Bart Ehrman destroys Christianity in under 12 minutes.

[Drich]

It's a great video; anyone who watches/listens to this video cannot possibly have any confidence in "Biblical" Christianity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9US4OxB0Dk

So, "believers", what say you?

I believe bartie boy is an idiot who only reads the bible at face value, does not research or investigate beyond what he already thinks he knows, and simply assumes everyone willing to listen to him is a fool who will not research or check what he has said. Which leaves himself (and by extension you) open to definitive rebuttal if one is open to doing a little research or reading.

first charge is the apostles could not write their gospels, he wrongly assumes educated/greek writters just thought it was important and recorded everything down. which helps him make the case that everything is a copy of a copy and that is why there are supposed contradictions.

That's not how things worked.

In the first century their's was an oral tradition or oral society. Meaning that is how records and accounts were kept. How a douche like bartie would look and trust a one giving an oral account, people in the first century would look at and mistrust a 'scribe.'

Why? because two primary reasons. One as he pointed out the literacy rate was very low (>5%) so no one knew if what was written was indeed factual. The second as bartie also points out the spoken language was completely different than the written one. So there were some lost in translations issues. So it would appear (to the uneducated) that what was being said was not being recorded or written down correctly. Verse Trained men who people trusted that could tell the same story the same way over a period of decades.

That is the reason it was not written down same day.

Then his order for the books written is wrong, he does not go into detail because he knows his prefrecnce is just that his perfrence that gives his case the best possible advantage. when infact the book of Luke was written first possibly even a few years after said events. How can I say this? because we know the book of acts was also written by him well after he was released by theolopus (his owner) and became a desciple of Paul. Now the key is where the book of acts ends... Before Paul going to Rome to be executed. Which puts the book of acts 20 years before the book of Mark was supposed written according to bart. which means the book of Luke could have been written 10 to 20 years before that. Which puts the works of luke (a neutral 3rd party observer.) recording the events of the gospel with in a few years of the events taking place.

When something was recorded people went to scriptoriums to commission a scribe. So the Gospel according to Matthew may not have been literally written by Matthew (who could read and write as he was a roman offical/tax collector not a fisherman) but it could still be the Gospel according to matthew. We know Luke was a physician and that he wrote that gospel, as well as the Book of acts as mentioned above. Whether his name was actually luke or not does not matter. what does is he did indeed write those two books. The two fishermen out of the Group and possibly even matthew may have indeed used scribes as the offical record keepers of their gospels.

Scriptoriums were also the libaries/despoitories of their day. because after something like that was commissioned they often times had to be stored or maintained, as papyrus will not last decades let alone thousands of years if not well taken care of.

So barties whole idea of some random educated greek writting important stuff down (as opposed to being commissioned by the apstoles) is foolishness, and has no historical president. You may say, hey wait isn't that what historians do? then I'd say like Josephus, Titus Labienus, & claudius?? Why do we know their names and not the names of those who anonymously recorded the gospels?

Or again do we? In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Think about that for a second. Why wouldn't you tie your name to these works if indeed, you believe them to be true AND you see these teachings literally changing the world you live in?

Again no historical precedent to support random historical records. If a recorded survived 2000 years someone took great care in preserving what was written for a very very long time.

@ 4:15 seconds Bartie makes the foolish/arrogant/ignorant claim that Mark contradicts John on Jesus' Death day. He claims Mark records that Jesus died after the passover meal. then He quotes John 19:14
14 It was now almost noon on Preparation day of Passover week. Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your king!”

So do you see Bartie's error?

Read John 19:14 closly there in lies a clue.
Now read Mark 14:
12 It was now the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread—the day the lambs were killed for the Passover. Jesus’ followers came to him and said, “We will go and prepare everything for you to eat the Passover meal. Where do you want us to have the meal?”

Can you see John says "preparation day of the Passover week?" Then Mark explains what is being prepared.

Now understand Passover is not a day long event with a single meal. No it is a weeks worth of 'passover meals of unleavened bread, bitter herbs, leading up to the sader feast. If you read any of the accounts of the last supper the sader lamb is not mentioned, just unleavened bread and oil.
http://chosenpeople.com/main/holidays-an...t-passover

Barttie boy really screws the pooch on the next one.. When Jesus died/what time According to Him he says mark records Jesus dying @9am and according to barttie he says John 19:14 says after noon.

Bart is beyond wrong/lying about both accounts.
Mark 15:33 At noon the whole country became dark. This darkness continued until three o’clock. 34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out loudly, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.” This means “My God, my God, why have you left me alone?”[b]

John 19:13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out to the place called “The Stone Pavement.” (In Aramaic the name is Gabbatha.) Pilate sat down on the judge’s seat there. 14 It was now almost noon on Preparation day of Passover week. Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your king!”

Can you see it? One account says Jesus dies at 3:00Pm and the other says at 12:00pm, Jesus was in the middle of his trial before Pilate. He had yet to be beaten or crusified which makes a 3PM death still plausible. The account of John does not mention an actual ToD.

But it doesn't matter much when the bible accutally says when Jesus died because none of you will ever bother to think for yourselves and look this stuff up and draw your own conclusion will you?

I did the first three of four for you by listening to this moron's lies and misinformation (had to scroll down the page so as not to give myself a seizure looking at his anti-god slide show) If you want me to dispell the rest of his crap meet me half way and spell out the other supposed contradictions..

Remember we are in a forum not a youtube chat. (I'm not here to watch your propaganda videos for you) if you want to discuss content then use Your words and spell it all out.

[Minimalist]

Unless I've missed something, all he's saying is that you can't prove the resurrection using the Gospel texts. I think any Christian would be very wise to agree. Ehrman says that the gospel narratives, as they are found in the text, about the resurrection are not reliable historically. You might find it interesting that Ehrman DOES NOT believe EVERYTHING in the gospel texts are historically unreliable, e.g. He thinks it is almost certain beyond doubt that Jesus existed and was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate. <= does that prove anything beyond that fact? No.

In his books Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted, Ehrman exposes theologically-inclined edits to the bible bullshit.  No wonder the jesus freaks hate him!

My complaint with Ehrman is that after spending 20 years pissing on this self-serving bullshit which xtians call holy he still cannot make the break completely away from his early training and belief.  For that you need a real historian.  Richard Carrier.  He doesn't give a flying fuck about theology.  "Just the facts, ma'am."

[Jehanne]

You need to clarify, though, that these are not complete manuscripts.  For instance, the P52 fragment from the Gospel of John is the size of a credit card:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Li...apyrus_P52

P.S. In fact, here's a list of all New Testament manuscripts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ne...ent_papyri

Sorry what I meant was manuscript not "manuscripts", and I was referring to P75:




Just to explain it since you probably can't read Greek - it's late 2nd century and on the same page that Luke ends (pictured above) John begins. I hope that clears that up. The manuscript is mostly complete, I'm not looking it up, but it has about 100 leaves (pages) that still exist today of the original representing more than 60% of the original manuscript. And of course it's Papyrus (made from reeds), not Parchment (animal skin); with parchment writings being much more durable of course.

P52 is fairly unique, most manuscripts are not a single scrap of a manuscript, again without looking it up the average length of a NT manuscript is over 400 pages: but most of those are from the 4th century on and are parchment. When looking at papyrus, those are generally earlier, and the break down and turn to dust much quicker, and they had less books (if any) bound together. In this case, P75 is just Luke-John, whereas your 4th and 5th century manuscripts usually contain the whole New Testament.

No, I can't read Greek, but assuming that P75 was written around 175 AD...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_75

that's nearly a century after Luke and John were composed.  But, look at the textual variants:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_75...l_variants

In Luke 11:4, the phrase αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου (but deliver us from evil) is omitted. The omission of this phrase is also supported by the following manuscripts: Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Codex Regius, f1, 700, vg, syrs, copsa, bo, arm, geo.[13]

So, even near the end of the 2nd Century, the Lord's Prayer was not yet completely established!  Who knows the variants that were taking place prior to P75?!  That's Professor Ehrman's point -- no one really knows the true words of Jesus.

[Jehanne]

It's a great video; anyone who watches/listens to this video cannot possibly have any confidence in "Biblical" Christianity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9US4OxB0Dk

So, "believers", what say you?

Now understand Passover is not a day long event with a single meal. No it is a weeks worth of 'passover meals of unleavened bread, bitter herbs, leading up to the sader feast.

I am not an expert in Jewish history, but it seems to me that the author of John wanted Jesus, "the perfect Lamb", slaughtered on Passover, when the other lambs were being slaughtered in Jerusalem.

[Minimalist]

What a strange coincidence.  I posted this just a while ago.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-43692.html

[Minimalist]

Now understand Passover is not a day long event with a single meal. No it is a weeks worth of 'passover meals of unleavened bread, bitter herbs, leading up to the sader feast.

I am not an expert in Jewish history, but it seems to me that the author of John wanted Jesus, "the perfect Lamb", slaughtered on Passover, when the other lambs were being slaughtered in Jerusalem.

That is correct.  And it is completely different from the synoptic bullshit.

[madog]

I find that there are differences between the different books of Woo ..... "In the beginning" .... "Once upon a time" ....

[robvalue]

I really like this video, it's a snappy takedown.

I never thought of the miracle argument he uses at the end. Of course, no sceptic would take such a thing seriously anyway when all you have are textual accounts, but the probability argument is strong. Even if you said that miracles are exceedingly unlikely, that's enough in itself.

The problem is defining what a miracle even is, of course. But anything that's an undemonstrated phenomena is never a good candidate for a likely explanation.

[Lek]

It sounds like he's participating in a debate as he was talking fast to get it all spoken in an allotted time period.  Plenty of evidence is available to show that the gospels were written earlier than he is assuming.  He also failed to mentioned that the writers of 1 Peter and 1 John clearly claim to have been with Jesus.  Saying that the two individuals that the women saw at the tomb were either men or angels doesn't cut it because angels almost always appeared in the form of men.  If one gospel account refers just to Mary Magdalene and other gospels refer also to other women, it isn't a contradiction.  If this was a debate I'd like to hear the rebuttal, but there is already plenty of rebuttal available to all his arguments from other sources.

[Edwardo Piet]

Call me superficial, but I make a point not to watch videos that are advertised as DESTROYING or PWNING viewpoint or person xy.

Wow, fair point. I don't even need to watch the vid in the OP now. I mean... let's face it you totally PWNT it.