Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

That is called bias. That is also why Christian [emphasis added] scholars studying and attempting to prove the validity of the Bible aren't taken seriously.

I want to address this particular point again and more fully because I think that there is some misunderstanding among you, Jenny A, and others about who these New Testament scholars that I keep referring to really are. In the quote above, where I have always written the words "New Testament", you have replaced them with "Christian". Your change - whether intentionally or unconsciously done - reveals your own bias and erroneous assumptions very clearly.

Yesterday, I asked if agnostic/atheist scholar Bart Ehrman, one of the world's leading experts on NT scholarship, would fit into the category of "Christian scholars" who aren't taken very seriously. Today, I want to follow up by asking, "Do you think he feels he is the ONLY non-Christian scholar of any academic standing who is studying the New Testament?"

I do hope to get some response from you, Jenny and others to that question. But I'd like to go further by providing some insight from Ehrman himself about the credentials and the conclusions of those scholars - believers and skeptics alike - who study the New Testament professionally. Ehrman writes:

"Serious historians of the early Christian movement--all of them—have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure. Again, this is not a piece of evidence, but if nothing else, it should give one pause. In the field of biology, evolution may be “just” a theory (as some politicians painfully point out), but it is the theory subscribed to, for good reason, by every real scientist in every established university in the Western world.

“Still, as is clear from the avalanche of sometimes outraged postings on all the relevant Internet sites, there is simply no way to convince conspiracy theorists that the evidence of their position is too thin to be convincing and that the evidence for the traditional view is thoroughly persuasive. Anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincing—whether it involves the fact of the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, the assassination of Presidents, or even a presidential place of birth—will not be convinced. Simply will [emphasis original] not be convinced.

“And so…I do not expect to convince anyone in that boat. What I do hope is to convince genuine seekers who really want to know how we know that Jesus did exist, as virtually every scholar of antiquity, of biblical studies, of classics, and of Christian origins in this country and, in the Western world agrees. Many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter. As it turns out, I myself do not either. I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed. My beliefs would vary little. The answer to the question of Jesus’ historical existence will not make me more or less happy, content, hopeful, likable, rich, famous, or immortal.

“But as a historian, I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist. He may not have been the Jesus that you mother believes in or the Jesus of the stain-glass window or the Jesus of your least favorite televangelist or the Jesus proclaimed by the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention, the local megachurch, or the California Gnostic. But he did exist, and we can say a few things, with relative certainty about him.” (Ehrman, Bart, Did Jesus Exist?, 5-6.)

Folks, Ehrman knows what real academic scholarship is and what it requires. He knows who the people are who have paid their dues to earn the title of "scholar". And he knows that he is not alone among those scholars in believing that Jesus of Nazareth did exist.