Forged by Bart D. Ehrman

Forged: Writing in the Name of God-- Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, Bart D. Ehrman. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011. e-book, 256 pps.


Bart D. Ehrman is a scholar and college professor who has written some books about God, Jesus, The Bible, and Christianity. He was converted to evangelical Christianity in high school and first attended Moody Institute where he studied apologetics. [The word "apologetics" has nothing to do with apologizing. It actually involves composing arguments and defenses in favor of Christianity]. Ehrman went on to obtain a PhD from Princeton. He is fluent in [the reading of] several languages which include Hebrew and Greek. 

I attended several brief informal classes of Greek. Armed with a Greek New Testament and a Greek dictionary, the three of us did not get very far. I perhaps might try again but in a different setting with a different style of teaching.

I was taught about the perfect nature of the Bible and that all of it was literally true without any mistakes. I accepted this for several years until I started noticing contradictions in both the Hebrew and the Christian Bibles [Old Testament and New Testament are what we called them back in the old days]. The phrase "follow the evidence" means "follow the evidence wherever it leads, even when it doesn't lead where you want it to go." These days, I attempt to follow the evidence and the money.

Forged is a Bart D. Ehrman for the rest of us-- those of us who are not college students studying this stuff and not biblical scholars-- packed with information. Even so, I found that I did have to give this Ehrman book two full reads. Its pages contained some things that I was familiar with as well as quite a bit of new information.

I didn't realize that the pagans of old did not put an emphasis on the idea that one religion could be true and the rest of them false. Before Christianity took hold, pagans didn't care about such things. Worshipping the gods involved doing the proper prayers and whatever sacrifices were called for. Christianity was the religion that introduced the notion that some religious doctrines could be truth and others not so much. These days, some of the pagan camp fight over things like which gods can be invoked together and how pagan leadership positions are determined and whether or not Satanists are witches [some are and some aren't; also some Satanists are atheists and some are literal believers] and how the latest event went. This is not to say that the ancient days were better. Had I lived then, the appendicitis attack that I suffered in my late twenties would have killed me if something else hadn't gotten me sooner.

On page 19 of Forged, I found that we know about over one hundred forgeries pertaining to Christian writings between the first and fourth century C.E. Page 21 advised that a fellow named Cerinthus actually wrote Revelations, not a fellow named John and certainly not the apostle John. Ehrman pointed out correctly that Palestinian boys were not routinely taught even rudimentary Hebrew and that more than ninety percent of the population were illiterate.  Other pages broke down who wrote each book of the canonized Christian Bible, who wrote some of the books that were not accepted, definition of many terms, and the reasons behind forgeries back in those times. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not actually written by those four apostles. The early church simply gave those gospels the names. There were many gospels floating around and believers had to be able to distinguish the ones they were using from the ones that they weren't.

Ehrman also pointed out that the literalism that is popular today was not how even the Puritans perceived the Scriptures. The current fundamentalist Christian movement started in the late  1800s [references below] at the earliest. Although Ehrman identifies as atheist, he does have some Christians among his fans. 

sapphoq reviews says: I found Forged a bit of a challenge to read but worth the effort. For those interested in what modern day [and some ancient] scholars are saying about the Bible, highly recommended.

https://twitter.com/bartehrman  not updated since August 11 ?2014.

http://ehrmanblog.org/


References re: fundamentalist Christian movement origins:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/articles/unpublished-papers/distinguishing-roots-discerning-the-origins-of-the-fundamentalist-movement/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism

http://www.conservapedia.com/Fundamentalism

http://theocracywatch.org/

http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianity

https://jesuswithoutbaggage.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/what-is-a-christian-fundamentalist/

http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/archives/2000s/vol_42_no_1_contents/kragenbrink.html

http://wisdom4today.org/what-do-christian-fundamentalists-believe/

http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1861.cfm

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Fundamentalism.html

https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/7944/what-is-fundamentalism

http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/88697-fundamentalism.html   [discussion on fundamentalism on a chat board]



Although I am an atheist, I do read some well-written Christian books as I find them. My next review will be on Franchising McChurch written by Christian pastors Jon Mark Yeats and Thomas White.

eCult by Betty J.R. Chavez

eCult: A Sister's Memoir, Betty J.R. Chavez.  New York: Writer's Showcase, 2001.  e-book, 378 pps.

Betty J.R. Chavez grew up in a family of six children.  She is a mainstream fundamentalist Christian and continues to support family values.  In 1998, one of her siblings-- Jan, along with Jan's husband Jim disappeared-- along with the rest of the Concerned Christians who were living in Denver, Colorado.  The Concerned Christians group was defined by Betty as a cult because its' leader Kim Miller advocated that the members [fifty to eighty all told, the exact number is unclear] dump their families and just stick with him and other members. 

eCult purports that the members of the Concerned Christians were also controlled by e-mail.  Betty J.R. Chavez corresponded with her sister by e-mail.  She endeavored to point out to her sister the erroneous interpretations of scripture that Kim Miller was espousing.  Sometimes it was her sister who wrote back. Other times it was Kim Miller or other members of the church who wrote back.  The author could tell when it wasn't her sister by the wording of the e-mails.  The e-mail exchanges resulted in no changes.  Jan and Jim remained in Concerned Christians.  Their exact whereabouts were unknown at the end of the book. 

This article here: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/22679/concerned-christians-kim-miller written in 2008 states that the members of Concerned Christians are probably overseas.  A web search reveals several websites operated by Kim Miller and his group are still up.

sapphoq reviews says:  As I read eCult, I could feel the heartbreak that Betty J.R. Chavez and the rest of her family has gone through because of Concerned Christians.  The leader, Monte Kim Miller, claims to have a direct pipeline to the Almighty and that his God speaks directly through him.  In spite of the serious illness of another sister, Jan and Jim stayed away.  Although some of the dialogue was stilted in the direction of overly-explanatory expositions, eCult is a book that will stay with me for a long time.  Having witnessed the effects of a coercive group on those in it and those left behind up close, I have much sympathy for the plight of all involved in eCult.  Readers who are not able to deal with biblical arguments for whatever personal reasons ought to give this one a miss.  Recommended to those who are interested in studies of destructive groups. 

N.B.  The group Concerned Christians started by Monte Kim Miller is not affiliated with a group from Mesa, Arizona which helps ex-Mormons.