Author: Bart D Ehrman
Publisher: Harper Collins
Price: £19.99
Isbn: 9780062012616

I guess that forteans who give any thought to the subject of the Gospels, divide into those who believe there is no historical evidence for Jesus; and those who believe that He was a real character whose history differs from the Gospel account. I fall into the former cate­gory, but that doesn’t dampen my fascination with scripture and the debates it engenders. Christ­ianity is still the dominant relig­ion, and thus the dominant grand narrative (whatever jaded post-modernists claim); that in itself makes the problem of Gospel authenticity important.

Bart Ehrman’s work constitutes a telling contribution to the Jesus debate; moreover, he has the knack of getting as much useful evidence into his popular books as he demonstrates in his more scholarly treatises. Forged is an overview of authorial authenticity in the New Testament; as for its point of view, the more perspicuous readers will have gleaned a clue from the title.

The New Testament is a small collection of short books. Four deal with the life and works of Jesus, and one with the period immediately after his death. The rest are ‘secondary’ literature; letters (‘epistles’) to churches, and an apocalypse (a ‘revelation’, a popular form of literature in the period around the formation of Christianity).

How many of these books are what they claim to be? Are there forgeries in the New Testament? Ehrman thinks so, and he has evid­ence to back up his claims.

First, though, he deals with the question of forgery itself: is it reasonable to use this term in the context of Scripture? Ehrman’s justification is that forgery was a well-known practice in the ancient world and, more to the point, that it was always regarded as a dishonest practice. This disposes of those woolly vindications of ‘pseudepigraphy’ which litter less rigorous biblical scholarship.

His detailed treatment of spec­ific books (particularly his interro­gation of Paul’s epistles, and the book of Acts) is exemplary. At the same time, he is respectful of his subject matter; he never ridicules the writing under investigation, even when clearly demonstrating that it is completely inauthentic. This sympathy may well stem from his own religious experiences, which he writes about in the introduction.

One thing puzzles me about Ehrman. He obviously believes that Jesus was a real person. At one point, he claims that there is good historical evidence for the existence of Jesus. Elsewhere in the book, whenever he makes a bold statement, he backs it up with examples to prove his point. But when it comes to this central question, he omits any examples of the good historical evidence he claims is there.

Forged is written for a US (and Christian) audience. Non-Americans may occasionally wince at its friendliness, and readers with a working knowledge of the subject may feel they are sometimes being spoon-fed. But these minor irritations don’t spoil a well-constructed book.