By David G Bonagura, Jr.
Each December, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff publishes what I call his "Can I be Christian without believing in Christ?" interview with a notable Christian figure. This year's guest was New Testament scholar and prolific author Bart Ehrman, whose interpretations of the Bible traverse territory that even the Prodigal Son might think a bit far afield.
Those looking for an uplifting Christmas message from Ehrman quickly realized they had stumbled onto the wrong page. "The idea that [Jesus] was a pre-existent divine being," he said, "who came into the world as a newborn is not found in any of his own teachings in our earliest Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and I think he would be flabbergasted to hear it."
When Kristoff asked how we should seek inspiration on December 25, Ehrman replied, "The Gospels are stories intended to convey important messages. I find the message of Christmas to be very moving. It's about God bringing salvation into a needy world through an impoverished child. This is a child who will grow up and give his life for others. I don't think this is historical. But I believe stories can be true, meaningful and powerful even if they didn't actually happen." (Emphasis added.)
For decades, scholars who share Ehrman's perspective have, inexplicably, been teaching at Catholic schools and universities throughout the country. It took my wife fifteen years to recover from her Catholic college's "Introduction to the New Testament" course, which would have been more accurately titled Debunking the New Testament. Though she survived, many other Catholic students were lost along the way. Unlike Ehrman, they found neither meaning nor point in a fake story. So they found other things to do with their Sunday mornings – and, by extension, with their Saturday nights.
Believing Catholics often pine for the Church to censor, remove, and denounce such Biblical charlatans who, as modern-day Pharisees, lengthen the tassels on their academic regalia by denigrating Jesus. But history teaches that heretics will always be with us. From Jesus' own time until today, many have spread false reports about Him to undermine His authority over us.
The Church refutes them, yet they stubbornly survive and sow their seeds of doubt. The Council of Nicaea, for example, roundly condemned Arianism in 325. Did the Arians suddenly all quit, disappear, or convert? Not a chance – the heresy survived another 300 years, thanks, in part, to its adoption by some Roman emperors and Visigoth kings.
What, then, is the Church to do if she can't extinguish these heresies outright? She has to persuade anyone who has ears to hear that the Jesus Christ of the Bible, the same one the Church has taught for 2,000 years, is the One in whom they should put their faith. This is the true challenge of evangelization: to present the eternal truths of revelation in a compelling manner that poignantly addresses the current moment.
In recent years, many outstanding thinkers have made cogent pitches: Fr. Roch Kereszty, Fr. Thomas Weinandy, Edward Sri, to name only a few whose work I have incorporated into my own academic courses. There is one book, though, that I keep revisiting because of how beautifully it describes Jesus, anchoring Him in His identity as the Son of the Father, and how it challenges the sillier interpretations of Jesus without getting bogged down with them.
This book – actually three books – is Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, of which the first volume, which covers Jesus' public ministry, stands as a tremendous contribution to convincing the world that the Church's understanding of Jesus is right and best.
Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth successfully balances erudition with popular appeal, academic rigor with spiritual insight. If you would like to incorporate his insights into your intellectual and spiritual lives, I invite you to join me and fellow TCT readers soon in a four-week series digging into Bened...
