Review: Forged by Bart Ehrman

Product Summary

It is often said, even by critical scholars who should know better, that “writing in the name of another” was widely accepted in antiquity. But New York Times bestselling author Bart D. Ehrman dares to call it what it was: literary forgery, a practice that was as scandalous then as it is today. In Forged, Ehrman’s fresh and original research takes readers back to the ancient world, where forgeries were used as weapons by unknown authors to fend off attacks to their faith and establish their church. So, if many of the books in the Bible were not in fact written by Jesus’s inner circle—but by writers living decades later, with differing agendas in rival communities—what does that do to the authority of Scripture?

First Impressions

"It may seem odd to modern readers, or even counterintuitive, that a religion that built its reputation on possessing the truth had members who attempted to disseminate their understanding of the truth through deceptive means. But it is precisely what happened. The use of deception to promote the truth may well be considered one of the most unsettling ironies of the early Christian tradition."

- Excerpt from Chapter 7

Forged: Writing in the Name of God is a built upon a foundation of two significant premises, only one of which is controversial. The first premise posits that forgery was rampant in the ancient world and that some of those forgeries found their way into The New Testament.

This however, is not the controversial claim that Bart Ehrman espouses. It is actually Bart's second premise that is more likely to ruffle feathers, as he makes the assertion that contrary to popular opinion forgery was not a relatively accepted practice in its day.

Anyone familiar with Dr. Ehrman will not be surprised that the arguments he makes demonstrate both impeccable reasoning skills and is supported by a wealth of evidence and research--what else should one expect from a professor who has spent decades in the field of New Testament studies and engages in public debates on a regular basis?

Since the subject of the book is early Christian forgeries, Ehrman goes through a painstaking amount of detail in order to properly differentiate the various forms of authorship among the texts.

Authorship Terminologies

Orthonymous: "Rightly named". A text that is actually by the person who claims to be writing it. The seven undisputed letters of Paul are an example that would fall into this category. Nothing that is orthonymous can be a forgery, as there is no false claim of identity made.

Homonymous: "Same named". A text that is written by someone who happens to have the same name as someone else. One such example would be the Book of Revelation, wherein the author identifies himself as "John". Later Christians saw this name and mistakenly attributed the book as being a work of John, son of Zebedee. Once again, this does not pass Bart's criteria for a forgery as it was not the author's fault that later readers assumed he was someone else.

Anonymous: "Having no name". A writing in which the author does not identify themselves. This is the case for roughly a third of the New Testament canon (All four gospels, Acts, 1, 2, 3 John). Anonymous writings were much more common in Jesus' time than they are today. Logic follows that an anonymous text cannot be a forgery since it makes no claims of identity whatsoever.

Pseudonymous: "Falsely named". A writing that bares a name different from that of the actual author. Bart makes an important distinction here. The first type of pseudonymous writing is what we would think of as a pen name. When Samuel Clemens wrote the book Huckleberry Finn and signed it as Mark Twain he was not trying to deceive his readers, he was only trying to mask his identity. Ergo, not a forgery.

The other type of pseudonymous text is...

Pseudepigraphal: "Written under a false name". A text attributed to someone other than the actual author. There is a distinction to be made here as well. Some texts (such as the four NT gospels) were originally written anonymously but were later ascribed to particular authors. This is still not an example of forgery because it was later scribes that made the falsification, not the authors themselves.

The form of pseudepigraphy that Ehrman is writing about is otherwise known as a...

Forgery: A pseudepigraphal writing in which the author knowingly claims to be someone else. Oftentimes the author claims to be a person of authority or high social standing whose reputation could elevate the legitimacy of the forger's text. 

So what's one notable forgery within The New Testament? With good humour, Ehrman shares the following passage:

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

- 2 Thess 2:1-2

The passage above is significant for three reasons:

1. It is a New Testament text claiming that others have circulated letters written in their name. In other words, that fellow Christians had been committing forgery. 

2. The text from which it is taken (Second Epistle to the Thessalonians) is itself a forgery!

3. It is irrefutable proof that forgeries existed in early Christian communities. How so? Well, if you believe that the text is authentic and true then it naturally follows that you would also believe that the author is telling the truth when he says that there are those who have taken to writing letters in his name. If you do not believe the text is authentic then you must concede that it is a forgery, because it explicitly states that it was written by Paul, even though biblical scholars have known for quite some time that it was not!

Why would someone forge a letter in the name of Paul full well knowing that they are not him? There's several reasons for this, most of which involve a certain amount of deception. Unfortunately for my readers I am not going to share what these reasons are, nor will I say what other texts Ehrman has declared as forgeries. If you want to find out you'll just have to read the book for yourself. I'm a cruel bastard, I know (if you already know the answers to the above then there is a good chance that your reading of the book will mostly be for pleasure, as it was for me!).

Ehrman also takes the time to mercilessly demolish the oft repeated mantra that the practice of forgery was not regarded as negatively as it is today. He does this by sharing excerpts from many significant historical figures of the same time period--all of which have nothing but hated and vitriol for those who would pen a text in another's name.

Bart also disputes the claim that it was common among the philosophically minded to sign off under the pen name of their master, by providing a great deal of evidence that, well, they didn't. He does however offer quite a bit of evidence to dispel the myth.

The author seems to infer that some of the reason scholars are hesitant to label any Christian text as being a forgery is due to fear of the repercussions. It is not uncommon among scholars to sanitize their terminology to such an extent that it strips their writing of any personal attachment to the subject. At this point the text can be freely and objectively criticized without fear of backlash, since the general public has no idea what the hell they're talking about!

I could, of course, be mistaken and simply reading too much into this.

I particularly enjoyed chapter 8 as it touched on several modern Christian forgeries, such as the notion that Jesus spent time in India among monks, Pilate's alleged death sentence, and the "long lost" second book of Acts. 

Ehrman's book is not a scholarly text (which he readily admits from the start), rather it is more in line with his previous works: Misquoting Jesus, God's Problem and Jesus, Interrupted in that it is written for a general audience and meant to share fascinating aspects from the scholarly community that have gone relatively unnoticed thus far.

If you are interested in an academic work full of technicalities, citations and references to century old German texts, have no fear--Ehrman himself writes in the book that a scholarly monograph on this very subject is in the works.

Final Thoughts

Forged is a must-buy if you are interested in the subject of early Christian forgeries. Honestly I think the title was a little deceptively marketed, as the title makes it seem as though the Bible will be the brunt of the focus. This is not the case; canonical and non-canonical texts share equal time. Nonetheless the book effectively demonstrates the fact that throughout human history there have been those who are willing to deceive in order to make way for "the truth".

PS: I was determined to make a thorough review of this book, but it seems as though New Testament language and literature scholars do a much better job of reviewing this book than I could manage! Check out professor (and fellow blogger) Dr. James F. McGrath of Butler University who wrote pretty much all there is to say about this book.