Ehrman vs. Luke and Mark

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Bart Ehrman has released a new book entitled Jesus Interrupted, revealing the hidden contradictions in the

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Bible and why we don't know about them. Now I don't know about you, but it sounds like a rather conspiratorial title for a book that is little more than liberalism repackaged and hopefully,

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I would imagine, resold as one of New York Times bestsellers. We'll be looking a lot at the number of things that Dr.

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Ehrman says in here, it's really nothing new, even he again is admitting it's nothing new, it's just a repackaging of what's been before.

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But even before the book came out, a video was posted on Amazon describing the book and why

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Dr. Ehrman thinks it's so important and providing one particular example. Now having listened to Dr.

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Ehrman's lectures for quite some time, again, this has been a part of his New Testament teaching for a long time, but remember

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Dr. Ehrman is a textual critical scholar and he has gone beyond that into all sorts of other realms.

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He wants to have a much wider range of expertise and he keeps touching on theological issues.

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When you challenge him on his theology, however, he immediately backs away and says, well I'm a historian, that's theology, that's a different area.

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But he has a tremendous amount of theological conclusions in this book. It is a strongly anti -Christian book, remember

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Dr. Ehrman is an apostate, he once believed in Christianity, or says he did, and now rejects

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Christianity and so he has a deep bias in regards to this particular issue. But let's take a look at the example that he provides in this video clip and then let's examine it from a biblical perspective.

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I think this book is bigger than either God's problem or misquoting Jesus. There are a large array of problems that I deal with in the book, such as the contradictions and discrepancies that you can find among the authors of the

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New Testament. For example, both Mark and Luke portray Jesus, of course, as being crucified, but his attitude toward his death differs remarkably depending on which gospel you're looking at.

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In Mark's gospel, Jesus is in despair going to his death. He's silent throughout the entire proceeding and he cries out only one thing during the entire time, he cries out, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he dies. In Luke's gospel, which was written later,

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Jesus is not in despair at all. Jesus is calm and in control until the very end, and rather than crying out, my

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God, why have you forsaken me? He cries out, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. He's calm and in control until the very end.

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This isn't a discrepancy per se, what it is is a different perspective on who Jesus was, depending on which gospel you happen to read.

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Now immediately we're a little bit confused because Dr. Ehrman talks about the discrepancies and contradictions in the

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Bible amongst the various authors. But then he says, as an example, he gives the

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Mark and Luke contrast and then concludes by saying this isn't a discrepancy per se.

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Well, either it's an example of contradictions and discrepancies, or it's not an example of contradictions and discrepancies, we're not sure which one it is.

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Be that as it may, it is common for Dr. Ehrman in his lectures to raise this point, to make this presentation.

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It's very common amongst liberals to, I think, present a very surface level, shallow understanding of the presentations of Mark and Luke.

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And I think we can see part of the inconsistencies, in fact sometimes downright incoherence, of liberal scholarship when we consider what is being said here.

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First of all, Dr. Ehrman believes in complete, total literary dependence between the gospel writers.

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That is, Matthew and Luke had Mark. And they had not just a form of Mark, they had

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Mark in front of them, and they were copying from it, editing it, and changing it, and creating their own perspective out of it.

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He makes that very, very plain. Now there's a lot of problems with that, one of the main problems being that Dr.

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Ehrman's view of the writers of the New Testament is partially informed by his rather radical view of Gnosticism.

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He likes to present to his students the idea that the early church was this vast menagerie of different perspectives and different viewpoints, with almost no connection between the groups whatsoever.

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In fact, even the advertisement for this book presented the idea that amongst the authors of the

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New Testament, that they believed in completely different religions. That's how vast he attempts to present this.

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Now, I think a more sober, a little less wild -eyed presentation would be that by the second century, you certainly have a wide variety of perspectives represented by people calling themselves

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Christians. There is a huge difference, of course, and Dr. Ehrman does not allow for this. There is a huge difference between people who call themselves

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Christians and people who are. Dr. Ehrman operates on the foundational presupposition that there is no real definition of Christianity at all.

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That as long as you make room for Jesus somewhere, then that makes you a Christian. It doesn't matter if you're a monotheist or a polytheist.

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I think most people recognize that if you do not even worship the one true

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God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in fact, if you identify that God as a demiurge, as many of the

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Gnostics did, then you're not a Christian. You can call yourself whatever you want, but you're not a

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Christian. There is a way of defining the fundamental elements of faith and monotheism and acceptance of the

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Old Testament prophets and apostles, the milieu in which Jesus' ministry would have taken place as at least a starting point for defining the

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Christian faith. Given all that, he presents this massively wide view of what

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Christianity allegedly was. As such, he can take each of these authors and he can divide them up and isolate them.

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Even though he presents literary dependence, each individual is sort of in a completely different context and community.

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The idea presented, I think, very strongly by Richard Baucom in Jesus and Eyewitnesses, that there was this continuing community where eyewitnesses were a part of this community, where you had this tradition that was being maintained of the teachings of Jesus, which we find in the

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New Testament, that this is ongoing, is missing from Ehrman's understanding.

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So that he can have Luke, on the one hand, have access to Mark.

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He has Mark's gospel. Matthew does as well. But he can, and so Luke must know that Mark's gospel's out there.

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It's in the community. People know it's there. Remember, all this is based upon a particular theory of the order in which the

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New Testament books are written, the gospels in particular. And so Luke knows

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Mark is out there, but for some reason, Luke doesn't have any problem changing Mark. In fact, evidently, in his perspective, contradicting

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Mark. And that's an interesting theory to hold.

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That while Luke is, in essence, plagiarizing Mark, never mentions him as his source.

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He's plagiarizing him, editing him, knowing that the people who are going to be reading his own gospel have access to this, and yet does so rather brazenly and without any thought of, you know, people might find this a bit odd.

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So anyway, he has this idea, in essence, that these gospel writers don't ever believe that the community is going to be examining all the gospels at the same time.

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So he can come up with this sort of independent version, and all will be well.

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As we just saw, he presents the idea that Mark and Luke have very different versions of Jesus.

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But the only way he can create this is by incredibly selective utilization of the information.

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He tells us that Mark has a Jesus who dies abandoned. He is forsaken.

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He's out of control, whereas Luke has the controlled, staid Jesus who's in control, and there's this massive difference between the two.

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And yet, if you were to do as Dr. Ehrman suggests that you do, and maybe pick up a synopsis of the four gospels and read it for yourself in parallel columns, as he rightly suggests is the proper way of doing so, is that the conclusion you would come to?

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If you read Mark, are you going to come to the conclusion that Mark is actually portraying to his audience a

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Jesus who's out of control, forsaken, abandoned, while Luke has a completely different view of Jesus?

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Is that really a fair reading of these texts? Now remember the things

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Dr. Ehrman says, he said, well, Jesus is silent. The only thing he cries out is, my

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God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why have you forsaken me from the cross? That's just not what

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Mark has. Now maybe Dr. Ehrman just doesn't expect people to check him out.

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Well, sadly, the vast majority, vast majority, 95 % of the people that I have had, quote

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Bart Ehrman to me, in debate or in dialogue, have never read the Gospel of Mark, 95%.

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That's maybe why you can get away with this kind of stuff, I don't know, I don't know. But let's just consider a few things for the

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Gospel of Mark. I have a few texts here I'd like to look at. All the way back in Mark chapter 10, verses 32 through 34,

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Jesus begins to tell the disciples he must go to Jerusalem. They are on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them, and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful.

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And again he took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to him, saying, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the

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Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and will hand him over to the Gentiles.

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They will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him, and three days later he will rise again. Now here you have, in the

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Gospel of Mark, which allegedly is presenting Jesus as out of control, abandoned, forsaken, he's in control of where he's going and what's going to happen.

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He knows why he must go. He knows where he is going. He knows what is going to take place.

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This same story, in fact, is found in Luke. Luke adds the additional information that they just, they did not understand this.

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And I can understand why. This flew in the face of their understanding of who the Messiah was.

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It flew in the face of what they expected the Messiah to be. But here it is in Mark.

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Now if it's Mark's intention to present Jesus as out of control and abandoned and all the rest of this stuff, why is this here?

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Why doesn't Ehrman refer to this? But there's more. As you get closer to the time of Jesus' betrayal and crucifixion,

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Mark chapter 14, remember the woman who brings the ointment and anoints Jesus, and people become upset with her because the ointment could have been sold for money and given to the poor.

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Jesus says, beginning in Mark 14, 6, Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.

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Sounds to me like Jesus knows about his burial, knows that it is imminent, and in fact even beyond that, he's talking about the presentation of the gospel into the whole world.

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Does this sound like an abandoned, out of control Jesus? How is this different than what we have in Luke?

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It's not, clearly, plainly. We continue on, Mark chapter 14, verses 20 -26,

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He establishes the Lord's Supper, he's talking about the covenant in his blood, which is poured out for many.

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The people in the community, the early community, knew what that was. Clearly Mark is presenting

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Jesus as fully aware of the events coming upon him, and fully aware of the fact that his sacrifice is going to bring about this new covenant in his blood.

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I don't know how else you could read this. Even given Ehrman's position, that Mark is the first gospel written, and in the context of coming after Paul, we know what the

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Christian community was saying at this time, we know what they were believing at this time, so how can this be anything other than what it seems to mean, that Jesus knows what is coming and what he's doing?

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Seems to be rather clear. Right after that statement, verses 27 -28 of chapter 14,

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This is in Mark, not in Luke. Yes, Luke records much of the same material, but remember, it's

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Ehrman's presentation that Mark gives us this completely different view of Jesus and the crucifixion. And Ehrman never mentions any of these, at least not in the classes that I've listened to his lectures, things like that.

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He just passes over them. Same chapter, verse 48. Jesus said to them,

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Sound like a person who thinks that he's out of control, that what's happening is outside of what he knew was going to be taking place?

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Of course not. Of course not. Even more so, we continue on, look at chapter 14, and this is very interesting in light of the fact that Ehrman, in his book, asserts that John is the only gospel that presents

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Jesus as divine. I would love to debate Bart Ehrman on, do the gospel writers present

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Jesus as God? That would be very enjoyable, and if his publisher would be happy to sponsor such a

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Here's an excellent example. I would love someone to explain to me how these words from Mark do not clearly indicate that its author was communicating the deity of Christ.

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Mark chapter 14, verses 61 -64. Now remember,

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Ehrman says he doesn't say anything. Actually, he did. Because it says, Look that up where it comes from in Daniel.

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We're talking about a divine being here, worshipped and served by his followers. Jesus applies these words to himself.

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What monotheistic Jew could ever apply these words to a mere creature? It's amazing to me.

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Anyway. So, again,

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Jesus does respond. He responds with scripture. He identifies himself with a text that indicates that he's not just some mere mortal man.

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He talks about himself as the son of man, who is at the right hand of the power coming with clouds of heaven, and the

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Jews respond by condemning him for blasphemy. Now, then we have the assertion that all

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Jesus says on the cross is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This involves a very common misreading of the citation of Psalm 22 by the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Again, if we will remember the context of the 22nd

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Psalm. 22nd Psalm, That is the beginning of a song.

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The Psalter is the hymn book of the Jewish people. And so, just as a

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Christian today could begin a well -known hymn with just the first few words and bring to mind the entirety of the hymn in the minds of Christians.

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It is well with my soul, amazing grace, blessed assurance, whatever it might be.

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In the same way, when Jesus quotes this first verse, is he actually just simply crying out,

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I've been abandoned by God? Now, nothing we've read in Mark up to this point would lead us to read this text the way that Ehrman does.

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He's ignored all of that stuff. All the prophecies, fulfillment of scripture, everything else, all that has been washed away.

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And you have a silent Jesus who says nothing, doesn't identify himself as the Son of Man, etc, etc. And then we get to this and it's like, well, so he's just identifying himself as being abandoned by God.

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Without even looking at the rest of the 22nd Psalm. The 22nd Psalm is a Messianic Psalm. Read it for yourself.

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It is filled with Messianic prophecies that are being fulfilled in Jesus. And the end of the psalm is the vindication of the psalmist.

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The psalmist is vindicated through all of the difficulties he goes through in the psalm, descriptive of the crucifixion.

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But at the end, the psalmist is vindicated. That's the meaning of citing

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Psalm 22. If you want to ignore Psalm 22 in its Messianic context, well, okay, fine.

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But we're trying to do serious biblical study. And the writer of Mark knew that his readers would know what the 22nd

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Psalm was about as well. So, we don't have any evidence that Mark presents

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Jesus the way that Ehrman and liberals say. Well, how about Luke? Well, Luke 18, verses 31 -34, you have the same prophecy that we read from Mark 10, except, as I said, with the added statement,

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But the disciples understood none of these sayings, and the meaning of the statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.

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But you have the same prophecy in both. You likewise, then, have other statements from Jesus.

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You have in Luke 22, and this is part of where Ehrman brings in some textual critical stuff.

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He tries to argue that on the basis of a textual variant, in Luke 22, 19, that Luke never presents an idea of Jesus' sacrifice being for us.

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Luke 22, 14 -19 says, When the hour had come, he reclined at the table and the apostles with him, and he said to them,

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I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I shall never again eat until fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

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And when he had taken the cup and given thanks, he said, Take this and share it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.

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Note the parallel with Mark. And when he had taken some bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying,

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This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. There is a minor textual variant, and its primary witness in the

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Greek manuscript tradition is Codex Beze Cantabrigensis, which is the favorite manuscript of Bart Ehrman.

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It is an idiosyncratic text, which makes a lot of emendations and changes and additions. There really isn't any reason to question this text on a textual critical basis, but he likes to throw that out there, again, to inculcate doubt and then to say, well, see, there would be nothing in Luke about the sacrifice of Christ being atonement.

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Of course, that again separates Luke from the Christian community, from the book that Ehrman says he's quoting from, that he's plagiarizing, and the very community that he would be giving this to.

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The inconsistencies are constant. The inconsistencies are consistent. Let's put it that way. Then he says, he makes his argument that Luke presents

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Jesus as totally imperturbable, unchangeable, and not shaken by what is coming his direction.

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When he looks at Luke 22, verses 40 -44, which reads, When he arrived at the place, he said to them,

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Pray that you may not enter into temptation. He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down, began to pray, saying,

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Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him, and being in agony, he was praying very fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground.

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The verses 43 and 44 are a major textual variant, and there is good reason to reject them.

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There is good reason. It's not just one Greek manuscript and some translations. There is really good reason to reject verses 43 and 44.

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But it would not follow from that that Luke presents an imperturbable

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Jesus in any way, shape, or form. Why? Well, again, unless you're going to assume, for some wild reason, that the prayer of Jesus recorded in other

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Gospels is not known to the rest of the Christians. They don't know what this means. They don't recognize the turmoil in Jesus, which from a

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Christian viewpoint is fully understandable, as the sinless Son of God prepares to become the very sacrifice for sinners.

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Unless you're going to assume that there's just no connection here at all, and that Luke needs to be read all by himself out there outside of the context of Christianity, then you would understand what verse 42 is about, even without verse 43, and the angel strengthening him.

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And that becomes part and parcel of his primary argumentation at that point. But what do we really see?

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Do we see different perspectives between Mark and Luke? Of course we do.

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That's why we have four Gospels. They have different audiences. They choose different elements of the story to present to their audiences for their purposes.

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That is well -known. That is not an argument. That is not a contradiction, and that is not a discrepancy.

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But is it a contradiction and discrepancy to present the crucifixion as Mark and Luke do?

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As we've just seen, no. The contradiction and discrepancy really comes, to be very honest with you, from the misuse.

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The misuse of the biblical material in its summarized fashion by Bart Ehrman.

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For what purpose? Well, he's got a book to sell. And he's got to reveal the hidden contradictions in the

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Bible. And he's got to make his case that, basically, those of us who are

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Christian pastors have been hiding these things from our parishioners. And that's how you get another book on the

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New York Times bestseller list, basically. So I think a fair reading of the text raises all sorts of reasons to not believe what

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Bart Ehrman has to say, and to say, why are you being so selective in your use of material? Where is this bias coming from?

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Might it be a prejudice that comes from something in someone's background? A crusade that they're on, perhaps?

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Maybe? Unfortunately, the folks on NPR who are going to be interviewing Bart Ehrman and putting this out over the airwaves of our taxpayer money aren't going to ask those questions.

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They're just going to go, oh, that's wonderful. Oh, that's great. Tell us more about contradictions in the Bible. They're not going to be calling anybody else to give an opposite perspective, to give a balancing viewpoint.

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That's why we're glad we still have the freedom to do this, and while we still have the freedom, we need to be doing it.