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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Prof. Bart D. Ehrman

One of the reasons Paul wrote I Corinthians was to quash a heresy which asserted that Christians were already enjoying a resurrected existence with Christ right now, but in Ephesians and Colossians seemingly Paul explicitly now supports the idea that believers currently live a resurrected life with Christ. These latter two writings are forged documents.

 

 

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Editor's prefatory comment:

Dr. Ehrman explains that the 5700 early copies of the New Testament – copies of copies of copies – contain hundreds of thousands of discrepancies.

Many of these are inconsequential but a significant number alter the meaning of the text in important ways. Most of these constituted mere human error in copying but some of them, it appears, were purposefully injected into the text by editorial judgment of scribes.

This entire area of scholarship is far more complex than most realize, leading the objective reviewer to understand that, in many cases, we have no knowledge of the original text of the New Testament.

In addition to Dr. Ehrman’s books, his lectures are available on youtube; for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE&t=12s

 

 

Dr. Ehrman speaks of this in his book, "Forged: Writing In The Name Of God."

“Paul was emphatic … that Christians who had been baptized had ‘died’ to the powers of the world… They had ‘died with Christ’. But they had not yet been ‘raised’ with Christ. That would happen at the end of time, when Jesus returned...” See Romans 6:1-4.

“Paul was extremely insistent on this point, that the resurrection of believers was a future, physical event, not something that had already happened. One of the reason he wrote I Corinthians was precisely because some Christians … took an opposing view … that they were already enjoying a resurrected existence with Christ… Paul devotes I Corinthians 15 to showing that, no, the resurrection is not something that has happened yet…

But contrast this to statements in Ephesians 2:5-6 and Colossians 2:12-13 indicating, from “Paul,” quite the opposite, that Christians are already raised with Christ!

These latter books are forged documents in the name of Paul.

 

 

Editor's last word: