Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior

Written by Bart D. Ehrman

Audiobook10 hours

Narrated by Joe Barrett

Publisher HarperCollins
Release date Mar 1, 2016
ISBN9780062445209

This book critically analyses the story of Jesus, as remembered and then recounted in writing by his followers thirty or forty years after his trial and terrible execution at the hands of the Roman Empire. 

These historical accounts constitute the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The author spends considerable time discussing academic research into the nature of memory and false memory, or what he called “distorted memory”. The book could be seen as a PhD thesis that puts the New Testament - that led to the Christian Ethos in Western Culture - under a secular academic microscope.

The book does not succeed in even coming close to falsifying the broader sweep of the story written down in the New Testament. It does, however, point out inconsistencies and contradictions in the written accounts attributed to 4 authors, these being the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

These discrepancies are put down to deficiencies with human memory rather than questioning the overall narrative of the New Testament which is a matter of faith for "true believers". It is assumed the author is agnostic, although this needs to be checked out further.

I just consulted Google AI. It came back with a detailed summary of Dr Bart Ehrman’s position. In short, it confirmed he identifies as agnostic in relation to epistemology, and atheistic in relation to the Judeo-Christian God. The latter is due, in his mind, to the problem of evil and suffering.  When we consider that God's chosen people are inflicting this evil and suffering on to the population of Gaza as we speak, we can conclude that the Judeo-Christian God is evil, or that this God does not in fact exist. Since the Christian view is that "God is Love" then this is not consistent with what is being perpetrated by God's Chosen People - the Israelites of the Old Testament - in the territory of Gaza as we speak.  Cllick here for further information: 
 
I asked Google AI "Where did the idea that "God is Love" come from? Was it Saint Augustine?"  This is what came back: "The idea "God is Love" originates from the Bible, specifically 1 John 4:8, but Saint Augustine profoundly shaped its understanding by linking it to the Trinity, arguing God must be love intrinsically, with the Father as Lover, the Son as Beloved, and the Holy Spirit as the bond between them, making love God's very essence, not just a quality. Augustine's interpretation emphasized that for God to be perfectly loving, this relational dynamic must exist within Himself eternally, influencing centuries of Christian theology. . . . so on & so forth"  

This book might not be of interest to a Christian inspired by pure faith, just as a book questioning the climate-change models would not be of interest to a true believer in the theory of global warming.   It is not considered kind and respectful to deliberately undermine people’s religious convictions by sowing doubt and confusion. In fact in some jurisdictions it is unlawful (under anti-discrimination law) to publicly incite contempt of a person or group on the grounds of their religious convictions.

The believers of joyful evangelical Christianity - founded on an emotional love of Jesus and belief in his divinity - would say of the author “none so blind as those who will not see”. By the same token, those who have faith in climate models would say that academic authors who question the models are “merchants of doubt”.

The author is quoted as saying “agnosticism is a statement about epistemology”. This book only focuses on the historical truth or falsity of the real-life events leading up to the 33 AD torture to death of a charismatic evangelist named Jesus of Nazareth. It ignores the fact that true believers in Jesus cling to their faith in the “higher moral truth” of the New Testament, a truth that can have a transformative effect on a person’s life, replacing spiritual misery leading to suicide, to spiritual joy leading to fulfillment and happiness.

Thus faith in Jesus and pragmatism might well go hand in hand. The pragmatism of William James argued that “truth is that which works”, thus a person’s life can actually be transformed by belief that the historical Jesus taught us the meaning of life and was sent by God to do this, then who are we to tell this person he or she is deluded?

And so, the same goes for a a person's conviction that climate change will be catastrophic unless humanity abstains from the sin of relying on fossil fuel for survival.   Science cannot predict the future of humanity. We are only left with religion and faith - not knowledge - when it comes to belief in “future history”.  This is epistemology 101. 

Our choice is optimism or  pessimism, depending on our subjective make-up.

The pessimistic view of the future is held by what we call doomers and preppers.  There are different kinds of doom, namely peak-oil doom, climate-change doom, artificial-intelligence doom, and nuclear-war doom.   

This doom is a kind of mental illness, leading to suicidal ideation and unhappiness in this life.  On the other hand, optimism can be summed by the attitude "It'll Be Alright In The Long Run".  That attitude is expressed in this classic Redgum song  Redgum song from 1980, 5 years after the end of the Vietnam War.    

The Noosphere is flooded with audiobooks on theology and religion. The fact that this book held my attention to the very end suggests it was worth reading as a test of faith.

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What Everand says about this book:

The bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus, one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today examines oral tradition and its role in shaping the stories about Jesus we encounter in the New Testament—and ultimately in our understanding of Christianity.

Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally—including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply researched work, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Erhman investigates the role oral history has played in the New Testament—how the telling of these stories not only spread Jesus’ message but helped shape it.

A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman draws on a range of disciplines, including psychology and anthropology, to examine the role of memory in the creation of the Gospels. Explaining how oral tradition evolves based on the latest scientific research, he demonstrates how the act of telling and retelling impacts the story, the storyteller, and the listener—crucial insights that challenge our typical historical understanding of the silent period between when Jesus lived and died and when his stories began to be written down.

As he did in his previous books on religious scholarship, debates on New Testament authorship, and the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, Ehrman combines his deep knowledge and meticulous scholarship in a compelling and eye-opening narrative that will change the way we read and think about these sacred texts.
 

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The author's Wikipedi reference