'Lies in the Name of God': Biblical Forgeries

[Music]

good evening ladies and gentlemen

and in this episode i'd like to discuss

a very controversial question

uh about a subject that i've not

invented uh this is not

something that's well known to scholars

academics

and lay folk who take an interest in the

question of forgery

and whether or not there are forged

texts in the new testament and the

overwhelming view of virtually all

scholars in the world outside of

fundamentalist seminaries in the united

states is that there are

and the one book in particular that

is uh highlighted as the best example

um an almost universally considered

example of a fake or forged text

is one of the two letters in the new

testament by

claimed to be by the apostle peter and

one in particular to peter

is seen by virtually everyone as a

forgery why is this what's the evidence

for it

and what does this mean what are the

implications of this for

faith if we have a forged text in

the bible now let's just look at the

text first of all

i've got my special bible here the uh

holy bible

not any old bio was a holy version the

new revised standard version

and this is the one that's usually used

by one i use at university myself

the the standard scholarly uh

translation that's used when they're not

quoting directly from the greek

um the second letter of peter is a a

brief letter

claimed to be by it begins simon peter a

servant and apostle of jesus christ

to those who have received a faith as

precious as ours

through the righteousness of our god and

savior jesus

christ that's the first verse of the

letter

a little bit further on on the 16th and

17th

verses it says this for we did not

follow this is peter speaking

apparently we did not follow cleverly

devised myths

when we had when we made known to you

the power and the coming of our lord

jesus christ

but we have been eyewitnesses of his

majesty

for he received honor and glory from god

the father

when that voice was conveyed to him by

the majestic glory

saying this is my son my beloved

with whom i am well pleased we ourselves

heard this voice

come from heaven when we were with him

on the holy mountain

that's the end of quote peter is

referring here obviously to the famous

story in the gospels of the of

the transfiguration of jesus we can read

about in

uh in the synoptic gospels and this is

clearly stating the author

himself was personally present as an

eyewitness to these momentous events

and what could be more precious than

eyewitness testimony

uh preserved for us in the bible these

two thousand years

what a precious bit of evidence there we

have for the life of jesus and he calls

him

in verse one as i say uh our god

and savior jesus christ so clear witness

by peter

to the deity of jesus that jesus is god

even peter believes that according to

this letter however

so that is the the evidence if you like

of these the scriptures

are quite clear there's no ambiguity

that they are um

from the apostle himself so what's the

problem

what why why am i suggesting there's an

issue here about fakes and

fords and forgeries well i didn't invent

this problem i'd

discovered it i didn't i certainly

didn't uh it didn't occur to me it was a

forgery

until i was reading various books and

i discovered that it seemed to be a

forgery um

so what can i show you to

give substantiation to that claim well

a new book has just been published and

it is a

brick of a book here it is oh god look

at look how thick

that term is you could build houses out

of these books

and um it's called the new testament in

its world an introduction

to the history literature and theology

of the first christians

it's basically about the new testament

and the authors is a joint authorship

nt wright or more popularly known as tom

wright he's a british

um well he used to be a bishop of durham

in the church of england

he's now professor of new testament

studies in early christianity at the

university of saint andrews which is in

scotland

and then there's a chap called michael

bird who uh

less well known uh he says here on the

blurb he's a leading scholar in new

testament studies

and uh he's based in australia and

there's a

lovely picture of the couple uh there

at the back having a chat about the new

testament i suppose

now this uh work is published by uh

zondervan academic uh zondervan

academic uh which is uh an evangelical a

christian evangelical publisher in the

united states

and um it's got rave reviews

on the back just give you just a few

examples craig blomberg who

from denver seminary one of the leading

conservative evangelical scholars in the

world in english

he says it's an amazing volume one of a

kind

i i won't bore you with all the other um

uh you know

praising and laudatory uh commendations

on the back people like craig

kina if you know these guys you know

they are jp davis peter oaks

scott mcknight who i quite like um

another one from wheaton college

um this is uh this great work

is uh loved by uh the christian

evangelical

uh community scholarly community so

what do they say about our to our second

letter

to peter so i'm quoting this by way of

introduction

uh what they're saying is not new it's

been said by scholars for

probably over a century now because it's

such an authoritative

book this new one um by

credited evangelical scholars i thought

i'd share even their reasons for

doubting it

so on page 763 of this rick

it says origins of two peter did peter

write to peter

the authenticity of the second petrine

letter petra is another word for peter

as an adjective meaning by peter

is one of the most disputed in new

testament studies the reason for

doubting

authenticity are as follows and they

give

eight reasons why it didn't it wasn't by

peter and then which i'll come to in a

second

so some think and after these reasons to

be given they comment some think that to

peter could still have been written by

peter

perhaps using his secretary and i've

heard this myself many times

others suppose that it was composed in

the late 1st century perhaps in the 80s

in a petrine circle in rome aiming to

honor

paul's apostolic legacy others again

have suggested

that the letter is not only

pseudo-piglet but was written as late as

the end of the second century

pseudo piglet means defense to greek

term meaning

fake text pseudo means forged a

picklefall is from a greek word meaning

writing so it's basically forged

writings it's a euphemism

used in academia so uh others again as i

just repeat

have suggested that the letter is not

only pseudopica for but was written in

the late

as late as the end of the second century

perhaps in asia minor

asia minor is today's turkey postulating

the apostle peter as the author of this

feels to us that is tom wright and

bird like pushing a big rock

up a steep hill the indications of

post-petrime authorship

appear overwhelming post-petrol worship

meanings is written after peter not by

peter

they say it was overwhelming um

it seems to be a pastiche of so many

parts of the new testament

mentioning paul's letters echoing

episodes from matthew and john

incorporating the polemical sections of

jude and making deliberate connections

back to

one peter now i'm not going to read all

of it i'm not going to read the eight

reasons actually

because i'm going to quote from uh

another text

which gives a summary of the reasons

rather than go through each of the eight

reasons which are quite detailed

so the point is that it seems to them

that uh

that is not by peter the reasons appear

to be overwhelming

right so these are not

atheist skeptical uh liberal

scholars these are renowned

highly regarded scholars

and they think peter didn't write it

so my other text uh to

perhaps simplify matters a little bit uh

in terms of the reasons i just want to

they can summarize this in a very quick

way i want to refer to the

oxford dictionary of the christian shirt

there's another brick you know you can

build another house from this

here it is this is huge

text published by oxford university

press

i mean every priest has this every

bishop has this this is the standard

academic reference work

for christian theology the christian

church and history christian history is

brilliant

everyone should have a copy of this and

of course there's an entry here

on the uh peter's letter second letter

and and this is what they say

so there are several indications

that the letter is of late late date in

other words after peter

thus the passage chapter 3 verse 3 and

onwards dealing with the delay of the

coming of the lord

presupposes that the first generation of

christians

has passed away remember called peter

was a first generation christian

the author classes the epistles of saint

paul as

scripture in 316 a position which they

apparently did not attain until some

considerable time

after the apostles death

it is first def definitely referred to

by origen

um then he was a second third century

church father

in here in the third century

and he writes of it as of disputed

authenticity so it was very

controversial even in the third century

it also has some close points of

literary contact with the apocalypse of

saint peter which is

undisputed by everyone that is that's

not by peter

these indications of dates and the

differences in style

and interest from one peter make it

virtually impossible

to hold that saint peter was the author

uh the the letter was received into the

biblical canon with considerable

hesitation

each date is probably the second or

third christian generation

perhaps about 80 150

end quote so just to highlight that

verse there

it is virtually impossible to hold that

saint peter was the author of two peter

virtually impossible but when you look

at the

the writing style when you look at the

uh the content and so on and so on it's

virtually impossible that peter

wrote it so put this down

before it breaks my arm off

so so what we have here we have a

letter written by apparently peter that

states

unequivocably that his eyewitness we

ourselves heard this voice come from

heaven while we were with him

on the holy mountain if all these

scholars are right if the evangelicals

and virtually the whole christian church

is right that this is

not by peter but is probably second

century

ad150 then here we have a

a forgery a fortress is a deliberate

attempt to deceive the readership into

thinking

that the letter is by a famous person by

an apostle by a prince a king or whoever

by jesus even

but in fact it's not it's written by

someone else whose identity we don't

usually

discover there are occasions when we

have discovered

who the real authors are in history

three corinthians for example

famously was uh discovered whilst the

paul chap was writing it um

that's the different story so here we so

just for the moment i'm going to assume

that tom wright

and virtually the whole christian church

is correct in assuming

this is not by peter what does this

mean what it means is that we have

in the new testament fake testimony

fake eyewitness testimony to the life of

jesus that is virtually universally

understood to be

fake yet nevertheless it is still

trusted

by virtually you know the entire

christian world

outside of scholarship as being

authentic

and people are believing they have

eyewitness testimony to jesus and that

the apostle peter thought jesus was god

when in fact he didn't he this his

letter is not

by him it is a forgery

and what this does it casts doubt on the

reliability of the new testament as an

authentic

trustworthy witness to truth

to historical truth moral truth

to the actual life and teaching of

people like peter

we can't trust it and this i'm

i take no joy in saying is not the only

example this is probably the most

egregious example

the most clear-cut example in the new

testament

but there are other examples like one

and two uh

timothy and titus for example and even

one peter

is often seen to be forged as well

so um what are we to do with this

um i'll leave that for you to decide but

i wanted just to

share with you this data play in terms

of

books about forgeries rather than about

to peter

particularly i recommend this book now

this book

um is called

forgery and counter forgery the use of a

literary deceit

in early christian polemics it's by bart

ehrman who is much hated by

a lot of people christians

fundamentalists particularly

but this is probably a book you've not

heard of many people have heard of his

more

popular book which is uh on a similar

subject called

forged um writing in the name of god why

the bible's authors are not who

we think they are now this is a

bestseller on the new york times

bestselling list

and this is a popular book for the man

in the street if you like and it's

pretty good

although pepsi over eggs some of his

arguments this however is an academic

work

written for scholars and it is

over 600 pages long in and it takes no

prisoners and i have read every

word of it um it's very good

um what do what do the specialists in

the field

think those who specialize in uh

early texts their integrity their

historical provenance what do they

think about this it's a new new book

i'll give an example but the reviews are

on the back from

uh duke university the

field think this with forgery encounter

forgery bar ehrman has decisively

undermined

the view that the early christian

pseudo-pseudo piccolo writings

are something other than forgeries these

works however well-intentioned were

quite simply

bastards that's the word they used and

were viewed as such

whenever their false authorial claims

were discovered

this deeply engaging carefully

documented and thought-provoking

expose of ancient forgery is required

reading for anyone interested in

understanding how

and why so many christian writers

sought to pass off their works as the

product

of named authorities when they so

obviously are not

thoroughly convincing and that's

jennifer uh

at boston university um

duke university and yale university uh

joan of

del martin at yale in this remarkable

tour de force by er improvise the only

thorough examination of

ancient pseudopigraphy and forgery in

the english language

including their importance for early

christianity

though other books on the topic have

been available in german

earman supersedes them all providing an

account that is both scholarly and

accessible

this is a masterwork that will be for

and will be for a long time now i'm not

suggesting you read this unless you're

particularly interested in the academic

uh you know he he reviews every instance

of forgery in the ancient world

uh he discusses it with great scholarly

acumen

and balance and so anyway

i just mentioned that as a recent work

uh that takes this whole subject

to the nth degree uh and that is it

for today uh where are we 17 minutes and

counting

um i certainly welcome comments

about uh this uh there are some able

defenses of to peter but

abel i mean if you believe in the

inerrancy of the bible if you believe

the

bible is perfect and contains

no errors at all then you will on that

basis

mount a defense and there are some

defenses of the bible

on that basis but if you don't start

from that dogmatic basis if you start

with an

open mind and just look at the evidence

it's virtually certain that you will

come to the conclusion that it's

impossible

to quote the oxford uh dictionary of the

christian church

to believe that peter wrote to peter

and therefore the christian scriptures

contain a deceit

an intended deception to lie to his

readers

into believing getting them to believe

that peter actually was an eyewitness

and we have his testimony in the bible

when we don't um anyway

that's it for now till next time bye