Jesus Interrupted By Bart Ehrman

[WinePusher]

Chapter 1: A Historical Assult On Faith

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?

[EduChris]

...I must admitt, the first time I ever heard someone question the veracity of Paul's theology was when I first joined this forum, and I never really got it...

Attacking Christianity by attacking Paul is one of the oldest tricks in the book. People are hesitant to attack Jesus directly, so Paul becomes the most convenient punching bag.

...I would like to explore the reason why Ehrman went from an evangelical to an agnostic for a brief moment...I really don't think that scholarship would erode a person's faith; while critically reading the bible would revel many inconsistencies and contradictions to postulated Evangelical theories (like how Moses wrote the Pentateuch) it shouldn't neccesarily cause someone to disbelieve in God. Ehrman's personal story seems to be that he rejected Christianity based on the problem of evil rather then biblical inconsistencies, so I don't buy the notion that biblical scholarship would erode a person's faith.

Ehrman himself states that he is not trying to erode certain kinds of faith. The only sort of faith that cannot survive scholarly scrutiny is the rigid, immature, brittle fundamentalist faith. Ehrman said his own scholarly studies moved him from a fundamentalist to a liberal Christian, where he remained for many years. He does state that it was the problem of evil, not the pursuit of scholarship, that caused him to become an agnostic.

[EduChris]

...I am reminded of toothless wolves(apologist) in sheep clothing (pseudo-intellectual)where unable to take a bite have only managed slobber all over the meal and make it rather unappetizing. I will get into this further in the other thread where your anti-Bart purposes are more clear.

Just a reminder that I am the founding member of the "Ignores the Uncivil" group, and I intend to do just that. If you want to have a discussion, fine and good, but if you are going to continue this sort of stuff I will put you on my ignore list.

[WinePusher]

I don't see any insight and I am not ready to move on to chapter 2 yet as I have only addressed the first post.

That's fine, Chapter 1 can still be discussed.

-The Exodus probably did not occur as described in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Unless Ehrman, or someone on here, can point out the errors or flaws in the Book of Exodus, I see no reason why we should doubt the text. It is consistent with Near Eastern History, that the Israelites were in Egypt for a long period of time and a figure "Moses" came and liberated them from Pharoah. One of the only ways out of Egypt and into the "Promised Land" was through the Red Sea.

And once they came our of the red sea the Israelites would automatically hit the Sinai Desert, where the Bible claims they wandered for 40 years.

There are lots of reasons to doubt the text and there are arguments even among theists. The stories or tales are not consistent with the data or with each other and just because there are a limited number of ways out doesn’t mean that everything is true and factual.

I'll look over the thread you presented. But I am not arguing in favor of the miracle of the parting of the seas, I am arguing that their was a mass exile from Exodus by a group of peoples known as the Israelites led by a man named Moses. Do we agree on this?

-The Conquest of the Promised Land is based on Legend.

Unfortunatly I cannot address this in great detail because Ehrman's claim is very shallow and unsupported. It is a fact that the Israel conquered the Promised Land, and the walls of Jericho have been recovered, so what's the issue here?

What is shallow and unsupported are you complains to such a point you can’t even think of any and want to blame that on him too. How are his claims shallow? What do you find shallow? Tell us something deep. It isn’t a fact “that the Israel conquered the Promised Land�and the data doesn’t support it as much more except as something Josiah would have liked to believed as justification for their expansion and royal ideology and temple cult.

I consider his claims shallow because they are unsupported, he merely listed them in his first chapter without any support. But hopefully as we get further into the book he will go into detail and build a case for them.

If you don't think that Israel conquered the promised land, you'll have to write away nearly all of Ancient Near Eastern History and account for the remains of the walls of Jericho. If Israel never conquered the land of Canaan then major events such as the Babylonian Exile, or the Division of the North and Southern Kingdom would have never happened.

-The Gospels misrepresent the teachings of the Historical Jesus.

This is a huge topic in and of itself that a group of people known as the Jesus Seminar tried to discern. But the onus is on the atheist to disprove the Gospel as an accurate representation of Jesus' life and teachings.

It is not only atheists that understand the gospels. Just saying it isn’t true and prove it is not true doesn’t count and making claims about the actual words is up to you to prove.

If the Gospels mis-represent Jesus' teachings, they either:

1) Copied and wrote Jesus' discourses down on paper in error (such as grammar mistakes and/or fragment errors).
2) Or they purposefully misconstrued the teachings of Jesus.

-I'll address both these points later on since I'm limited on time.

-The Acts of the Apostles contains Faulty Information of the Life of Paul.

Another unsupported claim. The chronology of the Acts is consistent with the dating of Paul's many letters, but this can be addressed in more detail later on.

How does the dating or chronology show anything?

I apologize that I won't respond in detail to the bible passage at this moment, I don't have much time. But let me say that I'll primarily be going of of this page when talking about the problems of the acts.

[Druijf]

I consider his claims shallow because they are unsupported, he merely listed them in his first chapter without any support. But hopefully as we get further into the book he will go into detail and build a case for them.

If you don't think that Israel conquered the promised land, you'll have to write away nearly all of Ancient Near Eastern History and account for the remains of the walls of Jericho. If Israel never conquered the land of Canaan then major events such as the Babylonian Exile, or the Division of the North and Southern Kingdom would have never happened.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect Ehrman to back up all these claims since the point of chapter 1 is to give an introduction and to tell about the historical-critical method and how it differs from devotional reading, and that insights that students are confronted with in seminaries are often in conflict with commonly held beliefs and can lead to a crisis of faith.

I think we can better discuss Ehrman's specific claims about the Bible he works out in later chapters, else I fear we'll get lost in details.

If you want to debate the historicity of the narrations of the Exodus and the Conquest we can better read books that are specifically devoted to these issues. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar, specialized in textual criticism, not an archaeologist or Old Testament Scholar. I only want to remark that you can't state that believing the Exodus didn't happen would imply that you have to believe that the Babylonian Exile didn't happen. You will have to evaluate these cases individually, what are the sources and how close are they to the events they describe? what can we conclude from the study of material culture? (etc.) I don't believe that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, that does not force me to think that Julius Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon.

Back to the book. Questions I think are more interesting to debate with regard to chapter one:

1. What do you think about the historical-critical method? Is it a right way to study the Bible?

2. Do you think that historical-critical studying of the bible and devotional reading rule each other out?

3. What do you think about what Ehrman says about pastors who don't share insights from seminary with the members of their church community?

4. Would it be a problem to you if the Bible contains contradictions and stories that are not historically accurate?

[WinePusher]

I must admitt, the first time I ever heard someone question the veracity of Paul's theology was when I first joined this forum, and I never really got it.

You really aught to get out more.

The places I go out to don't really discuss these sorts of things....

This is not a new idea. The Ebionites and Nazarenes were Jewish Christians who rejected Paul. There are a large number of non-canonical texts, some of which have been discovered during the last hundred years, and which show the many movements and strands of thought emanating from Jesus' life and teaching or which may be contemporary with them, some of which can be contrasted with Paul's thought.

Let's first establish that Paul didn't pen a biography of Jesus' life as the Evangelists did, he mainly wrote theological discourses that were sent to churches throughout the Roman Empire.

Robert Eisenman sees Pauline Christianity as a method of taming a dangerous sect among radical Jews and making it palatable to Roman authorities. Is the view of the nineteenth century German theologian F.C. Baur, founder of the Tübingen school, that Paul was utterly opposed to the disciples, based upon his view that Acts was late and unreliable and who contended that Catholic Christianity was a synthesis of the views of Paul and the Judaising church in Jerusalem. Now the Tübingen position has been generally abandoned, but the view that Paul took over the faith and transformed the Jewish teacher to the Son of God is still widely taught.

So you're objection to Paul seems to be based on his methodology of evangelism rather then his teachings and his theology. But like I said, are their major doctrinal differences between Paul and Jesus? From what I read in Romans, Paul's theology falls right in line with Jesus', such as:

1) Total Depravity/Original Sin
2) The Institution of the Last Supper
3) The Doctrine of the Second Coming
4) The Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body

If Paul really doesn't represent Jesus' teachings, I would have thought the early church fathers would have thrown his works in with the other Gnostic texts, rather then add them to the biblical canon.

The early church fathers, for the most part, were apologists for Paul, who shoe horned Jesus into Paul's new religious movement. The gnostic texts, representing a different religious tradition with perhaps earlier roots were thrown out by the Pauline movement.

Yes, they were apologists for Paul because they recognized the truth in his theology and teachings. They would have set their criteria with the preconcieved idea that Jesus was divine, and the Christ, and if any texts undermined this assertion then they would have been considered heretical. But I did a little research, and here's a list of the supposed contradictions between Paul, the other disciples and Jesus.

1) Paul taught Salvation by Faith Alone, James taught Salvation by Faith and Works
2) Paul's theology may have been misconstrued, because he would have relied heavily on hearsay from the other Apostles such as Timothy

I really don't think that scholarship would erode a person's faith; while critically reading the bible would revel many inconsistencies and contradictions to postulated Evangelical theories (like how Moses wrote the Pentateuch) it shouldn't necessarily cause someone to disbelieve in God. Ehrman's personal story seems to be that he rejected Christianity based on the problem of evil rather then biblical inconsistencies, so I don't buy the notion that biblical scholarship would erode a person's faith.

The more you know about the Bible, the more you learn that it is not God breathed. It is a human document. If the Bible is not a reliable witness to God, then the very existence of God can be questioned.

I think the Bible is a secondary witness to God, the first would be nature and creation. But that's a little bit irrelevant, the more you know about the Bible the more you know that you can't interpret every story literally. So the problem is, can the Bible still be a reliable source of truth if it isn't read literally. I say yes.

[WinePusher]

1. What do you think about the historical-critical method? Is it a right way to study the Bible?

I think its an excellent way to study the Bible, and I think it should be the standard way of studying biblical texts in all universities and seminaries. While I believe in divine inspiration, I alos think we should approach the text in a secular manner.

2. Do you think that historical-critical studying of the bible and devotional reading rule each other out?

Not neccesarily, I htink they are seperate realms and domains of inquiry though.

4. Would it be a problem to you if the Bible contains contradictions and stories that are not historically accurate?

Not at all, I think that the Bible does contain some historical and scientific discrepencies but that only shows that it shouldn't be read in a literal manner.

[Druijf]

Not at all, I think that the Bible does contain some historical and scientific discrepencies but that only shows that it shouldn't be read in a literal manner.

I would like to get of clearer picture of your view on inspiration and inerrancy.

Can you give me an example of a story in the Bible that you wouldn't read in a literal manner? Is there a statement of Ehrman in the first two chapters that would be troublesome to your beliefs about the Bible if he is correct?

[Druijf]

1) Does Paul accurately represent the teachings of Jesus Christ?

In chapter 2 Ehrman only discusses discrepancies between the life of Paul as it is portrayed in Acts and the information Paul's letters provides us. Paul letters themselves show that he had some controversies with Jewish christians, that show that his message was not undisputed. Furthermore, Jesus' message in the Q-document is more about the kingdom of God than about himself, his death and resurrection.

2) Do the many differing views of the resurrection show that it is a false event?

No, but I think that the differences show that the gospels do not show us that or how it actually happened. Paul's view on the resurrection does not require an empty tomb.

3) Any additional thoughts on the information Bart Ehrman Presents?

I think that most discrepancies Ehrman points out are real discrepancies that cannot be harmonized, and so the doctrine of inerrancy cannot stand. Why do you think?

Maybe we can discuss a discrepancy that is treated in chapter 2 in greater detail.

[EduChris]

...insights concerning what you have not yet read...

I just finished Ehrman's book this weekend, and it was everything that I expected. It was a popular rehash of all the same old liberal conclusions that have been around for the past many decades. As Ehrman himself states, there is nothing new in his book at all.

...What he is trying to do is get the scholarly understanding out there beyond the classroom and seminaries to the populace and has done a pretty good job at being readable ... It is called indoctrination...

Okay, I guess we can agree here (although obviously you wanted to put the hot "indoctrination" potato into someone else's lap).

...I find it amazing that even after taking both fundamentalist and liberal courses you still had not read the Bible...

Um, I was a high-school and college student at the time, and not terribly motivated to read the Bible. Why does that seem so "amazing" to you?

...many devoted Christians tha have no problem with the methods...

Indeed, as Ehrman himself says, many people smarter and more philosophically astute have looked at the same liberal scholarship and yet remained Christian. The problem is not so much with the methodology as with the abuse of the methodology and the unwarranted conclusions that result from this abuse.

...What we see in your use of the methods is a rather slanded use where they are ok if the agree with you doctrines but in error or biased when they disagree...you are projecting you own needs or desires...Your whole post was an ad hominem fallacy...I tend to see your whole approach as Disingenuous as in less then straightforward.

Okay, so these feelings may be mutual, but that shouldn't stop us from discussing Ehrman's book, should it? How about ditching the personal slander and just sticking to the subject from now on?

[Cathar1950]

...What we see in your use of the methods is a rather slanded use where they are ok if the agree with you doctrines but in error or biased when they disagree...you are projecting you own needs or desires...Your whole post was an ad hominem fallacy...I tend to see your whole approach as Disingenuous as in less then straightforward.

Okay, so these feelings may be mutual, but that shouldn't stop us from discussing Ehrman's book, should it? How about ditching the personal slander and just sticking to the subject from now on?[/quote]
I think you could first extend the ditching of personal slander against the author as well and deal with the substance of the book and not your repeating what you hear or read from others on Ehrman.
He was perfectly in line with the last 200 years of Biblical studies and related studies.
Claiming there are no problems and trying to explain away all of the problems with slash and burn apologists and slash and burn attack upon the author is not anything near a book debate.
Is this a straw man argument or just a double standard?

Attacking Christianity by attacking Paul is one of the oldest tricks in the book. People are hesitant to attack Jesus directly, so Paul becomes the most convenient punching bag.

Erhman seems to be your punching bag as you toss others punches.

But I am read to move on.