Apr
2
Written by:
host
4/2/2009 7:00 AM
From time to time, a book by an avowed atheist gets a lot of public attention in the media. Think, for example, of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins or Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, which came out about two years ago. The latest of these books to make a splash is Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman, a former evangelical turned secular Biblical scholar and historian, has in recent years released a number of books about the Bible, and he seems to have a great publicist. (In recent weeks, he has been on Fresh Air with Teri Gross and in Newsweek magazine, for example.) Some of his books I really enjoyed, while others I found to be mostly disappointing. This latest book, for me anyway, goes into the mostly disappointing category, though I would still recommend it to many potential readers.
For those who have attended seminary, taken an introduction to the New Testament class at a university, or participated in a Living the Questions class, the news that there are contradictions in the Bible will come as no big shock. Ehrman knows (correctly!), though, that most of us have never done these things and that many pastors do not openly discuss much of the scholarship they learned in seminary. So, he spends most of the first third of his 292-page book detailing these contradictions for us, the average reader or person in the pew. His hope is to help us learn to be "horizontal" rather than "vertical" readers of the Bible. A horizontal reader compares one story to another, seeing each gospel as unique and distinct. A vertical reader starts at the top (i.e. the beginning) and reads to the end, unaware of the many complexities that went into the formation of each book and the canon as a whole. Some readers will no doubt find this section to be interesting and revelatory; for me, it was tedious reading, and I found myself frequently skipping sections.
The book picks up in the next few chapters, where Ehrman begins to explore exactly why all of these contradictions occur. First, he discusses the authors of the various texts, and the historical difficulties one faces when trying to say with certainty who each author was. Next, he explores the historical Jesus research which has become commonplace over the past century. In both of these chapters, little will be new material for those who have read other similar texts by popular liberal scholars or who have studied the Bible in an academic setting. It's a good refresher course for such individuals, and a decent and readable primer for those who have never encountered this material before.
Next, Ehrman turns his attention to the formation of the New Testament canon and describes the many sects within early Christianity. He also briefly describes several of the gospels and letters which were not accepted into the "official" canon by most Christians. Again, this material will be review for many and covers much of the same ground that his (better) book Misquoting Jesus did, but it is solid and useful reading for those new to the topics.
Jesus, Interrupted then explores the development of antisemitism and the gradual evolution of Jesus as son of God and as divine in New Testament and extra-biblical texts. The doctrine of the trinity and the development of the concepts of heaven and hell, both later Christian inventions, are also described. Although this section starts to stray from the topic described in the book's subtitle, I found this material to be an especially well-written summary of the current scholarship on these themes.
Finally, in the book's shortest chapter, Ehrman asks the reader to take all of the evidence he has presented and consider, "Is Faith Possible?" The book takes on a much more personal tone, as Ehrman describes his own reasons for calling himself an agnostic. Ultimately, he left the faith not because he understood the Bible to be a human book and Christianity to be a human religion, but because of the difficulty of the problem of suffering in the world. His hope is that readers of his book will not simply abandon their faith altogether, but instead will reexamine it and use their intelligence when evaluating the truth of the biblical text.
I generally enjoy Bart's books and typically try to read his books as they come out. Ultimately, Jesus, Interrupted for me is a disappointment because—while it does a great job at the deconstruction of the literal reading of the biblical text (and thus, I suppose, a faith based on it)—the ending chapters are only barely a step towards the reconstruction of a progressive faith. This is a theological task at least as much as it is an historical one when it comes to reading the biblical text. Ehrman is an historian with an interesting personal story, and he has a terrific ability to present difficult and complex scholarship in ways which are very accessible. But unlike the similar works of individuals like Marcus Borg or Bishop John Shelby Spong, this book doesn't inspire me to new action, to new ways of being in the world, to more profound expressions of Christian faith. I'd certainly recommend it for a church library, but there are much better books for group study in an educational setting within a progressive congregation.