Jesus Interrupted By Bart Ehrman

Debate specific books

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
WinePusher

Jesus Interrupted By Bart Ehrman

Post #1

Post by WinePusher »

Chapter 1: A Historical Assult On Faith
Bart Ehrman wrote:The Bible is filled with discrepanies, many of them irreconcilable contradiction. Moses did not write the Pentateuch and Matthew, Mark Luke and John did not write the Gospels. It is hard to know whether Moses ever existed and what, exactly, the historical Jesus taught.
Major Points:

-Bart Ehrman begins his book by attempting to debunk many of the traditionally held beliefs of Christians and Biblical Fundamentalists by pointing out many "supposed" contradictions found in the Bible.
-He trys to draw a clear and distinct line between evanglical scholarship of biblical texts and his "historical-critical" method of the bible.

Questions for Debate:

In his first chapter, Bart Ehrman makes the following claims: The Exodus probably did not occur as described in the Hebrew Scriptures, the conquest of the promised land is based on legend, the teachings of the historical Jesus are misrepresented, and the Acts of the Apostles contains faulty information on the life of Paul.

1) Can the Bible be considered a historically, reliable document in light of Ehrman's claims?

2) Are Bart Ehrman's claims about scripture true, or are they simply wrong and a result of ignorance?

User avatar
Cathar1950
Site Supporter
Posts: 10503
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:12 pm
Location: Michigan(616)
Been thanked: 2 times

Post #71

Post by Cathar1950 »

Adamoriens wrote:
WinePusher wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:Is there any hope to resurrect this discussion?
I had to return my book so I can't continue moderating it. Anyone who has the book can add questions or add topics as they wish. However, I do remember what the next chapter was about, so let me add a few questions pertaining to the next chapter.

Chapter 5: Jesus-Liar, Lunatic or Lord.

Questions:

1) Is Jesus Christ a historical figure, is their sufficient evidence to support the existence of Jesus.
2) Was Jesus a liar, was Jesus a lunatic, or was Jesus actually the Lord?
Darn. It was getting interesting. Oh well. As far as the Trilemma goes, Ehrman rejects it as simplistic and offers a fourth option: Jesus was mistaken.
Or legend, and I tend to think it is a little of both while I still have doubts about what we can really say for certain about any historical Jesus.

User avatar
Adamoriens
Sage
Posts: 839
Joined: Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:13 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Post #72

Post by Adamoriens »

Cathar1950 wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:
WinePusher wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:Is there any hope to resurrect this discussion?
I had to return my book so I can't continue moderating it. Anyone who has the book can add questions or add topics as they wish. However, I do remember what the next chapter was about, so let me add a few questions pertaining to the next chapter.

Chapter 5: Jesus-Liar, Lunatic or Lord.

Questions:

1) Is Jesus Christ a historical figure, is their sufficient evidence to support the existence of Jesus.
2) Was Jesus a liar, was Jesus a lunatic, or was Jesus actually the Lord?
Darn. It was getting interesting. Oh well. As far as the Trilemma goes, Ehrman rejects it as simplistic and offers a fourth option: Jesus was mistaken.
Or legend, and I tend to think it is a little of both while I still have doubts about what we can really say for certain about any historical Jesus.
I didn't think of that. Lewis was clever to phrase the argument in such a way that all of the options he offers assume the historicity of the Gospels. Funny Ehrman didn't pick up on that in this instance.

Druijf
Student
Posts: 69
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:25 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post #73

Post by Druijf »

Ehrman has published a book about the historical Jesus intended for the general audience. It strikes me however, that he does not consider arguments for a non-apocalyptic view of the historical Jesus seriously enough (Borg, Crossan, although he mentions them in footnote 9 of this chapter). The arguments he makes in this chapter are mostly derived from E.P. Sanders Jesus and Judaism. I did a paper on that book once. It is a reasonable position, but not the only one. If you see Jesus as an apocalypticist, then you will interpret sayings and deeds in an apocalyptic framework.

WinePusher

Post #74

Post by WinePusher »

Cathar1950 wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:
WinePusher wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:Is there any hope to resurrect this discussion?
I had to return my book so I can't continue moderating it. Anyone who has the book can add questions or add topics as they wish. However, I do remember what the next chapter was about, so let me add a few questions pertaining to the next chapter.

Chapter 5: Jesus-Liar, Lunatic or Lord.

Questions:

1) Is Jesus Christ a historical figure, is their sufficient evidence to support the existence of Jesus.
2) Was Jesus a liar, was Jesus a lunatic, or was Jesus actually the Lord?
Darn. It was getting interesting. Oh well. As far as the Trilemma goes, Ehrman rejects it as simplistic and offers a fourth option: Jesus was mistaken.
Or legend, and I tend to think it is a little of both while I still have doubts about what we can really say for certain about any historical Jesus.
The legend option doesn't work unless we want to go down the Jesus myther road, which is an out of mainstream position to take.

Jesus died by crucifixion, a well accepted fact. This rules out the option of Jesus being a liar, the lunatic option really doesn't have much of a firm ground to stand on. So, if these are the three option we have, the option that Jesus is the Lord stnads above all others.

User avatar
Cathar1950
Site Supporter
Posts: 10503
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:12 pm
Location: Michigan(616)
Been thanked: 2 times

Post #75

Post by Cathar1950 »

WinePusher wrote:
Cathar1950 wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:
WinePusher wrote:
Adamoriens wrote:Is there any hope to resurrect this discussion?
I had to return my book so I can't continue moderating it. Anyone who has the book can add questions or add topics as they wish. However, I do remember what the next chapter was about, so let me add a few questions pertaining to the next chapter.

Chapter 5: Jesus-Liar, Lunatic or Lord.

Questions:

1) Is Jesus Christ a historical figure, is their sufficient evidence to support the existence of Jesus.
2) Was Jesus a liar, was Jesus a lunatic, or was Jesus actually the Lord?
Darn. It was getting interesting. Oh well. As far as the Trilemma goes, Ehrman rejects it as simplistic and offers a fourth option: Jesus was mistaken.
Or legend, and I tend to think it is a little of both while I still have doubts about what we can really say for certain about any historical Jesus.
The legend option doesn't work unless we want to go down the Jesus myther road, which is an out of mainstream position to take.

Jesus died by crucifixion, a well accepted fact. This rules out the option of Jesus being a liar, the lunatic option really doesn't have much of a firm ground to stand on. So, if these are the three option we have, the option that Jesus is the Lord stnads above all others.
The fact of being crucified is unrelated to any of your pun like three L's. As well as legend and mistaken we have misunderstood, all plausible with out making Jesus a liar or lunatic and al he needs is some followers or students to be their lord and master as believers do not make for facts.
There his no reason to go down some road as a straw man to dismiss with out becoming some myth er as if it were some dangerous slippery slope with out ignoring the mythic elements.
The crucifixion rules out nothing of the sort.
It isn't always crazy to be mistaken or misunderstood.
He didn't have to be a liar if other were wrong or misunderstood.
We don't have just one interpretation or one story all by later believers some of which claimed visions, revelations and dreams, and the crucifixion negates nothing nor lends any credence to the answers or apologetic.
Do you know how many people the Romans crucified?

Druijf
Student
Posts: 69
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:25 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post #76

Post by Druijf »

WinePusher wrote:
Jesus died by crucifixion, a well accepted fact. This rules out the option of Jesus being a liar, the lunatic option really doesn't have much of a firm ground to stand on. So, if these are the three option we have, the option that Jesus is the Lord stnads above all others.
Well, it must be clear by now that these or not all options we have. Lewis presents a false trillema.

User avatar
McCulloch
Site Supporter
Posts: 24063
Joined: Mon May 02, 2005 9:10 pm
Location: Toronto, ON, CA
Been thanked: 3 times

Post #77

Post by McCulloch »

WinePusher wrote: Jesus died by crucifixion, a well accepted fact. This rules out the option of Jesus being a liar, the lunatic option really doesn't have much of a firm ground to stand on. So, if these are the three option we have, the option that Jesus is the Lord stands above all others.
You leave out the option that little can be confirmed about what the real historical Jesus said about himself. That he was put to death by the Romans is widely held. That people claiming to be his followers wrote lots of stuff about him, decades later is well accepted fact. So one option left out of the famous C. S. Lewis trilema is that what was written about him by the writers of the New Testament may not have been literally accurate.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John

User avatar
Adamoriens
Sage
Posts: 839
Joined: Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:13 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Post #78

Post by Adamoriens »

WinePusher wrote:The legend option doesn't work unless we want to go down the Jesus myther road, which is an out of mainstream position to take.

Jesus died by crucifixion, a well accepted fact. This rules out the option of Jesus being a liar, the lunatic option really doesn't have much of a firm ground to stand on. So, if these are the three option we have, the option that Jesus is the Lord stnads above all others.
History is not divided up into legend and fact. There may be a mixture: history with a little something I call legendary embellishment thrown in.

WinePusher

Post #79

Post by WinePusher »

McCulloch wrote:You leave out the option that little can be confirmed about what the real historical Jesus said about himself. That he was put to death by the Romans is widely held. That people claiming to be his followers wrote lots of stuff about him, decades later is well accepted fact. So one option left out of the famous C. S. Lewis trilema is that what was written about him by the writers of the New Testament may not have been literally accurate.
That's certainly a possibility, but whether that possibility holds any credence is another story. The Gospels tend to converge at a point where they support the positive claim that Jesus Christ was the Lord, and there hasn't been presented anything to show that this is literally inaccurate.

WinePusher

Post #80

Post by WinePusher »

Cathar1950 wrote:The fact of being crucified is unrelated to any of your pun like three L's.
It certainly rules out the possibility of Jesus being a liar. If we're approaching the story as skeptics, it would be implausible to assume that Jesus knowingly lied about his nature and died for something he knew to be a lie.
Cathar1950 wrote:There is no reason to go down some road as a straw man to dismiss with out becoming some myth er as if it were some dangerous slippery slope with out ignoring the mythic elements.
When you bring up the legend option, I'm assuming you mean that the narratives and life of Jesus are mostly legend, fabricated by people. That does lead us on the path of the Jesus Myther, and it would be your onus to show that the texts mentioning Jesus (both biblical & extrabiblical) are fabrications.
Cathar1950 wrote:We don't have just one interpretation or one story all by later believers some of which claimed visions, revelations and dreams, and the crucifixion negates nothing nor lends any credence to the answers or apologetic. Do you know how many people the Romans crucified?
Yes, crucifixion was a common practice used by the Romans. If you accept Jesus' Crucifixion, I would think that you also accept the crime Jesus was charged with, the King of the Jews. If Jesus was lying about his nature, it would be reasonable to think that he would admit he was lying when faced with death, but he didn't. So the option that Jesus was a liar is not a credible option.

Post Reply