Jason Bourne wrote:I don't have a problem with that.I have read a few other books that were more a high level over view. I have read a bit of Eusebius.
So give me one or two suggestions. And I would like sources that are not heavily vested in defending a view point. A more neutral scholar would be helpful. I want something on early Church history.
Justo L Gonzalez's, Story of Christianity
vol1,
vol2. Volume 1 Covers the period in question in the first 100 pages or so. However, I would recommend both volumes. They are quick reads and I think it is helpful for Mormons to know Christian history. Later debates and history can shed light on earlier stuff. Plus, I think knowing more about Christian history causes one to read Ehrman differently. Standard Christian history is what Ehrman is reacting to, and I think many Mormons often read him in unintended ways because they usually don't know the historical framework he is arguing in.
Jaroslav Pelikan,
The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition. Probably the best book on the subject in the English language. Caution, this is heavy duty stuff and is not light reading.
You might also want to read a translation of The Apostolic Fathers in conjunction with reading non-orthodox writings from the second century as well. If you really like Ehrman,
he has a bilingual edition from Loeb. It's much pricier than other English editions, and unless you read Koine Greek, probably overkill.
Jason Bourne wrote:Why do you say he is out of his league on the early Christian sects. This topic seems pretty critical to understand the various textual issues as well as discussing books that may have been considered sacred by some of these sects and even be some proto-orthodox groups at various points in time.
Jason Bourne wrote:What does he get wrong?
I say he's out of his league simply because his specialty is in text criticism. It's hard to be an expert in too many things. The further he wanders from his specialty, the less he is going to know. I'm not calling him stupid or uninformed.
He tends to exaggerate and is not very precise when it comes to early Christian history.
For example, he loves to talk about the wide diversity of early Christianity. The conclusion that he leads the reader to draw is that orthodoxy was just one choice among many, and that they just happened to win. Now, he may actually be more careful in saying that, but it's the conclusion that most people arrive at after reading his books (you expressed a similar sentiment above).
The problem is that diversity that he loves to harp on only develops from the second century onward. Thus it really has no claims to being as early as the Christians who wrote the books of the New Testament. He talks about Ebionites, Marcionites, gnostics, Valentinian gnostics, etc.. That's diversity, but with the possible exception of the ebionites (about whom we know almost nothing), none can claim to be earlier than the second century. Thus to argue that this type of diversity has some claim to going back to the original followers of Jesus, one has to assume a muted and latent version of their teachings in the 1st century Christian texts, for which there is no evidence.
He also talks about diversity in the New Testament, and I think a lot of people associate this with what is happening in my previous paragraph. But there is no relation between the two. There is diversity among the New Testament writers, but they are all considered by the orthodox to be, well, orthodox. Acceptance of the New Testament canon implies that one thinks the orthodox got this right, as it was the orthodox who identified the writings of the New Testament as being early and going back to Jesus' first followers. Modern scholarship pretty much agrees that the New Testament books have the best claim on being early and going back to Jesus.
Some of this may not be clear, as I am trying to make a complicated argument, but probably failing to do so in clear and short prose.
Jason Bourne wrote:Bart is a very angry fundamentalist who has a big ax to grind.
Well I think that statement has a lot of gun powder. A bit of a poisoning of the well.
I probably should have used different language,
I was parroting what New Testament Wright says about him. Since New Testament Wright is knowledgeable, knows Bart, and has debated him, I trusted what Wright says about him.
Jason Bourne wrote:Is he sort of like a lot of the ex Mormons on this board?
Ex Mormons tend to be much more angry than Bart. I think there are reasons for this, but that's a different post.
Jason Bourne wrote:Can you give me some evidence that he is an angry ex fundamentalist and is grinding his ax?
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ ... op-ed.htmlYou might also try the link above on New Testament Wright.
However, this is a judgment call one has to make. I mainly base it on the fact that he still seems to be operating under the assumption that if one is to read the New Testament as inspired, one should make the same assumptions as fundamentalists. Take his book "Misquoting Jesus." It is written by an ex fundamentalist (that's not arguable, he used to be one), to nuke the beliefs of fundamentalists (this is my opinion). To the degree that this has been successful, I think it can be attributed to Bart's still holding a fundamentalist view of the Bible as a spiritual text, and fashioning his arguments to nuke that view. The book simply doesn't go after moderate and liberal Christians, whose collective response to the book has been "Yawn."
Jason Bourne wrote:Do you have some valid critiques of why his work cannot be trusted?
There's a whole cottage industry among EV's dedicated to critiquing his work. I suspect you won't find those convincing. And to be honest, some of their critiques hit the mark, and sometimes they hedge to protect themselves.
Most of his recent stuff has been popular stuff, and academics generally don't critique popular works, so there really isn't a lot of critiquing of his newer works (except the aforementioned EV critiques).
My main problem with Ehrman isn't so much what he puts in his books, it's what he leaves out. As a comparison, think of the LDS missionary discussions. There really isn't anything there that is false, that is can be backed up with some historical document. But, they give a skewed version of the real LDS history by leaving out tons of context and several key facts which radically changes how one might view Joseph Smith and the early Mormons. That's why my main suggestion when it comes to Ehrman is to get the broader picture, not necessarily to try and pick apart everything he says.
ETA: I don't think I'll have much time to follow this thread today, so if you want to tell me I'm stupid (or anything else for that matter), a PM would probably get my attention faster.