Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them in Atheists and Skeptics

Jun 04, 2013 Casey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: knowledge-is-good, veridical

So when I bought this book on a whim who knows how long ago, I expected it to be a collection of interesting contradictions in Biblical statements. I thought that Ehrman might do something like contrast 1 Corinthians 14:33 ("For God is not a God of disorder but of peace") with Matthew 10:34 ("I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword"). Then we'd all get a good laugh out of the ridiculous of it all.

Jesus, Interrupted is not a book about these surface level contradictions. In fact, it was f So when I bought this book on a whim who knows how long ago, I expected it to be a collection of interesting contradictions in Biblical statements. I thought that Ehrman might do something like contrast 1 Corinthians 14:33 ("For God is not a God of disorder but of peace") with Matthew 10:34 ("I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword"). Then we'd all get a good laugh out of the ridiculous of it all.

Jesus, Interrupted is not a book about these surface level contradictions. In fact, it was far more compelling than I expected, because Ehrman actually focused on what certain contradictions can teach us about the early Christian church and the historical context. The result was seriously mind-blowing, because the book lead me to doubt whether the bible actually teaches some seemingly foundational ideas, like whether Jesus saw himself as the Messiah or whether the church has any real reason to accept the idea of a holy trinity.

This feels like the correct time for an obligatory disclosure: I am an atheist/humanist who was raised Catholic, so I have no strong ties to metaphysical biblical teachings and I've never given serious thought to the idea that the bible could be the inerrant word of God. I sometimes wish that I could be a secular Catholic, because some of the traditions are super fun, but apparently that's not allowed. Whatev. However, considering that I like literature, I have to admit that the bible is a pretty important historical document (I mean, try to read Moby-Dick; or, The Whale without biblical background knowledge. I dare you.). Anyway, I thought that I had a fairly decent understanding of the bible, given that I've read large swaths of it in a few different contexts. But, as it turns out, I really had no idea.

The cool thing about Jesus, Interrupted is that it's epistemologically interesting. Ehrman first explains how contradictions in the bible can be found: by reading "horizontally," which pretty much means reading the same stories as they appear in different gospels, back to back. What happens is that you start to see some weird stuff, like Mathew claiming that Jesus cried out on the cross "My god, my god, why you have forsaken me?" while Luke claims he said "Father into your hands I commit my spirit." And, if you think about it, the two different gospels are actually pretty irreconcilable, in terms of the type of Jesus that they depict. So a careful reader might think, yo, what's up with that? If these two gospel writers were both there, and both knew Jesus intimately, then why would they report the event in such completely different ways.

Well, that brings us to the fact that the apostles didn't actually write the gospels (something that I knew, but that doesn't seem to be widespread knowledge). And the writers of the bible had different viewpoints. The ways that they switch up the stories can tell us about the viewpoints, but only if we look closely. Through a close reading, with careful attention paid to the contradictions, scholars can get a sense of who the gospel writers were, and why they created the type of christianity that they did. The whole story is completely fascinating.

I recommend this book for everyone, both people of faith and nonbelievers. While it's true that Erhman is now an agnostic, the contradictions in the bible didn't cause him to lose his faith, a fact that he repeatedly points out throughout the book (he lost faith because he couldn't reconcile the amount of suffering in the world with the teachings of Christianity, which he details in God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer, which I now want to read). So believers shouldn't be scared to understand what the bible truly says, although I expect that some (particularly evangelicals) may not be comfortable with this information. Strangely, I feel better about the bible after reading this: it's clearly the product of humans, but much of the dogma isn't as clear-cut as I thought it was. I'll definitely be reading more of Erhman's books in the future. ...more

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Jun 06, 2012 David S. T. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religion, favorites

Imagine if you tried to remove all of the later history of the bible, the views of inerrancy of scripture, the later theology, later tradition and then started to study the bible for the first time, looking for clues in the text, study the culture it was written in, treat it like any other surviving ancient document not the divine word of God, you'd probably come away with something like what is presented in this book. This book was a very good easy to read introduction to the historical critica Imagine if you tried to remove all of the later history of the bible, the views of inerrancy of scripture, the later theology, later tradition and then started to study the bible for the first time, looking for clues in the text, study the culture it was written in, treat it like any other surviving ancient document not the divine word of God, you'd probably come away with something like what is presented in this book. This book was a very good easy to read introduction to the historical critical method and modern non-evangelical scholarship and out of the handful of Ehrman books I've read, this is easily the best (although Misquoting Jesus is also essential). One thing I should point out is this book focuses almost exclusively on the new testament, for a similar introduction to the old testament, I really enjoyed the slightly dated Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction by Boadt. The most obvious negative with this book (and one that affects all of Ehrman's books), is that he doesn't really present opposing views and if he does its only briefly, but I don't find this to be too much of a problem, there are plenty of books refuting his work and if you want to see the conservative opposition's views just read one of those books after this one.

I first encountered the views presented in this book a few years ago while reading the great catholic scholar Raymond Brown's excellent introduction to the new testament. Obviously there's nothing new in this book or things which haven't been said before, but this book does a nice job of presenting a bunch of topics in a relatively short space in an easy to understand manner, something which Ehrman seems to do well. He (Ehrman) points out that he wrote this because while these views are well known in seminary they're rarely known by the public. For the most part I think this is true, I remember the slight shock while reading Brown's introduction and realizing for the first time that perhaps there are contradictions in the bible, that many of the books of the bible likely weren't written by who they claimed to be, perhaps the virgin birth didn't happen and was added to give some background to Jesus and raise his Christology above that of a normal prophet, perhaps Jesus wasn't always viewed as part of the Godhead. There really is a lack of knowledge of bible history and even the bible itself in our current culture, while at the same time everyone thinks himself an expert on what god wants.

In a way its kind of nice to approach the bible this way and read the text for what it says. When one encounters something which seems like an obvious contradiction such as the different day which the synoptic says Jesus was crucified compared to John, its nice to admit that perhaps the bible does contain a contradiction rather than try to do some bizarre hermeneutics to work around it. When one reads Paul and his version of the good news seems so much different than the one Matthew presents of Jesus (or James), one can question if perhaps they seem different because they were different. No longer do you have to try to figure out a way to try to tie them together. Its really liberating when you read a seemingly highly offensive passage such as 1 Timothy 2:12 which says that a woman can never teach or have any authority over a man and she must remain quite, to admit that perhaps Paul didn't write this letter and perhaps isn't not a direct commandment from God, but the later view of someone (it sure seems different that Paul's normal message).

One thing Ehrman constantly emphasis (almost to a fault) is that looking at the bible this way or accepting this view doesn't mean that you have to lose your faith. Of course to approach the bible this way also means that it loses a bunch of its authority. To admit that its not inerrant and infallable creates a new set of problems for the modern Christian. If one can question the bible, then where do you get any authority? One only has to look at the conflicting ideas presented in the Charismatic movement to realize that when one moves beyond the authority of the bible there are some pretty bizarre ideas that arise. Of course there are many liberal theologians who are doing just this exact thing, and once you're on this path its not as scary as it seemed to be from the outside. ...more

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Nov 10, 2009 Charles rated it really liked it

I enjoyed this even more than Misquoting Jesus. It includes a much broader look at the new testament and early Christianity. Provides an overview of the historical-critical approach to reading the new testament as opposed to the devotional reading that most Christians are familiar with including "horizontal reading", side by side comparison reading of the gospels to more readily see the variations in detail and, more significantly, even the contradictory views of widely held beliefs that are pre I enjoyed this even more than Misquoting Jesus. It includes a much broader look at the new testament and early Christianity. Provides an overview of the historical-critical approach to reading the new testament as opposed to the devotional reading that most Christians are familiar with including "horizontal reading", side by side comparison reading of the gospels to more readily see the variations in detail and, more significantly, even the contradictory views of widely held beliefs that are present in the different books of the new testament.
In subsequent chapters Ehrman presents the consensus scholarly opinions about who wrote the bible, how the "modern" canon evolved based on the different beliefs and debates of early Christians, and how the religion itself coalesced in the first few centuries C.E.
As Ehrman states "everyone thought their own views were orthodox at the time", even though those views varied widely among the early sect.
He even paints a fairly plausible, in my opinion, picture of the historical Jesus based solely on critical analysis of the scant evidence that is available in the historical record.
In the final chapter "Is Faith Possible" he presents his thoughts about how a critical evaluation of the bible and learning the things that most bible scholars and students of top-level seminaries and divinity schools in North American and Western Europe have known and discussed for the past two hundred years need not lead to a loss of faith. Even thought Ehrman, who started out in his youth as a very conservative evangelical christian, now self identifies as an agnostic he stresses repeatedly that his loss of faith did not come from critical bible scholarship but from the problem of human suffering which he addresses in his book, "God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer".
He also points out that even for non-believers studying and understanding the bible in a historical critical framework is important to understanding how one of our earliest civilizations developed a religion that still has overwhelming influence in the modern world. ...more

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Aug 03, 2013 Nathan rated it really liked it

After reading this book I'm firmly convinced that the word "hidden" need not be in the title. It should instead be "ignored" since the said contradictions are clear as day if one only looks. Ehrman is so clear and straightforward in his revelation of the bible's textual problems that, not being a biblical scholar myself, I had little difficulty following him. The evidence pointing to the bible being a very human book is overwhelming. Yet I noticed how diplomatic Ehrman tried to be. It seems to m ...more

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Jun 16, 2015 Tamra rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own-currently, spiritual, my-re-read-list, books-from-collin

Wow! This is a great book on the New Testament and how historically complex it is. I found myself looking at my husband and kids and saying, "Did you know ...?" a LOT. Like, the fact that only 8 of the 27 books of the New Testament were written by who they are attributed to. Why didn't I know that? It sure makes a lot of sense to me.

Some of this information I already knew, but even if I did, it's so de-emphasized in a devotional teaching type setting that the attitude is almost, "Well, that's un ...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Elaine rated it really liked it

A lot of detail and I certainly glazed over in some parts. I only wish I had a photographic memory. But, all in all, it as very interesting. I recommend this highly to anyone who claims that this book rules their life and so on,

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