The Five Gospels

[driver]

The Jesus Seminar wrote a book titled, The Five Gospels. It's about the search for the authentic words of Jesus. Its authors or Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar. The book includes the search for the real Jesus: Darwin Scopes & all that. The seven pillors of scholarly wisdom. The Jesus of history & the Christ of faith. Text detectives & manuscript sleuths: the Gospels in Greek. A map of Gospel relationships. Rules of written evidence. From the Gospels to Jesus: the rules of oral evidence. Beads and boxes: the Jesus Seminar at work. They then cover Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Thomas. I had a copy , but can't find it. I will order another one from amazon.com. You can get a used like new for about $7.50. For those interested in finding out what were the words of Jesus and what words were put onto his lips by the communities of believers it's a good read.

[dean3333]

For those interested in finding out what were the words of Jesus and what words were put onto his lips by the communities of believers it's a good read.

We have very little information today regarding what Jesus said. The oldest texts we possess are copies of copies of copies. Those were translated and copied throughout the last 2000 years where scribes added, omitted, and changed text (not to mention the problems of translating words into another language). Biblical scholars estimate that there exists over 300,000 variant texts, some with minor changes, some with major changes.

As an example, the wonderful story about Jesus forgiving the adulteress whom the crowd wanted to stone was never in the original transcripts. That story appears around 1100. I surmise that the life and sayings of Jesus portrayed in King James is vastly different from the reality of Jesus over 2000 years ago.

If you are interested in the original texts, read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus.

[mystic444]

Hey, dean. Textual Criticism can be both a fascinating and confusing study, can't it? The first book on the subject I read was by a man named 'Dean' John William Burgon, who wrote in the late 19th century. His book was a thorough refutation of the ideas of Bishops Wescott and Hort - which are pretty much the same as Bart Erhman or F. F. Bruce- and defended the 'Majority Text' which essentially underlies the King James Version. The 'Majority Text' is based on a comparison of all available Greek manuscripts, Versions (Translations like Syriac and Latin), Leccionaries (texts containing 'lessons', or readings from the Greek Bible, to be used at various occasions in the 'Church Calendar' such as Christmas and Easter), and Biblical quotations from the 'Church Fathers' (Burgon himself compiled a list of over 86,000 of those quotations). There is a very high level of textual agreement in those sources.

[In rereading what I have written, I'm afraid it comes off sounding like an 'attack' on what you said ; and as that was not my intention, it is tempting to just delete this and forget about it. However I'll go ahead and post it, hoping you'll understand that I just want to present a differing viewpoint for informational purposes; it's not an 'angry attack'. ]

Wescott and Hort, F. F. Bruce, and Bart Erhman (along with most other modern 'critics') use basically 4 to 6 'ancient' manuscripts (which they like to label 'the oldest and best', and which exhibit a high degree of textual variance among themselves) combined with highly subjective speculations on which of the variant readings is the 'most likely'. The subjectivity of their ideas is shown by the degree to which they disagree with each other in determining which is the 'most likely' reading. They do tend to agree in the 'major' variations, though, such as the last 12 verses of Mark.

I do believe there is some disagreement among these modern scholars, though, about the passage in John 8 ("The woman taken in adultery"). For instance, in The New Oxford Annotated Bible (which is by no means a 'conservative' version) there is this short footnote on that passage:

7.53-8.11: The woman caught in adultery. This account, omitted in many ancient manuscripts, appears to be an authentic incident in Jesus' ministry, though not belonging originally to John's Gospel.

It actually appears in the vast majority of copies of John's Gospel going back to the 4th or 5th century at least (which is as old as the modern scholars 'oldest and best' manuscripts), is contained in the leccionaries going back to at least 400 A.D., and is quoted by many of the church 'Fathers'. It is missing from a few old manuscripts; and some of the 'Fathers' rejected it because they thought it made Jesus too 'soft' on sin!

Your statement that it doesn't appear until about 1100 A.D. may have been a confusion with the so-called 'Three Witnesses' Text in 1 John 5:7 - "For there are three who bear witness in heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." It is true that there is no Greek manuscript evidence for that verse prior to the 11th or 12th century, and almost no other evidence for it except in the Latin Vulgate. When the Greek scholar Erasmus (15th/16th centuries) was producing the edited Greek Text of the New Testament which became known as "The Received Text", he originally left out that verse because he couldn't find it in any available Greek manuscript. However there was such a great outcry about him leaving it out (it was a popular text for 'proving' the Trinity, found in the popular Latin Vulgate version) that he said he would include the verse if even 1 Greek manuscript could be located which included the verse. Someone did produce 1 manuscript, so Erasmus kept his word and included that verse in his edition. Perhaps 2 or 3 more very late manuscripts have since been discovered which have that verse.

It's interesting that frequently the 'variant readings' accepted by many modern scholars are also found in only 1 Greek manuscript (though it's 'ancient' rather than 'late'). They have 5 or 6 'ancient' manuscripts they consider 'the best', but their 'accepted' readings sometimes appear in only 1 (out of all available manuscripts, not just out of those 6). Those 5 or 6 'ancient' manuscripts disagree greatly with each other, as well as disagreeing with the great majority of other texts, versions, leccionaries and Fathers (which agree among themselves for the most part). And modern scholars do tend to recognize that the 'majority text' represents a textual tradition which is fully as old ('ancient') as their so-called 'oldest and best' manuscripts. Things aren't necessarily as 'settled' as people like Bart Erhman would like us to think. Their 'settled' position is in fact only 1 way of looking at things (though it is presently the 'popular' one).

What I have said is mostly what I can remember from reading Dean Burgon's book The Revision Revised 25 or 30 years ago. Many people have 'attacked' it, but to my knowledge no one has even tried to refute the evidence and reasoning of that scholarly book. If anyone has the interest, time, and money to invest in reading Burgon's book, it can be ordered at Amazon in paperback (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Revision+Revised&x=15&y=21) or at http://www.biblefortoday.org/DBS/DBS_publications.asphttp://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Revision+Revised&x=15&y=21 in hardback. The used paperbacks at Amazon cost as much, though, as the hardback at the other site.

[gnomon]

If you are interested in the original texts, read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus.

I just started reading the book, and I came across one illegitimate passage that undermines the essential doctrines of several Christian sects.

In the discussion of the "last twelve verses of Mark", Ehrman says emphatically, "this passage was not originally in the Gospel of Mark". I was already aware of that, because my Bible has a footnote that says as much. Which means that any doctrines based primarily on these verses may be repeating the words of an anonymous scribe rather than of Jesus.

"Those who believe and are baptized will be saved" was quoted almost every Sunday in my church as the essential formula for salvation. So those "faith-only" sects who took baptism as an optional or ornamental "work" were scorned as loose Liberals.

"And these are the signs that will accompany them who believe : they will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; . . . " is the definitive text for Pentecostal churches as proof of faith.

But "mainstream" tongue-speaking Pentecostals tend to conveniently ignore the next part of that verse : " . . . and they will take-up snakes in their hands . . .", which is taken as an essential faith-testing rite-of-passage by Appalachian snake-handlers.

Do you think their faith would be shaken by this little bit of intellectual textual criticism?

[mystic444]

Gnomon wrote

"Those who believe and are baptized will be saved" was quoted almost every Sunday in my church as the essential formula for salvation. So those "faith-only" sects who took baptism as an optional or ornamental "work" were scorned as loose Liberals.

"And these are the signs that will accompany them who believe : they will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; . . . " is the definitive text for Pentecostal churches as proof of faith.

But "mainstream" tongue-speaking Pentecostals tend to conveniently ignore the next part of that verse : " . . . and they will take-up snakes in their hands . . .", which is taken as an essential faith-testing rite-of-passage by Appalachian snake-handlers.

Do you think their faith would be shaken by this little bit of intellectual textual criticism?

Well no, I doubt their faith on those doctrines would be shaken by any uncertainty that may exist as the the 'originality' of those 12 verses. But a major reason for that is that the last 12 verses of Mark are not the only source for the teachings you speak of. For instance, the 'necessity' of water baptism for 'salvation' is frequently argued from Jesus' statement in John 3:5 - ..."unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God". And I believe Acts 2:38 is referred to at least as often as Mark 16:16. Acts 2:38 has Peter saying: "...Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit".

The signs, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit are amply attested to in the book of Acts, places in the epistles of Paul (like 1 Corinthians 12 and 13), and in Hebrews 2:3 and 4 - "how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?"

An example of 'handling serpents' is given in Acts 28:1-6. Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta, and while gathering wood for a fire was bitten by a viper. "But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm" (verse 5). When the natives saw that he wasn't harmed, they decided he must be a 'god'! Most Pentecostal type Christians will point out that the statement about handling serpents in Mark 16 was not a command to do so in order to 'show your faith'; it was just a prophecy that that kind of incident would take place (as it did with Paul according to Acts).

The real question, though, is concerning the authenticity of those 12 verses. Frankly, after examining the evidence I can't figure out how in the world any reasonable person could deny the authenticity of those verses. If the arguments produced are really sufficient to expunge those verses from the Gospel of Mark, there is no writing in existence probably that could withstand such 'textual criticism'! Of the thousands of Greek manuscripts in existence, there are only 3 (from what I've read, anyhow) that don't include those verses. Of those 3, two (the 'Sinai' manuscript - 'Aleph' - and the 'Vatican' manuscript - 'B') end Mark after verse 8. I believe virtually everybody admits that Mark could not possibly have ended his account there. (Those 2 manuscripts are practically 'worshiped' by the popular modern critics; but others believe those 2 are demonstrably the most 'corrupt' of all existing manuscripts). The third of those 3 manuscripts ends Mark with a 'short ending' after verse 8. And that's all of the textual evidence against those verses. Every other manuscript in existence has them. A few have the 'short ending' in addition to the traditional ending. In addition to the Greek manuscripts, the leccionaries contain the traditional ending of Mark (leccionaries are Scripture readings arranged to be read on 'holy days' like Christmas and Easter). Large numbers of 'Fathers' also quote from those verses, going back to at least 150 A.D. (about 200 years prior to the existence of the earliest of the Greek manuscripts which leaves out those verses). And then there's the fact that the 'versions' (translations into other languages, like the Latin and Syriac) are almost unanimous in having the traditional ending of Mark. The objective evidence in favor of the authenticity of the last 12 verses of Mark is so overwhelming that even some of those who contend that they were not 'originally' in Mark's Gospel still say they are 'authentic'. That is, they say Mark probably originally ended his Gospel some other way (such as the 'short ending' found in a few manuscripts), and later on 'revised' the Gospel and replaced the 'short ending' with the longer 'traditional' ending!

As for the supposed 'internal' arguments, the only one that is not pure subjective opinion is that those verses contain 17 Greek words that are used nowhere else in Mark (or were used with a different meaning elsewhere).But to use that as an objection to the authenticity of those last verses of Mark is to assume that we can thoroughly know the author's style and the extent of his vocabulary by reading the first 15 chapters and 8 verses, and that any new words appearing after that couldn't possibly belong to the same author. Simply to state the idea is to refute it. Nevertheless, in 1869 a man named John Broadus examined the 12 verses that immediately precede those 'last 12 verses', and guess what? There were also exactly 17 words in those verses also that were used nowhere else in Mark, or were used with a different meaning - yet no one claims that those verses were not written by Mark. A few years later, in 1875, a man named J. W. McGarvey used the same sort of examination on the last 12 verses of Luke, and discovered 9 words there that were not used anywhere else in Luke - 4 of them used nowhere else in the New Testament - yet no one disputes that Luke wrote those verses! Arguments based on vocabulary and style are therefore proved worthless. And as I said, the very idea that someone would exhaust his vocabulary in such a short work as the first 15 chapters and 8 verses, and that he couldn't possibly have used such a 'large number' of new words (17) thereafter is in itself ludicrous- and is proven so by the comparisons with other passages of a similar length.

I find it a bit embarrassing to be defending a 'conservative' Christian position, since I oppose 'conservatives' in so many ways. But I wouldn't be intellectually honest if I didn't protest against irresponsible 'scholarship' even when it appears in otherwise good and intelligent people. You can find a more detailed presentation of the arguments on Mark 16 at this link: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2780. And if you really want to examine the issue in minute detail, you can find Dean John Burgon's 350 page book on the last 12 verses of Mark as a free download here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/burgon/mark.iv.i.html.

[gnomon]

Of the thousands of Greek manuscripts in existence, there are only 3 (from what I've read, anyhow) that don't include those verses. Of those 3, two (the 'Sinai' manuscript - 'Aleph' - and the 'Vatican' manuscript - 'B') end Mark after verse 8.

Bart Ehrman goes into great detail to explain why he rejects the majority of "witnesses" and accepts the minority. He has concluded that the Sinaticus and Vaticanus texts are the oldest, hence closest to the original, manuscripts. His attitude derives primarily from the common Protestant belief that all of the Latin texts were edited by Catholics to support their "authorized" doctrines, and to refute heretical readings.

In my own church, years ago, we were advised to avoid the older, "Catholic" translations, and to use Bibles based on the latest, Protestant scholarship. Ironically, my latest Bible is the 1984 edition of the New King James Version. Unlike some of the more "protestant" versions, it accepts the "authorized" and "received" translations as the foundation of their rendering.

In the preface, it says : "The manuscript preferences cited in many contemporary translations of the New Testament are due to recent reliance on a relatively few manuscripts discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [thus bypassing centuries of medieval Catholic scribes toeing the party line] Dependence on these manuscripts, especially two, the Siniatic and Vatican manuscripts, is due to the greater age of these documents. However, in spite of the age of the materials, some scholars have shown reasons to doubt the faithfulness of these manuscripts to the original text."

So, which textual critics are you gonna believe? Those who defend Catholic doctrines and apostolic succession, or those who defend Protestant rejection of the Pope's authority, and rely on scripture as the direct Word of God. Since my early training was in the latter tradition, I am biased in that direction. Hence, Ehrman's critique sounds pretty good to me.

But I am not a Bible scholar, and I don't believe it's really a communication from G*D. So I won't worry too much about the nitty-gritty details of accuracy and inerrancy. My current "Bible" is the unedited word of G*D, written in the language of the original author : mathematics (i.e. Logic).

[mystic444]

Gnomon wrote:

So, which textual critics are you gonna believe? Those who defend Catholic doctrines and apostolic succession, or those who defend Protestant rejection of the Pope's authority, and rely on scripture as the direct Word of God. Since my early training was in the latter tradition, I am biased in that direction. Hence, Ehrman's critique sounds pretty good to me.

But I am not a Bible scholar, and I don't believe it's really a communication from G*D. So I won't worry too much about the nitty-gritty details of accuracy and inerrancy. My current "Bible" is the unedited word of G*D, written in the language of the original author : mathematics (i.e. Logic).

Point about the "unedited word of G*D, written in the language of the original author : mathematics" well taken!

Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that the Catholic/Protestant controversy really has nothing to do with which manuscript readings are accepted. It should be remembered that it was the much vilified 'textus receptus' which formed the foundation of the Protestant Reformation. The controversy was over how those 'scriptures' were interpreted, not over the correct readings of the 'sacred texts'. Today, those who are most outspoken in defending the 'textus receptus' or the 'majority text' tend to be very conservative Protestants (other than me ); while I believe that the Roman Catholic church today is very much in line with modern 'textual criticism'. English speaking conservative Protestants strongly maintain their 'anti-Catholic' doctrines from the King James Version (textus receptus/majority text), while Catholics maintain their traditional doctrines from the modern edited texts. (Protestants have always liked to affirm that the only reason Catholics could maintain the authority of their traditions was that the 'laity' were either not allowed to read the Bible for themselves, or were strongly discouraged from doing so.)

The 'Sinai' and 'Vatican' texts may be the oldest Greek manuscripts available, but that doesn't mean they contain the oldest 'readings' available. In the case of 'the last 12 verses of Mark', for instance, it is observed that both Greek and Latin 'Fathers' - both contemporary with 'Sinai' and 'Vatican' and going back between 150 to 200 years before either of those manuscripts were written - quote from those verses, thus indicating that they were present in the manuscripts they had available. The 'old Latin' translation of the New Testament was produced in the 2nd century A.D. (long before the famous - or infamous - church councils and 'Catholic' doctrinal formulations), and it contains those verses. The same is true of the old Syriac version, which also goes back to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. This obviously means that those verses were recognized and accepted by Christians long before 'aleph' and 'B' were written - so those two don't represent the 'oldest' text, much less 'the best'.

I don't remember whether Bart Erhman points this out in his book that you're reading, but the readings of 'aleph' and 'B' that are accepted by the modern edited texts of the 'textual critics' (whether the texts of Wescott and Hort, the Nestle text, or the United Bible Societies' text) represent only a small fraction of all the 'variants' that exist in those 2 manuscripts. Even the most devout 'worshipers' of those 2 old texts have to admit that they are very 'corrupt'. It has been pointed out that it is far easier to find 2 consecutive verses in which they disagree with each other, than to find 2 consecutive verses in which they completely agree. Each one often stands completely by itself in a particular reading; sometimes that totally unique reading is 'accepted' by modern critics, and sometimes it is rejected. Even when the 2 stand together against all other texts, the modern critics don't necessarily accept the reading. For instance, in Ephesians 1:1, Paul addressed the letter "To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus". The 'Sinai' and 'Vatican' manuscripts stand entirely alone in leaving out the words "in Ephesus". Modern translations usually footnote this strange fact, but I don't know of a single translation which leaves them out. That is because it is recognized that the reading "To the saints who are and are faithful in Christ Jesus' is a virtually impossible reading. While it might be translated "To the saints who are also faithful...", that would be a very strange construction in Greek. So despite the fact that the two so called 'oldest and best' manuscripts leave out the words "in Ephesus", no one believes Paul really wrote that introduction in that way.

So these 2 'very corrupt' manuscripts stand alone in ending Mark 16 at verse 8 - and one other manuscript ends Mark with a shorter ending. So what? It seems to me that when all other Greek manuscripts, early translations, and leccionaries testify in favor of the verses; and many 'Fathers' going back to about 150 A.D. quote or refer to them, it should be obvious that this is just one of many instances in which those 2 'oldest' Greek manuscripts 'conspire in error'.

I'll try very hard ( ) not to comment further on this subject. I realize I may be the only one really interested at all in it. Sometimes when I am actually acquainted with some facts that I think are important, but which seem to me to be overlooked, I just can't help myself! I did make some comments in my blog about the question of 1 Timothy 3:16 (is it "God was manifested in the flesh", or "who/he/'he who' was manifested in the flesh"?). The article was actually defending the 'modern translations' against the accusation of deliberating altering 'the real Bible' (meaning the KJV), and I used that verse to point out the differences between the two main 'schools' of textual criticism. I pointed out that I didn't agree with most of the changes in the text of the modern translations, but defended them from charges that they were nefarious changes of 'modernists'. That article may be found here: http://mystic444.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/changes-in-the-bible/ - if you're interested.

[gnomon]

I'll try very hard ( ) not to comment further on this subject. I realize I may be the only one really interested at all in it. Sometimes when I am actually acquainted with some facts that I think are important, but which seem to me to be overlooked, I just can't help myself!

Hey! Fuggetaboutit! I can sympathize with the feeling of talking to the wall. But at least the wall doesn't blink and yawn in my face.

Ehrman's Bible criticism is of interest to me primarily in that it confirms what I already knew or suspected. Long before I ever heard of the modern scholarly critiques, I had concluded on my own that the English translations that my compatriots accepted as the Word of God, had all the earmarks of human-edited propaganda. But I have another Ehrman book to read, God's Problem, so then we will probably have more factoids to discuss.

Besides, there is a much more devastating fact for Protestants : we are assured of the divine accuracy and authenticity of the Bible only by the authority and continuity of Papal apostolic succession. My church circumvented that awkward historical fact by asserting, without much evidence, that the "true" church lived-on in the shadows of the "apostate" church over the millennia, until it was "outed" in the period of American Revivalism. Let me just say that I was skeptical of that hidden history, as a common religious/political practice of rewriting history to make it seem to point directly and inevitably to your current position.

[mystic444]

Gnomon wrote:

Ehrman's Bible criticism is of interest to me primarily in that it confirms what I already knew or suspected. Long before I ever heard of the modern scholarly critiques, I had concluded on my own that the English translations that my compatriots accepted as the Word of God, had all the earmarks of human-edited propaganda. But I have another Ehrman book to read, God's Problem, so then we will probably have more factoids to discuss.

Yeah, so far as translations go, I can definitely agree that there's a good deal of "human edited propaganda". Interpretation is impossible to avoid when doing a translation, and consequently the translations will reflect the theological positions of the translators. A verse I like to use to illustrate this is Romans 9:5. Here's a paragraph from one of my blog posts about that verse:

Another verse considered to be a proof text for the Deity of Christ is Romans 9:5 – “to them [the Jews] belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” Here again, it would appear on the face of it that Paul acknowledged Jesus Christ as “God over all”, which would be the one true God. What we are not generally told is that there are other ways to translate this, just by changing the way we punctuate the sentence. You see, in those early Greek texts there was no punctuation; even the words were not separated from one another. The words were written in capital letters, and would, if literally rendered into English, read like this: ANDOFWHOMTHECHRISTTHEACCORDINGTOFLESHTHEBEINGOVERALLGODBLESSEDTOTHEAGES. Translators have to divide up the words and punctuate the sentences. Our English translators, being blinded by centuries of theological dogma known as “orthodox Christology”, have almost all unhesitatingly translated the verse “Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever”. However the NRSV has had the honesty and courage to go against tradition and give an alternate translation: “and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever.” That is, the Messiah (Christ) is over all (as he said in Matt. 28:18), and is forever blessed by God. Another possible translation would be: “and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever.” Both of those alternative translations fit in the context of the particular passage, the rest of the New Testament writings (which consistently speak of the Christ as distinct from and subservient to God, who is his Father), and the Jewish culture from which Christianity derived. Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and the Trinitarian conception of Jesus as the “second Person” in a Triune God would certainly have never entered his mind. For him, as for all the Jews, God is ONE, not at all divided into separate “Persons”. Such a conception would be considered blasphemy by the Pharisee Paul. His recognition of Jesus as Messiah did not nullify his Jewish theology. The usual English translation of this verse, then, is totally inconsistent with Pauline and New Testament teachings about Jesus, God’s Anointed; and since there are other valid translations which are consistent with overall New Testament “Christology”, one of those alternates should be adopted.

http://mystic444.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/bible-verses-that-seem-to-teach-that-jesus-is-the-one-true-god-part-3/

So even if we arrive at an accurate Greek text, the translations are still going to be open to question as to whether or not they accurately reflect the teaching of the original writers, rather than doctrinal decisions of later 'church councils'.

[gnomon]

So even if we arrive at an accurate Greek text, the translations are still going to be open to question as to whether or not they accurately reflect the teaching of the original writers, rather than doctrinal decisions of later 'church councils'.

Yes. That's the problem with putting your faith in a written account of something that happened long ago and far away.

[gnomon]

This is slightly off-topic, and it may justify a new thread, if it generates any response.

I just finished reading Bart Ehrman's new book, GOD'S PROBLEM : How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question---Why We Suffer. In another thread, we recently discussed how Deists justify why bad things happen to good people in a divinely-designed world. Since I intend to address the same subject in my next website, I'd like to take this opportunity to make a few comments about Ehrman's agnostic answer to the God vs Evil problem, and to get some Deist responses to the question.

He states the Theodicy problem as : " . . . how can God be 'just' or 'righteous' given that that there is so much suffering in the world that he allegedly created and is sovereign over." Gottfried Leibniz assumed that God created the "best of all possible worlds", hence he concluded that a world without some suffering is not possible, even for a sovereign creator. But like Voltaire, Ehrman doesn't buy that evasive defense of God's limited power and pathetic good intentions.

Ehrman reviews some of the traditional Jewish and Christian responses to the paradox of a "flawed" creation. One of the most common is the Free Will defense : humans must be free to choose Good or Evil. That's true, but it also implies that the Creator was limited in his design options. The Old Testament prophets claimed that the suffering of God's chosen people was righteous Punishment of the many, presumably for the sins of a few; [or perhaps a pragmatic Remediation to surgically remove a moral cancer in the world]. The New Testament blames evil on a divine adversary, so ironically we suffer the political Penalty for choosing the "wrong" side in a cosmic holy war, in which we are mere pawns. Other explanations claim that suffering is Redemptive, therefore necessary for salvation---but who made that rule? It's also a useful Test of Faith to find the ultimate limit of human endurance before breaking-down, and cursing God for wrongful conviction. Many, including Solomon, have concluded that suffering is a divine Mystery, that we are not supposed to understand or question.

In the final analysis, Ehrman rejects all of those attempts to deny that God could be the author of evil. Instead, he advocates the solution of Ecclesiastes and Existentialism : life is short and full of suffering, so we should make the best of a bad situation. "There is nothing better for mortals than to eat, drink, and find enjoyment in their toil.", because this brief existence is all you get, and after that the eternal, silent grave. Ehrman, like Solomon, foresees no redemption in an afterlife, and no reward for loyal suffering. This is beer commercial philosophy : "You only go around once in life, so grab for all the gusto you can".

But the implicit question remains : is this dualistic creation flawed, or are the shortcomings and suffering intentional? Is temporary evil ultimately a good thing for the "beneficiaries"?