Monday, March 23, 2015

Video of the Opening of the Bible Museum in Münster

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I found this in an old draft post which I never posted. In addition to the general interest, it contains a very full and frank interview with Kurt Aland which is worth listening to.

11 comments

  1. Spectacular and humbling.

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  2. Subtitles check: Paul der Sechste (at 2:45 mins) is not Paul XI :)

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  3. At the 1:25 mark, is that Barbara Aland front and center?

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    1. That is a good question. I think yes. Definitely.

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    2. Ten years later: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Aland#/media/File:Barbara_and_Kurt_Aland_%281988%29.png

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  4. Peter,

    A Muslim friend of mine says that in his work "The Problem of Anonymity and Pseudonymity in
    Christian Literature of the First Two Centuries," written in 1961, Dr. Aland denies the apostolic authorship of the Four Gospels, the Catholic Epistles, the Pastoral Epistles, and Hebrews. And in "The Problem of the New Testament Canon," written in 1962, Dr. Aland expresses his doubts as to the canonicity of several New Testament books. My friend then says that in a later work "A History of
    Christianity," published in German in 1980 and in English in 1985, Aland discusses his theories concerning the origins and the evolution of the New Testament text, including the settling of the Canon and the apostolic authorship of the Gospels, the Catholic Epistles, and Hebrews. However, Aland says nothing in that work to renounce his former views.

    How would you answer this, in light of the video you just shared? Thanks so much, Nick

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    1. In that 1961 article Aland says 'Each New Testament scholar has to answer the question of authorship in New Testament literature for himself'. I think in general Aland for himself adopted pretty conventional historical-critical viewpoints on matters of authorship. He thinks of the gospels as "published anonymously" (also Hebrews, possibly; and 1 John). Among pseudonymous writings he includes: 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, 1 & 2 Peter, James, Jude, 2 & 3 John.
      If you want a discussion of such matters I would think that D. Guthrie's New Testament Introduction is still perhaps the fullest conservative introduction. Aland's viewpoint looks pretty close to W.G. Kummel.
      In the video when the interviewer asks (12:20) about whether a pious Bible reader might worry that the Bible text is wrong. He immediately clarifies and categorises this is a text-critical question: is the text of the Bible (text-critically) wrong? But this brackets out other topics on which he might think that the Bible is wrong (e.g. presumably on ascriptions of authorship in 1 Timothy etc.). He is not here addressing those questions at all. I don't think he is changing his views; he is just presumably quite used to addressing text-critical matters separately from other historical-critical matters.

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  5. Aland sure seemed pretty confident in the final minute of the video, didn't he.

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