Quote:Who Wrote the Bible?
Students taking a college-level Bible course for the fi rst time
often find it surprising that we don’t know who wrote most of
the books of the New Testament. How could that be? Don’t these
books all have the authors’ names attached to them? Matthew, Mark,
Luke, John, the letters of Paul, 1 and 2 Peter, and 1, 2 and 3 John?
How could the wrong names be attached to books of Scripture? Isn’t
this the Word of God? If someone wrote a book claiming to be Paul
while knowing full well that he wasn’t Paul—isn’t that lying? Can
Scripture contain lies?
When I arrived at seminary I was fully armed and ready for the
onslaught on my faith by liberal biblical scholars who were going
to insist on such crazy ideas. Having been trained in conservative
circles, I knew that these views were standard fare at places like
Princeton Theological Seminary. But what did they know? Bunch of
liberals.
What came as a shock to me over time was just how little actual
evidence there is for the traditional ascriptions of authorship that I
had always taken for granted, and how much real evidence there was
that many of these ascriptions are wrong. It turned out the liberals
actually had something to say and had evidence to back it up; they
weren’t simply involved in destructive wishful thinking. There were
some books, such as the Gospels, that had been written anonymously,
only later to be ascribed to certain authors who probably did not
write them (apostles and friends of the apostles). Other books were
written by authors who flat out claimed to be someone they weren’t.
In this chapter I’d like to explain what that evidence is.
Jesus Interrupted...Bart Ehrman Page 101
You really have to put your fucking bible down and learn some stuff so you stop looking so stupid, Danny.
