The Post’s proven power to shake faith

October 23, 2006 By

bibleonsinglepageRemember that pre-Easter slate of stories attempting to debunk Christianity? There was the shocking lost “Gospel of Judas” story. The Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water) that forms once every few millennia story. The Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera story and the Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much as pass out after being doped up story.

Somehow the foundations of Christianity remained unharmed.

But I think Alan Cooperman, religion reporter for The Washington Post, has gone and done it. I mean, from reading the first few graphs of his shocking story in Saturday’s paper, it looks like he may have broken a story that will cause all Christians to question their faith:

If 40 percent of Americans refuse to believe that humans evolved from earlier hominids, how many will accept that the book we know as the Bible evolved from earlier texts and was not handed down, in toto, by God in its present form?

The fossil evidence for human evolution is permanently on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Hard evidence that the Bible took its present shape over centuries will be on display for the next 11 weeks, from today through Jan. 7, across the Mall at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

They are rarer than dinosaur bones, these fragments of papyrus and animal skin that tell the Bible’s story. With names such as Codex Sinaiticus, the Macregol Gospels and the Valenciennes Apocalypse, they evoke lost empires and ancient monasteries as surely as archaeopteryx and ceratosaurus conjure up primeval swamps and forests.

See, if there is one thing I learned as a lifelong Christian, it is that the Bible was handed down in the New King James Version directly from God. And as a Christian, the foundations of my faith would be shaken if I were to be told that God did not hand down the books of the New Testament in English along with a printing press in the year A.D. 33 Every Christian knows that the canon was dictated by God Himself speaking directly to Jesus, right?

That’s why I love Cooperman’s opening graph so much. It resonates with me. I like how it ties together skepticism of human evolution with skepticism about canon development. I have never felt better understood by mainstream media than I do in Cooperman’s hands.

Sigh.

The exhibit at the Sackler Gallery sounds fantastic. My husband and I plan to go see it, in fact. But it looks like we better watch out:

These are documents with the proven power to shake faith. That’s what happened to Bart D. Ehrman, author of the 2005 bestseller “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.”

Ah, yes, Bart Ehrman. Reporters love to get Ehrman talking about how he lost his faith once he realized that the Bible was not handed down in its present form. Whether his story is cause for skepticism about the Bible or Bart Ehrman is for the reader to decide. But can’t we expand the Rolodex a bit more than this? Ehrman was quoted in all of those Christianity-in-Danger stories from Easter 2006. But if these documents have such a dramatic “proven power to shake faith” (Hide the women! Protect the children!), it’s interesting that he’s one of such a small number of people reporters talk to when this type of story rolls out on cue.

Cooperman has promised a story about documents that have the power to shake faith. What are these documents? What could they be? I can’t wait to get to the part of the story where he sheds light on what doctrinal tenets are undercut by historical research! Let’s take a look:

“If people come looking to find something new about Jesus, they won’t find it in this exhibit. That’s not what it’s saying. But it is saying that we didn’t start out with this,” [Michelle P. Brown, guest curator] said, producing a red [Gideons] Bible from her Washington hotel room and giving it a resounding thwack with the palm of her hand.

Okay, so who are these people who believe that God delivered red Gideons Bibles straight from heaven? And what happened to writing about faith-shaking documents? Oh wait, I found that part of his story. It’s in the 23rd paragraph of the 27-paragraph story. Here we go:

Ehrman noted that [the Codex Sinaiticus'] version of the Gospel of John is missing the story of the woman taken in adultery, the famous parable in which Jesus says to those who would kill the woman, “Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone.” He and many other textual scholars believe the adultery story was not introduced into John until the Middle Ages.

And . . . scene! That’s it. Other than a casual mention of a few passages that weren’t included in the final canon, this is the faith-shattering proof from the article. The millennia of critical thought, the many deliberations over what to include in the canon, heck, all the work that’s gone into just this issue since the Codex Sinaiticus was discovered 150 years ago — all brushed away.

The sad thing is that Cooperman actually wrote a rather nice review of the Sackler exhibit complete with interesting historical facts and discussions with its curator. But when he went to frame the story or give it broader context, he went for the dramatic faith-shaking angle.

In so doing, he managed to cast Christians as unwitting fools who believe the Bible was delivered in Gideons form in some ahistorical manner. Was that really necessary?

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Filed Under: Academia, Anglicanism, Creeping Fundamentalism, Evangelicals, Godbeat, Journalism, Pop Culture, Science
  • http://thegourd.blogspot.com Ryan

    Thank you once again for your smart analysis. I always learn so much.

  • Brad Lindsay

    I don’t know if any of you are familiar with http://bible-truths.com and L. Ray Smith, but maybe he would be the type of Christian who’s faith would be shattered if he believed that the Bible was canonized over time. Warning, if you visit his website you may spend an inordinate amount of time reading through his articles in complete disbelief as I once did. I even wrote him an e-mail asking about canonization of the Bible. He wrote:
    Dear Brad:
    What is “Scripture” was determined by THOSE WHO WROTE SCRIPTURES, the last one being John.
    Peter knew that ALL the Epistlesof Paul were “SCRIPTURE.”…all HIS [Paul's] epistles….as they do also
    the OTHER Scriptures…” (II Pet. 3:16). John was the final canonizer, and he knew what was and what
    was not, SCRIPTURE.
    God be with you,
    Ray

    Maybe these are the only type of Christians Cooperman knows?

  • http://raphael.doxos.com Huw Raphael

    I don’t think Cooperman is suffering from anything more than what may be the most common common American form of theological illiteracy: a number of my more-interesting conversations on religion begin with a friend saying, “The Church decided what books were in the Bible and what books were thrown out – all to make a theological point.” And I reply, “Yes, that’s exactly what the Church says she did.”

    Many devout Christians seem unaware of – or to block out – that part of Church history. I’d be more interested in in a story about what *that sort* of religious person thinks about the exhibit.

  • http://www.findlayanglican.org Dan Berger

    I had a very thoughtful and profound reaction to the post article:

    BWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    Sorry if this isn’t helpful. I think Mollie had the same reaction, but was able to put it into words.

  • http://onlinefaith.blogspot.com C. Wingate

    Well, one thing about the article that is perhaps a bit of a problem is that it seems to suggest that good ol’ Doubting Bart’s theory is what the exhibition is pushing– which really seems rather doubtful to me. (Add me to the list of those who wish they’ld get a better Rolodex.)

  • sharon

    I was always interested in how we came to have the Bible we do. It never shook my faith to think that certain books were left out because they didn’t fit the storyline. Any reporter who’s tried to cover a traffic accident sees the difficulty with even “friendly” witnesses.

    I’ve read all Ehrman’s books and found them very interesting. But I don’t buy the somewhat sinister theory of Christian theological development that he does. Is it possible that every miracle Jesus is supposed to have performed didn’t happen? Possibly, but Christian theology is based on far more than a handful of miracles. And in one of Ehrman’s books (I forget which) he even states that any other form of Christianity probably wouldn’t have had the earth-shaking impact of the one that emerged.

    The fact is, we STILL disagree about Christian theology. That’s why there are so many denominations (and non-denominations, for that matter). Discovering that there are huge variances between editions of the Bible shouldn’t be the breaking point for one’s faith.

  • Jacob

    Just a thought.

    Issues about the canon are sometimes used against Protestantism in Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox apologetics.

  • http://frmartinfox.blogspot.com Fr Martin Fox

    One of our Scripture instructors in the seminary stated it thus: As Catholics, our approach isn’t, we believe it because it’s in the Bible, but the opposite: it’s in the Bible because we believed it — hence, his “we” extends back not only to include the first Christians, but also the Jewish people who assembled the first books of our Bible, and gradually assembled a canon that the first Christians inherited, and added to.

  • Eric Weiss

    When a byline must meet a deadline, facts and research get shoved to the sideline.

  • Neil D. Cowling

    Thank you, Mollie, for your wonderfully humorous and insightful critique of Cooperman’s article. If indeed the faith of Christians is shaken by searching its origins and the origins of our sacred texts, then I wonder if there was any faith there in the first place.

  • Corita

    Ah! I suspected this article would turn up here. Thanks, Mollie! My mother gave me the article to read on Saturday, saying, “You and (your husband) will be interested in this exhibit.” Reading the first paragraph, my reaction was, “What an inane opening. Is this supposed to be a review of an exhibit?”

    I was just too cranky to finish it, after I read the part describing the distinguished professor of medieval studies from University of London in these terms: “Her eyes flashing, pink cheeks turning pinker, Brown warmed to her point.”

    Is it just me, or would someone write this way about the biblical-scholar-who-lost-faith? Or about a man, for that matter?

  • http://terrenceberres.com Terrence Berres

    “And in one of Ehrman’s books (I forget which) he even states that any other form of Christianity probably wouldn’t have had the earth-shaking impact of the one that emerged.”

    That does sound a little Darwinian.

  • Jeff

    How funny.

    We’re supposed to be concerned because a manuscript from the center of the Gnostic world was missing some parts? Give me a break.

  • http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/ ELC

    Offhand, I can’t think of a Bible in my possession that doesn’t indicate, one way or another, that the story of the woman caught in adultery is widely thought to be an interpolation because it is not found in the oldest manuscript(s). Assertions like that in the article betray the ignorance of the author more than they do anything else.

  • http://www.yahoo.com mark

    Fr Fox,

    One of our Scripture instructors in the seminary stated it thus: As Catholics, our approach isn’t, we believe it because it’s in the Bible, but the opposite: it’s in the Bible because we believed it — hence, his “we” extends back not only to include the first Christians, but also the Jewish people who assembled the first books of our Bible, and gradually assembled a canon that the first Christians inherited, and added to.

    I’ve never heard the canon put in this way before, but what a great perspective. It truly explains a key difference in thought that explains the hard-to-define gulf that separates Biblically literate Catholics from Protestants. Thanks for sharing it.

  • http://hairouna.livejournal.com Discernment

    Haha! I loved this entry. :)

  • Joe

    The illustration from a seminary instructor is a bit misleading. Biblically literate Catholics might also be familiiar with the line of thinking espoused by encyclicals that say ‘it is’ in the Bible because God is the primary author and it is inspired, NOT simply because the community of faith believes it. To suggest that such a line is Protestant thinking shows a lack of familiarity with magisterial teaching on Scripture, which is far more in harmony with Protesant theology than you would guess from all the balderdash taught at the parish level.

  • http://fkclinic.blogspot.com tioedong

    Sorry, but as a Catholic, could I point out that we predate the Bible…and that is why the church decided which books belong in the scripture, because they were written at the time of the Apostles and affirmed what the church taught, not vice versa.
    By ignoring the belief that God would guide the church per see, too many Protestants made an idol of a book, and are now aghast that the book wasn’t written on golden tablets and translated by Luther, but was decided by the bishops and leaders of the whore on Babylon.
    So my question is why the writer didn’t bother to ask Catholics or Orthodox Christian opinion for the story.
    Is he interested in the place of the bible in the life of Christians, or only in ridiculing those who are NOT experts in theology but who nevertheless try to follow God the best they can?

  • http://onlinefaith.blogspot.com C. Wingate

    Um, because those reporters know that Catholics believe whatever the pope tells them to that week, except of course for those brave souls who follow the dictates of their consciences and dare to challenge the oppressive patriarchal sexist hierarchy on important matters of sexuality? [sarcasm off, for those who didn't notice]

  • Rathje

    I keep getting this image of a distracted looking young man wandering along a city sidewalk when “THWACK” – a red Gideon Bible falls from nowhere and beans him on the noggin.

    Take that – Oh ye faithless!

  • Martha

    Luckily, being a Papist, I am sublimely unconcerned by Mr Cooperman’s story.

    After all, everyone knows Catholics don’t read the Bible ;-)

  • erik scott

    I found this article to be incredibly relevant and perhaps the proper remedy to our current crises. It is unfortunate that many who read it and who accept the “Bible” as is, or in the traditional sense as inspired in toto might move in the opposite direction to protect their hard won faith. There are a number of more recent works that address this question of textual development, and the field has accelerated since the WW2 era with the Nag Hammadi and Qumran discoveries, with the rarely mentioned Leontopolis papyrii of the alternative Jewish Temple in Egypt.
    Robert Eisler’s “The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist” , translated into English in 1931 does much to prove the reality of editorial damage, even outright censorship of alternative (i.e. Jewish) sources, to the traditions and should give one pause to consider the fragile beauty that is our First Amendment.
    Of late, there are a number of books by Robert Eisenman that seem to make the most of the newly published Dead Sea Scroll/Qumran material. An author from mid-20th century of note would by S.G.F. Brandon, who noted in various works the connection of Jesus to the Zealots, perhaps primarily through ‘Simon Zelotes’ or ‘Simon the Cananean’, terms that imply rather extremist tendencies–one might find a similar term in referring to mujahideen if one were to draw the parallel.
    And hence, the importance of qualifying the documents before us. If there are lessons to be learned from the past, it is in the processes and not the events themselves.