Professor Dale Martin discusses the existence of forgeries in the Bible (2021-10-01) ​

0:00:00 well hello everyone and welcome uh to
0:00:03 blogging theology and once again i am
0:00:06 immensely uh privileged to have
0:00:08 professor dale martin back on blogging
0:00:11 theology good morning to you sir
0:00:13 good morning
0:00:14 good morning and it is indeed morning
0:00:16 where you are in uh texas um
0:00:19 actually not literally it's one o'clock
0:00:21 in the afternoon
0:00:22 at 1pm sorry you're actually right and
0:00:24 it's 7 p.m here
0:00:26 in london uh in the uk
0:00:29 and um today uh we're going to uh be
0:00:32 talking about or professor dale marsden
0:00:33 we're talking about the letters of paul
0:00:36 in the new testament and why some of
0:00:38 them are not by paul according to
0:00:41 dale himself and other scholars and by
0:00:44 way of introduction i just wanted to um
0:00:47 mention this book forgery encounter
0:00:49 forgery the use of a literary deceit in
0:00:52 early christian polemics by professor
0:00:55 bart ehrman who i understand is a friend
0:00:57 of yours uh dale and uh
0:01:00 and on the dust cover there's a
0:01:01 wonderful sentence and this is the first
0:01:04 line of the book as well this is what
0:01:06 bart ehrman says arguably the most
0:01:08 distinctive feature of the early
0:01:10 christian literature writes bahrman is
0:01:13 the degree to which it was forged
0:01:17 and then he says the homilies and
0:01:19 recognitions of clement paul's letters
0:01:22 to and from seneca
0:01:24 gospels by peter thomas and james
0:01:27 jesus's correspondence with abgar
0:01:30 jesus wrote letters apparently letters
0:01:32 by peter paul james and jude in the new
0:01:35 testament
0:01:36 all forgeries
0:01:38 to cite just a few
0:01:40 examples i like that a few examples
0:01:43 and on the
0:01:44 back cover
0:01:46 we have our own dale martin writing a
0:01:48 quick review and i'll just mention it
0:01:50 because it's very much to our purpose
0:01:52 today in this remarkable tour de force
0:01:55 bar ehrman provides the only thorough
0:01:57 examination of ancient pseudopigraphy
0:02:00 and forgery in the english language
0:02:03 including their importance for early
0:02:05 christianity
0:02:06 there though other books on the topic
0:02:08 have been available in german earman's
0:02:11 supersedes them all providing an account
0:02:14 that is both scholarly and accessible
0:02:17 this is a masterwork and will be for a
0:02:20 long time
0:02:21 and that's by dale martin yale
0:02:23 university so i've actually read this
0:02:25 every single word is 600 figures long
0:02:28 and
0:02:30 it is very very long and it's heavy i
0:02:32 know but it is actually fascinating work
0:02:33 actually if you can
0:02:35 read it all full of interesting tip bits
0:02:37 of information so so dale tell us what
0:02:40 is it about the christian use of the use
0:02:43 of literary deceit in the early
0:02:46 christian literature i can ask a really
0:02:48 simple question here how do you know 2
0:02:51 000 years later that texts written
0:02:55 back then were forgeries how could you
0:02:57 possibly know that
0:03:00 well that's highly debatable and there's
0:03:02 a lot of different ways i think that
0:03:03 will become clearer through the course
0:03:05 of our conversation because i will give
0:03:07 examples uh for why i would say for
0:03:11 example certain early christian
0:03:14 letters or books
0:03:16 are not actually by the person who claim
0:03:18 the person that they claim to have been
0:03:20 written by
0:03:21 um
0:03:22 but
0:03:24 one of the main things is um style of
0:03:26 writing if we have this is the main
0:03:29 thing for paul's letters for example if
0:03:31 we have
0:03:32 letters or writings from someone that we
0:03:35 really believe
0:03:36 authentically wrote uh some of
0:03:39 literature for example
0:03:42 most almost all scholars would say that
0:03:44 many
0:03:45 uh writings that survive from plato were
0:03:48 actually written by plato
0:03:50 but then we have other uh writings
0:03:53 especially some letters that claim to be
0:03:55 letters from plato that most scholar
0:03:58 platonic scholars would say we're not
0:04:00 really written by plato
0:04:02 and that's the way we deal with paul's
0:04:03 letters
0:04:04 we most critical scholars believe that
0:04:06 seven of the letters in the new
0:04:08 testament
0:04:09 that
0:04:10 claim to be by paul were actually by
0:04:12 paul
0:04:13 and one of the best ways uh to figure
0:04:16 out
0:04:17 uh whether other letters that claim to
0:04:19 be about paul were not by paul is simply
0:04:20 looking at the writing style what kind
0:04:22 of
0:04:24 which so before you go any further just
0:04:25 interrupt could you just tell us what
0:04:26 these seven letters who what they are is
0:04:29 what this letter to the romans i think
0:04:31 is one of them is authentic letters
0:04:33 the authentic letters are romans yep i
0:04:36 have to count i have to count on my
0:04:37 fingers because i sometimes lead
0:04:38 something out romans first and second
0:04:41 corinthians
0:04:42 galatians
0:04:44 philippians
0:04:45 1st thessalonians and philemon
0:04:49 those seven
0:04:51 so the rest
0:04:53 are not by paul then in other words
0:04:58 ephesians
0:05:00 2 thessalonians
0:05:02 and then the three letters we call the
0:05:04 pastoral epistles first and second
0:05:06 timothy and titus
0:05:08 those are the six letters that scholars
0:05:10 will say were not written by paul and
0:05:12 incidentally
0:05:13 we don't believe they were all written
0:05:14 by the same person either um
0:05:18 and we could get into why we say that
0:05:20 but the most important
0:05:21 the best way to do it is writing style
0:05:24 and this is people can
0:05:26 decide for themselves it is debatable
0:05:28 because of course someone could write in
0:05:30 one style at one time in a somewhat
0:05:31 different style another they could use
0:05:33 one set of vocabulary one place another
0:05:35 for
0:05:36 for another but uh when i was teaching
0:05:39 um and i'm now retired but when i was
0:05:41 teaching um the students would sometimes
0:05:43 wonder how i could tell when they had
0:05:45 plagiarized uh a section of a paper they
0:05:48 wrote and i would go and and you know
0:05:51 sometimes i'd get a paper and i could
0:05:52 tell oh
0:05:53 this paragraph was lifted from some
0:05:55 place off the internet
0:05:57 it could have been wikipedia it could
0:05:58 have been some other thing
0:06:00 and
0:06:01 nowadays it's easy to do because we have
0:06:03 the internet and you can just load up
0:06:06 on a site um
0:06:09 a string of words that you think sound
0:06:11 suspicious suspiciously not like this
0:06:14 student's writing and you can go to the
0:06:16 internet and you just enter it in and
0:06:17 it'll you can find where they got it
0:06:19 from so and there's even software now
0:06:22 that
0:06:23 people can use to just plug in writing
0:06:25 in and the software will tell you
0:06:27 whether it's plagiarized they'll take
0:06:30 the source where it really is but even
0:06:32 before that
0:06:33 what hap the way you would recognize is
0:06:35 that you'd be reading along in some
0:06:37 students letter and you and some
0:06:39 students paper and they sound like an
0:06:42 undergraduate they they have a certain
0:06:44 kind of
0:06:46 saying you know ways of expressing
0:06:47 themselves use certain kind of
0:06:48 vocabulary
0:06:50 sometimes make a few mistakes in perhaps
0:06:53 grammar or orthography or something like
0:06:56 that and then all of a sudden you'll get
0:06:58 to
0:06:58 a paragraph and you'll go
0:07:01 this does not match
0:07:02 you know
0:07:04 it sounds like it's written by a real
0:07:06 scholar
0:07:07 by a professor oh yeah or something yeah
0:07:10 editors and it's
0:07:11 it's gone through a writing process a
0:07:13 modern writing process so that's the
0:07:15 first thing is what writing style the
0:07:17 second thing that's most important is
0:07:19 anachronism if there's something in the
0:07:21 text
0:07:22 that um
0:07:24 just
0:07:25 could not you just can't believe this
0:07:27 would come from
0:07:28 say the first century and this we'll see
0:07:31 this when we get to the acts of paul and
0:07:32 seneca
0:07:33 um i mean the letters between paul and
0:07:36 seneca
0:07:37 um
0:07:38 they just don't sound like anything you
0:07:40 would see in the first century
0:07:41 especially by paul
0:07:44 and i i can talk about that when we get
0:07:46 to it
0:07:47 but uh if if there's a obvious
0:07:49 anachronism so for example in the book
0:07:51 of daniel
0:07:53 in the old testament
0:07:56 we don't know we don't think any of that
0:07:58 came from the daniel that's mentioned in
0:08:00 other places in the bible who supposedly
0:08:02 lived way back during the um babylonian
0:08:05 captivity but the first several chapters
0:08:08 of daniel seem to be written by one
0:08:10 person and they could they could come
0:08:12 from
0:08:13 the babylonian captivity period there's
0:08:16 but then you get to the last part of
0:08:18 daniel and there's all this stuff about
0:08:20 the surrounding of jerusalem there's
0:08:23 prophecies about
0:08:24 antiochus the fourth
0:08:26 uh there's of syria there's prophecies
0:08:29 about antiochus the third we called him
0:08:31 antiochus epiphanes and he's the one who
0:08:34 conquered jerusalem tore down the temple
0:08:37 destroyed the temple and um kind of left
0:08:40 jerusalem in ruins
0:08:41 uh and forbade the jews from observing
0:08:44 the law and circumcising their children
0:08:45 and well we it all follows exactly what
0:08:48 happened around the years 170 168 to
0:08:51 164. that's very precise so that is
0:08:55 really unusual isn't it for books of the
0:08:57 any books of the bible that you could
0:08:59 date a book so precisely or almost to
0:09:02 the month which is remarkable isn't it
0:09:04 yes the book of daniel is that way and
0:09:06 part of the reason is because not only
0:09:08 can you say well you have to presuppose
0:09:11 that this author knows about
0:09:13 antiochus the thirds um and and his
0:09:16 father antakus the fourth there's a
0:09:17 section of it that talks about his uh
0:09:20 battles against uh the judeans
0:09:22 but
0:09:23 what happens is that we can even date
0:09:26 the time 164 or rather because
0:09:30 the author um
0:09:32 seems to
0:09:33 know about the
0:09:35 destruction of the temple but then his
0:09:37 what he says happens after that he
0:09:39 believes that right at that time the
0:09:40 messiah is going to come back yeah and
0:09:42 then set up the kingdom of god well it
0:09:44 didn't happen in case anybody's not
0:09:46 noticing um the messiah did not come in
0:09:49 164 or 163
0:09:51 uh that's the same way we can date
0:09:54 the
0:09:55 part of mark uh gospel of mark in mark
0:09:57 13 has jesus also predicting the
0:10:00 destruction of the jerusalem the
0:10:02 destruction of the temple
0:10:03 yeah but uh
0:10:06 and
0:10:07 but he he basically then puts the whole
0:10:09 thing
0:10:10 right in the year 70 because he knows
0:10:13 that the temple has been has been
0:10:15 surrounded and been destroyed but he
0:10:17 thinks that jesus is going to come back
0:10:18 right at that time well it didn't uh so
0:10:21 we say mark must have been written right
0:10:23 around 70.
0:10:25 and then you get to the gospel of luke
0:10:26 the gospel of luke uses mark but then he
0:10:29 adds time after the destruction of
0:10:31 jerusalem
0:10:32 yeah yeah they saw the era of the
0:10:34 gentiles comes in the error of the
0:10:36 gentiles exactly
0:10:37 and
0:10:38 jerusalem will be trodden down by the
0:10:40 gentiles well that shows that he's
0:10:42 writing maybe 10 years maybe 15 years
0:10:44 maybe more after
0:10:46 he's read mark
0:10:48 so that's that allows us again to place
0:10:50 the gospel of luke around the year
0:10:52 80
0:10:54 or 85 or 90. and so
0:10:57 anachronism and dating issues
0:11:01 are a strong way of finding it
0:11:04 so it's a combination of writing style
0:11:09 sometimes it's a
0:11:11 i would argue that second thessalonians
0:11:13 can be seen to be
0:11:15 a forgery because i would say it that
0:11:18 author uses first thessalonians he must
0:11:21 have had first thessalonians in front of
0:11:22 it
0:11:23 because in the first part in the last
0:11:25 part of second thessalonians the style
0:11:28 kind of mimics first thessalonians even
0:11:30 to the extent of having
0:11:32 quoting actual words and phrases from
0:11:35 first thessalonians so he's clearly
0:11:37 trying to set himself up as being paul
0:11:41 but then chapter two of second
0:11:43 thessalonians is all himself the style
0:11:46 changes the content changes
0:11:48 he whereas paul in first thessalonians
0:11:51 had said we won't know when jesus is
0:11:52 coming back we can we'll we need to be
0:11:55 ready but the paul refuses to give any
0:11:58 absolute signs for when jesus would
0:12:00 appear well the writer of second
0:12:02 thessalonians gives us several signs
0:12:04 he says this will happen then this will
0:12:06 happen then you have the lawless man
0:12:07 arise he will he will set himself up in
0:12:09 jerusalem in the holy place he will call
0:12:11 himself god and well
0:12:14 um this is not paul so it's clear that
0:12:17 he's got first thessalonians in front of
0:12:19 him and using it as a model but then
0:12:22 changing it to fit his own purposes
0:12:24 so there are ways like that you can see
0:12:26 also
0:12:28 let me just ask about a bit of jargon
0:12:30 here but one of the the words that keeps
0:12:31 on cropping up whenever i read about uh
0:12:34 forgery uh in new testament studies is
0:12:37 this word pseudopigrapher or
0:12:39 pseudopigraphy
0:12:41 um now i know what this word means could
0:12:43 you explain
0:12:44 firstly what does it mean and why do
0:12:47 scholars well not you not by ehrman but
0:12:49 why do most scholars
0:12:51 use this
0:12:52 word that is very unfamiliar to the
0:12:54 general public
0:12:56 yes it comes from the greek pseudo false
0:12:59 epigraphy writing
0:13:01 so it just means a writing that is false
0:13:03 or sets itself up as being by one author
0:13:05 and is not by someone else
0:13:08 um
0:13:09 and
0:13:10 modern scholars have tended to glom onto
0:13:13 that word
0:13:14 because they are not comfortable using
0:13:16 the word forgery for anything in the
0:13:18 bible or for early
0:13:20 forgery sounds like these people are
0:13:23 really intent on
0:13:25 fooling people
0:13:26 yes a ford jury is someone written by
0:13:29 someone who's who knows he's lying
0:13:32 yes and he thinks he's justified in
0:13:34 lying
0:13:35 but he's still lying
0:13:37 and modern scholars would often say well
0:13:39 in the ancient world it was different it
0:13:41 was much more common to write in the
0:13:43 name of an older and uh well-known
0:13:47 uh person so it's it you know let's say
0:13:50 uh of course people were writing in the
0:13:52 name of plato but you know everybody
0:13:54 knew that people did this it was kind of
0:13:56 from the school of plato or from plato's
0:13:59 tradition and there was no intent to
0:14:02 deceive
0:14:03 well that's just not true and that's one
0:14:05 of the main things that bart's book
0:14:08 shows example example after example
0:14:11 this book
0:14:12 examines probably every possible example
0:14:15 of forgery in the uh in the ancient
0:14:17 church uh and he he shows i think
0:14:20 definitively why
0:14:22 every example of forgery uh had it been
0:14:24 uncovered when it when some of them were
0:14:26 uncovered would have been condemned by
0:14:28 christians would have been seen as an
0:14:29 egregious
0:14:31 uh uh forgery something to be uh
0:14:33 detested and condemned wholeheartedly
0:14:35 wouldn't have been oh well that's okay
0:14:37 you were just honoring the memory of so
0:14:39 and so not the way they reacted
0:14:46 and that's what they'll use and nothos
0:14:48 in classical greek means a forgery and
0:14:51 deception was always assumed to be
0:14:54 um the motive and so when
0:14:58 the act the letters of paul and um well
0:15:01 let's say the acts of
0:15:02 the gospel of peter
0:15:04 uh were were taken by many early
0:15:06 christians to be by peter himself in
0:15:09 fact even a bishop
0:15:11 allowed the reading of the gospel of
0:15:12 peter in his churches until other people
0:15:15 said this cannot be by peter and the and
0:15:19 the reason was that it taught some
0:15:21 doctrines that those um christians said
0:15:24 were
0:15:26 anathema or they weren't correct
0:15:27 christian doctrine so the bishop
0:15:29 actually read the work
0:15:31 and he decided that it was a forgery and
0:15:33 then he prohibited it being read in his
0:15:36 churches
0:15:38 tertullian uh there were in the fourth
0:15:41 century there were many christians who
0:15:43 really thought the letters between paul
0:15:45 and seneca
0:15:46 were by paul and seneca
0:15:48 and but um
0:15:51 then
0:15:52 some people said well no they really
0:15:54 came about in the 4th century and so
0:15:57 they were rejected by other christian
0:15:59 writers
0:16:00 um
0:16:01 as not being
0:16:02 authentic
0:16:04 so ancient scholars themselves if they
0:16:06 found out something was forged
0:16:09 they
0:16:10 not only rejected it but they said you
0:16:14 can't read this in church
0:16:16 right
0:16:17 what about three there's a wonderful
0:16:18 story about three corinthians paul's
0:16:20 third letter to the corinthians to can
0:16:22 you tell us about that and how that was
0:16:23 discovered to be a
0:16:25 forgery
0:16:28 i actually don't know the story i know
0:16:31 that
0:16:32 the uh
0:16:33 it was accepted as authentic
0:16:36 for many years it was
0:16:38 the our earliest manuscripts that
0:16:40 contained it are from the 9th century
0:16:43 and it probably it may have been written
0:16:44 in the 9th century
0:16:46 but it got included in the acts of paul
0:16:50 as part of the acts of paul
0:16:52 and that gave it some legitimacy now the
0:16:54 acts of paul is not the same thing as
0:16:55 acts of the apostles nor is it the same
0:16:58 thing as the acts of paul and thecla
0:17:00 which is another
0:17:02 acts
0:17:03 writing from ancient christianity
0:17:06 but um
0:17:09 really there are i don't know the story
0:17:11 of why
0:17:12 third grade
0:17:13 no i just i i think about ehrman uh
0:17:16 mentioned it once if i remember rightly
0:17:17 that um uh it is the second or third
0:17:20 century um a scribe was actually writing
0:17:23 paul's third letter to the corinthians
0:17:25 and he was discovered by his bishop or a
0:17:28 senior figure in his church
0:17:30 whilst writing it and um and and as you
0:17:34 correctly say you know he he would have
0:17:36 been condemned and he was condemned but
0:17:38 when asked why
0:17:39 he was writing
0:17:41 paul's letters why he was forging it his
0:17:44 apparently his reply was out of love for
0:17:46 paul yes that's that story's true he he
0:17:49 wanted to honor paul
0:17:52 yeah
0:17:52 because the third corinthians does
0:17:55 kind of defends paul
0:17:57 against what could have been charges of
0:17:59 gnosticism
0:18:00 for example paul in his authentic
0:18:02 letters mainly in 1st corinthians 15
0:18:04 argues for the resurrection of the body
0:18:07 but he denies the resurrection of the
0:18:09 flesh
0:18:11 and that's one of the themes of third
0:18:13 corinthians several times in third
0:18:15 corinthians paul says
0:18:17 the resurrection of the flesh
0:18:19 jesus was raised in the flesh so he
0:18:22 could raise believers in their flesh he
0:18:25 redeemed the flesh well historical paul
0:18:27 never would have said that
0:18:29 but if you're a
0:18:30 christian writer an orthodox christian
0:18:32 writer and you want to
0:18:34 parry back some gnostic claims that they
0:18:37 claim paul for themselves because they
0:18:39 didn't believe in the resurrection of
0:18:40 the flesh either if you're an orthodox
0:18:43 person who believes in the resurrection
0:18:44 of the flesh and like tertullian you
0:18:47 believe that that's the only orthodox
0:18:48 position well then you can see how it
0:18:50 made sense for an
0:18:52 orthodox writer to think well maybe if
0:18:54 we had something by paul
0:18:56 where he
0:18:58 is clear that he believed in the
0:18:59 resurrection of the flesh
0:19:01 i've got a slightly more controversial
0:19:03 question here i mean
0:19:04 as you say i mean over the years when
0:19:06 i've read new testament commentaries and
0:19:08 and discussions of authorship
0:19:10 uh about particularly about paul's uh
0:19:13 pseudo-picker and say to peter second
0:19:16 letter peter which is also considered to
0:19:17 be pseudo-pickle for the the line of
0:19:19 reasoning is as you said it well it
0:19:21 doesn't really matter because um you
0:19:24 know at that time in that place people
0:19:26 recognize you like a pet trying school
0:19:28 or a poor line school and you were
0:19:30 honoring the memory of the founding
0:19:32 apostle and so you know it's still part
0:19:34 of sacred scripture nothing to see here
0:19:36 go away you know there is not an issue
0:19:38 now what by ehrman has done in english
0:19:41 and german scholars have done apparently
0:19:44 before that is to blow this out of the
0:19:46 water you can no longer argue that
0:19:49 because there's no evidence for it it's
0:19:50 like an urban myth that it was accepted
0:19:53 in the early church this kind of deceit
0:19:55 it wasn't accepted it was condemned when
0:19:57 it was discovered and would and
0:19:59 and so on as you say my question is this
0:20:01 though
0:20:03 what has happened in new testament
0:20:04 scholarships since the publication of by
0:20:07 ehrman's work and your own work because
0:20:09 you say the same thing in your work is
0:20:11 this now filtering through or is it
0:20:13 still resistance from uh more
0:20:15 conservative christian scholars to this
0:20:17 very idea
0:20:18 that
0:20:19 forgeries would be condemned in the
0:20:21 early church do you see what i mean
0:20:24 most of the conservative scholars just
0:20:25 make counter arguments that these things
0:20:27 are not
0:20:28 pseudographical they'll just for example
0:20:31 offer other studies of the vocabulary
0:20:34 that make that argue well sure the
0:20:36 vocabulary sounds somewhat different
0:20:38 from paul but all of us can write using
0:20:40 different words when writing to
0:20:42 different situations in different times
0:20:44 we don't always write it exactly the
0:20:46 same way they'll just kind of try to
0:20:48 show examples of how you could read
0:20:50 these uh documents as being by this the
0:20:53 person that they're
0:20:54 that claim they claim to be written by
0:20:56 um i think one of the places where a lot
0:20:59 of
0:21:00 christian scholars and theologians and
0:21:02 people in churches if they're in the
0:21:03 more liberal churches they'll perfectly
0:21:06 accept
0:21:07 the arguments that these that many of
0:21:09 these documents are uh forgeries or
0:21:11 pseudographies
0:21:13 but they will also
0:21:15 make point point out that things that
0:21:17 bart doesn't really
0:21:19 i think point out and
0:21:21 um
0:21:22 bart kind of worked came out of a more
0:21:25 evangelical conservative background and
0:21:27 so when he came to be convinced of these
0:21:29 things then it caused him to kind of
0:21:31 give up his faith and become an agnostic
0:21:34 um
0:21:35 so what do you do about all the
0:21:37 theologians and biblical scholars like
0:21:39 me i still go to church
0:21:41 i take these texts to be scripture holy
0:21:44 writings well it's because we have what
0:21:47 i would call a more post-modern
0:21:49 theological understanding of what does
0:21:51 it mean to call a text scripture
0:21:53 you don't have to believe that it's
0:21:54 scientifically accurate you don't have
0:21:56 to believe that it's historically
0:21:57 accurate and you don't even have to
0:21:59 believe that it's by the person that the
0:22:00 text claims to be the author you take it
0:22:03 as scripture because you believe
0:22:05 uh people would say that the holy spirit
0:22:08 uh led the church into com into the
0:22:11 making of the canon or the making of
0:22:13 scripture and it was a long process it
0:22:15 took centuries before these 27 writings
0:22:18 of the new testament and only these 27
0:22:20 writings of the new testament became
0:22:22 accepted as canonical new testament
0:22:24 and we just say well we call it
0:22:26 scripture because the church says it's
0:22:28 scripture
0:22:29 and we uh
0:22:30 believe that if you the theological
0:22:33 answer is that we believe in god there's
0:22:36 no
0:22:36 better proof that god exists either
0:22:39 we believe that in the holy spirit
0:22:41 there's no proof that the holy spirit
0:22:43 exists either
0:22:44 and so if you believe those two
0:22:46 ridiculous things
0:22:48 then why can't you believe that god
0:22:50 could even use forgeries
0:22:52 as part of uh holy scripture for the
0:22:54 church
0:22:55 so we just make it different from the
0:22:57 theological designation of these texts
0:23:00 as scripture
0:23:01 from the historical
0:23:03 designation of them as historically
0:23:05 accurate
0:23:06 those are just not the same kinds of
0:23:09 ideas
0:23:10 so use a post post modern herman you
0:23:12 took different levels of understandings
0:23:14 of truth to bring all this together but
0:23:16 it still sits a bit uneasy with me a as
0:23:19 a layman to hear at the same time you
0:23:21 use the language holy scripture and then
0:23:24 talk about
0:23:26 uh forgeries whose very nature whose
0:23:29 very existence is intended to deceive
0:23:32 the readers
0:23:33 and i i i
0:23:35 do that do not those two concepts sit
0:23:37 uneasily together in no but it's because
0:23:40 you're trying to use a universalizing
0:23:42 discourse
0:23:43 you're trying to say for example the
0:23:45 only discourse
0:23:47 that you can use to validate something
0:23:50 is modern historiography
0:23:55 and
0:23:56 the post-modern position would say well
0:23:57 that's a valid way of doing it if what
0:23:59 you're looking for is a modern
0:24:00 historiographical answer then you play
0:24:02 by those rules
0:24:05 let's take an easier example
0:24:07 do you believe that there was a
0:24:08 historical adam and eve
0:24:11 that they lived in a garden somewhere in
0:24:13 what we would call mesopotamia
0:24:15 and they were the original human beings
0:24:17 and the only original human beings
0:24:19 that all of humanity came from
0:24:22 you know a lot of believing christians
0:24:24 would say no that's
0:24:26 adam and eve is a myth
0:24:28 it may be a good myth
0:24:30 see this is what i argue in my theology
0:24:32 book biblical biblical truths
0:24:34 is that we need to come up with an idea
0:24:37 that there are good myths and bad myths
0:24:39 there's good mythology and bad mythology
0:24:42 it's perfectly willing to believe
0:24:44 mythology can still be true in a sense
0:24:48 in fact that was what i wanted to be the
0:24:50 title for my book biblical truths i
0:24:52 wanted the title be in a sense
0:24:54 because nothing was true or untrue
0:24:57 unless you tell me what sense you're
0:24:59 talking about
0:25:00 are you talking about the sense of his
0:25:02 history are you talking about the sense
0:25:03 of science are you talking about the
0:25:05 sense of theology are you talking about
0:25:07 the sense of mythology
0:25:09 so
0:25:09 the story of noah no
0:25:12 critical scholar believes the story of
0:25:15 noah is historically accurate
0:25:18 but does that mean you just throw it out
0:25:20 of the bible
0:25:22 oh no
0:25:23 because you believe that if it is read
0:25:27 as a good myth
0:25:29 it teaches and what that means is it
0:25:31 teaches us something true
0:25:33 about god ourselves and nature and the
0:25:36 world
0:25:38 okay i'll say well do you think if paul
0:25:40 had known having just written one first
0:25:43 his letter to the romans for example
0:25:45 that some some guy some dude down the
0:25:47 road was forging a letter in his name
0:25:49 and actually not representing his
0:25:51 teaching accurately either
0:25:53 do you think he would have minded
0:25:55 of course it was money
0:25:56 um
0:25:58 so what does that say though about the
0:25:59 letters then that uh bear his name that
0:26:02 he you know he's again you're allowed
0:26:05 you're allowing a historical
0:26:07 reconstruction of paul not a scripture
0:26:09 will reconduct in a paul not a
0:26:11 theological reconstruction of policy
0:26:13 these are all different pauls
0:26:15 party with the assumption there's only
0:26:16 one paul in all of the universe i am yes
0:26:19 the one that historians establish the
0:26:22 yeah the the man who wrote you're
0:26:24 allowing that is the criterion
0:26:26 for judging the value of the document
0:26:29 well theologian would say
0:26:32 who who died and made you god
0:26:35 you know that you get to set
0:26:37 uh the historical construction of paul
0:26:39 as the criterion
0:26:41 for what we what we accept
0:26:44 as scripture
0:26:45 of course
0:26:48 let's get slightly more provocative i'm
0:26:49 not going to label this point further i
0:26:50 just find an interesting discussion uh
0:26:52 okay uh
0:26:54 professor dale martin there's adele
0:26:55 martin in san francisco
0:26:58 who as we speak is writing a book
0:27:01 uh using your name claiming to be you
0:27:04 and uh espousing views which are
0:27:06 radically discontinuous with your own
0:27:08 views would you object
0:27:10 uh probably yeah
0:27:12 but
0:27:14 did you change your example of it
0:27:17 if uh someone was doing this a hundred
0:27:20 years from now i'm dead
0:27:24 and
0:27:25 you know so what does it matter i could
0:27:27 it doesn't matter if i would object i
0:27:29 can't object i'm dead
0:27:32 and so
0:27:33 that's the situation we're having it's
0:27:34 not you're doing these little kind of
0:27:36 thought experiments
0:27:38 yeah but you're not introducing them to
0:27:40 theological rigor
0:27:42 because
0:27:44 i might not object for example if i were
0:27:46 up in heaven somewhere
0:27:49 uh and i'm looking down and i'm saying
0:27:51 oh look at this guy from san francisco's
0:27:53 publishing these texts that he claims
0:27:54 were written by dale martin
0:27:56 probably i would look at and say well
0:27:59 is it for a good end or a bad end
0:28:05 advocating things that you don't agree
0:28:07 with like the like say the author of two
0:28:09 thessalonians who you've cited saying
0:28:11 things that paul directly didn't say or
0:28:13 said the opposite in one thessalonians
0:28:15 about you know the man of lawlessness
0:28:17 and eschatology and they're coming you
0:28:18 know he is definitely under your name
0:28:21 giving views that you find disagree with
0:28:24 uh but you say
0:28:26 so in that case
0:28:27 in his in the historical paul
0:28:30 in his life would have objected to that
0:28:32 yeah
0:28:33 so
0:28:37 so
0:28:38 so that's the point his name is being
0:28:40 used his own
0:28:42 you're not i know the situation you're
0:28:44 proposing so
0:28:46 what is the question so what you take
0:28:49 second thessalonians and you cut it out
0:28:50 of your bible because that is
0:28:53 misrepresenting the legacy or the truth
0:28:55 about that historical person whose name
0:28:57 has been used in the furtherance of
0:28:58 other agendas you just you just changed
0:29:01 the rules of the game by using the word
0:29:02 historical
0:29:05 okay scripture cannot be judged by
0:29:08 modern rules of historiography
0:29:10 from a theological point of view it's
0:29:12 got to be judged an interpretation of
0:29:14 scripture has to be judged by what in
0:29:16 augustine's terms does it promote the
0:29:18 love of god the love of neighbor
0:29:21 if the interpretation of this text does
0:29:23 not promote the love of god and the love
0:29:24 of neighbor then it's false
0:29:26 it doesn't matter who wrote it
0:29:29 so you can do the same thing with things
0:29:30 that paul said
0:29:32 the historical paul said all kinds of
0:29:33 things that i don't accept is
0:29:35 theologically correct
0:29:37 it doesn't matter whether the historical
0:29:38 paul said it or some later
0:29:40 creation of paul said it i don't judge
0:29:43 the text from a modern christian point
0:29:45 of view
0:29:46 by whether i think the historical paul
0:29:48 said it no more than i judge the
0:29:50 validity of the gospels by where they by
0:29:53 whether they correctly record
0:29:55 let's say what a modern camera
0:29:58 would record
0:29:59 of the life of jesus the modern camera
0:30:02 recording in some imagination is not
0:30:04 scripture
0:30:06 no
0:30:07 now you mentioned the four gospels the
0:30:09 reason that bart and people and you when
0:30:13 you talk like this
0:30:14 are incorrect
0:30:16 is because you have a deficient theology
0:30:19 right
0:30:21 that's why i've spent a lot of my career
0:30:24 trying not only to talk about the
0:30:26 history but then trying to say now wait
0:30:27 a minute let's now switch gears and say
0:30:29 what does it mean to think theologically
0:30:31 about this well that's a new game and
0:30:34 you need to learn to think theological
0:30:36 and then you need to learn to read these
0:30:38 texts theologically that's the main
0:30:40 point of my last book biblical truths is
0:30:43 that once you've established the
0:30:44 historical meaning of this text you're
0:30:46 not there yet
0:30:48 if you're a christian you have to learn
0:30:50 to
0:30:51 read it uh through his through a
0:30:53 theological lens and it's no different
0:30:55 from saying if you're a social historian
0:30:57 once you've sort of decided about the
0:31:00 historical uh reference of a letter of
0:31:04 paul
0:31:05 you might as a historical exegete say
0:31:07 okay dust your hands off i've done my
0:31:09 job
0:31:11 well if you're a social historian you
0:31:13 say no you haven't
0:31:15 because i want to use this text for
0:31:17 another purpose i want to say what does
0:31:19 this text tell us
0:31:20 about the social and cultural history
0:31:23 of early christianity and paul and
0:31:25 paul's writings
0:31:27 well that's not the same thing as
0:31:28 historical acts of jesus no
0:31:32 okay um you touched on the gospels there
0:31:34 i think it's important point to clarify
0:31:37 the gospels that we have according to
0:31:39 the church are the gospels of matthew
0:31:41 mark luke and john
0:31:43 but these are not forgeries are they
0:31:45 according to you until by herman there
0:31:48 there's something else what could you
0:31:49 just clarify distinction between a
0:31:51 forgery what we've been talking about
0:31:53 and what the gospels are and why they're
0:31:55 not forgeries in that sense
0:31:58 yes and that that's true for the
0:31:59 canonical the four canonical gospels
0:32:01 there are
0:32:02 gospels published in the second century
0:32:05 that um i think probably could count as
0:32:07 forgery because somewhere in the text
0:32:09 it tries to indicate that
0:32:12 it was written by saint peter or whoever
0:32:15 the gospel of peter or something like
0:32:16 that
0:32:17 but or it was published as actually
0:32:20 written by peter by someone else
0:32:22 but the four canonical gospels um the
0:32:25 names matthew mark luke and john do not
0:32:27 occur
0:32:28 according to matthew according to mark
0:32:30 they don't occur anywhere in the um
0:32:34 ancient documents right they start being
0:32:36 applied to these documents probably
0:32:38 around the end of the second century you
0:32:41 know they start being applied in the
0:32:43 middle earlier middle second century but
0:32:45 they don't come to be really set
0:32:47 until the end of the second century
0:32:49 maybe around the year 200
0:32:50 and then you have people like irenaeus
0:32:52 saying the gospel of matthew really was
0:32:54 written by the apostle matthew the
0:32:56 gospel of mark really was written by
0:32:58 mark and he was a
0:33:00 secretary to peter and he wrote peter's
0:33:03 version of the gospel and luke wrote
0:33:05 paul's version of the gospel and john
0:33:06 was written by the actual apostle john
0:33:09 the beloved disciple of well none of
0:33:11 that's in the text of the gospels yeah
0:33:14 what we call those are not pseudonymous
0:33:16 because they don't claim to have a
0:33:18 author that is false we call them
0:33:20 anonymous
0:33:21 anonymous anonymous
0:33:23 and that actually that's a a lot of
0:33:26 texts from the ancient world
0:33:27 are anonymous in that sense um
0:33:30 you know a lot of the old testament
0:33:33 documents
0:33:34 um are anonymous uh they
0:33:37 for example the first five books of the
0:33:39 bible called the pentateuch
0:33:42 they circulated most of the time in the
0:33:44 ancient world
0:33:45 without being ascribed to moses
0:33:48 um now the book deuteronomy at the very
0:33:51 end kind of ascribes the deuteronomy to
0:33:55 moses
0:33:56 um
0:33:57 that's kind of odd because it's the
0:33:59 deuteronomy was supposed to be finished
0:34:01 and published after moses had already
0:34:02 supposedly died
0:34:06 uh so then you know whoever's writing
0:34:08 the end of deuteronomy kind of predates
0:34:11 this and but that in a lot of later
0:34:13 christianity they took that to mean that
0:34:15 moses had also written genesis escort
0:34:18 leviticus numbers and deuteronomy
0:34:22 genesis
0:34:24 genesis exodus leviticus number they
0:34:26 don't claim to be by paul by moses or
0:34:29 anybody
0:34:30 no so it would be anonymous also
0:34:34 that's interesting okay well
0:34:36 there's um bart mentioned the dust and
0:34:38 the dust jacket about jesus
0:34:40 correspondence with abgar so jesus wrote
0:34:43 letters to someone what earth's going on
0:34:46 there and why are they for i mean i
0:34:47 didn't know jesus wrote letters this is
0:34:49 news to me so what's going on there and
0:34:50 why are they forgeries
0:34:52 why couldn't jesus have written letters
0:34:54 surely he could have written something
0:34:56 well it's not
0:34:57 that we don't think he could have
0:34:59 written something um
0:35:01 but if you take
0:35:03 what we think was jesus's educational
0:35:05 level i mean he was called even by his
0:35:08 own followers agramatos you know
0:35:10 uneducated unlettered
0:35:13 um
0:35:14 he may have had some kind of education
0:35:17 but
0:35:18 uh
0:35:18 even in our gospels who try to raise his
0:35:21 stature as much as they can
0:35:23 he just doesn't come across as having
0:35:25 the kind of high education that would
0:35:27 have allowed him to write the kind of uh
0:35:30 greek that we find in the letters of
0:35:32 jesus to abgar
0:35:34 and here's also where the anachronism
0:35:36 comes in
0:35:37 you know he's writing to this guy who's
0:35:38 supposed to be a king somewhere in syria
0:35:40 and uh you know would a king in syria of
0:35:44 this
0:35:44 area he says oh i've heard of all the
0:35:46 great wonders you've performed and i
0:35:48 want to invite you to come and heal all
0:35:50 the people in my kingdom and i'll pay
0:35:51 your way and
0:35:54 is that
0:35:54 historically
0:35:56 really possible no
0:35:58 jesus was a unknown peasant
0:36:02 prophet an apocalyptic prophet certainly
0:36:04 but not nearly that educated so again
0:36:07 you use the style of writing
0:36:09 could the historical jesus actually
0:36:10 write these kinds of letters
0:36:13 no way
0:36:14 they show a level of education that
0:36:17 very few people in the ancient world had
0:36:19 maybe
0:36:20 one to three percent of the people in
0:36:22 the ancient world had
0:36:23 so even if jesus had something of what
0:36:26 people used to call a rabbinic education
0:36:28 a jewish education it wouldn't come to
0:36:31 the level of those letters and then we
0:36:33 just don't think there could have been a
0:36:34 king who knew about jesus and wrote it
0:36:37 the other thing is that again
0:36:38 anachronism
0:36:39 both jesus and abgar quote parts of the
0:36:42 new testament
0:36:44 in their lives
0:36:45 you know
0:36:46 it's so hard
0:36:47 um okay
0:36:49 slightly anachronistic then i think
0:36:51 and then um paul's letters to and from
0:36:55 seneca seneca the gr great roman uh
0:36:58 writer so paul was literate however um i
0:37:02 don't think you dispute that he could
0:37:04 read and write part of that one percent
0:37:06 or top five percent or whatever so why
0:37:08 couldn't he have written these letters
0:37:10 but the better question is did he or why
0:37:12 don't you think he did
0:37:13 well for one thing
0:37:15 we think they were written in latin
0:37:17 um that's the only way we have them but
0:37:20 they just looked like they were
0:37:21 originally published
0:37:23 in latin
0:37:24 um
0:37:25 they may have been written in say the
0:37:27 fourth century
0:37:28 uh because jerome seems to know about
0:37:30 them and he's writing at the end of the
0:37:32 fourth century
0:37:33 um
0:37:34 but we they just don't look like
0:37:37 uh they were written in the first
0:37:38 century and we have no clue
0:37:41 that paul could speak or read latin he
0:37:44 claims you know he doesn't claim but the
0:37:46 book of acts claims that he uh is a
0:37:48 roman citizen and if a roman citizen
0:37:51 then you could say well maybe he learned
0:37:53 some latin but paul came from the greek
0:37:55 speaking east and the greek speaking
0:37:57 east in the first part of the first
0:37:58 century
0:38:00 people didn't speak latin when the
0:38:02 romans went to greece they spoke greek
0:38:05 yeah because nobody would understand
0:38:06 latin
0:38:07 yeah
0:38:08 so uh even the romans in the east spoke
0:38:12 greek
0:38:12 um so the chances that paul
0:38:16 around the year because these letters
0:38:18 seem to date themselves from the year
0:38:20 say 56 58 to the year 64. because in
0:38:25 some of the letters paul mentions
0:38:27 uh people who uh you know the
0:38:30 consulships of this person and that
0:38:31 person which scholars can date to year
0:38:34 58
0:38:35 and um
0:38:37 and then the last ones seem to mention
0:38:39 nero
0:38:40 and uh what happened with nero
0:38:42 persecuting seneca talks about nero
0:38:45 persecuting the christians and jews
0:38:47 well that looks like 64.
0:38:49 um
0:38:50 and so
0:38:52 you know could
0:38:54 a jew like paul
0:38:57 and i don't think he had a really high
0:38:59 education i think he had a good
0:39:00 rhetorical education but he was not i
0:39:02 don't think he had a philosophical
0:39:03 education
0:39:05 but that's part of the thing is that it
0:39:06 wants to set up paul
0:39:08 as practically a stoic philosopher here
0:39:10 he's writing you know seneca the most
0:39:12 famous stoic philosopher of the first
0:39:14 century and a hero to later christians
0:39:16 christians like italian claimed this is
0:39:18 our seneca
0:39:21 later educated christians
0:39:22 because they admired christians uh they
0:39:24 admire
0:39:25 um
0:39:26 seneca's
0:39:28 uh stoicism historic philosophy and it
0:39:31 looked like the kind of christian they
0:39:33 thought was proper christianity well it
0:39:34 wasn't the kind of christianity of paul
0:39:37 um it's a christianity that developed
0:39:40 when philosophically educated
0:39:42 highly educated philosophical christians
0:39:44 um
0:39:45 started reading christianity in the
0:39:47 gospels and paul's letters through the
0:39:50 lens of stoic philosophy
0:39:52 and so
0:39:53 it's clear that they're trying to
0:39:54 portray paul as a good stoic philosopher
0:39:57 philosophically educated person and
0:39:59 seneca as an admirer of paul
0:40:02 right now seneca
0:40:03 whoever wrote these letters
0:40:05 doesn't make too much of paul's
0:40:07 education because seneca even has a
0:40:08 little dig every once from all these
0:40:10 letters about paul saying well you know
0:40:13 you know your your latin is not that
0:40:15 great um and i'm going to send you
0:40:17 something that will help you in your
0:40:18 writing style
0:40:19 so
0:40:21 whoever wrote these knew that paul's
0:40:22 letters didn't show the kind of
0:40:26 writing level that he knows seneca wrote
0:40:28 in
0:40:29 but he still believes setting paul up as
0:40:32 writing in very very good latin
0:40:35 right which is highly unlikely
0:40:39 and again what are the historical
0:40:41 chances
0:40:42 that seneca
0:40:43 the most well-known philosopher in the
0:40:45 first century and the closest adviser to
0:40:47 emperor nero
0:40:49 yep is writing to paul in the year 58.
0:40:52 yeah it's like that king writing to
0:40:53 jesus you know what why would these
0:40:55 eminent persons possibly communicate
0:40:57 with complete unknowns marginal figures
0:40:59 on the corner of the roman empire why
0:41:01 would they have this correspondence yeah
0:41:03 yeah
0:41:03 so it's
0:41:04 they just look like they're written by
0:41:06 educated christians from a later time
0:41:08 who are simply trying to you know claim
0:41:11 the more respectability for christianity
0:41:13 by making it a bit higher class
0:41:16 uh than it was in the first century
0:41:20 okay that's very very interesting
0:41:22 um
0:41:22 again i think you've already answered
0:41:23 this question in a roundabout way but to
0:41:25 many people the idea that the new
0:41:27 testament contains forgeries we're
0:41:30 calling to question whether or not those
0:41:31 books should remain in the new testament
0:41:34 canon today
0:41:35 and
0:41:36 from your answer so far obviously the
0:41:38 answer is they should remain because
0:41:39 they're they're authorized by god uh
0:41:42 through his church and the church has
0:41:43 given us this canon of scripture so it's
0:41:45 not the individual books it's the canon
0:41:47 itself as a complete 27 set work if you
0:41:51 like containing 27 books
0:41:53 but um if people have a different
0:41:55 theology or different ecclesiology from
0:41:57 that then that would be a real question
0:41:58 wouldn't it about some more well that's
0:42:00 not so much a post-modernist
0:42:02 understanding a more kind of classical
0:42:04 liberal understanding of the scriptures
0:42:06 then for them it might actually become
0:42:08 an issue whether or not these books
0:42:09 should remain
0:42:10 in part as part of the scriptures would
0:42:12 it not
0:42:13 yes and in fact there have been all
0:42:15 kinds of
0:42:16 scholars uh and just normal christians
0:42:19 who
0:42:20 who said um
0:42:21 you know i don't believe that's part of
0:42:22 scripture i'm not gonna accept it
0:42:24 so
0:42:25 some my mother never did like paul
0:42:28 um you know what i would just the
0:42:31 problem was she didn't she was reading
0:42:34 first and second timothy and titus uh
0:42:37 who say women should shut up and not
0:42:39 speak in church they're subordinate to
0:42:41 men they should cover that
0:42:43 she thought that was the real paul
0:42:45 the paul from his seven authentic
0:42:46 letters is actually not nearly as
0:42:48 anti-women
0:42:50 as the the later paul so but mom didn't
0:42:53 know that she you know when she went to
0:42:55 church
0:42:56 they just read
0:42:57 colossians and ephesians and first and
0:42:59 second timothy and titus as being by
0:43:01 paul the saint paul who wrote romans in
0:43:03 first and second corinthians and so she
0:43:05 just just didn't you know and it's like
0:43:08 you know a black woman in the old south
0:43:10 would say you know you say that you know
0:43:13 people slaves ought to be in honor to
0:43:15 their master well that didn't that ain't
0:43:17 in the bible
0:43:19 you said well here it is
0:43:21 it ain't in the bible
0:43:23 wow and they're making that judgment on
0:43:24 the basis of what they view as the
0:43:26 theologically correct reading and and
0:43:28 you know if it if it promotes slavery it
0:43:31 can't be part of scripture
0:43:33 yeah
0:43:33 and so that's
0:43:35 you know that's the way people deal with
0:43:36 it um but there have actually been uh
0:43:39 critical scholars who wanted to
0:43:42 uh make a different biblical canon
0:43:45 um
0:43:46 the oldest we know about was marcion of
0:43:48 course who
0:43:49 uh
0:43:50 wrote around the year 150
0:43:52 and
0:43:54 he
0:43:54 he
0:43:55 basically said
0:43:56 um that the only gospel that's
0:43:59 a true gospel is the gospel of luke
0:44:02 and even then he edited it so that he
0:44:05 took out any
0:44:06 good references to jews because he
0:44:08 thought that
0:44:09 judaizing christians had gotten hold of
0:44:11 these new testament texts and made them
0:44:13 more jewish
0:44:14 and uh he basically said that was
0:44:16 ruining everything
0:44:17 um
0:44:18 so he chose only the gospel of luke in
0:44:21 an edited form and the letters of paul
0:44:25 it's somewhat debated by scholars of
0:44:27 which letters of paul did he include
0:44:30 most of us don't think he knew all of
0:44:32 the 13 letters of paul in our new
0:44:34 testament
0:44:35 but um
0:44:36 he took only the letters of paul or
0:44:38 those that he thought were genuine those
0:44:40 of all uh and the ones he knew about
0:44:43 and i don't think he ever mentions first
0:44:46 and second timothy and titus
0:44:48 and it's probably because
0:44:49 most of us i believe that first and
0:44:51 second timothy and titus weren't weren't
0:44:52 even written or published until around
0:44:54 the year 150 or so
0:44:56 and if if um you know uh you know
0:45:00 martians were adding about the same time
0:45:02 he may not have even know known those
0:45:04 letters either
0:45:05 so but you know he was the first one to
0:45:07 say
0:45:08 um we're going to have a criterion and
0:45:11 it's going to be
0:45:12 the god of the christians is not the
0:45:14 jewish god
0:45:15 the jewish god the god of the old
0:45:17 testament is a lower god or even a
0:45:20 demonic god
0:45:22 he's not god the father of jesus christ
0:45:25 and so any text that claims to be early
0:45:28 christian literature that depicts a
0:45:31 jewish god
0:45:33 uh can't be scripture
0:45:36 and so that's what he that was the
0:45:37 criterion for which he
0:45:39 excluded things but you have modern
0:45:41 scholars also um very famously adolf von
0:45:44 harnock
0:45:46 kind of wanted to get rid of some of the
0:45:48 writings in the new testament because
0:45:50 he
0:45:51 he didn't like them he didn't agree with
0:45:53 him but he also claimed he also believed
0:45:55 that they were
0:45:56 you know pseudonymous and not really
0:45:58 written by the person so
0:46:02 i mean arnold was the the great german i
0:46:04 was just saying he's the great german uh
0:46:06 biblical scholar um i forget it was the
0:46:09 19th or 20th century is it 19th century
0:46:11 i forget around 1900 he
0:46:14 was writing in the late 19th and early
0:46:16 20th century
0:46:17 right but you see that this is the issue
0:46:19 that if you mentioned martian who in the
0:46:21 second century was the first perhaps to
0:46:24 formulate what we would call a canon of
0:46:26 the new testament and besides because he
0:46:28 ultimately was excommunicated from the
0:46:30 church of rome uh for his uh bizarre
0:46:32 views you know two gods basically
0:46:34 there's a god of jesus the real god and
0:46:36 then the god of the universe and then
0:46:37 you had the old testament god the
0:46:39 creator god who was frankly not the god
0:46:41 he followed it wasn't the god of jesus
0:46:43 and so he was ultimately excommunicated
0:46:45 on the other hand you've got the other
0:46:46 extreme you've got the ebionites
0:46:49 you have their own um scriptures they
0:46:51 have perhaps a version of what we call
0:46:53 matthew's gospel perhaps not the same
0:46:54 but something like that uh they rejected
0:46:57 paul of course they were very hostile he
0:46:59 was an apostate uh who abandoned the law
0:47:02 so they had their own i assume their own
0:47:05 gospel their own perhaps their own
0:47:06 scriptures which presumably was the
0:47:08 jewish bible mostly and and then you
0:47:10 have the proto-orthodox as barman calls
0:47:12 them the the
0:47:14 the religion the christianity that we
0:47:16 recognize today so it would be possible
0:47:19 for other christians to say well given
0:47:22 what god has done in our communities as
0:47:25 inheritors of martian or inheritors of
0:47:28 the ebionite mantle that we can have our
0:47:30 own scriptures and we're going to reject
0:47:33 the forgeries that have come to light so
0:47:34 what it means so it's it even on that
0:47:37 theological reading there's still
0:47:39 diversity is there not with the
0:47:41 possibility
0:47:42 of
0:47:43 further developments
0:47:45 yes
0:47:46 or you could do like the mormons you
0:47:47 could just say
0:47:48 well we accept the bible but we're going
0:47:50 to supplement it with the book of mormon
0:47:53 and by
0:47:54 supplementing the book of mormon with
0:47:56 the for you know with the bible um the
0:47:59 book of mormon kind of takes over then
0:48:01 and becomes
0:48:03 more important in finality
0:48:05 for mormon doctrine than does the bible
0:48:08 so that's just a way we're going to add
0:48:10 a second whole text that's just about as
0:48:13 long as the bible
0:48:14 um yes
0:48:16 but certain and is based on the bible
0:48:18 but teaches other things so the mormons
0:48:21 had another way of dealing with it they
0:48:23 they wanted something that would
0:48:25 correctly they wanted scripture that
0:48:26 would correctly reflect um the
0:48:28 developing theology taught by joseph
0:48:30 smith and um
0:48:33 you know his his
0:48:34 successors
0:48:36 okay
0:48:38 here's a final question a bit of a
0:48:39 curveball this one okay archaeologists
0:48:41 have just dug up uh a letter in uh the
0:48:45 ruins and ephesus and it turns out
0:48:46 they've discovered
0:48:48 an authentic letter written by the
0:48:50 apostle paul to whoever
0:48:53 it really look you looked at it it looks
0:48:55 like it looks like an authentic letter
0:48:57 we've never seen it before a new thing
0:48:58 to us and yet really was written by paul
0:49:02 okay does this get emitted into the
0:49:04 cannon
0:49:05 and if not why not
0:49:07 well i just come back at a question to
0:49:09 you
0:49:10 who makes that decision in the modern
0:49:12 world
0:49:13 hmm
0:49:14 i i don't know i don't have an answer to
0:49:16 that question
0:49:17 that's because there is no answer to
0:49:19 that question
0:49:20 i mean you could say oh we're gonna go
0:49:21 to the vatican
0:49:23 we're gonna let the pope decide well
0:49:25 would the protestants go along with that
0:49:27 or do we call a new worldwide ecumenical
0:49:30 council of all christians throughout the
0:49:32 world well good luck getting that to
0:49:35 happen first
0:49:36 and getting them to agree second
0:49:40 can you let each denomination decide do
0:49:41 you let each individual christian decide
0:49:44 you know the really the way to answer
0:49:45 your question is to say well who are you
0:49:47 going to call you know it's like
0:49:48 ghostbusters who you going to call
0:49:51 um
0:49:52 and it reminds me of a joke we used to
0:49:54 pass around in seminary
0:49:56 that
0:49:57 so there was an archaeology uh an
0:50:00 archaeologist
0:50:01 in palestine jerusalem who opened up a
0:50:04 tomb and he found this skeleton
0:50:08 and through
0:50:09 really successful you know dating and
0:50:12 marks and all this kind of stuff he
0:50:14 proved beyond the shadow of a doubt for
0:50:16 an archaeologist that this was the
0:50:18 skeleton of jesus
0:50:21 still in the tomb
0:50:23 so he calls up
0:50:25 the vatican ver he says well who am i
0:50:26 going to tell this to so among the
0:50:29 people he calls up is the pope
0:50:31 and he tells pope well i hate to tell
0:50:33 you this you know i hope you're sitting
0:50:35 down
0:50:36 but
0:50:37 you know we found him we're really
0:50:39 convinced we found him
0:50:41 and the pope then scratches his head and
0:50:43 he says oh my god i can't i can't decide
0:50:45 this on my own i so he calls all the
0:50:47 greatest theologians of the modern world
0:50:49 he can find
0:50:51 and um
0:50:52 you know he says well what should we do
0:50:54 about this they give him different
0:50:56 answers finally he gets around to
0:50:57 calling bultmann
0:51:00 the great liberal
0:51:02 german theologian and he tells bolton on
0:51:04 the story and there's silence on the
0:51:06 other end of the phone and then bulman
0:51:08 says
0:51:10 oh
0:51:11 so he actually lived
0:51:16 oh very good very good because boltman
0:51:18 of course is famous for not really
0:51:20 caring anything about the the actress of
0:51:22 jesus um and he basically looked like
0:51:25 he was a christian
0:51:27 he was a lutheran uh christian no but
0:51:30 you know he basically ended the quest
0:51:31 for the historical jesus until later
0:51:34 after his death in this 1780s with
0:51:37 bulkman and tom wright and you and
0:51:38 everyone else um ep sanders so that's
0:51:41 that's hilarious uh that's definitely a
0:51:44 biblical scholars joke
0:51:45 yes
0:51:47 um that's fantastic well i think well
0:51:49 thank you so much by the way dale for um
0:51:52 the run around on this because we didn't
0:51:54 just take on forgeries we spoke about
0:51:56 the theology of the implication of
0:51:57 theological implications of this if any
0:52:00 um and also these other questions of
0:52:02 what what if questions and um because
0:52:05 they because we live holistically we
0:52:08 don't live as critical story we live as
0:52:10 christians as people who concern about
0:52:12 the truth and about other christians and
0:52:14 how we how we respond to archaeological
0:52:16 finds and so all these bigger questions
0:52:19 have to be asked as well of course um
0:52:21 so uh is there anything dale you want to
0:52:23 say in conclusion on any of these
0:52:24 subjects to to to me and to the viewers
0:52:28 no that's fine
0:52:31 okay um
0:52:32 are these are all important questions
0:52:33 and they have
0:52:35 what what i would have been trying to
0:52:37 say about how do we approach this though
0:52:39 from the ultimate meaning of it
0:52:41 is you said we all you know are much
0:52:43 more we're much more complex we're we
0:52:45 consist of or we're historical people
0:52:47 we're literary people we're modern
0:52:50 people
0:52:50 uh
0:52:51 and yet we want to be connected to some
0:52:53 kind of ancient past
0:52:54 and if we're christians we want to be
0:52:56 connected to the entire history of
0:52:58 christianity as well as the history of
0:53:00 the jews um before christianity
0:53:02 um
0:53:04 i would say that
0:53:06 that's one way of thinking of it that
0:53:07 still in my mind makes us
0:53:10 too unified it's as if we've got we each
0:53:13 and uh live as one full
0:53:16 united person and somehow we're expected
0:53:19 to kind of
0:53:20 pull all these things in together
0:53:22 and
0:53:23 put them in a mixing bowl
0:53:25 and mix them all up and come up with
0:53:28 the thing that is us
0:53:31 i have more of a what you might think of
0:53:33 as a silo
0:53:35 kind of view of the self
0:53:37 that we're we're not one silo we're a
0:53:40 collection of silos and this i'm not i
0:53:42 don't mean to say that the
0:53:44 contents of the different silos
0:53:46 never have any influence or contact with
0:53:48 one another that's kind of the way the
0:53:50 silo
0:53:52 metaphor usually works so if you get rid
0:53:54 of though the idea that these things
0:53:55 can't influence each other or can't have
0:53:57 anything to do with each other but i
0:53:59 think of myself as having
0:54:01 you know one part of my brain
0:54:03 works as a historian
0:54:06 another works as a scientist
0:54:09 say a natural scientist
0:54:12 um so there are just things
0:54:14 from the bible that and even from
0:54:16 christian doctrine that i would just say
0:54:19 when i put my scientific person on
0:54:21 i just can't believe that but that but
0:54:24 see there's another part of me that's
0:54:26 the christian me
0:54:28 um
0:54:29 and that can be divided up into the
0:54:31 theologian
0:54:33 the christian theologian dale it can
0:54:35 also be
0:54:36 put into as the liturgical
0:54:39 uh tale which is the the liturgy of the
0:54:42 church is important for me
0:54:44 and something to be liturgically good
0:54:47 even if it is possible of bad
0:54:48 theological interpretation
0:54:51 uh you just have to avoid the bad
0:54:52 theological interpretation and keep on
0:54:55 using it in the liturgy if you want to
0:54:57 there's the ethical
0:54:58 part of me
0:54:59 that is has a different and each of
0:55:02 these different parts have different
0:55:03 criteria to judge what is true there's
0:55:06 no such thing as true with a capital t
0:55:10 truth of the capital t
0:55:11 there are only truths with an s
0:55:14 which is why you know the title my
0:55:17 last book was biblical truths
0:55:20 not biblical truth
0:55:23 so um
0:55:25 that's meant to reflect that there are a
0:55:26 lot of different things that we all
0:55:28 have of make of take making things true
0:55:31 or false
0:55:33 and it doesn't mean collapsing them all
0:55:35 into one mixing bowl
0:55:38 well that's that i think that very
0:55:41 beautifully sums up your whole outlook
0:55:43 your your as you say your post-modernist
0:55:45 uh understanding of uh the different
0:55:47 levels of reality the different truths
0:55:49 of reality so
0:55:50 thank you very much indeed dale for your
0:55:53 time uh your expertise and your
0:55:55 extraordinary knowledge of the
0:55:56 scriptures and history and and so on and
0:55:59 i'm sure the viewers will find it
0:56:01 extremely interesting and uh and
0:56:04 thought-provoking i think that's what
0:56:06 i'm trying to say uh rather than
0:56:07 passively receive knowledge but actually
0:56:09 to get to think about the issues that
0:56:11 you have uh so articulately raised so
0:56:14 thank you very much dale and
0:56:16 for your time and until next time thank
0:56:18 you okay thanks