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Permalink Reply by Nelson on January 21, 2013 at 6:01pm

As someone that's actually read both Ehrman's popular treatment of pseudepigrapha, Forged, plus the technical scholarly treatment of the subject he wrote, Forgery and Counterforgery, plus his Did Jesus Exist?, as well as most of his other titles, there is no contradiction. None at all. Nor is there any criticism of his scholarship on this point (though he can be criticized on other points, certainly) or the need for a class in logic.

In Ehrman's work he offers not his own conclusion but that of 200 years of scholarship on the subject that there is forgery in the NT. First, by "forgery" Ehrman means 3 things (from Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted, but also in his writings elsewhere): 1) Pseudepigraphic writings- books that are written in the name of a historical person, 2) Misattributed writings- books that are written without a claim to specific authorship but to whom tradition has attributed to a person who is claimed to be historical, and 3) Homonymous writings- books where the author is named but where we have no reason to think that what is meant is the historical person sharing that name. Example of the first is the Pastoral Epistles; of the second, the Gospel of John; of the third, the book of James, in which, while the author surely identifies himself as a James, we have no reason to think he is the James. What should be clear to the thoughtful person is that even though a book of the NT represents forgery in one of these ways, it doesn't mean that evidence of a historical Jesus absolutely cannot be discerned.

In Did Jesus Exist? and in his other works (Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet in particular) Ehrman explains the scholarly methodology in use to discern an underlying historical character at the bottom of the late accumulated mythologizing and aggrandizement. This is where there lies massive room for disagreement and, indeed, where there does exist that disagreement. Even devoted professing Christians find significant problems with the methodology that Ehrman applies pretty much uncritically (Stanley Porter, Dale Allison, and Gerd Theissen to name just three), even though I very much know him to be aware of the extensive criticisms of the methodology.

Anyway, once you read the books in question you find things to be much more nuanced. While, yes, there is forgery in the NT, scholars like Ehrman and many others employ a methodology that they claim allows us to pull back the layers. And while I think there are huge problems with the methodology they employ, it's not so incredible a thing to say that there may be a historical core preserved in a forged document. For instance, within rabid conservative ravings about the Obama administration there may be found, years on, a preserved historical core to the narrative, regardless of whether the account is forged under the name of John Boehner. There may not be, mind you; the question of whether there is or isn't will depend on many factors. But there's no logical prohibition forced on us by the fact of the account being a forgery.

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Permalink Reply by Ed on January 21, 2013 at 9:13pm

So, in layman's terms, the books of the NT can be of dubious origin while the historicity of the person of Jesus is still potentially valid.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on January 21, 2013 at 9:26pm

Essentially yes. The precise authorship of the books can remain in doubt while the books themselves may still be able to offer us some direction on the question of historicity. The question of whether or not a documentary source can provide direction on a question of historicity is related to the author of said source but it's not so intimately tied together such that if we don't know who the author was, if we think we know who the author was and find that the document was forged, etc., etc,. and everything in between, the source ceases to have any value.

Put another way, the question "Can a source provide direction as to historicity?" isn't answered definitively yes or no depending on the authorship of that source.

Note that I'm not defending Jesus-historicity. I wouldn't. I don't think the historical-critical methodology that Ehrman and others in his camp defend makes the case for historicity. It's woefully flawed and needs to be heavily revised or completely tossed. I'm merely saying that there's no contradiction in Ehrman's works in saying both that there is forgery in the NT and his saying that Jesus existed.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on January 21, 2013 at 11:21pm

The authorship of a book is neither here nor there, unless the authorship of the text is used as part of the argument--via argument by authority.  On the other hand, besides the fact that the sources are unknown and parts have been shown to be unreliable and inconsistent counts against its authority and its historicity.  For example, if someone is willing to forge a document, then their credibility is questionable. In such a case such as in court, if someone is shown to be a liar (i.e., a forger) then it calls into question their testimony, or anything else that they wrote. 

Let me provide you with an example using Bart Ehrman's logic.  My mother conveyed a story to me that she heard from my grandmother.  According to my grandmother, when she was a young girl and went to take care of the cows, she was cut into many pieces, and a master surgeon had to put her back together again.  According to the story, for a brief period when the master surgeon put her toes back together, he also put fish like gills between her toes which gave her the ability to breath under water.   These gills were given as a gift to her from a great human/fish woman named Mariam.  

Continuing to follow Ehrman's logic--Now, I have never heard this story before, nor anything close to it.  Why, I know of no other human who has ever even come close to such ideas.  If i had never heard of this story before, and no one else has ever thought of it, then it must be true, and Marian the human/fish woman must exist--and has historicity.  No human, including my grandmother, would develop such a belief and story of a human fish woman named Mariam who has the ability to give gills that can be placed between peoples toes and help them breathe underwater, since no one has expressed this before, then it must be true.  Again, this is not my logic--this is based on Ehrman's reasoning.  

To put it another way, as Carrier has already pointed out:

"Besides his false (or at least debatable) statement, there is a logical fail here as well, since he bases his conclusion that no Jews would develop a belief in a dying messiah on the premise that no Jews had a belief in a dying messiah, which apart from being a circular argument (all novel beliefs start somewhere; you can’t argue that x would not arise because x hasn’t arisen), and apart from the fact that the inference is refuted by the fact that Jews later did develop such a belief (independently of Christianity, as I also demonstrate in the preceding link) so clearly there was no ideological barrier to doing so, but besides all that, his premise requires knowing what all Jews, of all sects, everywhere, believed or imagined, which knowledge Ehrman doesn’t have."

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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on January 22, 2013 at 8:32am

On the contrary, Ehrman would toss out the miracle parts of the story. Doing so is one of his criteria for deciding what to toss out. He might conclude that your grandmother was probably injured by a cow at one point--if he had heard similar stories about her being injured from multiple sources.

Claiming that Ehrman's logic and methods requires belief in a miracle working Jesus, which Ehrman emphatically does not assert, is a strawman.

You do not understand where he is coming from.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on January 22, 2013 at 1:15pm

I am not claiming that Ehrman's logic and methods requires belief in a miracle working Jesus. I am making a simple point.  I am making reference to his conclusion that no Jews would develop a belief in a dying messiah on the premise that no Jews had a belief in a dying messiah. The fact that no one had developed the belief in Marian the human/fish, did not  keep my grandmother from developing  belief in Marian the human/fish woman. My grandmother's belief in Marian the human/fish woman was a novel belief.  Her belief was actually the  result of her heart condition as it had caused her to be low on oxygen and over time she had developed a form of Alzheimer disease.

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on January 22, 2013 at 5:17pm

@Cathy - RE: "in court, if someone is shown to be a liar (i.e., a forger) then it calls into question their testimony, or anything else that they wrote." - it absolutely negates the likelihood that he (or she) would be believed, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is no grain of truth in what he (or she) says.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on January 22, 2013 at 10:45pm

Exactly my point. My main point and argument as presented in my comments (the post was a mere question) was not to prove that Jesus did not exist, but to show that Bart Ehrman's defense for the historicity of the existence of Jesus is weak and fails as such. It is based on forged material that is unreliable in the two sense I just mentioned. Ehrman gets far too many facts wrong. The arguments fail, are in many cases illogical, and his methodology is bad.

First, the forged material is unreliable in the relevant sense as in the court case in your example. Second, the forged material is unreliable in the relevant sense that it is also inconsistent, that is contradictory.

As I said just below: I was thinking, first step, that the sense of forged is relevant here, but,  as you said:  "...then it may be anything from utterly unreliable up to quite reliable notwithstanding issues of authorship."  Second step, offer evidence that besides being forged, it is also unreliable. A significant sense of unreliable I mean that the forged material is not consistent, that is they contradict each other as to the relevant facts.  Now you can make any conclusion you like from a contradiction.  Suppose I offer as an authority on unicorns a text, U, that consists of two documents on unicorns.  Documents A states unicorns are Q and document B states unicorns are not Q. From this I can make any conclusion I like. I chose to conclude that the document, U, provides historicity for  existence of unicorns.

This does not mean that Jesus did not exists, it just means that Ehrman's defense for the historicity of Jesus is weak, or if it is strong, then it is too strong as it also holds for those he claims mythicists “just made this up” about.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on January 21, 2013 at 10:22pm

Carrier's critique is spot on. But he never once says there's a logical problem with saying that the NT contains forgery while also saying that it may contain a historical core. Carrier's critique even assumes that such a thing can be done without problem as his issue is with the historical-critical methodology currently applied to try to accomplish this, NOT with the use of the NT, with its included instances of forgery, as a source.

If something is written in the name of someone else or it is unattributed within its pages but attributed to a particular personage by tradition without warrant– the sense of forged relevant here– then it may be anything from utterly unreliable up to quite reliable notwithstanding issues of authorship. What determines a sources value as a source includes authorship but is not solely about authorship. Hence, there is no logical contradiction between saying something is forged in the relevant sense and saying that it can be a historical source on which to make claims about the past. Saying otherwise either ignores the relevant sense of forgery or misunderstands the historical-critical methodology, or both.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on January 22, 2013 at 5:06am

As I quoted Carrier  above, again, Carrier said (and I emphasize logical fail):

"Besides his false (or at least debatable) statement, there is a logical fail here as well, since he bases his conclusion that no Jews would develop a belief in a dying messiah on the premise that no Jews had a belief in a dying messiah, which apart from being a circular argument (all novel beliefs start somewhere; you can’t argue that x would not arise because x hasn’t arisen), and apart from the fact that the inference is refuted by the fact that Jews later did develop such a belief (independently of Christianity, as I also demonstrate in the preceding link) so clearly there was no ideological barrier to doing so, but besides all that, his premise requires knowing what all Jews, of all sects, everywhere, believed or imagined, which knowledge Ehrman doesn’t have."

I agree with you, what determines a sources value as a source includes authorship but is not solely about authorship. In my original question, I misplaced a therefore that should not have been there.  I meant to say: So--what is it?  If the documents that we know of as the Bible are of "scandalous origin" and unreliable, how does one come to "vigorously defend the historicity of Jesus??

I was thinking, first step, that the sense of forged is relevant here, but,  as you said:  "...then it may be anything from utterly unreliable up to quite reliable notwithstanding issues of authorship."  Second step, offer evidence that besides being forged, it is also unreliable. A significant sense of unreliable I mean that the forged material is not consistent, that is they contradict each other as to the relevant facts.  Now you can make any conclusion you like from a contradiction.  Suppose I offer as an authority on unicorns a text, U, that consists of two documents on unicorns.  Documents A states unicorns are Q and document B states unicorns are not Q. From this I can make any conclusion I like. I chose to conclude that the document, U, provides historicity for  existence of unicorns.

I have used this tactic before at this link: http://conversationswithchristians.blogspot.ca/2011/07/atheists-and...

I argued that the unicorn argument is a good correlation to the argument for god’s existence. The strength of the unicorn correlation is to remind Christians that there is as much evidence for their god, as there is for unicorns, and that their lofty claims of “knowing” god exists, has no foundation or support. Likewise, the fact that there are competing gods and goddesses and hypotheses and interpretations, is again to illustrate to the Christians, that they can offer no more proof for Yahweh, than a unicornist can for unicorns, or the Greeks can for Zeus, or the Hindus can for Brahman, etc. "

The same can be said for Ehrman's defense for the historicity of Jesus. If we accept Ehrman's logic and bad methodology then I can provide a defense for historicity of the existence unicorns, or the existence of characters that are similar to Jesus such as Osiris and Dionysus that Ehrman claims mythicists “just made this up” about.

This does not mean that Jesus did not exists, it just means that Ehrman's defense for the historicity of Jesus is weak, or if it is strong, then it is too strong as it also holds for those he claims mythicists “just made this up” about.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on January 22, 2013 at 6:12am

Above I said, "A significant sense of unreliable I mean that the forged material is not consistent, that is they contradict each other as to the relevant facts."

So, now I have argued that the forged material is unreliable in a relevant sense that it was forged, and that the forged material is unreliable in the relevant sense that it is inconsistent.

Now, one might argue that while the forged material is not consistent, that is they contradict each other as to the relevant facts.--They are consistent with regards to the proposition that Jesus exists, thereby providing a strong defense to the historicity for the existence of Jesus.

But then we could apply the same logic to the written material that implies the proposition that unicorns exists, or that the characters that are similar to Jesus, such as Osiris and Dionysus exist, that Ehrman claims mythicists “just made this up” about.

Again, this does not mean that Jesus did not exists, it just means that Ehrman's defense for the historicity of Jesus is weak, or if it is strong, then it is too strong as it also holds for those he claims mythicists “just made this up” about.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on January 22, 2013 at 5:34am

I also agree with you that: there's no logical problem with saying that the NT contains forgery while also saying that it may contain a historical core.

When I said, "I am appalled at his lack of scholarship--considering he is supposed to be one of the authorities on the subject.  I say--shame on you Bart.  Now, go take a logic class." I was making reference to the examples of the logical problems I saw in his arguments and his bad methodology as well as all of the mistakes and false claims that he makes.

Please go to the aforementioned link to read the details. I cite a few more examples where Carrier says that there's a logical problem with Ehrman's  logic:.

"I could call out many examples of his use of ordinary fallacies and self-contradictions, too, but I will have to leave those for perhaps a later blog (if I even care to bother). I will just give one example that simultaneously illustrates both: Ehrman attacks Robert Price for using the “criterion of dissimilarity” negatively (on p. 187), insisting that’s a “misuse” of the criterion, and then defends using it negatively himself (on p. 293), a blatant self-contradiction."

"As bad as those kinds of self contradictions and fallacies are (and there are more than just that one), far worse is how Ehrman moves from the possibility of hypothetical sources to the conclusion of having proved historicity."

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