Da Vinci Ehrman, Bart D. Term Paper

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The orthodox idea that Christ's sacrifice is both an acceptance of the goodness of the world and a rejection of the world was not always present within all of Christianity's branches, as is evident in the Gnostic gospels. However, simply because the debate about canonization and how to interpret Christ's sacrifice and the creation of the world was more pluralistic than debates between Christians does not mean that there is or was a gigantic 'cover up.' The diversity among Christianity pre-canonization makes the divisions between Christians pale in comparison to our own era, and that is what is truly surprising to modern eyes, according to brown.

Brown's work also lacks a true historical foundation in the cultural and political situation of ancient Israel. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not Christian documents, contrary to Brown's version of events. Rather they were produced by a radical sect of world-denying Jews who were resistant to the current Jewish leadership of the day. It is true that within some of the heretical sects, women did play a more significant role in the development of early Christianity, especially sects like the Gnostics that denied the importance of the physical body, including whether the body was male or female. But another historical inaccuracy about the nature of Jewish life perpetuated by Brown is the idea that Jesus had to be married, and could not have been celibate, because Jewish men were not permitted to be so in ancient Israel.

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None of the many gospels that exist about the life of Jesus that narrate his life from a variety of perspectives (and there are many) indicate that he was anything put unmarried, childless and celibate, which was actually quite common amongst many Jewish teachers and mystics.

Ehrman makes an interesting point -- even in the case of believers people today receive their images of faith and history from television and popular fiction. It is important to step back and to try to gain a more realistic and historical perspective of our most cherished conceptions of faith. It is actually very difficult when looking over the heretical gospels to insert them in their historical context. For example, in one of the Gnostic gospels, the "Gospel of Phillip" Jesus kisses Mary Magdalene but this is a metaphor of a spiritual relationship frequently used in Gnostic imagery, and would not have been read as a real depiction of the life of Jesus. Unlike the authors of the canonized gospels, the Gnostics were interested in using allegories to explain spiritual, rather than factual truth. This important aspect of reading how Christianity selected and eliminated certain ideas about Christ's nature cannot be gleaned from a novel, and only a scholarly study like Erhman's can provide adequate context for such ideas......

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