Darrell Bock recently discussed his use of Bart Ehrman’s The New Testament: An Historical Introduction for this course for his classes. The focus was on the clear bias of Ehrman, and, as I want to bring out, how we need to be very careful and purposeful when reading the man’s works. He has contributed some challenging (and ultimately helpful) texts, but if you’re not well grounded in Christian history, and the history of the canon and its manuscripts, then you could very well fall into Ehrman’s very obvious and meticulous traps.
Bock wrote,
For example, in treating the authorship of the gospels (all of them), he does not address any of the external evidence for authorship that comes from sources like Eusebius or Irenaeus or any of the canonical church lists. This is historical evidence and ignoring it prejudices his volume’s work, cutting out one of the two key factors one has to address in treating authorship, namely external evidence for a work’s authorship. Vincent Taylor and C. E. B. Cranfield regarded such evidence as decisive in treating this question in terms of Mark’s gospel.
Bart Ehrman hasn’t kept his prejudices out of his work; the popular Misquoting Jesus is a prime example, where they are subtle enough to entrap the unsuspecting and more gullible. But, they are masked within a lot of good information, accurate history, and so forth. Too bad it’s nowhere near comprehensive history, and stays away from balance and a fair presentation of various arguments.
Ehrman has a very strong anti-Christian, anti-God bias that he premises all of his works with. That becomes very clear, as Darrell Bock pointed out, with what Ehrman does not talk about. Especially when discussing the history of New Testament documents. Keep watch. Don’t necessarily not read Bart Ehrman. But, if and when you do, remember to keep watch.
Public Service Announcement for the day.
