Corruption of the Holy Scripture

[Jerry W. Peach]

Popular author, Bart D. Erdman, a self avowed former fundamentalist Christian, who says he discovered in seminary that the Bible was alternated, translated and transformed in a way inconsistant with the Bible as inerrant, inspired Word of God. He's come out with another book, Misquoting Jesus, The story behind Who Changed the New Testament and Why. I haven't read any of this author but was wondering if anyone has. From someone who trusts and relies on the inspired gift of the Holy Scripture and in the Churches role in fully explaining it to me and my fellow Orthodox believers I wonder what is the nature and substance of his "discoveries". He's also an author of "Lost Chrisitanity" which surveys a number of pre-Orthodox "confessions" of the early church. For someone who has been led to seek the truth through love inside the Orthodox Faith he seems to be sowing confusion. What can we make of his accusations?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I haven't read this book but it seems similar to the Da Vinci Code.

The most essential question about these books is why anyone would pay them any heed at all since most are close to the 'visit from space-men' genre and based on no historical evidence at all.

Maybe these books respond to a deep need modern man feels to try to justify his rejection of Christ and the Church. If he can 'proove' that Christianity is just a dark and fantastic conspiracy then he can reject it. The deeper things this says about how we reject God at the present time is even more interesting to consider.

If so there are two interesting points about this: 1) Man inherently feels the call of Christ as a sort of moral imperative. So he goes through a tremendous struggle in rejecting this call.

2)Non-believers with even the most minimal experience of the Church implicitly understand the essence of Christ's message- a call to die to oneself- more than we in the Church realise.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Olga]

I do not wish to sound smug or irreverent, but it never ceases to amaze me at the persistent appearance of people who claim "discovery" of "lost" or "suppressed" knowledge, such as, for instance, the Gnostic gospels, and the like. Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code is a good example of this. A look at Church history will give most, if not all, of the answers to these controversies. Sola Scriptura denominations seem to be particularly prone to falling for such controversies.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

The Da Vinci Code phenomenon does seem to me also to tap into people's need to rationalise against the unconscious guilt they feel in rejecting traditional Christianity. It gives atheism a sheen of pseudo-spiritual glamour, basically; but only perhaps when it is taken "seriously" - otherwise it's quite a 'good' tale. Also, I think there is a place for academic study of gnostic gospels etc. in that it can amplify the cultural and ideological climate of early Christianity. So as long as it doesn't interfere with one's faith or try to reinvent the wheel by challenging Orthodox doctrine, I think such study can even be beneficial to a broader understanding of Orthodox theology and its various distortions across the centuries. What do others think of this approach?

In Christ
Byron

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I saw a documentary on the Da Vinci Code on one of the main American channels and the first thing that was apparent was how 'far out' the evidence for this book was. Having been trained in history I can say that it should have failed a first year graduate program in history if it had been handed in as a paper.

That is why I begin thinking that for us the main question should be why such things- if they don't meet even basic standards of proof- are so popular at the present time. What need are they corresponding to in our present times?

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Olga]

Dear Byron

Your post is exactly how I see it - as long as people are aware that this book is, in fact, a novel, and not "fact" or doctrine, then it should be a harmless enough yarn. I also agree with you re the value of learning about other doctrines and faith, to reinforce the truths of our own.

Dear Fr Raphael

I also agree entirely with your comments on the novelist's lack of historical rigour. Perhaps the popularity of such books appeals to a basic, age-old human prurience and fascination with conspiracy theories, which, even in this age of science, still take hold. I well remember a similar controversy in the early 1980s following the publication of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", which, it seems, Mr Brown seems to have appropriated extensively in his book. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/wink.gif

Conspiracy theories make good copy. We have the the "lost" Grand Duchess Anastasia story, the "who shot JFK" and "who killed Marilyn Monroe" sagas and persistent sightings of Elvis Presley, to name a few. I even came across a book some years ago which claimed that Tsareyevitch Alexei had not died along with the rest of the Russian imperial family in 1918, but had somehow escaped, and had made a new, anonymous life for himself in London. History teaches us, alas for the conspiracy theorists, that the truth is usually much simpler.

[Jordan Henderson]

Although I would not agree with many of the things Bart Ehrman writes, he is more fair with his sources than many liberal scholars. And he is definitely not of the "Da Vinci Code" conspiracy theory variety. In fact, he wrote one of the books debunking Brown's book and other conspiracy theories, entitled Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code.

His titles often lead one to believe that the content of his books is more radical than it actually is. However, that being said, many of his theories regarding the transmission of the text of scripture and early Christian history would certainly be classified as "liberal" and not in line with the Orthodox Church's understanding of Tradition and Church History. And much of what he writes can be legitimately challenged on historical and methodological grounds alone.

[Daniel Jeandet]

I have afew ideas about why the Da Vinci Code was so succesful.

It was promoted and advertised relentlessly through every possible channel of public communication for a long and at great expense.

It was an exciting, easy to read, short and easy to understand story.

It is about a very interesting subject, the Son of God.

Everyone else was reading it and talking about it.

All the cool people on t.v. and smart people in newspapers read it and discussed it.

It offended alot of loud and fanatical protestants.

It generated massive controversy and several more books and documentries designed to comfort the offended souls and debunk the theory on which the tale was based.

Many people buy the latest popular bestselling books and take them home because they love buying stuff and tend to buy advertised products that promise to say interesting things about history, religion, Jesus, conspiracies etc. rather than spend time reasearching these subjects themselves and having to come to thier own conclusions.

And now for the conspiracy theory http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif A group of people deliberately published this book and invested millions of dollars in marketing it, in order to sell as many copies as possible, regardless of its quality or historical truth, so that they could make enourmous amounts of money before it was rightfully debunked and ridiculed.

I just thought we should take these facts into account so we dont narrow down in a negative way and put the blame for popular books on individual souls who may just be genuine in thier search for truth and maybe not just looking to justify thier rejection of Christ.

When I was a teenager, one of my most disturbing and powerful encounters with the person of Jesus occured while watching, "The last Temptation of Christ". I didnt give two hoots for the controversy surrounding the film and I had always been put off by the frantic fears of offended Christians, so I watched it when my mother, an justifyably bitter lapsed Catholic, rented it from the store. I was in fear and trembling, confronted with this person of Jesus on the screen. Watching the film allowed me the freedom to entertain the possibility that Christianity is true. Memories of a Catholic childhood and an early love of Jesus and His ways flooded back to me on that day and although I didnt realise it at the time (Id all but forgotton the experience the next day), it was turning point for my spirit. Thousands of people wanted to prevent me from seeing that film.

[Jordan Henderson]

Here is a good review of Ehrman's new book, Misquoting Jesus:

http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=3452