There is a major issue here with Christianity, because Christianity is actually an extremely unusual religion. Christianity is a religion founded upon a specific reading of a bunch of documents of unknown provenance. That's it. Christianity is not "founded by Jesus", Christianity is founded by 2nd-3rd century Romans based on written stories about Jesus. And so when it comes to understanding what these documents are that the Romans founded their religion on, ultimately all Christian scholarship comes back to defending the conclusions of those 2nd-3rd century Christian scholars. Even when Christian scholarship disagrees with points of those scholars, Christian scholarship has to conclude that, in the end, those 2nd-3rd century Romans got it right. Because if those Romans didn't get it right, then the whole institution is a fraud. So, of course, Christian scholars are boxed into a very hard spot.
"What we find in mainstream biblical scholarship is a major bias against the recognition of literary dependencies within the extant texts. So what we see in mainstream biblical scholarship is a major reliance on imagined “lost sources” to explain the similarities between texts. As we see here, biblical scholarship is full of imagined lost sources, both oral and written, used to explain the commonalities across the texts of the New Testament. Yet in reality, virtually all of these relations are far better explained as dependencies among the extant texts. The problem with recognizing dependencies among the extant texts, however, is that everyone recognizes that none of the extant material comes from direct witnesses to Jesus. It is recognized that none of the extant material represents primary sources, and thus imagined potential primary sources are the favored explanation for textual similarities. Thus, what we see in mainstream biblical scholarship is that not only do biblical scholars jump to the conclusion that textual similarities must be the product of the use of a common lost source, but also that the lost source itself is likely an “original” primary source. This is the rational behind Q, and the rational behind claims like those that we see Bauckham making here."
And as for the dependence on Paul, the irony of that is just how at odds such a position is in relation to biblical scholarship itself:
“Accordingly, the gospels may be understood as corrections of this creedal imbalance, which was undoubtedly derived from the view espoused by the apostle Paul, who did not know the historical Jesus. For Paul, the Christ was to be understood as a dying/rising lord, symbolized in baptism (buried with him, raised with him), of the type he knew from the hellenistic mystery religions. In Paul’s theological scheme, Jesus the man played no essential role."
- The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus really Say; Funk, Hoover, The Jesus Seminar (pp 7)
As I said in my post that I accidentally cross-posted on the Questioning Jesus Historicity thread, 20th century mainstream biblical scholarship has been all about pushing Paul out of the way and claiming that the Gospels are ultimately based on pre-Pauline sources. The model of mainstream biblical scholarship has been to position the Gospels as records of pre-Pauline traditions.
But of course that is nonsense, and as the work of Tom Dkystra, David Oliver Smith and myself shows, the Gospels are based directly on the Pauline letters. The Pauline letters and the Jewish scriptures are the sources used for the derivation of the Gospel narratives. And this is ultimately why claims about hypothetical lost documents are nonsense and disproven.
We *have proven* that these hypothetical lost documents don't exist because we *have proven* that other known sources better explain the content of the Gospels than the proposed hypothetical sources. What is so infuriating about mainstream scholarship, and scholars like McGrath and even Ehrman, is the refusal to engage in addressing these facts.
It is infuriating that we still have major names in biblical scholarship talking about "oral traditions" and "Q" when in fact those sources have been completely and entirely disproved. Yet, the scholars talking about "oral traditions" and "Q" and other such lost hypothetical sources simply refuse to address or even acknowledge the work that clearly shows such sources weren't used. That's the real kicker. The evidence and facts are there and have been laid out plain as day, but Christian scholars refuse to look at it.
We still have people like Bauckham talking about how it's inconceivable that the writer of Luke would have used the letters of Paul, and thus similarities between Luke and Paul can "only" be explained as evidence of "lost original sources". I mean seriously, Bauckham is a highly respected biblical scholar. How can this be. When your most respected scholars say obvious nonsense like this and they are treated as legitimate authorities what else can be said. The whole field is just nonsense.
And don't get be started on Ehrman. Let's not forget that Ehrman's entire post-secondary education comes from Christian seminary schools. Ehrman has zero formal training in anthropology, ancient history, historical methods, anything. His entire education is in theology, and you can see in his work that all of the tools he employs are those of conservative Christian theology. Ultimately Ehrman is defending his education. He's always out defending the tools of mainstream biblical scholarship, but in fact the entire methodology of mainstream biblical scholarship is what's wrong.
What's wrong with mainstream biblical scholarship is the same thing that was wrong with Christian Naturalism (the field of Darwin's study). Prior to Darwin there was no field of "biology" as we know it today, there was naturalism, which was the theological study of "God's Creation". The study of life on earth was under the purview of the church, which is why Darwin got his degree from a seminary school. But the difference between Darwin and Ehrman is that Darwin recognized the fundamental flaws in the methodologies he was taught, where as Ehrman does not. Ehrman considers his education valid. Ehrman is constantly employing "the criterion of embarrassment" or the "criterion of multiple sources" just as uncritically as Meier or Bauckham or anyone else.
But those fundamental criterion are all entirely wrong. The whole approach of the five criterion is deeply flawed. That Ehrman can't see that is at once shocking and a testament to the counter productive influence of theological instruction.
And so when we talk about who is "qualified" to engage in biblical analysis, the reality is that a "theology" degree, or a degree in divinity, is not a real qualification for forensic biblical study. This is the core issue. We have a field called "biblical studies" that is dominated by Christian theologians, when in fact a theology degree is not a real qualification for the forensic study of ancient sources and history.
What "biblical scholarship" means is not what "biblical scholars" are doing. "Biblical Scholarship" as per a degree in theology is really about the study of "Christian interpretation" of the texts of Bible. But what happened is that theologians have tried to position themselves as real historians and forensic scientists, when in fact that is never what they were, and never what theological studies was equipped to provide.
The big farce here is the idea that theologians are qualified in any way to assess the sources and historical validity of the Bible. In realty theologians and people like Bart Ehrman are no more qualified to assess the historical validity of biblical stories or to understand the provenance of biblical sources than the average person off the street. In fact they may even be less qualified because they have been specifically instructed in biased methodologies that are designed to lead to invalid answers.
The tools of theological biblical studies are fundamentally flawed and invalid, period.
And I know that to be a fact because as a data analyst with experience in text mining and pattern recognition algorithms (actual qualifications for breaking down and understanding the relationships between documents) I can see the multitude of flaws in the approaches of mainstream biblical scholars. Biblical scholarship as it is taught as seminaries, and likely even universities that pattern their programs on seminaries, may as well just be teaching dowsing or phrenology. The whole field is just entirely and fundamental off course, because, of course, it is guided by Christian beliefs, not by facts.
What we need in the field of "biblical studies" is a revolution in the fields of scholarship that are directed at the issue and a revolution is recognizing who is qualified to actually study biblical texts from a historical perspective, and this also requires recognition by non-theological scholars that theologians aren't qualified and shouldn't be treated as authorities on this subject.
These issues can only be addressed by real scholars, not theologians. These are questions to be address by historians, anthropologists, and data analysts, not priests and pastors.
There is a major issue here with Christianity, because Christianity is actually an extremely unusual religion. Christianity is a religion founded upon a specific reading of a bunch of documents of unknown provenance. That's it. Christianity is not "founded by Jesus", Christianity is founded by 2nd-3rd century Romans based on written stories about Jesus. And so when it comes to understanding what these documents are that the Romans founded their religion on, ultimately all Christian scholarship comes back to defending the conclusions of those 2nd-3rd century Christian scholars. Even when Christian scholarship disagrees with points of those scholars, Christian scholarship has to conclude that, in the end, those 2nd-3rd century Romans got it right. Because if those Romans didn't get it right, then the whole institution is a fraud. So, of course, Christian scholars are boxed into a very hard spot.
To get back to the issue of historical sources, I'll quote from my book's website: http://www.decipheringthegospels.com/on_q.html
"What we find in mainstream biblical scholarship is a major bias against the recognition of literary dependencies within the extant texts. So what we see in mainstream biblical scholarship is a major reliance on imagined “lost sources” to explain the similarities between texts. As we see here, biblical scholarship is full of imagined lost sources, both oral and written, used to explain the commonalities across the texts of the New Testament. Yet in reality, virtually all of these relations are far better explained as dependencies among the extant texts. The problem with recognizing dependencies among the extant texts, however, is that everyone recognizes that none of the extant material comes from direct witnesses to Jesus. It is recognized that none of the extant material represents primary sources, and thus imagined potential primary sources are the favored explanation for textual similarities. Thus, what we see in mainstream biblical scholarship is that not only do biblical scholars jump to the conclusion that textual similarities must be the product of the use of a common lost source, but also that the lost source itself is likely an “original” primary source. This is the rational behind Q, and the rational behind claims like those that we see Bauckham making here."
And as for the dependence on Paul, the irony of that is just how at odds such a position is in relation to biblical scholarship itself:
“Accordingly, the gospels may be understood as corrections of this creedal imbalance, which was undoubtedly derived from the view espoused by the apostle Paul, who did not know the historical Jesus. For Paul, the Christ was to be understood as a dying/rising lord, symbolized in baptism (buried with him, raised with him), of the type he knew from the hellenistic mystery religions. In Paul’s theological scheme, Jesus the man played no essential role."
- The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus really Say; Funk, Hoover, The Jesus Seminar (pp 7)
As I said in my post that I accidentally cross-posted on the Questioning Jesus Historicity thread, 20th century mainstream biblical scholarship has been all about pushing Paul out of the way and claiming that the Gospels are ultimately based on pre-Pauline sources. The model of mainstream biblical scholarship has been to position the Gospels as records of pre-Pauline traditions.
But of course that is nonsense, and as the work of Tom Dkystra, David Oliver Smith and myself shows, the Gospels are based directly on the Pauline letters. The Pauline letters and the Jewish scriptures are the sources used for the derivation of the Gospel narratives. And this is ultimately why claims about hypothetical lost documents are nonsense and disproven.
We *have proven* that these hypothetical lost documents don't exist because we *have proven* that other known sources better explain the content of the Gospels than the proposed hypothetical sources. What is so infuriating about mainstream scholarship, and scholars like McGrath and even Ehrman, is the refusal to engage in addressing these facts.
It is infuriating that we still have major names in biblical scholarship talking about "oral traditions" and "Q" when in fact those sources have been completely and entirely disproved. Yet, the scholars talking about "oral traditions" and "Q" and other such lost hypothetical sources simply refuse to address or even acknowledge the work that clearly shows such sources weren't used. That's the real kicker. The evidence and facts are there and have been laid out plain as day, but Christian scholars refuse to look at it.
We still have people like Bauckham talking about how it's inconceivable that the writer of Luke would have used the letters of Paul, and thus similarities between Luke and Paul can "only" be explained as evidence of "lost original sources". I mean seriously, Bauckham is a highly respected biblical scholar. How can this be. When your most respected scholars say obvious nonsense like this and they are treated as legitimate authorities what else can be said. The whole field is just nonsense.
And don't get be started on Ehrman. Let's not forget that Ehrman's entire post-secondary education comes from Christian seminary schools. Ehrman has zero formal training in anthropology, ancient history, historical methods, anything. His entire education is in theology, and you can see in his work that all of the tools he employs are those of conservative Christian theology. Ultimately Ehrman is defending his education. He's always out defending the tools of mainstream biblical scholarship, but in fact the entire methodology of mainstream biblical scholarship is what's wrong.
What's wrong with mainstream biblical scholarship is the same thing that was wrong with Christian Naturalism (the field of Darwin's study). Prior to Darwin there was no field of "biology" as we know it today, there was naturalism, which was the theological study of "God's Creation". The study of life on earth was under the purview of the church, which is why Darwin got his degree from a seminary school. But the difference between Darwin and Ehrman is that Darwin recognized the fundamental flaws in the methodologies he was taught, where as Ehrman does not. Ehrman considers his education valid. Ehrman is constantly employing "the criterion of embarrassment" or the "criterion of multiple sources" just as uncritically as Meier or Bauckham or anyone else.
But those fundamental criterion are all entirely wrong. The whole approach of the five criterion is deeply flawed. That Ehrman can't see that is at once shocking and a testament to the counter productive influence of theological instruction.
And so when we talk about who is "qualified" to engage in biblical analysis, the reality is that a "theology" degree, or a degree in divinity, is not a real qualification for forensic biblical study. This is the core issue. We have a field called "biblical studies" that is dominated by Christian theologians, when in fact a theology degree is not a real qualification for the forensic study of ancient sources and history.
What "biblical scholarship" means is not what "biblical scholars" are doing. "Biblical Scholarship" as per a degree in theology is really about the study of "Christian interpretation" of the texts of Bible. But what happened is that theologians have tried to position themselves as real historians and forensic scientists, when in fact that is never what they were, and never what theological studies was equipped to provide.
The big farce here is the idea that theologians are qualified in any way to assess the sources and historical validity of the Bible. In realty theologians and people like Bart Ehrman are no more qualified to assess the historical validity of biblical stories or to understand the provenance of biblical sources than the average person off the street. In fact they may even be less qualified because they have been specifically instructed in biased methodologies that are designed to lead to invalid answers.
The tools of theological biblical studies are fundamentally flawed and invalid, period.
And I know that to be a fact because as a data analyst with experience in text mining and pattern recognition algorithms (actual qualifications for breaking down and understanding the relationships between documents) I can see the multitude of flaws in the approaches of mainstream biblical scholars. Biblical scholarship as it is taught as seminaries, and likely even universities that pattern their programs on seminaries, may as well just be teaching dowsing or phrenology. The whole field is just entirely and fundamental off course, because, of course, it is guided by Christian beliefs, not by facts.
What we need in the field of "biblical studies" is a revolution in the fields of scholarship that are directed at the issue and a revolution is recognizing who is qualified to actually study biblical texts from a historical perspective, and this also requires recognition by non-theological scholars that theologians aren't qualified and shouldn't be treated as authorities on this subject.
These issues can only be addressed by real scholars, not theologians. These are questions to be address by historians, anthropologists, and data analysts, not priests and pastors.