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Jesus, Interrupted

I’ve been a fan of Ehrman since I read  “Misquoting Jesus” a year back, and I’m glad to report that “Jesus, Interrupted” follows the same vein started in “Misquoting” but in my opinion Ehrman makes a few crucial changes to his approach, that make “Jesus, Interrupted” even better than “Misquoting Jesus.”

In “Jesus, Interrupted” Ehrman lends himself to show a bit more compassion towards Christianity than it appeared in “Misquoting,” while I liked the message in both books, I’m well please with this (perhaps only perceived) change between the two. Ehrman talks of how open many Christians are to hearing the message of the book, and their willingness to accept/wrestle with what is often viewed as “dangerous” to the faith. Instead of spending time attacking Christianity and Christians, Ehrman encourages Christian leaders and ministers (who have had seminary training in the topic of Textual Criticism) to no longer hide behind the guise of “Biblical Inerrancy” but instead be open with their laity about the subject.

I believe that this topic is one that the Church must be willing to enter, and books like “Jesus, Interrupted” must continue to be pushed to the forefront. Each book of the Bible is important to our spiritual formation, and understanding the background, authorship, and issues with book should become more of a priority than it currently is. If we hope to attain a “Generous Orthodoxy” then our understanding of the reason, authorship, and audience of cannon must be explored. “Jesus, Interrupted” is a step in that (the right) direction.

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This entry was posted Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 8:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • I've never been much of an Ehrman fan. He's always seemed much to indebted to the modern mindset and approach to texts for my liking. But, after hearing Tony Jones' interview with him I have a better sense of where he's coming from (even if it's still not my forte!). I'll have to thumb through the book when I get a chance.
  • The key with Ehrman is to focus on his scholarship and less on his personal conclusions. You really can't argue with his scholarship very much. I believe that much of the work he's done to expose just how human the texts are is crucial for those of us who are advocating a hermeneutic of humility. We just shouldn't allow this work to systematically undermine the church the way he has. Also, there's a lot of misinformation that his abandonment of his faith stemmed from his scholarship, which isn't correct.
  • Right, and I usually don't ever bring up my not being a huge fan because most assume that when you don't like someone like that you're knee-deep in fundamentalism. Which is precisely not my reasoning! Tony's interview really helped clear up a lot, though. But I still find myself wanting to go beyond his project (which is a useful one in my opinion). Because just as the fundamentalists reject critical scholarship, I see that there is a similar myopic rut to be avoided in the other extreme.

    However, Ehrman's (and others') findings are important insofar as they help us to understand that we desperately need a hermeneutic of humility, as you point out. I just don't see much point in doing that only, which is what Ehrman (and Bob Price comes to mind here too) seems to be doing. I want to bask in that criticism and demythologization, to be sure, but I don't see much point in stopping there.

    [I'm also not much of a biblical scholar, I'm more of a philosophical theologian...which may also explain some of my bias I'm sure. For what it's worth, I hate the fracturing of theological disciplines, I blame the University for my thinking term of a binary there. ;) ]
  • I think that is because Ehrman lacks any faith motivation to go beyond this. He is doing scholarship, and nothing more. I think had the other issues (namely entrapment in neo-Platonic philosophy) not killed his faith, he may have seen fit to take this into something more meaningful.
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