just refers to the general consensus of 'critical scholars' who presumably are those he is in agreement with. I guess those who accept Peter's authorship would be too conservative and those who reject Paul's authorship of Galatians, i.e. reject more than Ehrman, would be considered hypercritical.Overall I also found the book poorly structured. The material is arranged categorically by reputed author. So Peter's biblical epistles are in the same chapter with gnostic documents from centuries later, etc. This really confuses the issue and combines material written across hundreds of years for very different purposes.
The purpose of this book would seem to be cast aspersion on the New Testament by demonstrating that its authors knowingly 'forged'='lied' by using someone else's name in order to convince others that their view of the Truth was the right one. I think a better title for this book would be "Forged: Writing in the Name of an Apostle - Why It is Always Wrong to Use Someone's Name, Even if We Think It's for a Good Cause."
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LibraryThing member aevaughn
First of all I have no academic degrees in Bible, nor do I understand Greek or Hebrew. I do think that his arguments in many cases reach for the possibility that the book/letter in question is forged unnecessarily. I would advocate taking a similar principle of the Supreme Court (US) and not
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reaching for that conclusion unless all other reasonable options that are applicable are exhausted. This is particularly the case if a surface reading of the text leads one to think that the texts in question conflict doctrinally with one another. Also, I think at times he appears to talk to generally about the scholarship in this area, as opposed to dealing more specifically with particular authors. For an example, when he states something like: Most scholars in this area would agree that ... with a minority saying that ... I would appreciate it if he cited and dealt with at least a briefly a few representative examples. After all, I have no way of knowing if he is building a straw-man argument and how do I know his summary of the current status of the literature on the subject is correct? Show Less
LibraryThing member datrappert
Once again, Ehrman demolishes any excuse anyone has for believing in the veracity of the bible. He shows conclusively that many of the books are not written by who they claim to be written by--and the evidence is plain to see, such as direct contradictions between books supposed to be written by
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the same person. Not to mention that textual analysis shows it was a different author, and so on. Folks with various agenda throughout the last two millennia have forged religious texts, and some were accepted into the New Testament. Ehrman also tells interesting stories about the four gospels--most notably that they weren't even called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John until decades after the were first written and circulated. Those names were applied to tie them to the apostles and give them more authority. I could go on, but I don't want to emulate Ehrman too much, since his worst habit, in his attempt to explain everything as clearly as possible, is to go on a bit too long. I will say that the audiobook is well read by Walter Dixon. Show Less
LibraryThing member joeydag
I'm happy to have finished another book of Erhman's works. In this book he goes beyond the inadvertent errors that crept into the biblical canon and addresses the deliberate falsification that can be found in early Christian history. One big new item for me was the idea the Luke and the Acts of the
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Apostles in the New Testament are a forgery. We can see that what we call the Gospel according to Luke is written anonymously and there is a link to the author of the Acts, but the author claims in the Acts to actually have been there with Paul and this is not historically plausible. The author of those works was attempting to gain more authority with the writing. As Ehrman concludes it is amazing how much lying was used to teach about the "truth". Show Less
LibraryThing member bibleblaster
Like candy, if you happen (like me) to find New Testament scholarship sweet. This is a welcome exploration of something that I was taught in theological school: it was common practice in the earliest Christian times for people to write under assumed names of someone more famous or authoritative.
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REALLY?? Not likely, says Ehrman. In fact, such practices were condemned by some of the early Christian apologists. How could they not be? It's dishonest, at best. And if it was "common practice" and people knew that this was not the real author, why would writers do it in the first place? Fascinating, as always...and it opens up the New Testament, as well as writings that did not make it into the New Testament, in a whole new way. Ehrman is one of my favorites. When is the next book? Show Less
LibraryThing member mldavis2
Dr. Ehrman is a controversial religion scholar specializing in biblical analysis and history. His books are careful studies in the origins of the Christian faith and the original sources and changes to Christian history as seen in the current canon.
Ehrman is frequently criticized by conservative
Ehrman is frequently criticized by conservative
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theologians for not accepting the "inerrancy" of scripture as relied upon by Christian pastors and congregations. What Ehrman shows in his many books is the inerrancy of relying on the "inerrancy" of scripture. While discomforting to some, Ehrman tells his readers what conservative Christianity does not teach and does not want its followers to understand. His references and documentation are extensive and he tells it "like it is" rather than how many like to understand it. Recommended for open minded persons only. Show Less
LibraryThing member scottcholstad
I found this a fascinating book and really loved it. Much of it was new to me when I started, but for some reason, I set it aside for awhile while I read other books. And some of these other books went on to assert some of the same things I found Ehrman referring to when I later picked up the book
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to finish. That doesn't diminish the research or quality of the material, but it does mean some of it isn't as "original" as I had previously thought, which is the reason I've knocked it down from five stars to four. Still, if you want to learn the "real" story of many of the books of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, when they were actually written, who did and did not actually author so many of the books, this is an excellent source. Definitely recommended. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2011
Physical description
320 p.; 8 inches
ISBN
0062012616
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