How accurate is the text in the Bible?

[jojoju1998]

I'm no expert on Bart Ehrman, but I do know that his arguments that we can't know what the original text of the New Testaments said because of a large number of textual variations is highly erroneous. If we were to take his position that the New Testament text is corrupted due to textual variation, and applied it to any other work of the ancient world, we would have to throw out every work of the ancient world. If textual variations equal corruption, then he would have to admit that if his theory that we can't know what the original text of the New Testament read, then he would have to admit that we don't know what Aristotle said, or Cicero, or Plato, or indeed any other writer in the ancient said because all of the manuscripts of their works contain textual variations.

No scholar of any of the works of the ancient world would embrace the sorts of positions on the works that they study that Erhman takes on the New Testament. However, textual criticism of the Bible is deeply rooted in bad faith arguments, and people who enter into textual critical studies with massive preconceptions (such as believing textual critics who enter into such studies with the preconception of divine inspiration, or the jaded former Christians, like Erhman who lost their faith due to textual variations and thus take a 180 degree turn from where they started and rather than believing that the Bible was divinely inspired believe that nobody can even know what the text actually said, and atheists who seek to propagate their ideology by undermining other peoples faith through a slap dash, rough shod handling of textual critical debates and studies).

There are some Good Catholic Biblical Scholars though.



Once again, I will remind folks; that Biblical Literalism was never an accepted Christian doctrine until the Protestant Reformation.

[jojoju1998]

If 'the word' isn't so important, than maybe Catholics should have women priests and people who claim to be religious should stay out of trying to legislate on abortion and other issues.

These aren't good examples of Controversial Stances that are actually based on the text of the Bible, though, or are even generally claimed to be. They're based mostly on other early Christian sources, interpretations of those other sources, and/or post facto justifications for choosing those interpretations.

Nor ordaining women priests certainly is. According to a number of sources, women were the earliest priests, but as Christianity became the powerful religion in Rome, women were relegated and subjugated.
https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/researcher-artifacts-show-early-church-women-served-clergy
"But for most Catholics, the research will confirm what they suspected all along — that the ban on female clergy has always been about the silencing and suppression of women and never about true tradition."

I don't know as much about abortion, but there are certainly reasons to believe that abortion was practiced in Rome after Rome bacame Christian.
In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/

I recommend seeing the PBS Frontline series From Jesus to Christ, and not simply following the Catholic line of teaching.
https://www.pbs.org/video/jesus-christ-first-christians-part-one-uosmze/

Sure, but what I said isn't really meant to dispute any of this. Ask a conservative Catholic what the rationale is for these particular teachings and they're not very likely to resort immediately to biblical proof-texting; instead they'll make points that derive from other sources than the text of the Bible itself. That's all I was saying.

Given that the Bible has been altered on these things, most likely these other sources have been altered through time as well. Or these sources have been promoted while other contrary sources have been censored or suppressed.

So, having a discussion on how the Bible has been altered might force conservative Catholics to rethink the other sources that they would cite.

Except that's not how Catholic theology sees the Bible; it's seen (correctly, if one looks at what's known of the history) as having been produced, in its current form, by the Church hierarchy, not as preceding and legitimizing that hierarchy.

Right the Church makes the Bible. The Bible doesn't make the Church. The Bible as Bishop Robert Barron says, is not a Book per se, but a collection of books, poetry, history, and should be interpreted with the authority of the Church

[jojoju1998]

If 'the word' isn't so important, than maybe Catholics should have women priests and people who claim to be religious should stay out of trying to legislate on abortion and other issues.

These aren't good examples of Controversial Stances that are actually based on the text of the Bible, though, or are even generally claimed to be. They're based mostly on other early Christian sources, interpretations of those other sources, and/or post facto justifications for choosing those interpretations.

Nor ordaining women priests certainly is. According to a number of sources, women were the earliest priests, but as Christianity became the powerful religion in Rome, women were relegated and subjugated.
https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/researcher-artifacts-show-early-church-women-served-clergy
"But for most Catholics, the research will confirm what they suspected all along — that the ban on female clergy has always been about the silencing and suppression of women and never about true tradition."

I don't know as much about abortion, but there are certainly reasons to believe that abortion was practiced in Rome after Rome bacame Christian.
In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/

I recommend seeing the PBS Frontline series From Jesus to Christ, and not simply following the Catholic line of teaching.
https://www.pbs.org/video/jesus-christ-first-christians-part-one-uosmze/

1. There is a distinct difference between Deacons and Priests. Most biblical scholars ( Catholic As Well )/historians of Early Christianity would agree that there were women deacons at the time of Early Christianity. But, but, there is no clear evidence that there were women priests.

"But not everyone is convinced that these female figures were priests.

"The woman raising a chalice would be consistent with the deacon's role at the time of the showing in the Mass, and there is documentation that women deacons participated in the Mass in this manner," Phyllis Zagano, adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University in New York and a member of Pope Francis' commission on women and the diaconate, told NCR. Zagano also highlighted that there are no extant ordination ceremonies for women as priests, but there are many for women as deacons." https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/researcher-artifacts-show-early-church-women-served-clergy

New research done in Israel found a ancient church; and the women ministers  portrayed and displayed were deacons. https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2021-11-15/ty-article-magazine/byzantine-basilica-with-female-ministers-and-baffling-burials-found-in-israel/0000017f-e722-dc7e-adff-f7af11070000


2. Early Christianity operated in the environment of the Roman Empire, and the Greco Roman Culture. This Culture was fine with abortion. It was never condoned by the religion itself. Indeed, most reputable scholars ( including non catholics and christians ) would point to documents such as the Didache, or the Epistle of Barnabas as showing that there was opposition to this practice. https://books.google.com/books?id=XvqRAAAAIAAJ&q=catholic+history+of+abortion&dq=catholic+history+of+abortion&ei=aYuUSoI8g8qRBJqFpZ4H

Most of the Early Church Fathers in the East and the West opposed abortion as a moral principle.

However, it was never illegalized by law. Why ? The Church Fathers did disagree on the legalistic parts. There was no consensus on what " quickening " meant, how and if a fetus gets a soul, and how that would be applied to the immorality of abortion. Theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas held that although Early Abortion is immoral, it was not murder ( therefore it should not be punished under the legal code ). Late Abortions however was another story, since Augustine and Thomas Aquinas believed that after 40 days, the fetus does have a soul.

Also, a lot of this was influenced by Aristotle's understanding of the the Embryo which stated that the Embryo does not have a soul itself, but the soul came out of the Embryo.

The Catholic Church starting in the 1700s began to formally promote restrictions of abortions after new developments of Embryology basically destroyed the old Aristollean views of ensoulment and quickening.

https://www.academia.edu/71500290/Karl_Ernst_von_Baer_and_Embryology_Implications_for_Catholic_Theology

[jojoju1998]

There is disagreement that women were deacons but not Priests.

First, according to Bart Ehrman and others, all of the earliest Christian leaders were women, as Church meetings, being banned, were held in private homes, which were led by women.

Later on, there is disagreement as well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/10/19/women-served-as-priests-in-early-days-scholar-says/c4df0fc1-bb4b-4161-a460-48f05167ce84/

Some scholars have contended that Gelasius was referring to women serving as deacons rather than priests, but Otranto said he feels certain that the women were functioning as priests who administered sacraments and led liturgies.

Giorgio Otranto, professor of ancient Christian history at the University of Bari, is giving talks in six U.S. cities this month, arguing that women served not only as priests, but as bishops from the 2nd through the 6th centuries.

He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome. Other inscriptions attest to other women functioning as priests within ancient communities in the Mediterranean basin, he said.

Ehrman has pointed out that names were clearly female names in the New Testament were altered either by scribes or by Church officials who could not accept the notion of women priests, bishops, or that Christ regarded women as either his equal or ahead of men as his leading disciples.

1. " He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome." 

Theodora was the mother of Paschal I, bishop of Rome from 817–824.

It was common at the time, as it still is in some places, to refer to the wives, mothers, or sisters of clergy by a feminized form of their significant other’s order - Diakonissa, Prebsytera, Episcopa, respectively, for the wives of Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops.

We know she was the mother of a bishop, Paschal, and perhaps the wife of one as well.

2. Bart Ehrman's point about the erasing of women's names however I think misses the mark. For example, he brings up Junia or Junias. https://ehrmanblog.org/women-apostles-in-early-christianity/

For one thing, the greek and latin translations are quite faulty. As one person points out, "The issue arises from the earliest texts being written with majuscules, so the accent mark is omitted. If the name is a woman's, it is a sharp accent on the second iota. If the name is a man's, it is a circumflex on the final alpha. This, combined with the case of the noun, obscure the gender, since feminine nouns ending in -α and masculine nouns ending in -ας both take an accusative in -αν. So, from a purely textual interpretation, we cannot infer the gender of Iunia. However, I would be prejudiced towards saying it is feminine since Iunias seems to have been very uncommon. A couple texts replace the name with Iulia, but this appears to have been a scribal error since that name appears in chapter 16, and a scribe thinking these two should be the same person is not a wild guess.
The Early scholars seem tied up a bit too. Origen, who was a very proficient scholar, seems to have considered Iunia a man. John Chrysostom and Jerome, a woman. Coptic Hagiographies seem to regard Iunia as male. Eastern Orthodox, probably following Chrysostom, female."
https://i.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/2qpx6m/what_about_junia_the_apostle/.compact

Junias, or Junia however was never erased from the Church History. The Church Fathers, especially the Eastern Church Fathers mentioned Junia.

Saint John Chrysostom on Rom. 16:7 –
"Greet Andronicus and Junia... who are outstanding among the apostles." To be an apostle is something great. But to be outstanding among the apostles - just think what a wonderful song of praise that is! They were outstanding on the basis of their works and virtuous actions. Indeed how great the wisdom of this woman must have been that that she was even deemed worthy of the title apostle. (In ep. Ad Romanos 31.2).

But hold on. There's more to the story. Even if Junias, was an apostle, she wasn't part of the original 12 ( which the Catholic Church holds is where the office of priesthood and bishop came from ).

Eastern Orthodox Theology holds that Junia was a part of the wider 70 apostles which were commissioned after the Ascension of Jesus Christ.

[jojoju1998]

There is disagreement that women were deacons but not Priests.

First, according to Bart Ehrman and others, all of the earliest Christian leaders were women, as Church meetings, being banned, were held in private homes, which were led by women.

Later on, there is disagreement as well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/10/19/women-served-as-priests-in-early-days-scholar-says/c4df0fc1-bb4b-4161-a460-48f05167ce84/

Some scholars have contended that Gelasius was referring to women serving as deacons rather than priests, but Otranto said he feels certain that the women were functioning as priests who administered sacraments and led liturgies.

Giorgio Otranto, professor of ancient Christian history at the University of Bari, is giving talks in six U.S. cities this month, arguing that women served not only as priests, but as bishops from the 2nd through the 6th centuries.

He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome. Other inscriptions attest to other women functioning as priests within ancient communities in the Mediterranean basin, he said.

Ehrman has pointed out that names were clearly female names in the New Testament were altered either by scribes or by Church officials who could not accept the notion of women priests, bishops, or that Christ regarded women as either his equal or ahead of men as his leading disciples.

To claim, that "all of the earliest Cristian leaders were women" is totally absurd and has nothing to do any longer with serious science - it's "American Science". Doubtlessly that primitive propagandist proclaims also, that the early Christians were alltogether not only pro-abortion and feminists, but also vegetarians, pacifists and communists (or at least democrats, naturally voting for the Democrats)...
Already the imagination of private masses (or masses in the catacombs) is superb - fits to the ancient world as much as the idea, that the Romans would have been misogynic...
Impressive scientific standard...

While the Jews burnt any copy of the Old Testament, when they found a singly mistake, the early Christians were far away from any sola scriptura and thus very relaxed. As a result the NT is indeed fairly full of not corrected copyMistakes (at least ~5%), but firstly the papyri show no deliberate developments and changes (apart from few already in the middleAges well-known additions [our version of the ApostlesActs, the end of Marcus, Comma Johanneum aso.]); what has been backed secondly since 1969 by several statistical studies (problematic as they are per se).
Nowhere the ridiculous idea of some theologians/philologists, that "the community", "the people" would have invented or altered the texts of the Bible (or of HOMER).

You can keep your beliefs while others do scholarly work to get closer to the truth.

the Gospel of Mary and its portrayal as Mary Magdalene as the one to whom Jesus had revealed the secrets of salvation (as part of a gnostic myth) - -much to the consternation of the male disciples, especially Peter and his brother Andrew.  Hey, how could he consider a *woman* more important than us men???  It’s an attitude that appears to have run through the family. It is striking that there was a much wider tradition in early Christianity that said that Mary Magdalene was the *first* apostle, the one who made the other apostles.

https://ehrmanblog.org/women-in-early-christianity/

1. Most Biblical Scholars would say that The Gospel of Mary was written in the late 200s AD. This is decades or perhaps a hundred years after the Canonical Gospel of Mark was written around AD 70 ( This is according to the Consensus of almost every Biblical Scholar ). This  therefore has no connection to the accepted ( by almost all scholars ) canon of the synoptic Gospels.

"The Greek papyrus has been assigned to the early 3d century C.E. This date would suggest that Gos. Mary was composed sometime in the late 2d century.", Pheme Perkins, “Mary, Gospel of,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 583.

So why on earth would Bart Ehrman use a source that is not close to the original dates of Early Christianity ? It's historically unverifiable. Most scholars have rejected this Gospel of Mary because It's a Gnostic Gospel.

We got Marcion Sinope who himself no Roman Catholic or " Orthodox " bishop/priest, and he had his own " canon " of books of the New Testament. There's no Gospel of Mary. And this is around 120 AD ? Before the Roman Empire made Christianity the State religion.

And besides, this gospel even if it was " dangerous ", it was considered to be a non threat by the " Roman " Church if you want to call it that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasian_Decree#Content

There is no mention of a gospel of Mary in the Forbidden books. Most scholarly experts, I have read consider the Gospel of Mary to be a fringe part of Gnostic Christianity with no connection to the canonical family tree.

Also, there is no consensus that the Mary in this Gospel is Mary Magdalene. Stephen J. Shoemaker, a Historian of Early Christianity has proposed that it could have been the Virgin Mary herself.

[jojoju1998]

Also With all due respect, relying on Bart Ehrman alone is bad scholarship ( and bad faith ). And it assumes that the Catholic Church does not engage in Serious Biblical Scholarship. Literally, we have Raymond Brown, who was a Sulpician Priest, he was considered to be one of the greatest new testament scholars ever.

John P. Meier whose research on the Historical Jesus is I think top notch. Excellent. The Catholic Church literally has also the Pontifical Biblical Insitute , a post graduate school dedicated to rigorous academic scholarship on the Bible. Some of the best known scholars in Europe (perhaps that's the reason why it's less well known in the anglo speaking world), have lectured and researched here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5hR7AUsM9s

The institute is run by the jesuits, and I don't think they're known for being conservative. In fact, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego ( trained by the Jesuits ) has argued for women deacons using Biblical Scholarship from the Church.

Don't forget KU Leuven, the University of Munich, Insitute Catholic De Paris, These are not Fundamentalist schools.

And oh yeah, Notre Dame.



By the way, here's a good actual scholary work on the Gospel of Mary.

https://maryourhelp.org/e-books/marian-ebooks/The-Gospel-of-Mary.pdf

[jojoju1998]

Also With all due respect, relying on Bart Ehrman alone is bad scholarship ( and bad faith ). And it assumes that the Catholic Church does not engage in Serious Biblical Scholarship. Literally, we have Raymond Brown, who was a Sulpician Priest, he was considered to be one of the greatest new testament scholars ever.

John P. Meier whose research on the Historical Jesus is I think top notch. Excellent. The Catholic Church literally has also the Pontifical Biblical Insitute , a post graduate school dedicated to rigorous academic scholarship on the Bible. Some of the best known scholars in Europe (perhaps that's the reason why it's less well known in the anglo speaking world), have lectured and researched here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5hR7AUsM9s

The institute is run by the jesuits, and I don't think they're known for being conservative. In fact, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego ( trained by the Jesuits ) has argued for women deacons using Biblical Scholarship from the Church.

Don't forget KU Leuven, the University of Munich, Insitute Catholic De Paris, These are not Fundamentalist schools.

And oh yeah, Notre Dame.



By the way, here's a good actual scholary work on the Gospel of Mary.

https://maryourhelp.org/e-books/marian-ebooks/The-Gospel-of-Mary.pdf

All well and good, but there are limits to what the Catholic Church will accept.

Cardinal Robert W. McElroy appointed by Francis himself.

Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich SJ of Luxembourg.  Hell, even Cardinal Marc Oullet seems... sympathetic. And of course the German Bishops ( who go even beyond Ordaining deacons... to well.... priests ).


https://www.fatheranne.com/reasons-for-hope.html

These are broadly educated clerics, from top Catholic Universities. They have positions of leadership in the Church.

3 of the top ten departments of theology/divinity are Catholic. https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/faith-religion/theology/bc-7th-worldwide-in-theology-and-religious-studies.html

KU Leuven, Boston College, and Notre Dame.

[jojoju1998]

There is disagreement that women were deacons but not Priests.

First, according to Bart Ehrman and others, all of the earliest Christian leaders were women, as Church meetings, being banned, were held in private homes, which were led by women.

Later on, there is disagreement as well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/10/19/women-served-as-priests-in-early-days-scholar-says/c4df0fc1-bb4b-4161-a460-48f05167ce84/

Some scholars have contended that Gelasius was referring to women serving as deacons rather than priests, but Otranto said he feels certain that the women were functioning as priests who administered sacraments and led liturgies.

Giorgio Otranto, professor of ancient Christian history at the University of Bari, is giving talks in six U.S. cities this month, arguing that women served not only as priests, but as bishops from the 2nd through the 6th centuries.

He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome. Other inscriptions attest to other women functioning as priests within ancient communities in the Mediterranean basin, he said.

Ehrman has pointed out that names were clearly female names in the New Testament were altered either by scribes or by Church officials who could not accept the notion of women priests, bishops, or that Christ regarded women as either his equal or ahead of men as his leading disciples.

To claim, that "all of the earliest Cristian leaders were women" is totally absurd and has nothing to do any longer with serious science - it's "American Science". Doubtlessly that primitive propagandist proclaims also, that the early Christians were alltogether not only pro-abortion and feminists, but also vegetarians, pacifists and communists (or at least democrats, naturally voting for the Democrats)...
Already the imagination of private masses (or masses in the catacombs) is superb - fits to the ancient world as much as the idea, that the Romans would have been misogynic...
Impressive scientific standard...

While the Jews burnt any copy of the Old Testament, when they found a singly mistake, the early Christians were far away from any sola scriptura and thus very relaxed. As a result the NT is indeed fairly full of not corrected copyMistakes (at least ~5%), but firstly the papyri show no deliberate developments and changes (apart from few already in the middleAges well-known additions [our version of the ApostlesActs, the end of Marcus, Comma Johanneum aso.]); what has been backed secondly since 1969 by several statistical studies (problematic as they are per se).
Nowhere the ridiculous idea of some theologians/philologists, that "the community", "the people" would have invented or altered the texts of the Bible (or of HOMER).

You can keep your beliefs while others do scholarly work to get closer to the truth.

the Gospel of Mary and its portrayal as Mary Magdalene as the one to whom Jesus had revealed the secrets of salvation (as part of a gnostic myth) - -much to the consternation of the male disciples, especially Peter and his brother Andrew.  Hey, how could he consider a *woman* more important than us men???  It’s an attitude that appears to have run through the family. It is striking that there was a much wider tradition in early Christianity that said that Mary Magdalene was the *first* apostle, the one who made the other apostles.

https://ehrmanblog.org/women-in-early-christianity/

1. Most Biblical Scholars would say that The Gospel of Mary was written in the late 200s AD. This is decades or perhaps a hundred years after the Canonical Gospel of Mark was written around AD 70 ( This is according to the Consensus of almost every Biblical Scholar ). This  therefore has no connection to the accepted ( by almost all scholars ) canon of the synoptic Gospels.

"The Greek papyrus has been assigned to the early 3d century C.E. This date would suggest that Gos. Mary was composed sometime in the late 2d century.", Pheme Perkins, “Mary, Gospel of,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 583.

So why on earth would Bart Ehrman use a source that is not close to the original dates of Early Christianity ? It's historically unverifiable. Most scholars have rejected this Gospel of Mary because It's a Gnostic Gospel.

We got Marcion Sinope who himself no Roman Catholic or " Orthodox " bishop/priest, and he had his own " canon " of books of the New Testament. There's no Gospel of Mary. And this is around 120 AD ? Before the Roman Empire made Christianity the State religion.

And besides, this gospel even if it was " dangerous ", it was considered to be a non threat by the " Roman " Church if you want to call it that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasian_Decree#Content

There is no mention of a gospel of Mary in the Forbidden books. Most scholarly experts, I have read consider the Gospel of Mary to be a fringe part of Gnostic Christianity with no connection to the canonical family tree.

Also, there is no consensus that the Mary in this Gospel is Mary Magdalene. Stephen J. Shoemaker, a Historian of Early Christianity has proposed that it could have been the Virgin Mary herself.

That was not written by Bart Ehrman, though obviously since it's on his website he ultimately takes responsibility for it:

"This now is the final guest post by blogger and New Testament scholar, James McGrath, based on his book What Jesus Learned from Women."

Dr. James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. His PhD is from the University of Durham in England. His interests include not only early Christianity but also the Mandaeans, science fiction, and the intersection of religion and science. He blogs at ReligionProf on the Patheos web site.

But my point still stands.... I hope.

Most scholars don't agree on who Mary is, in the Gospel of Mary. F. Stanley Jones, and Stephen J. Shoemaker, who were/are professors at CSU Long Beach, and the University of Oregon respectively have said it was perhaps the Mother of Jesus herself.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Pillars-Family-Politics-Earliest/dp/1608996034 This Book by Barbara Silverstein argues that it could have been a sister or step sister of Jesus, another Mary.

Even if It is Mary Magdalene however, the fact that this Gospel was written so far out and has Gnostic themes, makes it suspect in my view.

[jojoju1998]

There is disagreement that women were deacons but not Priests.

First, according to Bart Ehrman and others, all of the earliest Christian leaders were women, as Church meetings, being banned, were held in private homes, which were led by women.

Later on, there is disagreement as well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/10/19/women-served-as-priests-in-early-days-scholar-says/c4df0fc1-bb4b-4161-a460-48f05167ce84/

Some scholars have contended that Gelasius was referring to women serving as deacons rather than priests, but Otranto said he feels certain that the women were functioning as priests who administered sacraments and led liturgies.

Giorgio Otranto, professor of ancient Christian history at the University of Bari, is giving talks in six U.S. cities this month, arguing that women served not only as priests, but as bishops from the 2nd through the 6th centuries.

He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome. Other inscriptions attest to other women functioning as priests within ancient communities in the Mediterranean basin, he said.

Ehrman has pointed out that names were clearly female names in the New Testament were altered either by scribes or by Church officials who could not accept the notion of women priests, bishops, or that Christ regarded women as either his equal or ahead of men as his leading disciples.

To claim, that "all of the earliest Cristian leaders were women" is totally absurd and has nothing to do any longer with serious science - it's "American Science". Doubtlessly that primitive propagandist proclaims also, that the early Christians were alltogether not only pro-abortion and feminists, but also vegetarians, pacifists and communists (or at least democrats, naturally voting for the Democrats)...
Already the imagination of private masses (or masses in the catacombs) is superb - fits to the ancient world as much as the idea, that the Romans would have been misogynic...
Impressive scientific standard...

While the Jews burnt any copy of the Old Testament, when they found a singly mistake, the early Christians were far away from any sola scriptura and thus very relaxed. As a result the NT is indeed fairly full of not corrected copyMistakes (at least ~5%), but firstly the papyri show no deliberate developments and changes (apart from few already in the middleAges well-known additions [our version of the ApostlesActs, the end of Marcus, Comma Johanneum aso.]); what has been backed secondly since 1969 by several statistical studies (problematic as they are per se).
Nowhere the ridiculous idea of some theologians/philologists, that "the community", "the people" would have invented or altered the texts of the Bible (or of HOMER).

You can keep your beliefs while others do scholarly work to get closer to the truth.

the Gospel of Mary and its portrayal as Mary Magdalene as the one to whom Jesus had revealed the secrets of salvation (as part of a gnostic myth) - -much to the consternation of the male disciples, especially Peter and his brother Andrew.  Hey, how could he consider a *woman* more important than us men???  It’s an attitude that appears to have run through the family. It is striking that there was a much wider tradition in early Christianity that said that Mary Magdalene was the *first* apostle, the one who made the other apostles.

https://ehrmanblog.org/women-in-early-christianity/

1. Most Biblical Scholars would say that The Gospel of Mary was written in the late 200s AD. This is decades or perhaps a hundred years after the Canonical Gospel of Mark was written around AD 70 ( This is according to the Consensus of almost every Biblical Scholar ). This  therefore has no connection to the accepted ( by almost all scholars ) canon of the synoptic Gospels.

"The Greek papyrus has been assigned to the early 3d century C.E. This date would suggest that Gos. Mary was composed sometime in the late 2d century.", Pheme Perkins, “Mary, Gospel of,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 583.

So why on earth would Bart Ehrman use a source that is not close to the original dates of Early Christianity ? It's historically unverifiable. Most scholars have rejected this Gospel of Mary because It's a Gnostic Gospel.

We got Marcion Sinope who himself no Roman Catholic or " Orthodox " bishop/priest, and he had his own " canon " of books of the New Testament. There's no Gospel of Mary. And this is around 120 AD ? Before the Roman Empire made Christianity the State religion.

And besides, this gospel even if it was " dangerous ", it was considered to be a non threat by the " Roman " Church if you want to call it that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasian_Decree#Content

There is no mention of a gospel of Mary in the Forbidden books. Most scholarly experts, I have read consider the Gospel of Mary to be a fringe part of Gnostic Christianity with no connection to the canonical family tree.

Also, there is no consensus that the Mary in this Gospel is Mary Magdalene. Stephen J. Shoemaker, a Historian of Early Christianity has proposed that it could have been the Virgin Mary herself.

That was not written by Bart Ehrman, though obviously since it's on his website he ultimately takes responsibility for it:

"This now is the final guest post by blogger and New Testament scholar, James McGrath, based on his book What Jesus Learned from Women."

Dr. James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. His PhD is from the University of Durham in England. His interests include not only early Christianity but also the Mandaeans, science fiction, and the intersection of religion and science. He blogs at ReligionProf on the Patheos web site.

But my point still stands.... I hope.

Most scholars don't agree on who Mary is, in the Gospel of Mary. F. Stanley Jones, and Stephen J. Shoemaker, who were/are professors at CSU Long Beach, and the University of Oregon respectively have said it was perhaps the Mother of Jesus herself.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Pillars-Family-Politics-Earliest/dp/1608996034 This Book by Barbara Silverstein argues that it could have been a sister or step sister of Jesus, another Mary.

Even if It is Mary Magdalene however, the fact that this Gospel was written so far out and has Gnostic themes, makes it suspect in my view.

My point still stands too: there is considerable evidence that there were women priests in the early days of Christianity, and yet the Catholic Church still refuses to allow women to be priests. Beyond that, there is also significant evidence that the Church, as it became powerful in Rome, intentionally relegated the role of women and the poor.

Evidence for Women deacons. Not Women Priests. The argument for Women deacons is far more supported in both early church history documents, and the Bible itself.


Indeed, as Dr. Phyllis Zagano points out, "We have a great history of women ordained as deacons in Christianity up until the 12th century. You’ll remember that Phoebe, in Romans 16:1-2, is introduced by St. Paul; she is the only person in scripture with the job title “deacon.” What the church has done, the church can do again."

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/should-women-be-ordained-catholic-deacons/

Cardinal McElroy has followed this line of reasoning in his support for Women deacons ( which I do too, the arguments for it makes sense ).



However There is a distinct difference between Deacons and Priests. And I don't see any clear cut evidence for Woman Priests in the Bible and in Early Christianity.

[jojoju1998]

There is disagreement that women were deacons but not Priests.

First, according to Bart Ehrman and others, all of the earliest Christian leaders were women, as Church meetings, being banned, were held in private homes, which were led by women.

Later on, there is disagreement as well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/10/19/women-served-as-priests-in-early-days-scholar-says/c4df0fc1-bb4b-4161-a460-48f05167ce84/

Some scholars have contended that Gelasius was referring to women serving as deacons rather than priests, but Otranto said he feels certain that the women were functioning as priests who administered sacraments and led liturgies.

Giorgio Otranto, professor of ancient Christian history at the University of Bari, is giving talks in six U.S. cities this month, arguing that women served not only as priests, but as bishops from the 2nd through the 6th centuries.

He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome. Other inscriptions attest to other women functioning as priests within ancient communities in the Mediterranean basin, he said.

Ehrman has pointed out that names were clearly female names in the New Testament were altered either by scribes or by Church officials who could not accept the notion of women priests, bishops, or that Christ regarded women as either his equal or ahead of men as his leading disciples.

To claim, that "all of the earliest Cristian leaders were women" is totally absurd and has nothing to do any longer with serious science - it's "American Science". Doubtlessly that primitive propagandist proclaims also, that the early Christians were alltogether not only pro-abortion and feminists, but also vegetarians, pacifists and communists (or at least democrats, naturally voting for the Democrats)...
Already the imagination of private masses (or masses in the catacombs) is superb - fits to the ancient world as much as the idea, that the Romans would have been misogynic...
Impressive scientific standard...

While the Jews burnt any copy of the Old Testament, when they found a singly mistake, the early Christians were far away from any sola scriptura and thus very relaxed. As a result the NT is indeed fairly full of not corrected copyMistakes (at least ~5%), but firstly the papyri show no deliberate developments and changes (apart from few already in the middleAges well-known additions [our version of the ApostlesActs, the end of Marcus, Comma Johanneum aso.]); what has been backed secondly since 1969 by several statistical studies (problematic as they are per se).
Nowhere the ridiculous idea of some theologians/philologists, that "the community", "the people" would have invented or altered the texts of the Bible (or of HOMER).

You can keep your beliefs while others do scholarly work to get closer to the truth.

the Gospel of Mary and its portrayal as Mary Magdalene as the one to whom Jesus had revealed the secrets of salvation (as part of a gnostic myth) - -much to the consternation of the male disciples, especially Peter and his brother Andrew.  Hey, how could he consider a *woman* more important than us men???  It’s an attitude that appears to have run through the family. It is striking that there was a much wider tradition in early Christianity that said that Mary Magdalene was the *first* apostle, the one who made the other apostles.

https://ehrmanblog.org/women-in-early-christianity/

1. Most Biblical Scholars would say that The Gospel of Mary was written in the late 200s AD. This is decades or perhaps a hundred years after the Canonical Gospel of Mark was written around AD 70 ( This is according to the Consensus of almost every Biblical Scholar ). This  therefore has no connection to the accepted ( by almost all scholars ) canon of the synoptic Gospels.

"The Greek papyrus has been assigned to the early 3d century C.E. This date would suggest that Gos. Mary was composed sometime in the late 2d century.", Pheme Perkins, “Mary, Gospel of,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 583.

So why on earth would Bart Ehrman use a source that is not close to the original dates of Early Christianity ? It's historically unverifiable. Most scholars have rejected this Gospel of Mary because It's a Gnostic Gospel.

We got Marcion Sinope who himself no Roman Catholic or " Orthodox " bishop/priest, and he had his own " canon " of books of the New Testament. There's no Gospel of Mary. And this is around 120 AD ? Before the Roman Empire made Christianity the State religion.

And besides, this gospel even if it was " dangerous ", it was considered to be a non threat by the " Roman " Church if you want to call it that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasian_Decree#Content

There is no mention of a gospel of Mary in the Forbidden books. Most scholarly experts, I have read consider the Gospel of Mary to be a fringe part of Gnostic Christianity with no connection to the canonical family tree.

Also, there is no consensus that the Mary in this Gospel is Mary Magdalene. Stephen J. Shoemaker, a Historian of Early Christianity has proposed that it could have been the Virgin Mary herself.

That was not written by Bart Ehrman, though obviously since it's on his website he ultimately takes responsibility for it:

"This now is the final guest post by blogger and New Testament scholar, James McGrath, based on his book What Jesus Learned from Women."

Dr. James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. His PhD is from the University of Durham in England. His interests include not only early Christianity but also the Mandaeans, science fiction, and the intersection of religion and science. He blogs at ReligionProf on the Patheos web site.

But my point still stands.... I hope.

Most scholars don't agree on who Mary is, in the Gospel of Mary. F. Stanley Jones, and Stephen J. Shoemaker, who were/are professors at CSU Long Beach, and the University of Oregon respectively have said it was perhaps the Mother of Jesus herself.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Pillars-Family-Politics-Earliest/dp/1608996034 This Book by Barbara Silverstein argues that it could have been a sister or step sister of Jesus, another Mary.

Even if It is Mary Magdalene however, the fact that this Gospel was written so far out and has Gnostic themes, makes it suspect in my view.

My point still stands too: there is considerable evidence that there were women priests in the early days of Christianity, and yet the Catholic Church still refuses to allow women to be priests. Beyond that, there is also significant evidence that the Church, as it became powerful in Rome, intentionally relegated the role of women and the poor to serve the patriarchy and the powerful.

In regards to modern Biblical scholarship and the Catholic Church, I acknowledge you have shown that they have legitimate scholars doing honest work, but it's hard to know how seriously to take that given that the Church is still trying to cover up the evils of Nazi sympathizer Pius.

Pope Francis ordered the release of records regarding Pius's actions during the Second World War I think 5 years ago ? Wrong. it was 2 years ago ( during the Covid Days). https://www.npr.org/2020/08/29/907076135/records-from-once-secret-archive-offer-new-clues-into-vatican-response-to-holoca

Facts show that Pius was mediocre at best at handling the Nazi regime.

But there is no coverup. It's right there for all to see.

[jojoju1998]

There is disagreement that women were deacons but not Priests.

First, according to Bart Ehrman and others, all of the earliest Christian leaders were women, as Church meetings, being banned, were held in private homes, which were led by women.

Later on, there is disagreement as well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/10/19/women-served-as-priests-in-early-days-scholar-says/c4df0fc1-bb4b-4161-a460-48f05167ce84/

Some scholars have contended that Gelasius was referring to women serving as deacons rather than priests, but Otranto said he feels certain that the women were functioning as priests who administered sacraments and led liturgies.

Giorgio Otranto, professor of ancient Christian history at the University of Bari, is giving talks in six U.S. cities this month, arguing that women served not only as priests, but as bishops from the 2nd through the 6th centuries.

He said a bishop named Theodora is recorded in a 9th-century inscription in the basilica of St. Prassede in Rome. Other inscriptions attest to other women functioning as priests within ancient communities in the Mediterranean basin, he said.

Ehrman has pointed out that names were clearly female names in the New Testament were altered either by scribes or by Church officials who could not accept the notion of women priests, bishops, or that Christ regarded women as either his equal or ahead of men as his leading disciples.

To claim, that "all of the earliest Cristian leaders were women" is totally absurd and has nothing to do any longer with serious science - it's "American Science". Doubtlessly that primitive propagandist proclaims also, that the early Christians were alltogether not only pro-abortion and feminists, but also vegetarians, pacifists and communists (or at least democrats, naturally voting for the Democrats)...
Already the imagination of private masses (or masses in the catacombs) is superb - fits to the ancient world as much as the idea, that the Romans would have been misogynic...
Impressive scientific standard...

While the Jews burnt any copy of the Old Testament, when they found a singly mistake, the early Christians were far away from any sola scriptura and thus very relaxed. As a result the NT is indeed fairly full of not corrected copyMistakes (at least ~5%), but firstly the papyri show no deliberate developments and changes (apart from few already in the middleAges well-known additions [our version of the ApostlesActs, the end of Marcus, Comma Johanneum aso.]); what has been backed secondly since 1969 by several statistical studies (problematic as they are per se).
Nowhere the ridiculous idea of some theologians/philologists, that "the community", "the people" would have invented or altered the texts of the Bible (or of HOMER).

You can keep your beliefs while others do scholarly work to get closer to the truth.

the Gospel of Mary and its portrayal as Mary Magdalene as the one to whom Jesus had revealed the secrets of salvation (as part of a gnostic myth) - -much to the consternation of the male disciples, especially Peter and his brother Andrew.  Hey, how could he consider a *woman* more important than us men???  It’s an attitude that appears to have run through the family. It is striking that there was a much wider tradition in early Christianity that said that Mary Magdalene was the *first* apostle, the one who made the other apostles.

https://ehrmanblog.org/women-in-early-christianity/

1. Most Biblical Scholars would say that The Gospel of Mary was written in the late 200s AD. This is decades or perhaps a hundred years after the Canonical Gospel of Mark was written around AD 70 ( This is according to the Consensus of almost every Biblical Scholar ). This  therefore has no connection to the accepted ( by almost all scholars ) canon of the synoptic Gospels.

"The Greek papyrus has been assigned to the early 3d century C.E. This date would suggest that Gos. Mary was composed sometime in the late 2d century.", Pheme Perkins, “Mary, Gospel of,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 583.

So why on earth would Bart Ehrman use a source that is not close to the original dates of Early Christianity ? It's historically unverifiable. Most scholars have rejected this Gospel of Mary because It's a Gnostic Gospel.

We got Marcion Sinope who himself no Roman Catholic or " Orthodox " bishop/priest, and he had his own " canon " of books of the New Testament. There's no Gospel of Mary. And this is around 120 AD ? Before the Roman Empire made Christianity the State religion.

And besides, this gospel even if it was " dangerous ", it was considered to be a non threat by the " Roman " Church if you want to call it that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasian_Decree#Content

There is no mention of a gospel of Mary in the Forbidden books. Most scholarly experts, I have read consider the Gospel of Mary to be a fringe part of Gnostic Christianity with no connection to the canonical family tree.

Also, there is no consensus that the Mary in this Gospel is Mary Magdalene. Stephen J. Shoemaker, a Historian of Early Christianity has proposed that it could have been the Virgin Mary herself.

That was not written by Bart Ehrman, though obviously since it's on his website he ultimately takes responsibility for it:

"This now is the final guest post by blogger and New Testament scholar, James McGrath, based on his book What Jesus Learned from Women."

Dr. James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. His PhD is from the University of Durham in England. His interests include not only early Christianity but also the Mandaeans, science fiction, and the intersection of religion and science. He blogs at ReligionProf on the Patheos web site.

But my point still stands.... I hope.

Most scholars don't agree on who Mary is, in the Gospel of Mary. F. Stanley Jones, and Stephen J. Shoemaker, who were/are professors at CSU Long Beach, and the University of Oregon respectively have said it was perhaps the Mother of Jesus herself.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Pillars-Family-Politics-Earliest/dp/1608996034 This Book by Barbara Silverstein argues that it could have been a sister or step sister of Jesus, another Mary.

Even if It is Mary Magdalene however, the fact that this Gospel was written so far out and has Gnostic themes, makes it suspect in my view.

My point still stands too: there is considerable evidence that there were women priests in the early days of Christianity, and yet the Catholic Church still refuses to allow women to be priests. Beyond that, there is also significant evidence that the Church, as it became powerful in Rome, intentionally relegated the role of women and the poor to serve the patriarchy and the powerful.

In regards to modern Biblical scholarship and the Catholic Church, I acknowledge you have shown that they have legitimate scholars doing honest work, but it's hard to know how seriously to take that given that the Church is still trying to cover up the evils of Nazi sympathizer Pius.

Pope Francis ordered the release of records regarding Pius's actions during the Second World War I think 5 years ago ? Wrong. it was 2 years ago ( during the Covid Days). https://www.npr.org/2020/08/29/907076135/records-from-once-secret-archive-offer-new-clues-into-vatican-response-to-holoca

Facts show that Pius was mediocre at best at handling the Nazi regime.

But there is no coverup. It's right there for all to see.

If that's everything that was released, there's no mention of the Ratline.

Also, as the article said, there was not only a coverup from the end of World War II until 2021 (and released during Covid) but the Catholic Church had previously lied to make Pius seemed Pius.

Is it possible to reverse a Canonization, because in no way is this evi, Nazi enabling antiSemite a saint.

Not defending Pius. Or the Church. But you make it seem with these Ratlines were sanctioned by the Church Hireachy. As if the the Catholic Church is a top down organization. It’s not.
There is not real scholarship that showed that Pius XII personally approved of and sanctioned these ratlines. If there were at all. https://books.google.com/books/about/Vatican_Ratline.html?id=fBD8PAAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description

This is literally the only book I can find on it.  Do you really think this is peer reviewed ? Rigorous ? Academic ? Scholarly ?

No !

Now there were historical evidence of Certain church officials such as Draganovoc, and Alois Hudal who personally paid for and assisted Nazis. But this was done often without the direct sanction and approval of the Vatican who was at best… or worst, medicore in dealing with the Nazi Regime ( a Regime that the  previous Pope have said was highly unchristian, and destructive by the way, words can only do so however ).

Once Hudal’s role was exposed in 1950, by a major German catholic newspaper, Pope Pius made Hudal resign from his post.

This was open secret for years. This was known even before the popular opinion shifted against Pius in the 1960s.