How accurate is the text in the Bible?

[Benjamin Frank]

Since there has been a general question on opinion of the Bible, I thought this was a good time to finally bring this up. I thought everybody who posted in this area was familiar with the work of Bart Ehrman et al, but it seems clearly not.

Of course, when I say 'the Bible' that itself is something of a misnomer since there isn't one standard version. There are multiple translations with at least slightly different texts and then there are Orthodox Bibles with additional books. So, what did and didn't make the cut as official Biblical cannon itself is also open to question.

Then, there is that the English Bibles are translations from Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. However, some Biblical scholars claim that at least sections of the New Testament were first written in Hebrew or Aramaic before translated to Greek. So, how much is 'lost in translation.'?

Then there are contradictory accounts in the Bible, with significant different meanings. For instance, on the cross, did Jesus say (paraphrasing) "Oh father, why have you forsaken me?" (which here Jesus would be referencing psalm 22) or did Jesus say "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." (Just before being placed on the cross.) Does it make sense that he could have said both given that the latter suggests acceptance of those crucifying him while the former suggests otherwise (Psalm 22 praises the Lord but also castigates non believers.)

Finally, and this is the major work of Ehrman, there is much evidence that the original texts of the Bible have been altered by scribes through time either through transcribing error or through intentional changes either for political purposes or to comport with the scribes' understanding of the Bible.

Ehrman's work is focused on the New Testament and one of his books, 'Misquoting Jesus', points out that many of these alterations, intentional or otherwise, significantly changed the interpretation of important passages in the Bible. For instance, all references to women priests in the early days of Christianity have been removed.

This isn't Ehrman's work, but it uses the same arguments:
When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity
https://www.amazon.ca/When-Women-Were-Priests-Subordination/dp/0060686618

[Benjamin Frank]

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).

1.Less important point: you start off saying you're no expert on Ehrman, and end up saying he should be dismissed because he's just a jaded former Christian. Don't judge his heart, especially if you don't really know much about him.

2.More important point: The works of Aristotle, Cisero and Plato don't have people who believe they are literal Gospel truth (except for silly people who believe Atlantis is really a sunken dynasty and not a myth, although ironically Plato never said it was a dynasty.) So, when you have organized religions based around the Bible being the literally divinely inspired word of God and who use this to proselytize and pass laws, I think it's clearly a lot more important to make sure the text is correct than in the cases Aristotle, Cisero and Plato.

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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/

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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/

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

[Benjamin Frank]

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/

I even have scruples now to destroy Your cute worldView of TheTheology = Mr.Ehrman vs. unscientific obscurantists; but to be honest: With some inSights into the public univ.s here in Central Europe - which are not exactly fortresses of orthodox Protestantism/Catholicism - i can assure You, that someone, who took initially the Bible literal and relies presently on the MaryGospel, is not taken serious at all. Our bookShops are full of such money-making "revealers", who e.g. "prove" with the infamous kiss in that gospel Mary Magdalene to having been HIS wife/mistress. (So they do not even get, that that gnostical gospel proclaimed the exact opPosite: Both, master&student, would have been so highly above any desire of the flesh, that the kiss was absolutely non-erotical...)

That was from a guest blogger on Ehrman's site, as I showed. I have no doubt that Professor Ehrman knows far more about the history of the Bible than you do.

[Benjamin Frank]

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/

I even have scruples now to destroy Your cute worldView of TheTheology = Mr.Ehrman vs. unscientific obscurantists; but to be honest: With some inSights into the public univ.s here in Central Europe - which are not exactly fortresses of orthodox Protestantism/Catholicism - i can assure You, that someone, who took initially the Bible literal and relies presently on the MaryGospel, is not taken serious at all. Our bookShops are full of such money-making "revealers", who e.g. "prove" with the infamous kiss in that gospel Mary Magdalene to having been HIS wife/mistress. (So they do not even get, that that gnostical gospel proclaimed the exact opPosite: Both, master&student, would have been so highly above any desire of the flesh, that the kiss was absolutely non-erotical...)

That was from a guest blogger on Ehrman's site, as I showed. I have no doubt that Professor Ehrman knows far more about the history of the Bible than you do.

Firstly He has apparently less than serious scientists, who have for such charlatans just contempt. Secondly certainly - hopefully - more than i; but i am not so sure anymore: Female clergy, MaryGospel as authentically earlyChristian aso. is not really my level.

Irving Kanarek: May I be sworn your honor?
Judge Older: I wouldn't believe you if you were.