Chapter seventeen of Bart D. Ehrman’s book, A Brief Introduction to the New Testament, primarily discusses whether all of the books written in the New Testament were in fact written by whom they say they were written by. Ehrman believes that at least six books in the New Testament (the Deutero-Pauline epistles, the Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy and Titus) and (2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians)) were in fact written by other people.
Within the chapter Ehrman brings up a few instances in which he believes that other people wrote some of the books. For instance, Ehrman suggests that the author of 2 Thessalonians was not Paul but rather a member of a Pauline community. Another example that can also serve toe explain why someone would forge a writing from the New Testament came when Ehrman wrote, “Someone who wrote in the name of a famous person was therefore not necessarily driven by wicked intent, Sometimes the writers motive was pure as the driven snow, at least in his or her opinion. For example, the Christian caught red handed in the act of forging 3 Corinthians and other ‘Pauline’ works claimed that he had done it out of ‘love of Paul’” (276). It is interesting to learn that some of what we as Christians were led to believe was written by great missionaries like Paul, Matthew, and Luke may in fact have been written by someone else.
The next chapter I looked at was chapter eighteen and it dealt with women in Christianity. I am not sure if I have the correct version of the book but nonetheless I will be discussing chapter eighteen and women’s role in the New Testament. Ehrman discuss’ how many women were followers of Jesus and even gave money to help fund the ministry. Ehrman also talks about how women were the first one’s to the tomb after Jesus’ crucifixion thus they were the first to know of Jesus’ Resurrection. Even though women were around to begin with Ehrman talks about how they later grew to be submissive because the missionaries and followers of Jesus were to be men. Its interesting to consider women’s roles in the history of Christianity and the New Testament however, their roles were not unexpected. I believed that women did in fact follow along side Jesus and I knew that over the course of time the Church and Christian Leaders became predominantly male.
I was told to read the chapter on Mary Magdalene, however, I couldn’t find it in the version of A Brief Introduction to the New Testament that I have so I went online to do a little further research on her and figure out who she was and what she did. Apparently Mary Magdalene was a closer follower of Jesus and was also present at his Crucifixion and his tomb. I also learned that Jesus first appeared to Mary after his resurrection possibly because she was his love and in most need of consolation. Some years after Jesus’ resurrection she left the city and lived in seclusion for what many believe to be thirty years before she died. She seems like an extremely influential woman in history however, before today I knew virtually nothing about her and it is sad to think that women get little recognition when looking at the history of Christianity. Even though women did not play a major role in the New or Old Testament it is nice to see that Ehrman devotes one chapter to women and to how they were oppressed in early Christianity.
When reading the book I felt as if Ehrman did give a significant amount of attention to Paul, so much so that it seemed as if Ehrman found him more important then Jesus himself. Which is ironic considering without Jesus Paul would be a no body and he may have never been recognized as he is today. Overall, I enjoyed reading what Ehrman had to say and I found myself agreeing with the overall general aspect of the book but not about all of his views on Paul. I will say that I found his book much more entertaining then Crossan’s, A Revolutionary Biography.
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