The scandal of 'forgeries' in the Bible (2021-05-31) ​

0:00:00 now some of the conclusions pivotal
0:00:01 scholars come to
0:00:03 are not controversial and they're not
0:00:04 startling and shocking and so on
0:00:07 at all where the gospels are concerned i
0:00:09 think some of it is fairly
0:00:11 dynamite
0:00:15 i completely agree but can i suggest
0:00:17 there's actually an even more
0:00:18 controversial
0:00:19 subject um sort of hard point about the
0:00:20 controversies but these are the things
0:00:22 that perhaps really will surprise
0:00:24 us and viewers um and that is to do
0:00:27 with uh paul's letters
0:00:31 and it
0:00:34 is uh very widely accepted amongst new
0:00:37 testament scholars
0:00:38 outside of very conservative circles
0:00:40 perhaps in the united states and
0:00:42 one or two places elsewhere that the new
0:00:44 testament contains
0:00:45 letters which state that they are by
0:00:49 the apostle paul like the first letter
0:00:51 of timothy his second letter to timothy
0:00:53 and
0:00:53 letter of titus but nevertheless are not
0:00:56 usually seen
0:00:57 as uh by paul but are for variety of
0:01:00 reasons but seen as
0:01:02 uh much later works now
0:01:05 that in itself um as you say on page 185
0:01:10 scholars it was it has been common you
0:01:13 say
0:01:14 for new testament scholars to say that
0:01:15 the attribution of texts to people who
0:01:17 were not their actual
0:01:19 authors was a matter of convention in
0:01:22 the
0:01:22 ancient world and in the case of the
0:01:25 bible you know it's
0:01:26 often said well look um moses is is
0:01:29 given the honor of having author the
0:01:30 pentateuch and david all of the psalms
0:01:32 and
0:01:33 king solomon the actual proverbs
0:01:35 attributed
0:01:36 uh you know to him but you say that this
0:01:39 is
0:01:40 um you're not persuaded by that because
0:01:42 the letters in the new testament
0:01:44 uh are are the authentic ones uh
0:01:48 and the answer the lessons in the new
0:01:49 testament attributed to paul
0:01:52 within the text themselves claim to be
0:01:56 by paul so
0:01:57 nowhere in the pentateuch does it say i
0:01:59 moses wrote this he's not in the first
0:02:00 person
0:02:01 ditto for the proverbs um for the psalms
0:02:05 but paul's letter say to uh one timothy
0:02:08 actually claims to be by
0:02:09 paul and you argue uh persuasively
0:02:13 and in the light also by ehrman's uh
0:02:15 recent work
0:02:16 on uh his academic work called forgery
0:02:19 and counter forgery the big thick
0:02:21 scholarly tone which i i i've read
0:02:25 um he says that this common scholarly
0:02:28 idea that this um attribution of
0:02:31 false authorship was an accepted
0:02:33 convention in the ancient world
0:02:35 he argues and you do that absolutely no
0:02:38 evidence for this this is a
0:02:39 almost like an urban myth that scholars
0:02:41 have recycled and recycled over the
0:02:43 years
0:02:44 and in fact even in paul's letters uh
0:02:46 well i'm going to pause it but the point
0:02:48 is this that
0:02:50 the shocking thing here is that it is a
0:02:52 commonplace of new testament scholarship
0:02:54 that there are
0:02:55 forgeries actual forgeries in the new
0:02:58 testament
0:02:59 before being a letter that was written
0:03:03 with the intention to deceive its
0:03:05 readership
0:03:06 about the the true author of the text
0:03:10 and the author the pretend author being
0:03:12 someone famous
0:03:13 like peter or paul or or whoever
0:03:17 and and and this in the early church was
0:03:19 not an accepted
0:03:20 uh practice at all it scandalized
0:03:24 as you say that they abhorred it as we
0:03:26 can see in two thessalonians itself
0:03:28 where paul cheekily uh tells his readers
0:03:31 not to take
0:03:32 any notice of letters fraudulently
0:03:34 ascribed to him
0:03:35 as 2 thessalonians 2 2. the irony being
0:03:38 of course is that letter is probably a
0:03:39 forgery itself
0:03:41 so he's playing a game of double bluff
0:03:43 or something you know
0:03:44 a clever but and you discuss here
0:03:48 how christians are supposed to deal with
0:03:50 this if the new testament contains
0:03:52 works who whose authors intended to
0:03:55 deceive their readership
0:03:57 about the authorship of the text itself
0:04:01 how can we trust it just to to tell us
0:04:04 the god the god-given truth the gospel
0:04:06 truth about anything else
0:04:08 and can we and can these texts be used
0:04:10 in in churches
0:04:12 to proclaim the inspired word of god
0:04:15 if if that is the the nature of these
0:04:17 texts
0:04:19 so there's a lot there but i was just
0:04:20 trying
0:04:22 now i think i i mean what's happened is
0:04:25 that as you
0:04:26 quite rightly say um people have drawn
0:04:29 an analogy with
0:04:30 books in the old testament like proverbs
0:04:32 subscribe to solomon and so on
0:04:34 that's a matter of saying these works
0:04:36 are kind of under the aegis of somebody
0:04:38 you know they are solomonic
0:04:40 in flavor and and as you write again
0:04:44 right he said with the pentateuch he
0:04:45 doesn't even say it's by moses
0:04:47 that's an ancient tradition it's my
0:04:49 moses whereas
0:04:51 what one timothy says starts paul and
0:04:53 the apostle of jesus christ is on and
0:04:55 actually
0:04:56 identifies the author as paul and even
0:04:58 refers to
0:05:00 incidents happening in paul's life
0:05:03 and people he's working with now
0:05:06 perhaps these letters are genuinely by
0:05:09 paul
0:05:10 there are arguments that try to show
0:05:13 that they
0:05:13 are which are not nonsensical arguments
0:05:18 but the majority of biblical soldiers as
0:05:20 you say
0:05:21 are agreed that they're not genuinely
0:05:23 paul now whether one uses the words
0:05:25 forgery or not because it's partly a
0:05:27 matter of
0:05:29 um taste you know i can bart airman
0:05:32 likes using that kind of language
0:05:36 but it seems to me that it's not a bad
0:05:38 word to use
0:05:39 of a book which says it's by somebody
0:05:42 that
0:05:42 manifests is not by the question then is
0:05:46 can something which is
0:05:48 in that sense of forgery be of religious
0:05:51 and spiritual value
0:05:52 exactly and um i think we probably can
0:05:57 um i don't think there was a convention
0:05:59 that you could do this and you you point
0:06:01 out that
0:06:02 um to thessalonians is actually contains
0:06:05 a
0:06:06 denunciation of falsely inscribed
0:06:08 letters even though problems one itself
0:06:11 um but uh
0:06:14 nevertheless works that were thought not
0:06:18 to be genuine were sometimes read in the
0:06:20 early church
0:06:21 but mostly when they read and took
0:06:23 seriously documents
0:06:25 out with a claim to leave a particular
0:06:27 author they did believe that person was
0:06:29 the author
0:06:30 and the idea of that you would reject a
0:06:32 forgery was certainly
0:06:34 current in the greek and roman world and
0:06:36 in the role of the new testament
0:06:38 so i i'm inclined to think forgery is
0:06:41 not an unfair word to use
0:06:44 and that does raise the problem you you
0:06:47 brought out
0:06:48 what does it do what do you do i mean
0:06:51 another example
0:06:52 uh that's an even more prominent example
0:06:54 in the world of scholarship is the
0:06:55 second letter of peter
0:06:57 which is adversely seen as probably the
0:07:00 the most um the most certain or the most
0:07:02 highly probable example of
0:07:04 pseudopicrophar
0:07:05 or forgery in the entire new testament
0:07:09 and interesting i find about that um it
0:07:11 is usually dated to perhaps the middle
0:07:13 of the second century even as late as
0:07:14 that
0:07:15 is that in the letter itself uh which
0:07:18 claims to be by the apostle peter of
0:07:20 course
0:07:21 it claims to be eyewitness testimony the
0:07:23 author it was an eyewitness to
0:07:25 jesus own ministry its own life and i
0:07:28 think it alludes to the transfiguration
0:07:30 the event
0:07:31 mentioned in these public gospels now to
0:07:34 say this is a forgery
0:07:35 is really really serious because here we
0:07:38 have
0:07:39 fake testimony if i can be blunt to
0:07:42 alleged events in jesus
0:07:44 life which are made up or at least uh
0:07:46 the person who wrote it was not there
0:07:49 and he is passing off that information
0:07:51 as if it was eyewitness
0:07:52 if that happened in a court of law today
0:07:54 you'd be
0:07:56 uh prosecuted for perjury you know you
0:07:58 there will be consequences
0:08:00 um and and yet because because
0:08:03 i mentioned to peter because it seems to
0:08:05 me that the most um
0:08:07 widely accepted instance of
0:08:10 pseudo-pigofer in the new testament
0:08:12 um and yet it this very fact
0:08:15 is it seems to not be known by
0:08:18 the church uh at large the laity use
0:08:22 that let alone the general
0:08:23 public who just carry on using this as
0:08:26 as if it was
0:08:27 actual eyewitness testimony and some
0:08:30 people would see that as a bit
0:08:31 scandalous
0:08:32 given that what we know now what we now
0:08:34 know about that text and how it is still
0:08:36 used
0:08:36 petrine testimony from the apostle the
0:08:39 prince of the apostles
0:08:40 himself chosen by jesus to uh to head up
0:08:44 the college of the apostles
0:08:46 to his catholic language and yet it was
0:08:48 in fact
0:08:49 such of such origin is that not a bit a
0:08:52 bit of a scandal
0:08:53 perhaps well i think perhaps it is yes i
0:08:55 mean it's
0:08:56 um it depends
0:08:59 a little bit depends on the the question
0:09:02 are these books
0:09:03 authoritative for christians because
0:09:05 they're by apostles why are they
0:09:08 authority for christians because they're
0:09:09 in the new testament
0:09:12 so for example with paul if
0:09:15 two thessalonians is difficult to
0:09:17 reconcile with one thessalonians
0:09:19 do we say yes but they're both scripture
0:09:22 or do we say well what did paul
0:09:23 actually teach what he talks in first
0:09:25 sessions and not what's in second
0:09:27 thessalonians
0:09:28 and so if we're describing paul's
0:09:30 teaching we should we should remove
0:09:32 two thessalonians from the picture
0:09:35 that seems to me to be the way we should
0:09:37 proceed but for other people
0:09:39 because the books are scriptural books
0:09:42 they have an authority which overrides
0:09:44 the fact that they're probably forgeries
0:09:48 for me they don't i mean i have i have
0:09:50 to say i have a sort of um
0:09:53 sieve you know through which only
0:09:56 certain books
0:09:57 fall as it were um but
0:10:00 um for some people the pseudo
0:10:02 pseudo-epigraphy doesn't matter very
0:10:04 much
0:10:05 because the books are after all
0:10:07 canonical scripture
0:10:09 so i suppose if you have a more catholic
0:10:11 either roman catholic or
0:10:13 anglo-catholic a higher ecclesiology
0:10:16 then you know the church uh which is
0:10:18 founded by christ
0:10:19 is led by the holy spirit has canonized
0:10:22 this set of texts and no others
0:10:25 yeah and therefore that is the kind of
0:10:27 guarantor of their
0:10:29 uh not authenticity but at least they're
0:10:31 fitting this
0:10:32 and and uh for use in christian worship
0:10:35 and teaching
0:10:35 i suppose they might get around it that
0:10:37 way but it's still the niggling problem
0:10:39 is it not that
0:10:40 it's still a forgery you know you know
0:10:41 you know i'm sorry i think it is a
0:10:43 niggling problem
0:10:44 won't totally go away i mean it raises
0:10:48 across this the whole question of the
0:10:49 canon
0:10:50 which i've got a lot of material on in
0:10:51 the book and
0:10:53 um my argument is that the canon is
0:10:56 fuzzy at the edges
0:10:57 yes but in the early church there was a
0:11:00 core of books
0:11:01 which includes the synoptic gospels and
0:11:03 john and the major letters of paul
0:11:06 which everybody agreed on and then there
0:11:08 are other letters that people knew were
0:11:10 a bit dubious
0:11:11 so even in the fourth century when we
0:11:14 find some athanasius
0:11:16 laying down what's in the little cannon
0:11:18 he says well the letters of two and
0:11:20 three
0:11:21 john second and third letters of john
0:11:24 are regarded by some of spurious
0:11:28 um on the same sorts of grounds as you
0:11:30 were mentoring for two peter
0:11:32 and it was known that some of the
0:11:34 lessons were dubious
0:11:36 and what's happened over time is that
0:11:38 the canon has
0:11:40 solidified into something where
0:11:42 everything is of equal
0:11:43 stature whereas in the early church
0:11:46 there were definitely
0:11:46 gradations of canonicity and of
0:11:49 authority
0:11:51 because eusebius in his uh famous
0:11:53 ecclesiastical history he discusses
0:11:56 the books that are you know are in and
0:11:58 those that are doubtful and those
0:11:59 are definitely out you know the new
0:12:01 testament kind of
0:12:02 is in both those first two categories
0:12:04 anyway there's some doubtful
0:12:06 texts or considered doubtful by many and
0:12:08 two peter is
0:12:09 i think one of them and other texas yes
0:12:11 that's right
0:12:13 yes there's a there are there are three
0:12:15 levels
0:12:16 there's definitely indefinitely out and
0:12:18 dubious
0:12:20 yes uh in the middle and um that was the
0:12:23 position for
0:12:24 most of the early fathers for the first
0:12:26 three or four centuries
0:12:28 in christianity rather than either the
0:12:31 thing is a canonical text or it isn't
0:12:33 there was a middle category