How Well Do You Know Your Bible? – The Work of Dr. Bart Ehrman at a Glance

As a religious scholar, I’ve long been fascinated by the history of the Christian Bible – its flaws, contradictions, its turbulent history – and how most Christians came to believe that it was always one complete book, that it is “inerrant” (without errors) and somehow perfect. Many even still believe that the Bible was “written by God” or by Moses, or Paul even. Or that it was written by other men who were not only anonymous – but also “divinely inspired”. Some still view the Bible as a historical record of everything – which is how some people actually believe the entire universe is only about 6000 years old.

Christianity - The Fundamentals

Quite a long time ago, in fact more than a thousand years ago, the Christian church was very different. 

 

In some ways, it really was a bit persecuted and outnumbered by other older religions - not at all in the elevated and privileged and powerful position it holds worldwide today. Before it became the state religion of the Roman Empire, it had little power and sway over those who followed it and gathered in their own small independent little community churches. 

 

It was young and still learning the ways of control and mass manipulation. It was not yet in full agreement with itself on the dogma and scriptures it used in those days, in fact, every little church had its own particular favorite gospel - some even used the 'Gospel of Mary Magdalene', who was even viewed as one Christs Apostles - and many of these gospels were not the ones in today's bible. It was not centrally controlled and neither was the book today called the bible. In fact, back then, there was no bible. It was a loose assortment of books - and there were many more of them than those contained in the present bible used today.

In fact, even as recently as one century ago, there were stark differences in the bible and the number and names of books contained in it.