Hear, hear, for the Reverend. That opinion needs to be expressed more often.
(as an aside, I've spent time in Brighton. It's gorgeous, and the weather was beautiful.
I once had an interesting Sunday School discussion at a fundamentalist mega-church about this very topic. I told them that I had been on the creationist website referred to in the Sunday School materials, and the website's author had taken the second Genesis account (male and female he created them) and ADDED A WORD! He said "male and female he HAD created them." This fundamentalist creationist had CHANGED THE HOLY WORD OF GOD, infallibly presented in King James' English, because he wanted to make it clearer. Well, if the fundamentalist thought the Bible needed clearing up, then maybe it's not so infallible after all. My class didn't really speak to me much after that.
Hmmm, you might find this interesting.
18 I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book:
19 and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book. (Rev 22:18-19)
So, in other words, "don't Bogart my work, homies, or I'll go Copyright Infringement on your [behinds]! Old Testament, yo!"
Bart Ehrman's book on Misquoting Jesus is an excellent little tome with regards to inter-scribe rivalry and what low literacy or agendas can do to copies.
No doubt the above passage is an admission of how much of that was going on at the time 
I like to call it the biblical grading scale: one typo, and you're going to Hell.
At the same time, it's always wickedly satisfying to show determined moralists how they personally fail to meet their own impossibly strident criteria.
AmeriChristian wants to take this moment out in the present thread to post a warning, especially to other Christians who visit this site.
Beware the local Christian bookstore, especially if you are not a fundamentalist. They seem innocent enough. After all, where else do the precious moments children have bigger, more watery eyes that will melt your heart. Jesus's name is all over. Surely it must be safe.
Sorry to say, most are little more than outlets for fundamentalist propaganda, especially in the book section. Your chances of running into ideas that deviate from the Christian faith are great---even in buying something as innocent as a Bible.
A number of years back, I bought a special study Bible as a gift for my wife. When one buys a Bible, especially a study Bible, one should expect that it has been through peer review by a good-sized panel of famous Biblical scholars and theologians---hopefully from different denominations---so the product does not have a bias or slant. Expect legitimate Biblical scholars from places like Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Duke, etc. to have given the thing a good "once over." Expect scholars from well known and respected seminaries. In other words, if you are going to buy a literary product, make sure the Three Stooges were not the peer reviewers.
Sad to say, I was not so careful when I bought that Bible for my wife years ago. A few weeks ago when I was reading the preface, I noticed the names of the great Biblical scholars who had peer reviewed this fine literary work:
Hal Lindsey
Chuck Swindoll
Josh McDowell
etc.
It was horrifying. If you are of any denomination that is NOT fundamentalist or right-wing evangelical, you cannot just go into a Christian bookstore, lift something off a shelf, and say, "Oh, this looks good!!! I think we will use this for our text in summer session of Sunday School. Nope!!! Nada!!! No way!!!
Chances are high that you will be teaching theology that is at deep variance with the teachings of your own church, and you will not even realize that you are doing it. Some of these books are very subtle, and that is how the fundamentalists suck people into their web. What better way to undermine an "enemy" church than to sneak propaganda into a Sunday school class by clever subterfuge and create an inside "fifth column" that will tear the church to shreds eventually.
Remember, Satan is a deceiver---the father of lies. He would like nothing more than to use modern funbdamentalism and its chief tool (ignorance masquerading as light and knowledge) to rip your church apart.
So, don't go to the local Christian bookstore for study tools. Talk to your priest or pastor about good sources for study materials. If you have any doubts at all about a book or lesson series, ask him or her to review it for theology that is at variance with the teachings of your church.
Don't be DUPED!!!!
An old ditty I learned once (sing to the familiar hymn):
My faith is based
On nothing less
Than Scofield notes
And Scripture Press!
Bart Ehrman is an atheist.
He has his own agenda, and his conclusions are NOT based on his "scholarly analysis" of the text but on his own personal beliefs, as the sap ADMITS in his book "Misquoting Jesus".
He is the one doing the misquoting.
Bart Ehrman is an atheist.
He has his own agenda, and his conclusions are NOT based on his "scholarly analysis" of the text but on his own personal beliefs, as the sap ADMITS in his book "Misquoting Jesus".
He is the one doing the misquoting.
Well, I'm more likely to trust someone who recognizes and freely admits their own bias. Why, because then I have a better sense of how to weight their conclusions. It's the folks who claim to be objective that I give the hairy eyeball.
And, not to be snarky, but since when is an atheist not allowed to write a book about the ways that scripture has been subverted, perverted, not to mention unintentionally misinterpreted?
Will all respect to the Rev. Wright, his definition of "Creationism" is rather narrow, and as stated, would refer to a category of Creationism known as "Young Earth Creationism" (YEC), which believes that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, and that it was created in 6 literal 24 hour days. We can contrast this with "Old Earth Creationism," (OEC) which accepts the current scientific view that the Earth is billions of years old. Usually in this view, the "days" of creation refer to long periods of time in natural history, with God creating at different times in that history. Usually OECs are willing to accept some kind of evolutionary history in conjunction with this. And we can contrast this with "Theistic Evolution", which believes that God has played little if any detectable role in our natural history, and that most or all of the events can be explained by naturalistic, evolutioary accounts.
Ehrman got there via the slow arc of trying to prove the Bible inerrant. As anyone with a passing knowledge of how textual criticism or 'Chinese telephone' work would know, that's an endeavour doomed to failure, in particular if you're looking for the "one true copy".
I've read the book, and the sole 'agenda' I see is what he managed to take away from the experience. Going from Moody to agnostic isn't easy.
The contents are definitely enough to piss off literalists, of course, since inerrancy was the hypothesis that failed.
There are two spots in particular that I'm sure would get fundamentalists in a twist, both concerning pieces that, through textual criticism, are strongly indicated to have not existed in the original manuscripts:
* The story of Jesus and the casting of the first stone was very likely not in the original
* The original story of Mark has the women leaving the tomb, afraid, after meeting the mysterious stranger... and that's it (see here: http://web.princeton.edu/sites/c...ecognition.htm)
Perhaps some folks are tangentially cheesed because the techniques used are those for detecting changes in copies and generating likely family trees for the copies. Just like those used to establish likely family trees in evolutionary biology.*
Nah, I doubt they get that far
Teach the controversy!
(*...and very likely just like those you'd have to use to prove somebody stole and modified your source code)
Mleh mleh mleh Bart Ehrman's an atheist mleh mleh mleh put his accomplishments in quotes so they sound like he's cheating mleh mleh agenda mleh. Ahh, that was fun
Commenting by HaloScan
