Bart Ehrman destroys Christianity in under 12 minutes.

[CapnAwesome]

I began studying these matters, not simply accepting what my teachers had said, but looking at them deeply myself. I learned Greek and started studying the New Testament in the original Greek language. I learned Hebrew to read the Old Testament. I learned Latin, Syriac, and Coptic to be able to study the New Testament manuscripts and the non-canonical traditions of Jesus in their original languages. I immersed myself in the world of the first century, reading non-Christian Jewish and pagan texts from the Roman Empire and before, and I tried to master everything written by a Christian from the first three hundred years of the church. I became a historian of antiquity, and for twenty-five years now I have done my research in this area night and day. I’m not a philosopher like Bill; I’m a historian dedicated to finding the historical truth. After years of studying, I finally came to the conclusion that everything I had previously thought about the historical evidence of the resurrection was absolutely wrong.

But Aractus watched a whole 3 or 4 minutes of a 12 minute video. So he probably knows best.

[Angrboda]

I thought the reason he gave for his agnosticism was the problem of evil?

I don't think so, in a few debates I've watched he specifically said it was from investigating the bible thoroughly. Although he certainly could have more then one reason.  If more Christians investigated the bible deeply, we'd have more Atheists and Agnostics.

"But after many years of being a liberal Christian, I finally became an agnostic for reasons unrelated to my scholarship ... reason having to do with why there's suffering in the world if there's a God who's in control ... For years I thought about it, I read what the biblical authors said, I read about what theologians said, I read about what philosophers said and I got to the point where 'I just didn't believe it anymore'." ~ Bart Ehrman

[Aractus]

How would you even know? You only have the attention span to watch a few minutes of a video before deciding you know enough about it to criticize. That doesn't put you in a good position to slam someone who learned multiple ancient languages so he could understand the bible.

Well let me put it this way: either you're being deliberately disingenuous, or wilfully ignorant. What Bart does is exaggerate things. He's very good at it, and the books that he writes are intended for sceptic audiences. He knows that when writing books there's much more money in that then there is in publishing academically sound critical works. I know because I've walked into the most popular Christian bookshops in Canberra, and asked if they stock anything at all written by Hurtado - and they don't! His books are not even damaging to Christianity really, and some (e.g. One God One Lord) are used academically as textbooks for New Testament studies. Therefore they're not "popular" like stuff written by Bart that can sell well in general book stores either.

Now I haven't read his books, but all I'm saying is that his argument that presupposes systemic alterations were made to NT writings over the first two centuries - a position he takes and stands by - has been totally discredited by other scholars. His arguments about pseudepigraphical authorship is not controversial (although he tries to paint it as being so), and no one really cares. This is because we have a core selection of books written by first-century authors (in fact almost all the NT writings were written in the first century), including 8 by a single author in the 50's (20-30 years after the death of Jesus). Why not watch him actually ague with an atheist about the existence of Jesus and Paul?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kENorS_piks

As you can see, he wipes the floor with the ill-informed prick. He even gets offended by the host's wilful ignorance.

So I tell you what, show me ONE, just ONE single scholar that agrees with Bart that the NT text went through systemic alteration in the second century?

[Angrboda]

Still passing judgement on arguments that you haven't read, eh Aractus? I'm not surprised.

[CapnAwesome]

How would you even know? You only have the attention span to watch a few minutes of a video before deciding you know enough about it to criticize. That doesn't put you in a good position to slam someone who learned multiple ancient languages so he could understand the bible.

Well let me put it this way: either you're being deliberately disingenuous, or wilfully ignorant. What Bart does is exaggerate things. He's very good at it, and the books that he writes are intended for sceptic audiences. He knows that when writing books there's much more money in that then there is in publishing academically sound critical works. I know because I've walked into the most popular Christian bookshops in Canberra, and asked if they stock anything at all written by Hurtado - and they don't! His books are not even damaging to Christianity really, and some (e.g. One God One Lord) are used academically as textbooks for New Testament studies. Therefore they're not "popular" like stuff written by Bart that can sell well in general book stores either.

Now I haven't read his books, but all I'm saying is that his argument that presupposes systemic alterations were made to NT writings over the first two centuries - a position he takes and stands by - has been totally discredited by other scholars. His arguments about pseudepigraphical authorship is not controversial (although he tries to paint it as being so), and no one really cares. This is because we have a core selection of books written by first-century authors (in fact almost all the NT writings were written in the first century), including 8 by a single author in the 50's (20-30 years after the death of Jesus). Why not watch him actually ague with an atheist about the existence of Jesus and Paul?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kENorS_piks

As you can see, he wipes the floor with the ill-informed prick. He even gets offended by the host's wilful ignorance.

So I tell you what, show me ONE, just ONE single scholar that agrees with Bart that the NT text went through systemic alteration in the second century?

I have see that video before and also read "Jesus Existed" Where as you don't have the attention span to watch a whole 12 minute video. So don't go pretending to be an expert on something you don't know anything about. I mean that happens on these forums on a daily basis, but it's particularly agregious when you proclaim so proudly that you didn't even bother to watch all of something and then proclaim yourself an expert.

[Aractus]

That's a good video, it proves my point. Nothing Bart learned through scholarship caused him to de-convert. I think it's laughable that people here, especially people like Min, continue to believe they have a solid grasp on scholarship all based on stuff they don't understand to begin with.

Still passing judgement on arguments that you haven't read, eh Aractus?  I'm not surprised.

I don't need to, I've read the responses from academic scholars like Hurtado to his works. Hurtado's book One God One Lord was praised by the academic community as being balanced. Silberman & Finkelstein's book "Bible Unearthed" was similarly praised by scholars (despite it's deliberately provocative title, it's a well balanced academic grade book), and it destroys any possibility of an Exodus or Conquest of Canaan. I'll quote Silberman here (from his website):

After completing a series of books about the history and politics of archaeology in the Middle East, I teamed up with my good friend and colleague Israel Finkelstein to see what we could accomplish in the re-construction of modern views of biblical history.  The result was The Bible Unearthed (2001) which got a lot of attention, but I’m not sure it changed many minds– particularly minds that are hardwired to believe that THEY are the authentic heirs of the biblical tradition.

Academic resources are there if you want to use them. If you want to use Ehrman's material in an argument against Christians they'll just tell you what I've told you - it's not of academic standard, the stuff he waffles on about in his popular books is either inconsequential to faith or is outside his particular area of expertise. And again, that's not "my criticism" it's distilled from the criticism he has received from his fellow critical scholars regarding his books such as "Forged". And again, none one else in the world - not a single other scholar that I know of claims the NT underwent systemic alteration; which is a claim made wholesale by Bart and he can't even tell you what he thinks was altered in particular.

[Angrboda]

"Once he glanced at the jackets of some paperbacks / Now he's read every one..."

~ Elvis Costello, No Dancing

[Aractus]

I have see that video before and also read "Jesus Existed" Where as you don't have the attention span to watch a whole 12 minute video. So don't go pretending to be an expert on something you don't know anything about. I mean that happens on these forums on a daily basis, but it's particularly agregious when you proclaim so proudly that you didn't even bother to watch all of something and then proclaim yourself an expert.

Like I said before, his claim of systemic alterations is not backed up by any scholarship - not even his own. If you think you can disprove that go right ahead.

You have a very, very weak grasp of scholarship. I'll retract what I said about him not being a textual critic, he is, but in saying that he has no evidence for the view put forward that the originals were substantially different to what we have today - and he can't even win a debate on it against someone who isn't a textual critic such as Wallace. And alas I was using the term incorrectly anyway: Bart is qualified to look at Greek Manuscripts and make a decision about what he thinks the original wording is, but he isn't qualified to make observations in other areas of textual criticism, such as hypothesising that somebody else wrote 'section x' of Mark (which is why you will not find anything about that written by him published in an academic Journal). But let me ask you this, if Bart is so passionate about it, then why did he write this about the ~2012 discovery of Mummy-Mask Manuscripts?

One of the things that I find disconcerting about all the discussion about whether it is legitimate to destroy mummy masks in order to get NT papyri is that the only people who seem to know anything about what has been found (this alleged first century copy of the Gospel of Mark) are not experts in the specific fields in which expertise is required, both to dismantle masks and to date papyri.   As it turns out, they’re all friends of mine.  Craig Evans is a New Testament scholar, but he is not a textual critic, let alone a papyrologist (expert in papyri) or palaeographer (expert in dating manuscripts).   Dan Wallace, who first announced the discovery in a debate against me over two years ago, is in the same boat; he’s done lots of good for the academy by going around the world to photograph/digitize manuscripts, but he is not trained in either papyrology or palaeography and is expert in neither.  My oldest friend in the field, a good friend for some thirty years now, Michael Holmes, is, as Craig told us in his response to the criticism, the person in charge of textual research for the Green Scholars Initiative (the group behind the destruction and discovery) (and is on this Blog!), and even though he is one of the leading textual critics in North America, he too is not trained or expert in papyrology or palaeography.   Why don’t we have an expert tell us what’s going on???

http://ehrmanblog.org/an-expert-talks-ab...nd-papyri/

Elsewhere he also explains how "outraged" he is that his "friends and colleagues" are going about destroying ancient artefacts in order to retrieve the NT manuscripts they contain. Now let me break this down for a moment, the whole saga is currently shrouded in secrecy due to the team working on it being under gag orders (a contract with the owners preventing them from discussing the event). Now that's not unusual, the only reason we know anything about these manuscripts is because Wallace "accidentally" let it slip. They will eventually be published and catalogued, which was meant to have already happened, but clearly not. Yes some people probably would be shocked by this, and that's why they're under a gag-order: you don't really want to tell people how many mask you've destroyed in an effort to find NT manuscripts, and how much "junk" you were left over with, and you especially don't want to tell people about it if you don't find anything at all.

But look at the criticisms he levels at the other scholars. Yes they're not all textual critics, but they don't claim to be (and as he mentioned himself Holmes is). In fact between them they do have a combination of expertise, and yet we don't know who else is working on the project to expand that base of expertise. Yet he has no problem in criticising them all, and acting horrified that the masks are being destroyed. These are not the actions of a rational, sensible, textual scholar. Any decent textual critic would be far more interested in the NT manuscripts that exist than in the ordinary papyrus masks that all look identical and have no interesting features anyway (well, mildly interesting to Egyptologists perhaps, but not at all interesting to NT scholars).

[Jehanne]

Academic resources are there if you want to use them. If you want to use Ehrman's material in an argument against Christians they'll just tell you what I've told you - it's not of academic standard, the stuff he waffles on about in his popular books is either inconsequential to faith or is outside his particular area of expertise. And again, that's not "my criticism" it's distilled from the criticism he has received from his fellow critical scholars regarding his books such as "Forged". And again, none one else in the world - not a single other scholar that I know of claims the NT underwent systemic alteration; which is a claim made wholesale by Bart and he can't even tell you what he thinks was altered in particular.

This paragraph is just false:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily...ompassion/

Did Jesus get "angry" or did he have "compassion"?  Big difference, if you ask me!

[Aractus]

This paragraph is just false:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily...ompassion/

Did Jesus get "angry" or did he have "compassion"?  Big difference, if you ask me!

Just because a variation exists (there's literally at least one variation per word in the NT due to the large number of Greek manuscripts, with most of those being differences in spelling or grammar) doesn't mean it casts doubt upon the original wording. But look, let's assume this a genuine case for an un-knowable original wording of Mark - it's not a big deal. It's less significant than the number of the beast because the meaning of the passage is not substantially altered. You might think it's a "big difference" - but it isn't. Mark describes Jesus taking action and rebuking others out of anger in several other places in his gospel anyway. Anyway that's besides the point, AFAIK it is believed the text originally read "indignant" as is indicated by the fact that the 2011 version of the NIV uses that as the basis for their translation, and it would therefore be the version found in Novum Testamentum. Given that it's an Evangelical translation that would prefer to be influenced by evangelical theology (one of my criticism of it), for it to include that variation over the "compassion" version would lead me to believe that Bart and the other textual critics decided that's how it was originally written in Mark. Therefore they do know what it said with a reasonable degree of confidence, and it's not a matter for petty debate, or an unsettled matter as is Revelation 13:18's number of the beast.