Forged

Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

Talking Points

Bart D. Ehrman is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestselling Misquoting Jesus, God’s Problem, and Jesus, Interrupted. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the Bible and the life of Jesus. He has been featured in Time and has appeared on NBC Dateline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, History Channel, major NPR shows, and other top media outlets.

Description

Based on new, original research, Ehrman takes the reader on a journey to the ancient world and the forgery battles that raged throughout the Roman Empire. The popular myth is that “writing in the name of another” was a common, accepted practice in antiquity. Not so argues Ehrman. Forgery was as scandalous then as it is now. And yet, at a time when all documents and letters were copied by hand and circulated freely with little or no authorial control, identifying who actually penned a piece of writing—be it political, historical, or religious—was fraught with uncertainty. Forged exposes the forged letters written in the name of Jesus’s disciples for the expressed purpose of gaining acceptance in the early church…which is exactly what happened and why we have the Bible we read today.