Darrel Bock Reviews Bart Ehrman's "Forged"

 A helpful review from a solid NT evangelical scholar. Bock tackles each chapter individually, considers the textual and external evidence, and leads the reader to a more academically honest  conclusion. 

"...what is crucial to note is that the case is weakest where it is the most important, in the canonical books. Here Ehrman has “framed” the biblical materials. He sets up the biblical materials for a fall by saying look how often this was done later and by many both orthodox and not so orthodox, so it was a common practice. To get here in the canonical books, Ehrman dismisses external tradition, contradicts his own arguments about imminent expectation and the church’s self understanding about being in the last days, minimizes the influence of hymnic or traditional materials in these sources as well as any role for a secretary, constructs a portrait of conflict and diversity in the early church that the early sources do not support, and ignores evidence of the church having more structure early to set up supposed contradictions between biblical authors. This list of problematic factors is so long and Ehrman makes these moves so effortlessly that it is easy to see why an unsuspecting reader might think Ehrman has made a good case. My hope is that this review in multiple installments has caused one to pause and see that the case for forgery in the Bible is not at all as likely as Ehrman has contended. Contrary to Ehrman’s opinion, case, and hyped book cover, it is quite likely that after all the Bible’s authors actually are who we think they are. "

Read all the installments here...

http://blogs.bible.org/bock/darrell_l._bock/and_a_look_at_forged_by_bart_ehrman_and_another_nt_blog_recommendation_ben_witheringtons_site