To quote from Misquoting Jesus, page 252, by Bart Ehrman, "Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times… If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. What he means by that (I think) is that even if one or two passages that are used to argue for a belief have a different textual reading, there are still other passages that could be used to argue for the same belief. For the most part, I think that is true.”
Was it not Metzger who pointed out that Ehrman posits various things in his popular works that he would not dare to say in his more scholarly writings? Without having heretofore read much of either of German's stuff (albeit having watched a fair numbers of his YT videos), I would contend that whether it is Metzger or another scholar, that such a criticism seems valid.
@@colinwrubleski7627 But I thought Bart says “wE dOnT hAvE tHe oRiGiNaLs.” Frank Turek has said that. For example Bart thinks there’s contradictory issues between the gospels when in reality they’re typical complimentary eye witness testimony, not a true A, non-A contradiction.
@@therockstar17 Bart says crazy stuff painting a totally different picture than what he actually writes in his published works. Even in them he often paints one picture like in misquoting Jesus that it's so unreliable then when flat out asked he states completely to the contrary that it's reliable so he can get away with saying to his peers he believes virtually exactly the same thing yet in public paint another picture to be controversial and for self promotion. More people need to call out his behavior lol.
Bart Ehrman's strongest points haven't convinced me. Ehrman himself says that although there are many variations in the New Testament manuscripts, NONE of them compromises Christian doctrine.
Dr Ehrman's point is not about Christian doctrine. His point is that there is solid evidence that supports the notion that we can't say for sure what the gospel authors originally wrote. He supports this notion with the fact that Mark was estimated to have been written somewhere around 70AD, but the earliest scrap of Mark that we actually have was created around 220AD (P45). We do have copies of Mark that were made after this one, but they are few. Monks started making lots of copies in the 9th century. These copyists were well trained and made few errors/changes. Between 220AD and the 9th century was a different story though. In the few copies we have that were made during that period there are many more errors/changes. So ... the earlier a copy was made the higher the likelihood there were errors and/or changes. This makes a strong (if not airtight) case that there were most likely lots of changes to Mark between it's original writing and the earliest small scrap we have. This makes his convincing case that we can't say that what we have today for Mark is "authoritative" if by that term you mean we know what the author of Mark actually wrote. What Christian doctrine is based on is something quite different.
Bob Snead Maybe, or maybe not. But, even if Mark doesn’t exist, that is only 1 out of 4 gospels, 37 out of NT, and 66 out of the Bible. The revelation from the remaining books about God and the gospel are still the same.
@@tarnos4153 yeah. I mean its not like theres more to the story of every single book of the mew testament, rightm Mark's the only one with a hinky past. All the others are 100%...fine. FFS
@@johnpaulmccarthy6112 And regrettably, you spelled "your" when it should have been "you're", though you're correct that Sablin is on the imbecile spectrum!
Bart's books list all historical facts and documents. That info is taught at all bible colleges for last 100yrs+, all pastors know it, but no one telling the truth to their church!
@Mupp Bert Bible itself admits that the Bible contains lies. Jeremiah 8:8 "but behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie". Actually your fellow Christians who have been to bible college will admit the Bible can't be the inerrant word of God. There's lots of irreconcilable contradictions in the Bible - if one is true the other can't be true, so which one is it?! God sent the Quran (final revelation) to reform the Torah and Gospel that became a "Bible" compiled by man...Hadiths another manmade "Islamic bible" are Satan's attempt to corrupt Islam, the way true Christianity got corrupted and became Anti-christ instead!
@@zahara6355 Actually, there are plenty of manuscripts from around about the time of Mohamed and many from before. When Mohamed stated the bible was the true word of God he was referring to the bible of his time, hence he said to ask the people of the book if there were any queries. Therefore, as we can be confident the Bible has not been corrupted since the time of Mohamed an academic defeater presents itself against Islam.
@@fogboquiz5700 I know why the Quran says to Mhd's ppl in the 7th century "ask those who had the scripture before you" - because it's proof it's the same msg AND the ppl who already have a scripture have been advised of this coming prophet Mhd. The ppl who manipulated the Bible hid it from later generations. With that proof from the early Christians, Islam grew quickly from one person to thousands. Today, Christians who can understand the signs in the Quran would be the first to recognize that truth, more than a born Muslim!
@@zahara6355 well your speculation seems baseless, unless if you want to put that gospel of barnabas in your argument, you didnt even put any evidences regarding your claim but only from the quran. The scriptures contain the same messages but not your twisted and falsely interpretation one, the final prophecy from the Old testament is the Messiah ruling as the High Priest,King,Prophet where this Messiah had exist since the ancient times and by the New testament it was regarded the Word(Memra) in the flesh(John 1:14) the final prophecy isnt another prophet bringing another interpretation appearing as a person outside King David bloodline and from the arabian tribe to fit his desire while containing several myths and legends from biblical stories whom he heard from the locals. Youre not putting any proof regarding your claim, while muhammad can only fit the bible prophecy as the false prophet
@J M you know I can refute your koran here and now Hafs 37:12 "But you wondered..." Warsh 37:12 "But I wondered..." Which is the one from heaven mhmedan? Your ŕèĺìģion is nothing but man made 😂 *Yasir qadhi: Standard narrative has got holes in it* Allahu ackbar mate 😚
@J M dude, you just totally liked your own comment 😂 why you mzlms so desperate? Oh and I totally like how you brush away my pointed obvious contradiction so I'll ask you this time, what's the difference between "I and you" ? Three books use different persons in the same verse, not different accents but different words and meanings which change the whole verse 😂 Oh and btw, at least in b-ble it says the additional verses added in your fabricated books you got nothing, you have one old koran containing 116 suras while another contains 111 or 112 suras And if you have the 7 qiraats as you say you do, what exactly did uthman burn and *leave only one copy off* ? 😂🤣😂🤣😂 You mzlms are hilarious attacking the b-ble when you know koran is a far more corrupt book I literally just proved to you that the allah of the koran doesn't exist
Your perspectives and experiences always color your opinion on the evidence. I am an attorney. In the law, it is axiomatic that no witness sees the same accident. This is not a prejudice; it is grounded on a lot of experience. Therefore, small differences in the Gospels are not something that would concern me a lot. In fact, if they were in perfect accordance with each other, it would raise suspicions that the authors conspired with one another for some reason.
That may not be a problem for you, but the differences in the Gospels raise questions as to biblical inerrancy which is something held by the Catholic church as well as by a considerable portion of evangelicals.
@@annat4209 No problem, but fair warning, this is going to be long. Firstly, you have the Catechism of the Caltholic Church which clearly states in Part 1/Section 1/Chapter 2/Article Three (Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture) that "The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and WITHOUT ERROR teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." Moving beyond that, we also have clear doctrinal statements from various popes which affirm biblical inerrancy. For example, Pope Leo in Providentissimus Deus (20-21) stated that "For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily, as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. . . . It follows that those who maintain that an error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration or make God the author of such error". Pope Pius has also continuously supported biblical inerrancy in his works like the Lamentabili Sane (where he condemned the proposition of biblical errors) and Divino Afflante Spiritu (37) where he claimed that " the substantial Word of God became like to men in all things, except sin, so the words of God, expressed in human language, are made like to human speech in every respect, except error”. I could keep on going talking about a bunch of different Popes who confirmed biblical inerrancy but I think I've made my point.
Even if we had, say, the very original Gospel of Mark, in his own handwriting, all we'd know is what Mark wrote. Wouldn't tell us if it's factual. And it could still be objected that he was biased or incomplete, etc. and that this was the original lie. This kind of argument, that we don't have the original, is about infinite regress.
Seedofwonder. Quite so. Congratulations on passing the logic 101. But you must have noticed that there is a kind of skeptical mind for which no form of evidence is ever sufficient, except for the particular worldview in which it is embedded and submerged and which it mistakes for reality itself.
@@polemeros Absolutely. It applies equally to both sides. Whether a skeptic or an apologist, the most important questions transcend the documentary realm.
We would have the further problem that we don’t know the context of what he writes down. One tradition has it that he was the companion ion Peter and that “Mark” is really his version of a long sermon by Peter.
I hate when apologists try to say that we have way more manuscripts than other ancient documents. That doesn't matter at all. We don't build religions aren't Plato or Homer. We don't claim Plato or Homer is the infallible word of God. I'm fine saying that the Bible is mostly reliable, but we can't say that it's 100% perfect.
I mean, having more copies doesn't make it more likely to be original. Compared to the greek classics, scribes have much more reason to make changes because of theological reasons.
no, there would be no reason to change the Bible in order to reinforce or protect the dogma. we have millions of copies of the Bible and the differences are extremely miniscule. as far as we live today in 2024, we have so many different sects, denominations and theologians that constantly debate eachother about Christianity. this has always been a tradition. debate is something that is always been part of Christianity. the Church is famous for having councils amongst bishops. this is in fact healthy and taken from Greek philosophy.
@@LevisH21 are you just ignoring the massacres led by the Christians against those who they called heretics? And the burning of any book they deemed opposing “orthodox” dogma??
@@tookie36he’s just putting the filter of his faith infront of his studies, Bart ehrman doesn’t do what NT wright does, Bart looks and the New Testament as a scholar and historian, wright looks at it as a theologian and practitioner
I have heard Dr Ehrman say that the Bible is THE most well-documented book from ancient times based on original materials (paraphrased, as well as I can recall.) Seems to me that Wright and Ehrman agree on this point.
I find Bart Ehrman to have rather simplified arguments for the non existence of god. How do we know anything happened in history without documents and word of mouth? Does Bart question all history, or just the parts related to god and Christ? As a matter a fact the Bible is the most well documented manuscript ever made. And historical events like the crucification of Jesus are very well documented, witnessed by countless people who give very similar accounts of what transpired.
The Crucifixion is not well documented. Documented enough for us to say it most certainly happened, but nowhere near enough to say what happened there. We don't know for certain when Jesus died, the extent of Pontius Pilate's involvement, where he was exactly crucified, who took him down from the cross after his death, where he was buried (if he was at all), who saw his apparently empty tomb, etc. You'll find discrepancies if not missing blanks for every one of these questions.
@@alifleih Dates are not really important.. where it was year 1 or year 3 is irrelevant.. it happened during Pontious pilates time as governor ,what is really important is the story of Jesus ,that christianity contrary to any other religion , have 4 witness of Jesus miracles and teachings. And you didn't saw the video when it was told there are hundreds of witness of jesus story. The bible did not include all of them ,because it will be a repetitive story. But in the real world, today.. When police wants to solve a crime incident.. they need witness to reconstruct a crime scene.. and just 1 witness can be enough to send someone to jail. so guess what? Jesus story in the bible have 4 witness ,that tells their version of the story oof jesus life.. then outside of the bible there are hundreds of witness who knew jesus and wrote about him.. stories outside the bible.. like the letter that Pilates wrong to Caesar about Jesus and how he did not found any wrong doing on him.. He even describe Jesus as a blond man,, with celestial appearance and blond beard. that was very different to every other man . there is also the Gospell of Mary , the Gospell of THomas and the Gospell of Judas.. All tell the same story of jesus crucifiction and how he did miracles.
I think ehrman when you read him isnt scary at all, and hes quite intelligent. He stop believing because he thought God was implausible, so of course hes going to explain the resurrection with a naturalistic lense, if you dont believe in God theres no other way to see it
Yes. Church's are the problem. It sickens me the way every single Republican President has 2 bow to the church. They have NO business being involved politically. It goes against the Constitution. People like Franklin Graham uses his "pulpit" 2 tell "Christians" who 2 vote 4. It's none of his damned business.
Maybe. But Ehrman is more than qualified 2 give his views. He is a force 2 be reckoned with. The church leaders know this. They R terrified of him. Terrified of losing there money. "Follow the money." Ehrman started out like any good Christian. But as is the case, 4 the rest of us, the more U learn, the more disillusioned U become.
No one isn't saying is unintelligent but he's scary in that he's leading people to hell on a viewpoint that frankly isn't even supported by other historians
@@dahyunbibimbap9850 his less mainstream opinion would be the idea that Jesus wasn't buried, he has admitted himself that most historians tend to argue he would have been buried, i would ask why if he was trying to "lead people to hell" why would he admit that his opinion is a minority one. He even in a blog post recommended a scholar dale allison who argued jesus would have been buried, so ehrman is willing to engage in debate and share differing views, like scholars are supposed to
Look at the person Jesus Christ first and foremost. If we don’t have that personal connection to Him we have nothing. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 ESV
There is a recent 2019 debate between Bart Ehrman and Peter J. Williams (Principal, Tyndale House, Cambridge University) with Justin Brierley moderating. Recorded in July and released this Fall (link): ruclips.net/video/ZuZPPGvF_2I/видео.html
The scientism described by CS Lewis back in the 40's and 50's has taken on a life of its own today. The literary market for anti-Christian narratives is incredibly broad. But, the new arguments are nothing more than the old arguments.
The changes Ehrman refers to are changes in manuscripts. The issue is, we can circumvent nearly all those changes by going back to 2nd-5th century manuscripts. And these changes are on peripheral issues, like was Jesus explicitly or implicitly mad during a chapter in Luke.
I don't know for sure, but it looks like they're using Shure SM7B'S www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SM7B--shure-sm7b-cardioid-dynamic-vocal-microphone Hope that helps!
Does anyone have a link to the debate between Ehrman and Wright that he mentions? I can't find it here on RUclips. Is it perhaps behind a paywall somehwere else?
i also want to emphasize the role of having trust in the early church. that is a huge deal and is basically the difference between being a skeptic and a believer.
Bart's entire body of work misses the forest for the trees. Mere variations in text between the Gospels don't change the fact that Jesus died and was resurrected. It's not a textual debate. It's a historical one. Why we keep on and on about differences in the details between eyewitness testimonies is beyond me.
I think it’s a theological one. Bart Ehrman isn’t trying to convince people Christianity is wrong. That’s not his job. So if someone believes the resurrection happened, they should be allowed to because that’s based on faith. However, as a historian, no, there is no evidence for the resurrection. Doesn’t mean you can’t believe it if you are religious, but it would mean there’s no historical basis for it.
The interviewer (what is his name?) mentions an interview he did with Ehrman where he said, basically, that there's relatively few passages in the NT that we have doubts about. Does anyone have a link for that? I can't find it.
Not specifically, although I watched it years ago. I think it is the debate he had with peter williams. The host in this video here justin brierley is right that even bart ehrman's best examples of changes in the manuscripts are literally just things like whether jesus got angry in the book of mark or as most modern translations have jesus felt compassion. What I discovered from the Williams ehrman debate from peter D williams is that both the greek words for angry and compassionate are very similar looking in appearance, so a scribe may have thought that the angry greek word was a spelling mistake and sought to correct it to compassion. Bart ehrman actually believes he knows which is "the original". Bart has been good at sensationalising these things. It is how books are sold. But ultimately the problems are nowhere near as big for ehrman in his academic books as they are presented in his best sellers for the laymen. Peter D williams is one of the few christian scholars that can handle a rampaging ehrman. But if the quote you are looking for is not found in that debate, try listening to all of the ehrman unbelievable appearances.
I felt just the opposite. I watched an old interview where Bart debates Dinesh D’Souza. Bart didn’t keep in the spirit of debate and I felt like he allowed his anger and hostility to creep in. Of course it’s only my opinion but I felt Bart was trying to assign motive behind Dinesh’s intentions instead of simply debating him on the issues. He also make wild statements like “there is nothing after death” which he could never prove. I felt Bart to be a cold, joyless man who makes his identity about being against the existence of god. How can someone’s identity be dictated by something they don’t believe to exist?
I disagree. He debates to win, he doesn't pursue. Rather he likes to throw out a litany of arguments (each of which requires a 30 minute answer and cannot be responded to in one setting); so he tends to come off better to "win" the debate. I do appreciate his struggles with fundamentalism, however (which we should find problematic, imo!).
Ehrman's views require extreme scepticism about history. He also claims that memories are too unreliable for the gospels to be accurate recollections of Jesus' words. If that's true no oral tradition is accurate. The Iliad and the Odyssey were oral tradition. The Buddhist scriptures were an oral tradition for 400 years before being written down. The gospels are closer to Jesus' time than a lot of other ancient writings are to the original event.
The thing is, there were people(such as the Hebrews) who made a lifestyle out of precise oral tradition. The Hebrews were also much more thorough when it came to copying. The problem is the New Testament was transmitted by anyone who could read and write, often under hidden conditions because they feared being persecuted. The accuracy standards are just not there. Likewise(though slightly off topic) a collection of religious men decided what texts were going to be included in the bible and you know its impossible to remove bias from a religious person. We may be missing half of the original bible for all we know. Homer's writings were meant to be stories and Buddhism is a tolerant, general philosophy. Christianity is not a very tolerant belief(many would argue that they're not following Jesus very well), often leading people to completely alter their lives, alienate their families, attempt to deny homosexuals their rights etc. You have to admit it's FAR more important that we make sure a book like that is extremely accurate than what people always view as a story(Homer). Heck, even by Christian standards missing key components in the overall message can lead to divine punishment...
@@thomasakatidalforce7987 The textual differences between the NT manuscripts are not enormous. And the point I was making was that if we apply extreme scepticism about memories consistently, you wouldn't know that Buddhism is a "tolerant, general philosophy". The historical Buddha could have been a warlord for all you know. We can only go by the evidence of the early Buddhist texts as to who the historical Buddha was - and they were written down after a 400 year period of oral transmission.
@@oliverford5367 Yeah, I do see what you're saying and you do make a solid point. There are also many many thousands of Greek texts for the New Testament which far outstrips any other historical person. However, I do think it's valid to point out(for any historical figure it applies to) there is lack of third party, uninterested commentary on the events of the NT. There is some mention of Christ and Christians but the only mention of Jesus in the "supernatural" sense is from a Christian holy book. I'm curious because you seem like a learned individual, do you subscribe to the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Or do you feel the same standards apply no matter what event is being claimed as true?
@@thomasakatidalforce7987 I think the same standards apply, otherwise it's not disinterested science. Who decides what is "extraordinary"? But thus doesn't mean I believe that everything in the NT happened. The infancy narratives are very hard to believe, and you're right if "the bodies of many holy people came to life" you'd think Josephus and other authors would have mentioned it!
@@oliverford5367 Yes you do bring up good points. The same standards perhaps should apply, but there is also a common sense standard. You're right, if people were raised from the dead and walls crumbled at the precise moment someone died from crucifixion then it's logical to assume the story would be mentioned everywhere, if even in an attempt to debunk the claims. However, you may have unintentionally brought up another point about the Bible. The book(s) may(in fact, some say probably) have never been intended to be taken as literal history. Maybe they were just written to prove a point or to spread a philosophy...such would certainly change the standards of criticism in a sense it would be a critique of the philosophical idea and not the historicity.
No, it doesn’t matter how many copies you have, it’s irrelevant. What matters is: do you have the original texts ? Also, what exactly does “original” mean ? The text that a writer first wrote, including notes ? The text the writer “intended” to be the finished text based on the “first written” text(s) ?
I can imagine, that debating Ehrman was difficult for NT Wright, cause NT Wright really does not understand. Having massive amounts of copies from copies, without having the originals, does not add the slightest to their reliability. How hard is that to grasp? Kids learn the telephone game (or chinese whispers in the UK) in Kindergarden. It is the same thing.
Because when you have thousands of games of telephone and they all basically agree or you get a vast majority of agreement, then that tells you about the original. Get it now?
@@mikewilliams6025 you are assuming that they agree and that when they were finally written down, the authors didnt just use the previous texts. It is very likely that Matthew and Luke by using Mark as a source.
After these things I looked, and behold, a door opened in heaven . . . and a rainbow was around the throne” (Revelation 4:1,3). Then I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, and with a rainbow on his head (Revelation 10:1). Ezekiel 1:28: "As the rainbow appears that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of His brightness all around.” “I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth: When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the clouds . . . I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant.” (Genesis 9:13-14,16)
So does it matter if the oldest copy of a manuscript goes back to the 3rd century? You can have thousands of copies of a none genuine or fabricated copy. Does this matter? I think you should watch Bart’s debates with an open mind
You fail to understand how copies of copies are proof of inerrancy. You see these copies have been found all over the world and all have the same message. If you out your bias aside, that means that the original manuscripts had the same message. The copies w were carefully written so that should the originals be destroyed, the message would not be lost. What Muslims fail to see ironically is that the Quran commands them to ask the people of the Book for info regarding Jesus and that the Quran is meant to be the culmination and the fulfilment of the NT and the OT. If the Bible is corrupt, how come the Quran asks Muslims to read the Bible? Does that mean that Allah cannot preserve his word as apparently the Bible is corrupt? What's worse is that the message of the Bible totally contradicts the Quran. God's grace and love vs subjugation, Jesus dying vs not dying, Jesus being less important that Mohd and yet Jesus is in heaven and Mohd is still in the grave. I could go on.
@@remainhumble6432 who cares if you have 1 million copies of something if you can't even tell if the original was reliable or not. as for the quran asking muslims to read or gather info or rely on the bible in any way, provide a source please, unlike you we don't accept random statements without proof.
@@SimpleReally the problem is whether you actually understand that thousands of copies right across the planet saying the same things are actually proof of the original. Now whether that just goes over your head and whether you are actually genuinely seeking Truth is not up to me but entirely in your court. And as for accusing me of not having evidence on what I am saying, unlike you.... Really? Is that misplaced arrogance really necessary. But anyhow read the following and see how your own prophet consulted the Torah and Injeel repeatedly. Surah 10:94 Surah 29:27 Surah 2 :126-129 Surah 6:154-157 Surah 42:13 Surah 4 :136 Surah 41:43 Surah 40:78 Surah 2:4 Surah 2:177 Enjoy. You are welcome BTW. 😉
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35 There is a God who is personal and because we are personal and we cannot claim to know more than our creator and I believe and trust in God and the best evidence for him that he is powerful enough to perfectly preserve his word. And if Jesus was who he said he was and ride from the dead, then life and reality is far more complex that simple naturalism which cannot explain these issues
What about 200 years before the first significant copy? Does it matter how many copies after that? What changes could have been made in first 200 years? We have no idea
Manuscripts for other books are also unreliable, but I won't go to Hell if I dont follow those other books. So the consequences of any other book being altered is almost nonexistent, whereas the consequences of the Bible being altered is much much more severe
So the Bible presents the God of your dreams? The God of the Bible seems pretty nightmarish to me! And I note that dreams are usually not realities. The problem with your analogy is that we are not talking a human incarnation of God appearing before you but an ancient book written by (largely) anonymous men in languages we don't speak for reasons we can only guess. What makes you believe this book is the "word of God"?
Not a good analogy. You speak of human flaws but is the bible of man..or God? If man..obviously...there will be flaws...if God...then really...should there be flaws?. I would think not. To often people attempt to humanize the supposed works of an all knowing, timeless...blah...blah...blah...God. You discredited yourself...and your imagination. Supposedly he existed in some timeless...spaceless realm before the universe began...then...created a universe..a possibly infinite mind blowing universe. And you credit this "God" with creating your inconsistent & confusing and often times cruel and abusive piece of work you call a bible.??...unbelievable... Sorry...human flaws do bother me...but I try to find a way to accept mine and those of others. In regards to those of the humans that produced the bible..I have come to accept them and move on.
This is unfortunately not Erhman's case. Erhman himself has said multiple times that it was not biblical inconsistencies (and that in fact he was still a Christian many years after accepting biblical inconsistencies) that caused him to lose his faith but rather the problem of suffering
@@oliverduke1173 I meant the problem of evil, the question of how to reconcile presence of evil and suffering with an omniscience, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent God. I just called it "problem of suffering" because when I call it "problem of evil", people sometimes want to debate the definition of evil, which isn't really the point of the question.
it doesn't work like that, because we don't care whether or not Lucretius really existed, we just value the writings because they hold some sort of wisdom; it might have come from someone else altogether (we say it's Lucretius because this is how it appears but in actuality we don't give a toss). However, in the case of Jesus it's important no matter the content, we must ensure that it comes from him cos , allegedly, our life depends on that. When it comes to jesus we have to have a special approach not found anywhere else.
@@JRobbySh Well, Jesus, allegedly, was a man like us but not only like us, he was also fully god. So our approach must be a unique approach because the claims are big and the stakes are high. We don't know whether the scriptures are true, no matter how much we want them to be true. Which copy, which translation? We wouldn't have so many denominations if the story were universally true.
@@mickqQ The point he makes is valid. Whether or not "Lucretius" wrote those works is a matter of historical curiosity and nothing more. It really doesn't matter. The Bible and the Qur'an (and any books that people claim are "God's Word") are another matter. If big and important claims are made about these books and their contents then the historicity and authenticity must be considered very seriously. If a cult developed that believed Lucretius was a god and the works of Lucretius are divine then the same considerations would apply to those works (in the context of the claims of said cult) as apply to the Bible and the Qur'an.
endofscene Words should be judged on what is said , Not on who is saying them . To say we have to make a special case for Jesus, is to already admit there is something special about Jesus.
Out of those manuscripts how many are from the 1st and 2nd centuries? How do we know one of the more popular manuscripts, not the original, was copied the most?
Good one -- Bart's probably a better witness for the Gospels than he cares to admit, especially when he willingly admits that there just aren't any doctrinal issues at stake. His takedown of the argument that Christ never existed is fairly delicious.
@@richardkatz8713 yup, you are correct. He believes strongly that Jesus existed. He even got into a heated blog-war with the most prominent myther, Richard Carrier.
Ehrman says there was a man called Jesus, but he clearly states the miracles never happened. So don't pretend Bart didn't have a good reason for leaving Christianity.
that's why textual analysis exist, by the manuscripts we can have a idea of what is a addition or not, a lot of Bibles have a indication of what verses are added or not
Even if one accepts that the Gospels retained the oral tales unchanged, there's the problem of presenting as true such things as virgin births, supernatural beings, creating food out of thin air, suspension of gravity, transmutation of elements, instant healing, bodies rising from graves, etc How reliable is any text that presents these as real?
@@TheEchoeman You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "The gospels are true because they writers were there" then when shown by their own words that they weren't switch to, "They are true because they were inspired." Which is it? If Jesus had said, "I am god" or "God is my physical father" he would have been stoned for blasphemy. Jews had long rejected divine humans from god-woman union because it was the basis of most pagan religions! God couldn't impregnate a woman because he was a spirit, as Jesus said.
@@smb123211 Jesus walked on water, calmed a violent storm in one verbal order, then raised dead people back to life.... do you think Jesus would be scared of getting stoned? Well, saying that Gospel writers were INSPIRED can be disputable. Who says they were inspired anyway? Did God or Jesus say that? Those people who are saying they were inspired, are the Evangelicals because their motive is to convert as many people to Christianity as possible. If these Evangelicals did not promote the idea that the authors were inspired, then who would believe these authors? They could be just making up stories. Which probably they did anyway. If somebody says he was Inspired by God, you would not challenge that person's claims. Yes?
@@TheEchoeman That is just so...infantile. Jesus was a JEW who said salvation was keeping the Law and loving the "one" true god. He said several times his mission was for Jews - not gentiles. Read your Bible! Jesus never said, "Salvation is believing I am god's son who died for your sins." That interpretation did not evolve until decades later. His first followers were observant Jews led by James. Paul's genius in bypassing the difficult laws of Judaism eventually triumphed. Jesus's return, once the sole reason for believing, faded away when it was obvious he was a no-show.
@@smb123211 Read my Bible? What Bible verses are you quoting anyway? Jesus said several times his mission was for Jews? Did Jesus say that? Where did you get this info? You need to cite your sources, otherwise you are making things up.
@Veiled Heat don't worry about aristotle. We're talking about the Bible aka word of God. This book is only a fairy tale. It is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise people as false and by the rulers as useful. Most preachers all over the place are just using this book to make money. It's a big business. This is pure fairy tale and lots of contradictions.
Templeton (after whom the award is named) and Ehrman have both cited losing faith in God over the issue of evil. The latter has done so much damage with his popularized books, including "Misquoting Jesus"! Will he feel the embarrassment Peter did, after the last crow cried, when he stands before the living Christ? I recall a depressed woman calling into a show, after Bart spoke about that particular text, asking, "What do we do now, if all we believed in wasn't true?" To which Ehrman responded (paraphrasing), "We always have our humanity... we always have those we love around us." This is exactly why we need to master apologetics... this is exactly why we need to research what wolves we're releasing our college-age children to!
Unfortunately (but forgivably), they're frequently conflating two separate issues here, both of which deserve a separate discussion: (1) The reliability of the various existing manuscripts to reflect what the original documents actually said ("Is this a reliable copy of the original document itself?"); and (2) the reliability of the original documents to reflect the historical events described therein ("Can these canonical gospels be trusted to communicate historical details about events that happened decades earlier?"). For the first topic, we can get into the Textual variants which Wright rightly suggests are generally minor (but not insignificant). For the second topic, we can get into the discrepancies between overlapping accounts of the same events, which Ehrman rightly suggests are occasionally irreconcilable from a literal-historical point of view. Both scholars are making valid points, even when they disagree directly; but it's especially disappointing when they just talk past one another like this.
You make the wrong assumption the secular historical account in question is not wrong which has time and time and time and time again been proven the case over the biblical accounts. Look into that subject. The track record the biblical text has demonstrated gives us the confidence to trust the historicity of it's claims over any counter historical claim at this point as being correct. It's an either or issue, the biblical text is clearly more reliably always.
The translator J B Philips said that when he actually got to grips with the Greek texts themselves that respect for the New Testament turned to conviction of its truth. He said that nowhere do they give any impression of being manufactured.
Check out newer views on gospels. Genre suggests that is exactly what happened. A lot of narrative and dialogue fiction in order to emphasise meaning. Not historical accuracy. The ancients did not view history like we do. Tropes from Homer and other greek literature and mythology. Allusions to the OT, eg John the baptist like Elijah... The gospels are likely a form of Greek religious literature
New? I heard stuff like this (in a different guise) 50 years ago. Just the same tired old cliches regurgitated by those who have too much time on their hands. Anyone can make a connection to anything if they try hard enough. Greek literature? Never heard such nonsense.
I think we know what they wrote pretty well. It's more a matter of whether we believe it and Bart does not while brother Wright does believe what they wrote.
Ehrman's own standards would suggest that we should stop believing that most of the known ancient figures even existed. He can't seem to notice the forest because of a tree.
Similarly to WLC’s struggle to erode Ehrman’s point of view that the resurrection is *not* the most plausible explanation for the resurrection because Ehrman is an atheist historian, Wright tries to make the same point based on Ehrman’s previously rigid fundamentalist Christian background. The gist being that Ehrman is not depending on scholarship, rather on a presupposition of implausibility -no matter what. This is merely Christian gymnastics once again to prove what cannot be proved.
But Ehrman is depending on his assumption that no amount of evidence would ever justify belief in something like a resurrection. That's a sign of bad faith on Ehrman's part.
The Gospels are not JUST historical accounts written in a grecoroman biography style about Jesus. It's much more than that, and of course Ehrman being a natiralist cannot comprehend that. It's a kind of gps about the soul's way back to the Father. It's nearly a necessity of reading the Bible and especially the New Testament with a theological context of a Platonic and Neoplatonic framework.
What if Judas didn’t die when he hanged himself? Matthew 27:5 simply states that Judas went away and “HANGED himself”. However, in verse 6 and 7, we read that the Chief priests picked up the coins and bought with them “the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers”. Now, what is interesting is that according to Acts 1:16-19 this was the same field Judas Judas was buried. Did the priests use the coins to buy that land on the same day when Judas hanged himself and apparently died? Or they bought it later and when Judas died later, they buried him on that land? When I first read the two accounts, I concluded that Judas hanged himself, his dead body eventually got bloated and eventually he fell which resulted in the mess described in the book of Acts. But the question is, what if Judas didn’t die on the day he hanged himself? And he might have died later and it was the reason why they buried him at the “Potters Field” which the priests bought with his coins. There is another story on how Judas died and this was by Apollinaris of Laodicea, Papias ( a writer of ancient Greek) and he writes; “Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such extent he could not pass where a chariot could easily pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out...” There is a longer version of it. It is an interesting story on how Judas died and it fits with what is described in Acts. Apparently, Judas survived when he hanged himself.
Having hundreds of copies of a COPY that is decades after the original, with out having the original, is pretty useless in proving the copies are accurate to the original.
Not if they corroborate one another with great distances between the location of manuscripts. It makes it more sure, not less. The differences between manuscripts are not substantive and only exist in a considerable minority of over 3000 documents.
Totally agree man. Having thousands of copies of falsehoods doesn’t somehow make it authentic to the original truth. Just makes it a consistent falsehood.
@@iknowyourerightbut4986 exactly. The point the OP made about copies not necessarily being accurate is a good question to have. However, the obvious next step is to ask if there are differences between the copies. As you said, there aren't any major differences that are a serious concern. Also, it's interesting that those making that criticism of lots of copies being meaningless seem not to be textual criticism and manuscript study experts themselves...
When a human being believes they must accept the notion of a supernatural dimension or mysticism they will go to extraordinary lengths to sculpt the evidence so that it ideally suits their personal motives.
How can you verified 1000 copies, what methods do you used ? Text had to be same but the interpretation could differ. Now out of that 1000 copies, which one came with the original language (aramaic). As we know by translating, mistake oftentimes comes in substitution of words, and peoples who conducting translation always have some predisposition in their original mother tongue and more
We have almost noting original by Aristotle. Everything we have are copies of copy-books produced by his disciples. Yet we do have and use his logic. and have a partial grasp of what he meant by metaphysics. a consist has emerged that we ought not discard,
I think Wright's analysis of different approaches coloured by different backgrounds is valid. However, the crux, it seems to me, is not the reliability of various manuscripts with minor discrepancies, it is whether the originals were works of faith or history. The word gospel has come to mean incontrovertible but are they? Or are they books written as acts of devotion by believers who never met Jesus and lived in another country, a generation later and speaking another language?
i mean, that’s ultimately a faith decision for you to decide. however, i can just say this. the bible is described as “a sharp and active living word”, and we certainly see this today. some muslims in middle eastern countries are having visions of Jesus speaking to them with words such as “I am the alpha and the omega”, which are from the book of revelation. I also hear stories of new people reading the bible for the first time and being transformed. Whether you believe Jesus to be true or not is your decision, but I think human experience testifies to the fact that the gospels seem to be more than just fake words on a page, but are instead alive and active today.
@@elanordeal2457 I'm sorry but I see no evidence to support that assertion at all. Religious minded people of all faiths have visions all the time and Muslims honour Jesus as a prophet second only to Mohammed. If a few have visions of Jesus saying something that seems to go against Islam it is hardly significant of anything except the variety of religious experience. The human experience you cite applies to people who already believe, or have already heard of Jesus and the gospels. It is in no way surprising if some people claim to be moved by the text. That, after all was the intention of the authors. I might be moved by the beauty of the Quran but that does not make it the true word of God which supersedes the Bible. As for a description of some text as "a sharp and active living word", I am presuming this was written by a believer? We are all entitled to our beliefs and I would never tell anyone they were wrong, unless I could prove my position. and for god and Jesus there is no proof for or against. However, I prefer to live my own life based on things that can be demonstrated to be factual, not on words in books or words spoken by other humans which pretend to know things they do not and cannot know. No matter how sincerely they may be held, beliefs are not facts.
@@Outspoken.Humanist the thing is, some things are not empirically provable - you feel love, but you can’t measure it exactly how it is. God would really be no true god at all if we could measure him by mere human science and measurements, and reduce him from an almighty being to a mere lab experiment - that’s what post-enlightenment rationalism tries to do. rationalism is great for science, but even rationalism cannot answer the basic questions of meaning asked by a 5 year old. there gets to a point where the empirical measurements of science fall flat, and man is left empty, wondering what life means. I appreciate your honesty and courtesy. I can only hope and pray that maybe one day the beauty of the gospel becomes real to you, and you encounter Jesus one day.
@@lukemedcalf1670 The problem is that you do not know that to be true, you only believe it. We can be reasonably certain the gospel authors were not themselves eyewitnesses. First, because they wrote in educated Greek and not the Aramaic of Jewish workmen of Judea. Secondly, because it seems strange indeed that anyone writing a gospel would not say they could testify to the the truth if they really had been present. We are then forced to consider their sources and we have no information whatsoever. None of the authors make even a passing mention of anyone. Finally, when we consider the various different stories of Jesus' life spread across the four gospels and Acts, including the two totally different pre-birth narratives, the early years, the ministry and all the various locations, it is certain that no witness could have been present for all of it. The likelihood then is that either there were a great many individual sources or that much of it was invented. Initially by Mark, then 80% of that was copied by Matthew & Luke, who added their own embellishments, which are never the same and then later, John decided to rewrite the whole thing from a totally different perceptive. If we remove the bias of belief from the equation, we are forced to admit it is highly unlikely that any of it is reliable history.
Epicurus , Homer , Virgil , whoever . Lets not pretend that anyone is claiming that any of these people were the son of god . One would expect , at least , a higher standard of proof if one is asserting that anybody is / was god made man
The problem with Ehrman is that like most atheists his objections aren't intellectual, even if he is. His objections are purely emotional, which is why he has no real arguments to make. And NT is quite right: Ehrman will always try to change the subject or answer a question with a question whenever he's pushed on something.
Claiming Bart's objections are PURELY EMOTIONAL (and that he therefore has no 'real' arguments) seems to me to be a very emotional utterance to make. Moreover, I have just watched a debate where Bart had to fight tooth and nail to keep the argument on topic while the Christian guy used almost every underhand tactic in the book to deflect onto other points he was more comfortable with. In any case, I find your black-and-white form of argument extremely unhelpful, and smacks of the dismissiveness that drives many people away from the church. But hey, that's just my opinion.
A statement like some person is using mainly emotional arguments requires evidence not just a declarative statement. Otherwise it is just name-calling.
I have listened to hundreds of hours of Bart Ehrman. I would say he is passionate instead of emotional. But one thing he is for certain is an intellectual.
Bart Ehrman's arguments are ones that could only be argued from the position of someone living two thousand years after the facts. It has to assume what was available to each generation as we go back in time. It ignores the content of the text about how it was written and treats it outside of it's claimed, spiritual author. How many original (autographs) did the writer of Lukes gospel produce? One? Twenty? 50? The internal text has Jesus after his resurrection with his eleven remaining disciples for forty days, so who says the gospels we'rent written and established then? Paul quotes the events of the gospels, so what makes us think he was trying to remember oral sayings, rather than having the gospels himself to study? This is because modern scholars have said they were written decades after the events. But why do they say that? What's their evidence? To the critic these are embellishments and fraud: Mark 13 :11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. Luke 1 :1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, :2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; :3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, :4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed. Luke 24 :25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: :26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? :27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Act 1 :1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, :2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: :3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: John 21 :1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself. :2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. John 21 :21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? :22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. :23 Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? :24 This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. :25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. 1 Peter 1 :24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: :25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. 2 Peter 1 :16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. :17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. :18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. :19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: :20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. :21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. ___ Luke 22 :17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: 1 Corinthians 11 :24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 1 Corinthians 10 :21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. 1 Corinthians 10 :16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? ___ Revelation 1 :1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: :2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. :3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
From what I know- Bart left Christianity not for finding the whole thing to be a sham or the data not being enough, but for personal and philosophical reasons, namely the problem of evil and suffering.
I think it was for lots of money and sexual encounters outside of marriage. And who knows what else. In other words, he embraced evil things which he no longer wants to call evil. They are. But he gets away with it, in his mind, if there is no God. He's turned his back on God. He embraces evil now but calls it nothing. He has no reason not to lie lie about his reasons for turning on God. He's an atheist. He doesn't have to tell the truth, now. And doesn't want to. He's in the devil's playground.
Most of those thousands of thousands of copies that we have today come after the year 800. Mark was written around the year 65 to 70... And we are nowhere close to having the originals. The earliest scrap of Mark we have is I believe p52.... And it's dated to around the year 250. And the earliest copies had the most mistakes... And all of the copies that came hundreds of years afterwards we're copied from the ones that have the most mistakes. There's no way we will ever know what your original text said or meant for that case.
Right on Brandon. In addition Dr Wright uses as justification for the reliability of the New Testament that we have many, many copies. While we do have many copies, Dr Ehrman points out the large majority were created much late,in the ninth century I believe. It's true these later copies are more consistent that the earlier copies. However, using sound logic we can extrapolate with some degree of certainty that the earliest copies in the 150 years between the autographs we don't have and the first copies we do have probably varied even more. So Dr Wright's support for the reliability of the New Testament we have today is suspect and Dr Ehrman's argument quite sound.
@@bobs4429 thats the trick. It isnt what's said...its what isnt said. Easy to convince someone...and rasy to be convinced when your audience/you are unaware of the massive hole that's being ignored
@jpapan1 Speaking of massive holes, one lies in the strain of argument sustained by many in this comment thread, in that the very broad terms “corruption” and “variation” have not been narrowed down to precise phenomena. Indeed, Ehrman’s own admonition of caution warrant against the more conspiratorial of judgements expressed by some internet skeptics, as cited in this article which tackles the issue in brevity well, www.tektonics.org/lp/nttextcrit.php.
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” King James Version (KJV)
jpapan1 that passage is about Israel’s whoring after other Gods and nations. Are you five? Can you not read a reliable historical document with a mind for truth and stop being a child?
The end of Matthew is hardly trivial if it was - as most modern versions of the NT openly admit in the marginalia - a late addition from a hand not in the original (which of course we do not have anything close to).
As an Englishman I'm qualified to say this many is very very English. He did miss out that the New Testament is considered by those who believe it as a far more important work than some jolly nice poems. I thought Prof. Bart said that the differences didn't compromise mainstream Christian beliefs, and stayed a Christian a long time after he initially lectured from his current standpoint
Thanks for uploading this video! Personally, I like NT Wright and value his opinion very much. First I want to make a practical comment, is this about the Gospels(as in the title) or about the New Testament as a whole(that is what they mentioning in the clip). I think he didn't really react on the problem Bart Ehrman is mentioning. He compares it on the old argument that we have more manuscripts of the New Testament than any other manuscript, and therefore we have a solid ground(that is a fast conclusion). We don't have thousands and thousands of manuscripts of the first or second century. All those thousands go back to a handful of schools. And to say that it is about 1 or 2 is not really fair, it is a lot more than that(in the whole New Testament). I had hoped to get an answer that had a bit more nuanced.
Proof will remain elusive. Two impossible statements: We can be certain the text is authentic/corrupt. But you are correct: appealing to the confidence classicists have in other, vastly more poorly-attested sources sheds no light on the present question. I would add one thing, though: prior to Constantine's conversion, we know copies of the New Testament were actively destroyed in tandem with other forms of persecution. The number of surviving witnesses speaks both to how aggressively they must have been copied, if there were such efforts to destroy them, and secondly the availability of these texts for reference when making the ones that survived. Yes, it is (from our vantage) an argument from silence. But not from the perspective of the scribes who bequeathed to us such a rich textual history.
Sure thing that many scribes were famous for committing pious fraud, notwithstanding the fact that different cultures spewed out copious amount of stories and copies of copies decades later by unknown Christians who collected , combined and edited stories that became popular among early christian communities..What we know that within the first hundred years of the Christian era, not a single passage to be written as History or can be produced to show the existence of a Jesus of Nazareth...either by the great Philo, Josephus , Philosophers, Geographers and Historians. @@seedofwonder
@@lgree4627 "Sure thing that many scribes were famous for committing pious fraud, notwithstanding the fact that different cultures spewed out copious amount of stories and copies of copies decades later by unknown Christians who collected , combined and edited stories that became popular among early christian communities.." No question about that. But the difference re: the New Testament is that, whereas we can confidently assume this happened with every religious group, guild, association, etc., we have so much textual evidence that can demonstrate which books, manuscript families, and variants were regarded as authoritative for which groups in a given region. Again, what you're saying is correct, but the reason we can know this with such clarity is because it was seldom the case that a "pious fraud" made its way into the copies of copies produced by rival groups. So when you have a reading that suddenly appears in 4th century Alexandria (e.g.) but NOT in Rome, Asia, Achaia, etc. you can easily deduce that it is secondary. And so what you have, as I mentioned above, are text families that descend from these communities and the variants they introduce to suit their doctrinal preferences, which is why there is no one manuscript that is to be treated as original. So the way text criticism works is that even some of the most "piously corrupt" editions contain original readings _in those places_ where they can be shown not to have been edited. This is true when you considered the additional witness of translations into other languages and parabiblical literature that comments on doctrinal debates in the early church (both local and wide). "What we know that within the first hundred years of the Christian era, not a single passage to be written as History or can be produced to show the existence of a Jesus of Nazareth...either by the great Philo, Josephus , Philosophers, Geographers and Historians." Depends what you mean. Greek versions of Josephus show signs of Christian editing that do not appear in, e.g., Syriac translations that pre-date those edits and were never brought into conformity with the few Greek MSS we have. But if you mean that, just because Josephus knows of a crucified man who started a movement, a detail he was obviously told about and didn't personally witness, and therefore it _proves_ nothing, I agree. If you think he didn't mention him at all, you are buying into a conspiracy theory.
Ehrman himself says that the og would only have a few minor sentences changes, a few dozen at most. Bart doesn’t consider it a massive deal, so better did Wright
What he is not mentioning is the reliability of the genre. Religious texts have been notoriously unreliable. How can NT Write say that only small, irrelevant bits of text have been added when the whole prof of the resurrection was added, by another author, to the gospel of Mark--the earliest gospel and the foundation of matthew and luke. That's not a small detail to brush away.
So at 1:30 he literally admits that people might have added or deleted text to the bible and then proceeds to say that the Bible is no different than any other book that anyone else writes. Very interesting, i respect him for saying that. It's about time that Christians give up this silly notion that the Bible is the original unchanged inspired word of God. If it was before, it no longer is today. In that, he and Bart are in agreement.
_Was_ it the "inspired word of God" before? That's not at all clear (and I doubt Ehrman would agree with that bit). We would need both (a) evidence of God existing, and (b) evidence they definitely inspired the original texts of what became the Bible to claim what you just said. I'm not aware of us having either of those things.
@@majmage yeah I'm starting off on a premise of belief. That comment was not meant for atheists or agnostics. it was meant for my believing Christian Brothers\sisters.
@@m00dy7 So you're fine just ignoring the fact that we have no basis for believing this book was the inspired word of God? I don't really see what relevance it has _who_ your statement was intended for -- no matter the audience, if we could prove this was the word of God, you could've done that. But you didn't...
@@majmage of course it makes a difference who the statement was intended for and who the audience is. That's fundamentals of speech and writing, know your audience! My comment was specifically and narrowed to others that believe in god. Not intended for those that have no belief. if you want to have this discussion that's fine but I don't want to hijack this comment thread with another topic. I'll post a new comment on the video and you can reply to that. Look for it. This is my last reply on this thread regarding your comment.
"Almost all the other texts from the ancient world we know only from one or two medieval manuscripts." Except we don't have 2.2 billion people today claiming that those other ancient texts are the word of God, with many claiming they're inerrant.
@@jerbib9598 It seems to mean that God "Himself" directed what was being written (for "His" own holy purposes). But different Christians seem to have different ideas of what it means for the Bible to be the "God's word".
@@trevbarlow9719 It makes a big difference because: (1) Most people don't care too much about ancient men's fables and opinions, but most people do care about what 'God' would say. (2) People who believe the Bible to be the "word of God" are likely to try to align their thinking and behaviours with at least parts of the Bible, and this can affect the rest of society. (3) The Bible makes claims about the afterlife which, if true, are very important for everyone to know. (4) If the Bible was the "word of God" then surely an omnipotent deity could preserve it intact.
(4) If the Bible was the "word of God" then surely an omnipotent deity could preserve it intact. Yes, Bible promoters seem to be very disrespectful in their thoughts about their God. God can do most things, but God can't do everything, therefore we have these stories. It's not a respectful view of an omnipotent god.
I think Mr Erman's objection to Christianity is proof of the words of the apostle Peter who said that people will be willfully ignorant in the last days because of their lust, and for no other reason (2 Peter 3:2-4). Seeing as there's more than enough evidence for the faith of Christianity, the only logical explanation behind anyone rejecting Christ after being confronted with the evidence is solely on the basis of volitional rather than intellectual grounds.
Its not adding a "gloss" its fabrication and forgeries - e.g. last 12 verses of Mark, 6 letters of Paul, the story in John with the woman taken into adultery etc
"Way way back"... great thought, except it obscures the problem. The lack of NT actually using a number is the magician's slight of hand. Way way back is supposed to make you comforted. The reality isn't so comforting. He obscures that with the rare exception of fragments of Matthew, "way, way back" translates to 800 years after the fact, 350 years after the Church is official. In other words, nice thought but easily discarded.
Or maybe another religion is right, islam. Quran an-Nisa verse 82: Do they not then reflect on the Quran? Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have certainly found in it many contradictions.
@@asimdridi7272 oh shove your Quran up yours, Islam is a fake religion, Mohamed was possessed, if you think your religion is better than Christianity then how did chapter 53 verse 19-20 come about? Take your backwards religion to the dump where it belongs
In Surah 53:19-21 Allah has raised questions/objection (in respect to the malpractices at that time 1. appointing more gods other than one Almighty 2. burring alive the female child in the ground in the name of god) and He (Allah) Himself gives the answer to these questions in Verse 22-23 19 Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza? 20 And Manat, the third one, the other? 21 Are you to have the males, and He the females? 22 What a bizarre distribution. 23 These (al-Lat and al-Uzza And Manat) are nothing but names, which you have devised, you and your ancestors, for which Allah sent down no authority. They follow nothing but assumptions, and what the ego desires, even though guidance has come to them from their Lord. Conclusion: Not be in hurry in raising equerries. We must read few verses in prefix and suffix to understand the verses in it’s complete context. Quran is word of Allah, free from any contradictions in itself.
@@feduntu In Surah 53:19-21 Allah has raised questions/objection (in respect to the malpractices at that time 1. appointing more gods other than one Almighty 2. burring alive the female child in the ground in the name of god) and He (Allah) Himself gives the answer to these questions in Verse 22-23 19 Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza? 20 And Manat, the third one, the other? 21 Are you to have the males, and He the females? 22 What a bizarre distribution. 23 These (al-Lat and al-Uzza And Manat) are nothing but names, which you have devised, you and your ancestors, for which Allah sent down no authority. They follow nothing but assumptions, and what the ego desires, even though guidance has come to them from their Lord. Conclusion: Not be in hurry in raising equerries. We must read few verses in prefix and suffix to understand the verses in it’s complete context. Quran is word of Allah, free from any contradictions in itself.
@@exolandarmyhowaboutthat6912 false here are the original verses 53:19 And do you know al-lat and al-manat 53:20 And al-uzza the third? 53:21 These are the high flying cranes who's interception is to be hoped for Then mhmd went and prostrate with the pàģàñş and the jinns According to Allah worshipping others beside him is an unforgivable sin(yet he calls him conduct of humanity)(clear contradiction), ergo mhmd shall go to hèĺĺ, why do you follow such a man? It was afterwards, there's no timeframe mentioned, chances are he had other revelations from şhàýtan that jibreel came to mhmd and "abrogated" *some* of the verses And if you believe it's all fabrications then you have sura 22:52 to answer to
Is it dishonest to call something a “manuscript” when it’s a scrap papyrus with a sentence or two on it? I think so and also think saying there are “thousands” of manuscripts is completely dishonest as well - especially given the ages of the complete ones and the fact that most of them he is probably counting (that might be considered the most ancient) are scraps. Fail by dishonesty and willful misrepresentation.
@@offcenterconcepthaus The fact remains that the "thousands" of manuscripts Wright is talking about were written centuries later (copies of copies). They only thing they teach us is about medieval scribes.
Which copy is the correct one? If there just one mistake, that mistake is multiplied with the number of copies. How many mistakes are there? How many have missing texts or even sentences? How many additional texts were added?
The amount of copies is meaningless. Is Harry Potter more likely true because of the number of books in prints? What matters is how many original sources there are and how good those sources were.
You misunderstand the concept of having copies. The copies prove the original text. If you demand to have the originals, and someone modified them, how would you know, you now have a a problem. If you have copies of the original it's impossible to modify, because you could tell which copy is the odd one out. If my copy of Harry Potter said written by JRR Tolkien you would know there is something wrong, because none of the other copies say that.
@@CanadianLoveKnot the copies dont prove anything at all unless you have the original to compare them to. I could make a billion copies of Harry Potter saying it was authored by Tolkien and that doesnt add any authority unless theres an original.
@@Wesquire If you had the originals, you would would be saying how do we know they haven't been modified, and all the copies were just copying the mistakes of the modified original. The originals are better preserved by having copies, since it prevents people from claiming to have possession/ownership of the original. The copies are not mass produced with a printing press, but are painstakingly copied over many years. You are looking for a conspiracy, where there isn't one. You should just do a simple google search and research the different families of the copies, and how we can isolate where different versions come from. There is ultimately very little differences among the copies we do have, against a reference text. What your stuck thinking about probably has to do with people like Bart Ehrman saying that the differences in the copies are in 100's of thousands, but he qdoesn't understand what a textual variant is. The textual variants that do exists are minute, lfor example one will say "Jesus Christ" "Jesus", or "The Christ". If you don't establish a reference text, you end up double triple counting each copy and copy and fragment that has that variant, when they are in fact counting copies from the same family of text.
@@CanadianLoveKnot again, without the original we have no idea how accurate the copies are. There's nothing that would prevent an early "copy" from being completely different than the original and maybe that "copy" is the basis that all later versions are based on. That doesnt even account for the fact that it was just oral tradition for decades. Theres absolutely no reason to believe any of it is accurate.
TreKater joh 17 17 No you didn’t , Christians were not persecuted until around 64 AD it makes no difference People who die for something they believe is true Has no bearing on its truth People have other faiths have died for it , That does not make it true
When discussing textual criticism in a scholarly setting, Bart is often much more careful with his choice of words and much more conservative in his claims than perhaps he normally would be when writing a popular book or giving a presentation before non subject specialists. The same, of course, is true of most other scholars.
Reading Ehrman's work, I'd say the only thing I found problematic with his scholarship is his baseless assertion that Jesus existed at all. The gospels of Jesus are closely analogous to Homer's Iliad and odyssey, which reference places known to exist but are filled with fictional characters performing miraculous superhuman feats that seem impossible to replicate in an era of scientific explanations, video evidence, and a public that is not subject to executions for questioning this highly doubtful and improbable story
We have indication of Christs life outside of the New Testament from the same time he lived. Combined with the texts themselves, we have FAR more data on his life than almost any other ancient figure from that time period. If your going to doubt the existence of Christ with your standard of skepticism, why not take it to its logical conclusion and denounce the existence of people whom we have significantly less evidence of, like Confucius or King Tut? As far as the text being analagous to the odysey, Im not sure what you mean. There might have been similar events and themes potrayed, but to imply that Greek myth played a role in the key doctrines is just patently absurd. The narrative originated within the confines of the Jewish teachings of the Sanhedrin, and was an extension of the fulfillment of the Old testament. Why would Paul, or the gospel writers who were almost exclusively jewish fabricate a story with hellenistic ideas when that same culture was persecuting them. That doesnt make sense. As far as them performing miracles, thats not evidence its not true. It just tells me you dont believe in miracles, which im assuming is a stance predicated on anti theism. But thats a presupposition you have to prove to me at first. Otherwise your just making a baseless assumption.
To quote from Misquoting Jesus, page 252, by Bart Ehrman, "Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times… If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. What he means by that (I think) is that even if one or two passages that are used to argue for a belief have a different textual reading, there are still other passages that could be used to argue for the same belief. For the most part, I think that is true.”
Was it not Metzger who pointed out that Ehrman posits various things in his popular works that he would not dare to say in his more scholarly writings? Without having heretofore read much of either of German's stuff (albeit having watched a fair numbers of his YT videos), I would contend that whether it is Metzger or another scholar, that such a criticism seems valid.
@@colinwrubleski7627 I heard William Lane Craig say that once.
@@colinwrubleski7627 But I thought Bart says “wE dOnT hAvE tHe oRiGiNaLs.” Frank Turek has said that. For example Bart thinks there’s contradictory issues between the gospels when in reality they’re typical complimentary eye witness testimony, not a true A, non-A contradiction.
Mike Licona said it and perhaps Bill Craig
@@therockstar17 Bart says crazy stuff painting a totally different picture than what he actually writes in his published works. Even in them he often paints one picture like in misquoting Jesus that it's so unreliable then when flat out asked he states completely to the contrary that it's reliable so he can get away with saying to his peers he believes virtually exactly the same thing yet in public paint another picture to be controversial and for self promotion. More people need to call out his behavior lol.
Bart Ehrman's strongest points haven't convinced me. Ehrman himself says that although there are many variations in the New Testament manuscripts, NONE of them compromises Christian doctrine.
Yeah they do compromise Christian doctrine. For e.g. trinity., there's no mention of the father being 3 in 1
Who cares about "Christian doctrine"?
Dr Ehrman's point is not about Christian doctrine. His point is that there is solid evidence that supports the notion that we can't say for sure what the gospel authors originally wrote. He supports this notion with the fact that Mark was estimated to have been written somewhere around 70AD, but the earliest scrap of Mark that we actually have was created around 220AD (P45). We do have copies of Mark that were made after this one, but they are few. Monks started making lots of copies in the 9th century. These copyists were well trained and made few errors/changes. Between 220AD and the 9th century was a different story though. In the few copies we have that were made during that period there are many more errors/changes. So ... the earlier a copy was made the higher the likelihood there were errors and/or changes. This makes a strong (if not airtight) case that there were most likely lots of changes to Mark between it's original writing and the earliest small scrap we have. This makes his convincing case that we can't say that what we have today for Mark is "authoritative" if by that term you mean we know what the author of Mark actually wrote. What Christian doctrine is based on is something quite different.
Bob Snead
Maybe, or maybe not. But, even if Mark doesn’t exist, that is only 1 out of 4 gospels, 37 out of NT, and 66 out of the Bible. The revelation from the remaining books about God and the gospel are still the same.
@@tarnos4153 yeah. I mean its not like theres more to the story of every single book of the mew testament, rightm
Mark's the only one with a hinky past.
All the others are 100%...fine.
FFS
". . .we can jolly well go back. . ." I love the way English people talk.
sablin that’s because your an imbecile.
@@johnpaulmccarthy6112 And regrettably, you spelled "your" when it should have been "you're", though you're correct that Sablin is on the imbecile spectrum!
But he botched Suetonius, as do most people-except Bart, ha.
British English sounds to me like a man having a constipation.
technically, the british invented the language, so... they can "jolly well" say however they like
I would love to see Bart and Tom on the show for a discussion (not necessarily a debate though)
Ehrman Wright debate please!
Ehrman Geisler debate !
And Evangelical pastors want me to see this guy as an enemy.
Bart's books list all historical facts and documents. That info is taught at all bible colleges for last 100yrs+, all pastors know it, but no one telling the truth to their church!
@Mupp Bert Bible itself admits that the Bible contains lies. Jeremiah 8:8 "but behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie". Actually your fellow Christians who have been to bible college will admit the Bible can't be the inerrant word of God. There's lots of irreconcilable contradictions in the Bible - if one is true the other can't be true, so which one is it?!
God sent the Quran (final revelation) to reform the Torah and Gospel that became a "Bible" compiled by man...Hadiths another manmade "Islamic bible" are Satan's attempt to corrupt Islam, the way true Christianity got corrupted and became Anti-christ instead!
@@zahara6355 Actually, there are plenty of manuscripts from around about the time of Mohamed and many from before. When Mohamed stated the bible was the true word of God he was referring to the bible of his time, hence he said to ask the people of the book if there were any queries. Therefore, as we can be confident the Bible has not been corrupted since the time of Mohamed an academic defeater presents itself against Islam.
@@fogboquiz5700 I know why the Quran says to Mhd's ppl in the 7th century "ask those who had the scripture before you" - because it's proof it's the same msg AND the ppl who already have a scripture have been advised of this coming prophet Mhd. The ppl who manipulated the Bible hid it from later generations.
With that proof from the early Christians, Islam grew quickly from one person to thousands. Today, Christians who can understand the signs in the Quran would be the first to recognize that truth, more than a born Muslim!
@@zahara6355 well your speculation seems baseless, unless if you want to put that gospel of barnabas in your argument, you didnt even put any evidences regarding your claim but only from the quran. The scriptures contain the same messages but not your twisted and falsely interpretation one, the final prophecy from the Old testament is the Messiah ruling as the High Priest,King,Prophet where this Messiah had exist since the ancient times and by the New testament it was regarded the Word(Memra) in the flesh(John 1:14) the final prophecy isnt another prophet bringing another interpretation appearing as a person outside King David bloodline and from the arabian tribe to fit his desire while containing several myths and legends from biblical stories whom he heard from the locals. Youre not putting any proof regarding your claim, while muhammad can only fit the bible prophecy as the false prophet
I love how there are so many "professional" Bible scholars in the comments section.
I'm so glad that I don't need to go to a distinguished college, now I can just argue with someone on RUclips and the degree magically appears!
@J M You can’t refute a fact.
@J M you know I can refute your koran here and now
Hafs 37:12 "But you wondered..."
Warsh 37:12 "But I wondered..."
Which is the one from heaven mhmedan?
Your ŕèĺìģion is nothing but man made 😂
*Yasir qadhi: Standard narrative has got holes in it*
Allahu ackbar mate 😚
@J M dude, you just totally liked your own comment 😂 why you mzlms so desperate?
Oh and I totally like how you brush away my pointed obvious contradiction so I'll ask you this time, what's the difference between "I and you" ? Three books use different persons in the same verse, not different accents but different words and meanings which change the whole verse 😂
Oh and btw, at least in b-ble it says the additional verses added in your fabricated books you got nothing, you have one old koran containing 116 suras while another contains 111 or 112 suras
And if you have the 7 qiraats as you say you do, what exactly did uthman burn and *leave only one copy off* ?
😂🤣😂🤣😂
You mzlms are hilarious attacking the b-ble when you know koran is a far more corrupt book
I literally just proved to you that the allah of the koran doesn't exist
@@acelinomckinzie1956 As a Christian: the Bible is not historical fact. Some parts are and some are not.
Stop saying it is. It makes us look bad.
I love his accent. He sounds like the history teacher I didn’t have
agree 100% he captures the Audience and he is very cordial to all!
Check out Kevin Hicks host of The History Squad.
Your perspectives and experiences always color your opinion on the evidence. I am an attorney. In the law, it is axiomatic that no witness sees the same accident. This is not a prejudice; it is grounded on a lot of experience. Therefore, small differences in the Gospels are not something that would concern me a lot. In fact, if they were in perfect accordance with each other, it would raise suspicions that the authors conspired with one another for some reason.
That may not be a problem for you, but the differences in the Gospels raise questions as to biblical inerrancy which is something held by the Catholic church as well as by a considerable portion of evangelicals.
@@prometheus3498 Biblical inerrancy is held by the Catholic Church? Can you provide a source to back up this claim?
@@annat4209 No problem, but fair warning, this is going to be long.
Firstly, you have the Catechism of the Caltholic Church which clearly states in Part 1/Section 1/Chapter 2/Article Three (Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture) that "The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and WITHOUT ERROR teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."
Moving beyond that, we also have clear doctrinal statements from various popes which affirm biblical inerrancy. For example, Pope Leo in Providentissimus Deus (20-21) stated that "For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily, as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. . . . It follows that those who maintain that an error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration or make God the author of such error".
Pope Pius has also continuously supported biblical inerrancy in his works like the Lamentabili Sane (where he condemned the proposition of biblical errors) and Divino Afflante Spiritu (37) where he claimed that " the substantial Word of God became like to men in all things, except sin, so the words of God, expressed in human language, are made like to human speech in every respect, except error”.
I could keep on going talking about a bunch of different Popes who confirmed biblical inerrancy but I think I've made my point.
@@prometheus3498 Thank you for the sources, I appreciate it. Will look into this
Err they disagree as to what Joseph's father was called when Matt and Luke both try to show he was descended from Abraham
Those two would make for an interesting show. You should definitely do that.
Well done NT wright
Even if we had, say, the very original Gospel of Mark, in his own handwriting, all we'd know is what Mark wrote. Wouldn't tell us if it's factual. And it could still be objected that he was biased or incomplete, etc. and that this was the original lie.
This kind of argument, that we don't have the original, is about infinite regress.
Objections aren't proofs.
Seedofwonder. Quite so. Congratulations on passing the logic 101.
But you must have noticed that there is a kind of skeptical mind for which no form of evidence is ever sufficient, except for the particular worldview in which it is embedded and submerged and which it mistakes for reality itself.
@@polemeros Absolutely. It applies equally to both sides. Whether a skeptic or an apologist, the most important questions transcend the documentary realm.
seedofwonder neither is just “faith”
We would have the further problem that we don’t know the context of what he writes down. One tradition has it that he was the companion ion Peter and that “Mark” is really his version of a long sermon by Peter.
I hate when apologists try to say that we have way more manuscripts than other ancient documents. That doesn't matter at all. We don't build religions aren't Plato or Homer. We don't claim Plato or Homer is the infallible word of God. I'm fine saying that the Bible is mostly reliable, but we can't say that it's 100% perfect.
Or _factual_ , where the magic bits are concerned.
Ofc they are not 100% identical but they are the same
I mean, having more copies doesn't make it more likely to be original. Compared to the greek classics, scribes have much more reason to make changes because of theological reasons.
Exactly. Always upsetting when scholars cannot be forthright.
no, there would be no reason to change the Bible in order to reinforce or protect the dogma. we have millions of copies of the Bible and the differences are extremely miniscule.
as far as we live today in 2024, we have so many different sects, denominations and theologians that constantly debate eachother about Christianity.
this has always been a tradition. debate is something that is always been part of Christianity.
the Church is famous for having councils amongst bishops.
this is in fact healthy and taken from Greek philosophy.
@@LevisH21 are you just ignoring the massacres led by the Christians against those who they called heretics? And the burning of any book they deemed opposing “orthodox” dogma??
@@tookie36he’s just putting the filter of his faith infront of his studies, Bart ehrman doesn’t do what NT wright does, Bart looks and the New Testament as a scholar and historian, wright looks at it as a theologian and practitioner
Unless the copyists believed the copies they had before them were the word of God and therefore not to be altered...
I have heard Dr Ehrman say that the Bible is THE most well-documented book from ancient times based on original materials (paraphrased, as well as I can recall.) Seems to me that Wright and Ehrman agree on this point.
well documented in this sense
ruclips.net/video/3JEiFo0LbjI/видео.html
I find Bart Ehrman to have rather simplified arguments for the non existence of god. How do we know anything happened in history without documents and word of mouth? Does Bart question all history, or just the parts related to god and Christ? As a matter a fact the Bible is the most well documented manuscript ever made. And historical events like the crucification of Jesus are very well documented, witnessed by countless people who give very similar accounts of what transpired.
False, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian manuscripts rain supreme! Stop making Christianity a pro-logic movement, Our religion is about faith.
The Crucifixion is not well documented. Documented enough for us to say it most certainly happened, but nowhere near enough to say what happened there. We don't know for certain when Jesus died, the extent of Pontius Pilate's involvement, where he was exactly crucified, who took him down from the cross after his death, where he was buried (if he was at all), who saw his apparently empty tomb, etc. You'll find discrepancies if not missing blanks for every one of these questions.
@@alifleih Dates are not really important.. where it was year 1 or year 3 is irrelevant.. it happened during Pontious pilates time as governor ,what is really important is the story of Jesus ,that christianity contrary to any other religion , have 4 witness of Jesus miracles and teachings. And you didn't saw the video when it was told there are hundreds of witness of jesus story. The bible did not include all of them ,because it will be a repetitive story. But in the real world, today.. When police wants to solve a crime incident.. they need witness to reconstruct a crime scene.. and just 1 witness can be enough to send someone to jail. so guess what? Jesus story in the bible have 4 witness ,that tells their version of the story oof jesus life.. then outside of the bible there are hundreds of witness who knew jesus and wrote about him.. stories outside the bible.. like the letter that Pilates wrong to Caesar about Jesus and how he did not found any wrong doing on him.. He even describe Jesus as a blond man,, with celestial appearance and blond beard. that was very different to every other man . there is also the Gospell of Mary , the Gospell of THomas and the Gospell of Judas.. All tell the same story of jesus crucifiction and how he did miracles.
@technoartfest8708 who are.the 4 witnesses you speak of?
I think ehrman when you read him isnt scary at all, and hes quite intelligent. He stop believing because he thought God was implausible, so of course hes going to explain the resurrection with a naturalistic lense, if you dont believe in God theres no other way to see it
Yes. Church's are the problem. It sickens me the way every single Republican President has 2 bow to the church. They have NO business being involved politically. It goes against the Constitution. People like Franklin Graham uses his "pulpit" 2 tell "Christians" who 2 vote 4. It's none of his damned business.
Maybe. But Ehrman is more than qualified 2 give his views. He is a force 2 be reckoned with. The church leaders know this. They R terrified of him. Terrified of losing there money. "Follow the money." Ehrman started out like any good Christian. But as is the case, 4 the rest of us, the more U learn, the more disillusioned U become.
No one isn't saying is unintelligent but he's scary in that he's leading people to hell on a viewpoint that frankly isn't even supported by other historians
@@mustang8206 could you elaborate on how his viewpoint isn't mainstream? I'm curious to know
@@dahyunbibimbap9850 his less mainstream opinion would be the idea that Jesus wasn't buried, he has admitted himself that most historians tend to argue he would have been buried, i would ask why if he was trying to "lead people to hell" why would he admit that his opinion is a minority one. He even in a blog post recommended a scholar dale allison who argued jesus would have been buried, so ehrman is willing to engage in debate and share differing views, like scholars are supposed to
Would like to see NT Wright debate Bart Erhman. That would be epic
Look at the person Jesus Christ first and foremost. If we don’t have that personal connection to Him we have nothing.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5 ESV
Can you please upload the Debate between Professor Wright and Dr. Eherman?
Thanks for all the good content. Would love to hear a debate between the two of them one day!
I would LOVE to see a debate between these historical and theological heavy weights, respectively.
There is a recent 2019 debate between Bart Ehrman and Peter J. Williams (Principal, Tyndale House, Cambridge University) with Justin Brierley moderating. Recorded in July and released this Fall (link): ruclips.net/video/ZuZPPGvF_2I/видео.html
Williams did a poor job against Ehrman
How can you be a 'heavyweight' believer in myths?
@@frankwhelan1715 ha. ha.
@@frankwhelan1715
Can you prove that those are myths ?
The scientism described by CS Lewis back in the 40's and 50's has taken on a life of its own today. The literary market for anti-Christian narratives is incredibly broad. But, the new arguments are nothing more than the old arguments.
The changes Ehrman refers to are changes in manuscripts. The issue is, we can circumvent nearly all those changes by going back to 2nd-5th century manuscripts. And these changes are on peripheral issues, like was Jesus explicitly or implicitly mad during a chapter in Luke.
Sorry brothers to ask this question here: Please what microphones are there in the video? Thanks.
I don't know for sure, but it looks like they're using Shure SM7B'S www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SM7B--shure-sm7b-cardioid-dynamic-vocal-microphone
Hope that helps!
It's also the post production and preamps that create clear audio, not just the mic. Sound proofing room, Zoom or Tascam preamp.
Shure SM7b
Does anyone have a link to the debate between Ehrman and Wright that he mentions? I can't find it here on RUclips. Is it perhaps behind a paywall somehwere else?
great new tsetament scholar
i also want to emphasize the role of having trust in the early church. that is a huge deal and is basically the difference between being a skeptic and a believer.
Bart's entire body of work misses the forest for the trees. Mere variations in text between the Gospels don't change the fact that Jesus died and was resurrected. It's not a textual debate. It's a historical one. Why we keep on and on about differences in the details between eyewitness testimonies is beyond me.
I think it’s a theological one. Bart Ehrman isn’t trying to convince people Christianity is wrong. That’s not his job. So if someone believes the resurrection happened, they should be allowed to because that’s based on faith. However, as a historian, no, there is no evidence for the resurrection. Doesn’t mean you can’t believe it if you are religious, but it would mean there’s no historical basis for it.
No response from Joe Lackey.
The interviewer (what is his name?) mentions an interview he did with Ehrman where he said, basically, that there's relatively few passages in the NT that we have doubts about. Does anyone have a link for that? I can't find it.
Not specifically, although I watched it years ago. I think it is the debate he had with peter williams. The host in this video here justin brierley is right that even bart ehrman's best examples of changes in the manuscripts are literally just things like whether jesus got angry in the book of mark or as most modern translations have jesus felt compassion. What I discovered from the Williams ehrman debate from peter D williams is that both the greek words for angry and compassionate are very similar looking in appearance, so a scribe may have thought that the angry greek word was a spelling mistake and sought to correct it to compassion. Bart ehrman actually believes he knows which is "the original". Bart has been good at sensationalising these things. It is how books are sold. But ultimately the problems are nowhere near as big for ehrman in his academic books as they are presented in his best sellers for the laymen.
Peter D williams is one of the few christian scholars that can handle a rampaging ehrman.
But if the quote you are looking for is not found in that debate, try listening to all of the ehrman unbelievable appearances.
I like how Bart Ehrman debates.....very professional without demeaning the other party beliefs.
I felt just the opposite. I watched an old interview where Bart debates Dinesh D’Souza. Bart didn’t keep in the spirit of debate and I felt like he allowed his anger and hostility to creep in. Of course it’s only my opinion but I felt Bart was trying to assign motive behind Dinesh’s intentions instead of simply debating him on the issues. He also make wild statements like “there is nothing after death” which he could never prove. I felt Bart to be a cold, joyless man who makes his identity about being against the existence of god. How can someone’s identity be dictated by something they don’t believe to exist?
@@optimal8155 Which God are you referring to? I am assuming you mean the one which was born to a married "Virgin"
I disagree. He debates to win, he doesn't pursue. Rather he likes to throw out a litany of arguments (each of which requires a 30 minute answer and cannot be responded to in one setting); so he tends to come off better to "win" the debate. I do appreciate his struggles with fundamentalism, however (which we should find problematic, imo!).
Anybody know where I could find the podcast he references here where Wright and Ehrman dialogue?
Ehrman's views require extreme scepticism about history. He also claims that memories are too unreliable for the gospels to be accurate recollections of Jesus' words. If that's true no oral tradition is accurate. The Iliad and the Odyssey were oral tradition. The Buddhist scriptures were an oral tradition for 400 years before being written down.
The gospels are closer to Jesus' time than a lot of other ancient writings are to the original event.
The thing is, there were people(such as the Hebrews) who made a lifestyle out of precise oral tradition. The Hebrews were also much more thorough when it came to copying. The problem is the New Testament was transmitted by anyone who could read and write, often under hidden conditions because they feared being persecuted. The accuracy standards are just not there. Likewise(though slightly off topic) a collection of religious men decided what texts were going to be included in the bible and you know its impossible to remove bias from a religious person. We may be missing half of the original bible for all we know.
Homer's writings were meant to be stories and Buddhism is a tolerant, general philosophy. Christianity is not a very tolerant belief(many would argue that they're not following Jesus very well), often leading people to completely alter their lives, alienate their families, attempt to deny homosexuals their rights etc. You have to admit it's FAR more important that we make sure a book like that is extremely accurate than what people always view as a story(Homer). Heck, even by Christian standards missing key components in the overall message can lead to divine punishment...
@@thomasakatidalforce7987 The textual differences between the NT manuscripts are not enormous. And the point I was making was that if we apply extreme scepticism about memories consistently, you wouldn't know that Buddhism is a "tolerant, general philosophy". The historical Buddha could have been a warlord for all you know. We can only go by the evidence of the early Buddhist texts as to who the historical Buddha was - and they were written down after a 400 year period of oral transmission.
@@oliverford5367 Yeah, I do see what you're saying and you do make a solid point. There are also many many thousands of Greek texts for the New Testament which far outstrips any other historical person.
However, I do think it's valid to point out(for any historical figure it applies to) there is lack of third party, uninterested commentary on the events of the NT. There is some mention of Christ and Christians but the only mention of Jesus in the "supernatural" sense is from a Christian holy book.
I'm curious because you seem like a learned individual, do you subscribe to the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Or do you feel the same standards apply no matter what event is being claimed as true?
@@thomasakatidalforce7987 I think the same standards apply, otherwise it's not disinterested science. Who decides what is "extraordinary"? But thus doesn't mean I believe that everything in the NT happened. The infancy narratives are very hard to believe, and you're right if "the bodies of many holy people came to life" you'd think Josephus and other authors would have mentioned it!
@@oliverford5367 Yes you do bring up good points. The same standards perhaps should apply, but there is also a common sense standard. You're right, if people were raised from the dead and walls crumbled at the precise moment someone died from crucifixion then it's logical to assume the story would be mentioned everywhere, if even in an attempt to debunk the claims.
However, you may have unintentionally brought up another point about the Bible. The book(s) may(in fact, some say probably) have never been intended to be taken as literal history. Maybe they were just written to prove a point or to spread a philosophy...such would certainly change the standards of criticism in a sense it would be a critique of the philosophical idea and not the historicity.
No, it doesn’t matter how many copies you have, it’s irrelevant. What matters is: do you have the original texts ? Also, what exactly does “original” mean ? The text that a writer first wrote, including notes ? The text the writer “intended” to be the finished text based on the “first written” text(s) ?
I can imagine, that debating Ehrman was difficult for NT Wright, cause NT Wright really does not understand. Having massive amounts of copies from copies, without having the originals, does not add the slightest to their reliability. How hard is that to grasp? Kids learn the telephone game (or chinese whispers in the UK) in Kindergarden. It is the same thing.
Uh, we do have the earliest manuscripts in the original languages...no game of 'telephone'....
@@kevincaan2862 Oh really? Where did you get that from? Are you sure these are the complete originals from the authors, or are these later copies?
@@kevincaan2862 no, we don't. Not even close to that.
Because when you have thousands of games of telephone and they all basically agree or you get a vast majority of agreement, then that tells you about the original. Get it now?
@@mikewilliams6025 you are assuming that they agree and that when they were finally written down, the authors didnt just use the previous texts. It is very likely that Matthew and Luke by using Mark as a source.
What Bible is on the desk to the left of Wright - with the word, “Bible,” printed in rainbow colors on the cover? Thanks!
After these things I looked, and behold, a door opened in heaven . . . and a rainbow was around the throne” (Revelation 4:1,3).
Then I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, and with a rainbow on his head (Revelation 10:1).
Ezekiel 1:28: "As the rainbow appears that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of His brightness all around.”
“I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth: When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the clouds . . . I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant.” (Genesis 9:13-14,16)
So does it matter if the oldest copy of a manuscript goes back to the 3rd century? You can have thousands of copies of a none genuine or fabricated copy. Does this matter? I think you should watch Bart’s debates with an open mind
You fail to understand how copies of copies are proof of inerrancy. You see these copies have been found all over the world and all have the same message. If you out your bias aside, that means that the original manuscripts had the same message. The copies w were carefully written so that should the originals be destroyed, the message would not be lost.
What Muslims fail to see ironically is that the Quran commands them to ask the people of the Book for info regarding Jesus and that the Quran is meant to be the culmination and the fulfilment of the NT and the OT.
If the Bible is corrupt, how come the Quran asks Muslims to read the Bible? Does that mean that Allah cannot preserve his word as apparently the Bible is corrupt? What's worse is that the message of the Bible totally contradicts the Quran. God's grace and love vs subjugation, Jesus dying vs not dying, Jesus being less important that Mohd and yet Jesus is in heaven and Mohd is still in the grave. I could go on.
@@remainhumble6432 who cares if you have 1 million copies of something if you can't even tell if the original was reliable or not.
as for the quran asking muslims to read or gather info or rely on the bible in any way, provide a source please, unlike you we don't accept random statements without proof.
@@SimpleReally the problem is whether you actually understand that thousands of copies right across the planet saying the same things are actually proof of the original. Now whether that just goes over your head and whether you are actually genuinely seeking Truth is not up to me but entirely in your court.
And as for accusing me of not having evidence on what I am saying, unlike you.... Really? Is that misplaced arrogance really necessary. But anyhow read the following and see how your own prophet consulted the Torah and Injeel repeatedly.
Surah 10:94
Surah 29:27
Surah 2 :126-129
Surah 6:154-157
Surah 42:13
Surah 4 :136
Surah 41:43
Surah 40:78
Surah 2:4
Surah 2:177
Enjoy. You are welcome BTW. 😉
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
Matthew 24:35 There is a God who is personal and because we are personal and we cannot claim to know more than our creator and I believe and trust in God and the best evidence for him that he is powerful enough to perfectly preserve his word. And if Jesus was who he said he was and ride from the dead, then life and reality is far more complex that simple naturalism which cannot explain these issues
Pity stronger questions were not put to NT W. on this occasion
A logical resounding response from NT Wright
What about 200 years before the first significant copy? Does it matter how many copies after that? What changes could have been made in first 200 years? We have no idea
@@MarthaEllen88 What we have is the old testament that prophesises and coincides with the truth of the new testament.
It’s more than “one or two texts” that aren’t certain.
Manuscripts for other books are also unreliable, but I won't go to Hell if I dont follow those other books. So the consequences of any other book being altered is almost nonexistent, whereas the consequences of the Bible being altered is much much more severe
Ehrman is a disappointed lover. Unclothed, the girl of his dreams is not as he imagined her, So her human flaws bother him inordinately.
So the Bible presents the God of your dreams? The God of the Bible seems pretty nightmarish to me! And I note that dreams are usually not realities.
The problem with your analogy is that we are not talking a human incarnation of God appearing before you but an ancient book written by (largely) anonymous men in languages we don't speak for reasons we can only guess. What makes you believe this book is the "word of God"?
Not a good analogy. You speak of human flaws but is the bible of man..or God? If man..obviously...there will be flaws...if God...then really...should there be flaws?. I would think not.
To often people attempt to humanize the supposed works of an all knowing, timeless...blah...blah...blah...God. You discredited yourself...and your imagination.
Supposedly he existed in some timeless...spaceless realm before the universe began...then...created a universe..a possibly infinite mind blowing universe. And you credit this "God" with creating your inconsistent & confusing and often times cruel and abusive piece of work you call a bible.??...unbelievable...
Sorry...human flaws do bother me...but I try to find a way to accept mine and those of others. In regards to those of the humans that produced the bible..I have come to accept them and move on.
This is unfortunately not Erhman's case. Erhman himself has said multiple times that it was not biblical inconsistencies (and that in fact he was still a Christian many years after accepting biblical inconsistencies) that caused him to lose his faith but rather the problem of suffering
@@leohale403 What is the problem of suffering?
@@oliverduke1173 I meant the problem of evil, the question of how to reconcile presence of evil and suffering with an omniscience, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent God. I just called it "problem of suffering" because when I call it "problem of evil", people sometimes want to debate the definition of evil, which isn't really the point of the question.
One of the disputed passages is at the end of Mark: "And they shall take up serpents..." It could be important, though.
it doesn't work like that, because we don't care whether or not Lucretius really existed, we just value the writings because they hold some sort of wisdom; it might have come from someone else altogether (we say it's Lucretius because this is how it appears but in actuality we don't give a toss). However, in the case of Jesus it's important no matter the content, we must ensure that it comes from him cos , allegedly, our life depends on that. When it comes to jesus we have to have a special approach not found anywhere else.
I disagree. It is important that we can take Jesus as a man like us, that the Scriptures tell was a true story,
@@JRobbySh Well, Jesus, allegedly, was a man like us but not only like us, he was also fully god. So our approach must be a unique approach because the claims are big and the stakes are high. We don't know whether the scriptures are true, no matter how much we want them to be true. Which copy, which translation? We wouldn't have so many denominations if the story were universally true.
Mihai Manolache
Special pleading
@@mickqQ The point he makes is valid. Whether or not "Lucretius" wrote those works is a matter of historical curiosity and nothing more. It really doesn't matter. The Bible and the Qur'an (and any books that people claim are "God's Word") are another matter. If big and important claims are made about these books and their contents then the historicity and authenticity must be considered very seriously.
If a cult developed that believed Lucretius was a god and the works of Lucretius are divine then the same considerations would apply to those works (in the context of the claims of said cult) as apply to the Bible and the Qur'an.
endofscene
Words should be judged on what is said ,
Not on who is saying them .
To say we have to make a special case for Jesus, is to already admit there is something special about Jesus.
Out of those manuscripts how many are from the 1st and 2nd centuries? How do we know one of the more popular manuscripts, not the original, was copied the most?
Good one -- Bart's probably a better witness for the Gospels than he cares to admit, especially when he willingly admits that there just aren't any doctrinal issues at stake. His takedown of the argument that Christ never existed is fairly delicious.
Yup. I've said it again and again, Bart Erhman's work has strengthened by Christian faith.
Erhman never said Jesus never existed. If I am wrong. Please let me know
@@richardkatz8713 A "takedown" is a refutation. Erhman has a very low view of people he calls "mythisists".
@@richardkatz8713 yup, you are correct. He believes strongly that Jesus existed. He even got into a heated blog-war with the most prominent myther, Richard Carrier.
Ehrman says there was a man called Jesus, but he clearly states the miracles never happened. So don't pretend Bart didn't have a good reason for leaving Christianity.
So, if parts of the Bible are accurate and some are to be discarded, how do we determine which we should keep?
that's why textual analysis exist, by the manuscripts we can have a idea of what is a addition or not, a lot of Bibles have a indication of what verses are added or not
Even if one accepts that the Gospels retained the oral tales unchanged, there's the problem of presenting as true such things as virgin births, supernatural beings, creating food out of thin air, suspension of gravity, transmutation of elements, instant healing, bodies rising from graves, etc How reliable is any text that presents these as real?
If Jesus said it himself, then it is indeed real. But all these things you mentioned, were not written by Jesus.
@@TheEchoeman You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "The gospels are true because they writers were there" then when shown by their own words that they weren't switch to, "They are true because they were inspired." Which is it?
If Jesus had said, "I am god" or "God is my physical father" he would have been stoned for blasphemy. Jews had long rejected divine humans from god-woman union because it was the basis of most pagan religions! God couldn't impregnate a woman because he was a spirit, as Jesus said.
@@smb123211
Jesus walked on water, calmed a violent storm in one verbal order, then raised dead people back to life.... do you think Jesus would be scared of getting stoned?
Well, saying that Gospel writers were INSPIRED can be disputable. Who says they were inspired anyway? Did God or Jesus say that? Those people who are saying they were inspired, are the Evangelicals because their motive is to convert as many people to Christianity as possible.
If these Evangelicals did not promote the idea that the authors were inspired, then who would believe these authors? They could be just making up stories. Which probably they did anyway.
If somebody says he was Inspired by God, you would not challenge that person's claims. Yes?
@@TheEchoeman That is just so...infantile. Jesus was a JEW who said salvation was keeping the Law and loving the "one" true god. He said several times his mission was for Jews - not gentiles. Read your Bible!
Jesus never said, "Salvation is believing I am god's son who died for your sins." That interpretation did not evolve until decades later. His first followers were observant Jews led by James. Paul's genius in bypassing the difficult laws of Judaism eventually triumphed.
Jesus's return, once the sole reason for believing, faded away when it was obvious he was a no-show.
@@smb123211
Read my Bible? What Bible verses are you quoting anyway?
Jesus said several times his mission was for Jews? Did Jesus say that? Where did you get this info? You need to cite your sources, otherwise you are making things up.
Where can I find the debate with Bart NT mentions? It's not on RUclips.
Bart is on you tube
It's very easy to argue against BE when he's not present to offer a response. When he is, he just throws you around like a rag doll.
Agreed!
Enough of this. The NT is fake whether you like it or not.
Nonsense Bary can't see the wood for the trees
@@jennypraise4960 Bart is correct. The scirpture is only a fairy tale story
@Veiled Heat don't worry about aristotle. We're talking about the Bible aka word of God. This book is only a fairy tale. It is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise people as false and by the rulers as useful. Most preachers all over the place are just using this book to make money. It's a big business. This is pure fairy tale and lots of contradictions.
Templeton (after whom the award is named) and Ehrman have both cited losing faith in God over the issue of evil. The latter has done so much damage with his popularized books, including "Misquoting Jesus"! Will he feel the embarrassment Peter did, after the last crow cried, when he stands before the living Christ? I recall a depressed woman calling into a show, after Bart spoke about that particular text, asking, "What do we do now, if all we believed in wasn't true?" To which Ehrman responded (paraphrasing), "We always have our humanity... we always have those we love around us." This is exactly why we need to master apologetics... this is exactly why we need to research what wolves we're releasing our college-age children to!
Unfortunately (but forgivably), they're frequently conflating two separate issues here, both of which deserve a separate discussion: (1) The reliability of the various existing manuscripts to reflect what the original documents actually said ("Is this a reliable copy of the original document itself?"); and (2) the reliability of the original documents to reflect the historical events described therein ("Can these canonical gospels be trusted to communicate historical details about events that happened decades earlier?").
For the first topic, we can get into the Textual variants which Wright rightly suggests are generally minor (but not insignificant). For the second topic, we can get into the discrepancies between overlapping accounts of the same events, which Ehrman rightly suggests are occasionally irreconcilable from a literal-historical point of view.
Both scholars are making valid points, even when they disagree directly; but it's especially disappointing when they just talk past one another like this.
You make the wrong assumption the secular historical account in question is not wrong which has time and time and time and time again been proven the case over the biblical accounts. Look into that subject. The track record the biblical text has demonstrated gives us the confidence to trust the historicity of it's claims over any counter historical claim at this point as being correct. It's an either or issue, the biblical text is clearly more reliably always.
The translator J B Philips said that when he actually got to grips with the Greek texts themselves that respect for the New Testament turned to conviction of its truth. He said that nowhere do they give any impression of being manufactured.
Check out newer views on gospels. Genre suggests that is exactly what happened. A lot of narrative and dialogue fiction in order to emphasise meaning. Not historical accuracy. The ancients did not view history like we do. Tropes from Homer and other greek literature and mythology. Allusions to the OT, eg John the baptist like Elijah... The gospels are likely a form of Greek religious literature
New? I heard stuff like this (in a different guise) 50 years ago. Just the same tired old cliches regurgitated by those who have too much time on their hands. Anyone can make a connection to anything if they try hard enough. Greek literature? Never heard such nonsense.
*jolly well*
I think by that alone, he’d win any debate against Bart
I think we know what they wrote pretty well. It's more a matter of whether we believe it and Bart does not while brother Wright does believe what they wrote.
Ehrman's own standards would suggest that we should stop believing that most of the known ancient figures even existed. He can't seem to notice the forest because of a tree.
Wrong. Do a little research before you start regurgitating fundie talking points.
The rot had already impregnated into Christianity by the time Constantine's cronies got his hands on the books.
Similarly to WLC’s struggle to erode Ehrman’s point of view that the resurrection is *not* the most plausible explanation for the resurrection because Ehrman is an atheist historian, Wright tries to make the same point based on Ehrman’s previously rigid fundamentalist Christian background. The gist being that Ehrman is not depending on scholarship, rather on a presupposition of implausibility -no matter what. This is merely Christian gymnastics once again to prove what cannot be proved.
Presuppositionalism is just solipsism, the most lazy point of view possible.
But Ehrman is depending on his assumption that no amount of evidence would ever justify belief in something like a resurrection. That's a sign of bad faith on Ehrman's part.
How can we know which one is correct. Are all fault free? You can twist and turn but the confusion will never stops a
The Gospels are not JUST historical accounts written in a grecoroman biography style about Jesus. It's much more than that, and of course Ehrman being a natiralist cannot comprehend that. It's a kind of gps about the soul's way back to the Father. It's nearly a necessity of reading the Bible and especially the New Testament with a theological context of a Platonic and Neoplatonic framework.
What if Judas didn’t die when he hanged himself?
Matthew 27:5 simply states that Judas went away and “HANGED himself”. However, in verse 6 and 7, we read that the Chief priests picked up the coins and bought with them “the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers”.
Now, what is interesting is that according to Acts 1:16-19 this was the same field Judas Judas was buried.
Did the priests use the coins to buy that land on the same day when Judas hanged himself and apparently died? Or they bought it later and when Judas died later, they buried him on that land?
When I first read the two accounts, I concluded that Judas hanged himself, his dead body eventually got bloated and eventually he fell which resulted in the mess described in the book of Acts.
But the question is, what if Judas didn’t die on the day he hanged himself? And he might have died later and it was the reason why they buried him at the “Potters Field” which the priests bought with his coins.
There is another story on how Judas died and this was by Apollinaris of Laodicea, Papias ( a writer of ancient Greek) and he writes;
“Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such extent he could not pass where a chariot could easily pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out...”
There is a longer version of it. It is an interesting story on how Judas died and it fits with what is described in Acts. Apparently, Judas survived when he hanged himself.
Having hundreds of copies of a COPY that is decades after the original, with out having the original, is pretty useless in proving the copies are accurate to the original.
Not if they corroborate one another with great distances between the location of manuscripts. It makes it more sure, not less. The differences between manuscripts are not substantive and only exist in a considerable minority of over 3000 documents.
Totally agree man. Having thousands of copies of falsehoods doesn’t somehow make it authentic to the original truth. Just makes it a consistent falsehood.
@@iknowyourerightbut4986 exactly. The point the OP made about copies not necessarily being accurate is a good question to have. However, the obvious next step is to ask if there are differences between the copies. As you said, there aren't any major differences that are a serious concern. Also, it's interesting that those making that criticism of lots of copies being meaningless seem not to be textual criticism and manuscript study experts themselves...
When a human being believes they must accept the notion of a supernatural dimension or mysticism they will go to extraordinary lengths to sculpt the evidence so that it ideally suits their personal motives.
Well said!!
I agree
Even the skeptics of that time did not look at the world as you do. They may have rejected the gods but they were not secularists.
How can you verified 1000 copies, what methods do you used ?
Text had to be same but the interpretation could differ.
Now out of that 1000 copies, which one came with the original language (aramaic).
As we know by translating, mistake oftentimes comes in substitution of words, and peoples who conducting translation always have some predisposition in their original mother tongue and more
We have almost noting original by Aristotle. Everything we have are copies of copy-books produced by his disciples. Yet we do have and use his logic. and have a partial grasp of what he meant by metaphysics. a consist has emerged that we ought not discard,
the original language was greek, not aramaic
I think Wright's analysis of different approaches coloured by different backgrounds is valid. However, the crux, it seems to me, is not the reliability of various manuscripts with minor discrepancies, it is whether the originals were works of faith or history.
The word gospel has come to mean incontrovertible but are they? Or are they books written as acts of devotion by believers who never met Jesus and lived in another country, a generation later and speaking another language?
i mean, that’s ultimately a faith decision for you to decide. however, i can just say this. the bible is described as “a sharp and active living word”, and we certainly see this today. some muslims in middle eastern countries are having visions of Jesus speaking to them with words such as “I am the alpha and the omega”, which are from the book of revelation. I also hear stories of new people reading the bible for the first time and being transformed. Whether you believe Jesus to be true or not is your decision, but I think human experience testifies to the fact that the gospels seem to be more than just fake words on a page, but are instead alive and active today.
@@elanordeal2457 I'm sorry but I see no evidence to support that assertion at all. Religious minded people of all faiths have visions all the time and Muslims honour Jesus as a prophet second only to Mohammed. If a few have visions of Jesus saying something that seems to go against Islam it is hardly significant of anything except the variety of religious experience.
The human experience you cite applies to people who already believe, or have already heard of Jesus and the gospels. It is in no way surprising if some people claim to be moved by the text. That, after all was the intention of the authors. I might be moved by the beauty of the Quran but that does not make it the true word of God which supersedes the Bible.
As for a description of some text as "a sharp and active living word", I am presuming this was written by a believer?
We are all entitled to our beliefs and I would never tell anyone they were wrong, unless I could prove my position. and for god and Jesus there is no proof for or against.
However, I prefer to live my own life based on things that can be demonstrated to be factual, not on words in books or words spoken by other humans which pretend to know things they do not and cannot know.
No matter how sincerely they may be held, beliefs are not facts.
@@Outspoken.Humanist the thing is, some things are not empirically provable - you feel love, but you can’t measure it exactly how it is. God would really be no true god at all if we could measure him by mere human science and measurements, and reduce him from an almighty being to a mere lab experiment - that’s what post-enlightenment rationalism tries to do.
rationalism is great for science, but even rationalism cannot answer the basic questions of meaning asked by a 5 year old. there gets to a point where the empirical measurements of science fall flat, and man is left empty, wondering what life means.
I appreciate your honesty and courtesy. I can only hope and pray that maybe one day the beauty of the gospel becomes real to you, and you encounter Jesus one day.
even if they didn't, they still had source material dating back to the time of Jesus and used eye witnesses
@@lukemedcalf1670 The problem is that you do not know that to be true, you only believe it.
We can be reasonably certain the gospel authors were not themselves eyewitnesses.
First, because they wrote in educated Greek and not the Aramaic of Jewish workmen of Judea.
Secondly, because it seems strange indeed that anyone writing a gospel would not say they could testify to the the truth if they really had been present.
We are then forced to consider their sources and we have no information whatsoever. None of the authors make even a passing mention of anyone.
Finally, when we consider the various different stories of Jesus' life spread across the four gospels and Acts, including the two totally different pre-birth narratives, the early years, the ministry and all the various locations, it is certain that no witness could have been present for all of it.
The likelihood then is that either there were a great many individual sources or that much of it was invented.
Initially by Mark, then 80% of that was copied by Matthew & Luke, who added their own embellishments, which are never the same and then later, John decided to rewrite the whole thing from a totally different perceptive.
If we remove the bias of belief from the equation, we are forced to admit it is highly unlikely that any of it is reliable history.
Epicurus , Homer , Virgil , whoever . Lets not pretend that anyone is claiming that any of these people were the son of god . One would expect , at least , a higher standard of proof if one is asserting that anybody is / was god made man
The worst part about Bart is that he doesn't even hold the majority viewpoint among scholars
Misquoting . He always points out majority
The problem with Ehrman is that like most atheists his objections aren't intellectual, even if he is. His objections are purely emotional, which is why he has no real arguments to make. And NT is quite right: Ehrman will always try to change the subject or answer a question with a question whenever he's pushed on something.
Claiming Bart's objections are PURELY EMOTIONAL (and that he therefore has no 'real' arguments) seems to me to be a very emotional utterance to make. Moreover, I have just watched a debate where Bart had to fight tooth and nail to keep the argument on topic while the Christian guy used almost every underhand tactic in the book to deflect onto other points he was more comfortable with. In any case, I find your black-and-white form of argument extremely unhelpful, and smacks of the dismissiveness that drives many people away from the church. But hey, that's just my opinion.
So what's the emotion behind "the Gospels were written anonymously". Is it holding in a fart?
A statement like some person is using mainly emotional arguments requires evidence not just a declarative statement. Otherwise it is just name-calling.
I have listened to hundreds of hours of Bart Ehrman. I would say he is passionate instead of emotional. But one thing he is for certain is an intellectual.
Even NT Wright can be right.
Bart Ehrman's arguments are ones that could only be argued from the position of someone living two thousand years after the facts. It has to assume what was available to each generation as we go back in time. It ignores the content of the text about how it was written and treats it outside of it's claimed, spiritual author. How many original (autographs) did the writer of Lukes gospel produce? One? Twenty? 50?
The internal text has Jesus after his resurrection with his eleven remaining disciples for forty days, so who says the gospels we'rent written and established then? Paul quotes the events of the gospels, so what makes us think he was trying to remember oral sayings, rather than having the gospels himself to study? This is because modern scholars have said they were written decades after the events. But why do they say that? What's their evidence?
To the critic these are embellishments and fraud:
Mark 13
:11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
Luke 1
:1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
:2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
:3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
:4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
Luke 24
:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
:26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Act 1
:1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
:2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
:3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
John 21
:1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself.
:2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.
John 21
:21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
:22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
:23 Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
:24 This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.
:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
1 Peter 1
:24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
2 Peter 1
:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
:17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
:18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
___
Luke 22
:17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
1 Corinthians 11
:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
1 Corinthians 10
:21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.
1 Corinthians 10
:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
___
Revelation 1
:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
:2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
From what I know- Bart left Christianity not for finding the whole thing to be a sham or the data not being enough, but for personal and philosophical reasons, namely the problem of evil and suffering.
I think it was for lots of money and sexual encounters outside of marriage. And who knows what else. In other words, he embraced evil things which he no longer wants to call evil. They are. But he gets away with it, in his mind, if there is no God.
He's turned his back on God. He embraces evil now but calls it nothing. He has no reason not to lie lie about his reasons for turning on God. He's an atheist. He doesn't have to tell the truth, now. And doesn't want to. He's in the devil's playground.
@@tatie7604 ???? I don’t know- do you have evidence for that? From his own testimony it’s cause of questions of evil.
Can you please get Bart Ehrman himself to answer N.T. Wright that would be a dope debate
Most of those thousands of thousands of copies that we have today come after the year 800.
Mark was written around the year 65 to 70... And we are nowhere close to having the originals. The earliest scrap of Mark we have is I believe p52.... And it's dated to around the year 250.
And the earliest copies had the most mistakes... And all of the copies that came hundreds of years afterwards we're copied from the ones that have the most mistakes.
There's no way we will ever know what your original text said or meant for that case.
Right on Brandon. In addition Dr Wright uses as justification for the reliability of the New Testament that we have many, many copies. While we do have many copies, Dr Ehrman points out the large majority were created much late,in the ninth century I believe. It's true these later copies are more consistent that the earlier copies. However, using sound logic we can extrapolate with some degree of certainty that the earliest copies in the 150 years between the autographs we don't have and the first copies we do have probably varied even more. So Dr Wright's support for the reliability of the New Testament we have today is suspect and Dr Ehrman's argument quite sound.
P52 was from John, and was from between 90 and 180 AD.
@@bobs4429 thats the trick. It isnt what's said...its what isnt said.
Easy to convince someone...and rasy to be convinced when your audience/you are unaware of the massive hole that's being ignored
We use textual criticism to find the original meaning/text
@jpapan1 Speaking of massive holes, one lies in the strain of argument sustained by many in this comment thread, in that the very broad terms “corruption” and “variation” have not been narrowed down to precise phenomena. Indeed, Ehrman’s own admonition of caution warrant against the more conspiratorial of judgements expressed by some internet skeptics, as cited in this article which tackles the issue in brevity well, www.tektonics.org/lp/nttextcrit.php.
1 Corinthians 2:14
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
King James Version (KJV)
Amen Wayne
Iblike thay verse about horse semen and donkey genitals
Ezekial 23;20
jpapan1 that passage is about Israel’s whoring after other Gods and nations. Are you five? Can you not read a reliable historical document with a mind for truth and stop being a child?
The end of Matthew is hardly trivial if it was - as most modern versions of the NT openly admit in the marginalia - a late addition from a hand not in the original (which of course we do not have anything close to).
As an Englishman I'm qualified to say this many is very very English.
He did miss out that the New Testament is considered by those who believe it as a far more important work than some jolly nice poems.
I thought Prof. Bart said that the differences didn't compromise mainstream Christian beliefs, and stayed a Christian a long time after he initially lectured from his current standpoint
Pleas pleas pleas ......NT wrighte vs Bart ehrman ?????
Thanks for uploading this video! Personally, I like NT Wright and value his opinion very much. First I want to make a practical comment, is this about the Gospels(as in the title) or about the New Testament as a whole(that is what they mentioning in the clip).
I think he didn't really react on the problem Bart Ehrman is mentioning. He compares it on the old argument that we have more manuscripts of the New Testament than any other manuscript, and therefore we have a solid ground(that is a fast conclusion). We don't have thousands and thousands of manuscripts of the first or second century. All those thousands go back to a handful of schools. And to say that it is about 1 or 2 is not really fair, it is a lot more than that(in the whole New Testament). I had hoped to get an answer that had a bit more nuanced.
Proof will remain elusive. Two impossible statements: We can be certain the text is authentic/corrupt. But you are correct: appealing to the confidence classicists have in other, vastly more poorly-attested sources sheds no light on the present question. I would add one thing, though: prior to Constantine's conversion, we know copies of the New Testament were actively destroyed in tandem with other forms of persecution. The number of surviving witnesses speaks both to how aggressively they must have been copied, if there were such efforts to destroy them, and secondly the availability of these texts for reference when making the ones that survived. Yes, it is (from our vantage) an argument from silence. But not from the perspective of the scribes who bequeathed to us such a rich textual history.
Sure thing that many scribes were famous for committing pious fraud, notwithstanding the fact that different cultures spewed out copious amount of stories and copies of copies decades later by unknown Christians who collected , combined and edited stories that became popular among early christian communities..What we know that within the first hundred years of the Christian era, not a single passage to be written as History or can be produced to show the existence of a Jesus of Nazareth...either by the great Philo, Josephus , Philosophers, Geographers and Historians. @@seedofwonder
@@lgree4627 "Sure thing that many scribes were famous for committing pious fraud, notwithstanding the fact that different cultures spewed out copious amount of stories and copies of copies decades later by unknown Christians who collected , combined and edited stories that became popular among early christian communities.."
No question about that. But the difference re: the New Testament is that, whereas we can confidently assume this happened with every religious group, guild, association, etc., we have so much textual evidence that can demonstrate which books, manuscript families, and variants were regarded as authoritative for which groups in a given region. Again, what you're saying is correct, but the reason we can know this with such clarity is because it was seldom the case that a "pious fraud" made its way into the copies of copies produced by rival groups. So when you have a reading that suddenly appears in 4th century Alexandria (e.g.) but NOT in Rome, Asia, Achaia, etc. you can easily deduce that it is secondary. And so what you have, as I mentioned above, are text families that descend from these communities and the variants they introduce to suit their doctrinal preferences, which is why there is no one manuscript that is to be treated as original. So the way text criticism works is that even some of the most "piously corrupt" editions contain original readings _in those places_ where they can be shown not to have been edited. This is true when you considered the additional witness of translations into other languages and parabiblical literature that comments on doctrinal debates in the early church (both local and wide).
"What we know that within the first hundred years of the Christian era, not a single passage to be written as History or can be produced to show the existence of a Jesus of Nazareth...either by the great Philo, Josephus , Philosophers, Geographers and Historians."
Depends what you mean. Greek versions of Josephus show signs of Christian editing that do not appear in, e.g., Syriac translations that pre-date those edits and were never brought into conformity with the few Greek MSS we have. But if you mean that, just because Josephus knows of a crucified man who started a movement, a detail he was obviously told about and didn't personally witness, and therefore it _proves_ nothing, I agree. If you think he didn't mention him at all, you are buying into a conspiracy theory.
Ehrman himself says that the og would only have a few minor sentences changes, a few dozen at most. Bart doesn’t consider it a massive deal, so better did Wright
The point of ignorance with Ehrman's premise is that the Dead Sea Scrolls corroborate the accuracy of later texts.
Wrong
What he is not mentioning is the reliability of the genre. Religious texts have been notoriously unreliable. How can NT Write say that only small, irrelevant bits of text have been added when the whole prof of the resurrection was added, by another author, to the gospel of Mark--the earliest gospel and the foundation of matthew and luke. That's not a small detail to brush away.
So at 1:30 he literally admits that people might have added or deleted text to the bible and then proceeds to say that the Bible is no different than any other book that anyone else writes. Very interesting, i respect him for saying that. It's about time that Christians give up this silly notion that the Bible is the original unchanged inspired word of God. If it was before, it no longer is today. In that, he and Bart are in agreement.
_Was_ it the "inspired word of God" before? That's not at all clear (and I doubt Ehrman would agree with that bit). We would need both (a) evidence of God existing, and (b) evidence they definitely inspired the original texts of what became the Bible to claim what you just said. I'm not aware of us having either of those things.
@@majmage yeah I'm starting off on a premise of belief. That comment was not meant for atheists or agnostics. it was meant for my believing Christian Brothers\sisters.
@@m00dy7 So you're fine just ignoring the fact that we have no basis for believing this book was the inspired word of God? I don't really see what relevance it has _who_ your statement was intended for -- no matter the audience, if we could prove this was the word of God, you could've done that. But you didn't...
@@majmage of course it makes a difference who the statement was intended for and who the audience is. That's fundamentals of speech and writing, know your audience! My comment was specifically and narrowed to others that believe in god. Not intended for those that have no belief. if you want to have this discussion that's fine but I don't want to hijack this comment thread with another topic. I'll post a new comment on the video and you can reply to that. Look for it. This is my last reply on this thread regarding your comment.
"Almost all the other texts from the ancient world we know only from one or two medieval manuscripts."
Except we don't have 2.2 billion people today claiming that those other ancient texts are the word of God, with many claiming they're inerrant.
the word of God? What does that mean?
What difference does it make?
@@jerbib9598 It seems to mean that God "Himself" directed what was being written (for "His" own holy purposes). But different Christians seem to have different ideas of what it means for the Bible to be the "God's word".
@@trevbarlow9719 It makes a big difference because:
(1) Most people don't care too much about ancient men's fables and opinions, but most people do care about what 'God' would say.
(2) People who believe the Bible to be the "word of God" are likely to try to align their thinking and behaviours with at least parts of the Bible, and this can affect the rest of society.
(3) The Bible makes claims about the afterlife which, if true, are very important for everyone to know.
(4) If the Bible was the "word of God" then surely an omnipotent deity could preserve it intact.
(4) If the Bible was the "word of God" then surely an omnipotent deity could preserve it intact.
Yes, Bible promoters seem to be very disrespectful in their thoughts about their God. God can do most things, but God can't do everything, therefore we have these stories. It's not a respectful view of an omnipotent god.
The snack plate looks yummy!
Cheers, Uncle Tomo. Totally sound.
I think Mr Erman's objection to Christianity is proof of the words of the apostle Peter who said that people will be willfully ignorant in the last days because of their lust, and for no other reason (2 Peter 3:2-4). Seeing as there's more than enough evidence for the faith of Christianity, the only logical explanation behind anyone rejecting Christ after being confronted with the evidence is solely on the basis of volitional rather than intellectual grounds.
Bart became atheist because of the age old problem of evil and suffering.
Its not adding a "gloss" its fabrication and forgeries - e.g. last 12 verses of Mark, 6 letters of Paul, the story in John with the woman taken into adultery etc
"Way way back"... great thought, except it obscures the problem. The lack of NT actually using a number is the magician's slight of hand. Way way back is supposed to make you comforted. The reality isn't so comforting. He obscures that with the rare exception of fragments of Matthew, "way, way back" translates to 800 years after the fact, 350 years after the Church is official. In other words, nice thought but easily discarded.
Curt Scott Bart would disagree with your statement. Check out his discussion with J Williams.
Many ppl commented without reading Bart Ehrman’s books 😂😂
Bart Ehrman is wrong and has been disproven.
If the gospels are divinely written I am sure the author had no problem in publishing them, the rest from us is just wasted wind😮
Whether they are original manuscripts or not fact is people would do anything to eliminate God so that they can live in their sins and justify it.
Or maybe another religion is right, islam. Quran an-Nisa verse 82: Do they not then reflect on the Quran? Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have certainly found in it many contradictions.
@@asimdridi7272 oh shove your Quran up yours, Islam is a fake religion, Mohamed was possessed, if you think your religion is better than Christianity then how did chapter 53 verse 19-20 come about?
Take your backwards religion to the dump where it belongs
In Surah 53:19-21 Allah has raised questions/objection (in respect to the malpractices at that time 1. appointing more gods other than one Almighty 2. burring alive the female child in the ground in the name of god) and He (Allah) Himself gives the answer to these questions in Verse 22-23
19 Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza?
20 And Manat, the third one, the other?
21 Are you to have the males, and He the females?
22 What a bizarre distribution.
23 These (al-Lat and al-Uzza And Manat) are nothing but names, which you have devised, you and your ancestors, for which Allah sent down no authority. They follow nothing but assumptions, and what the ego desires, even though guidance has come to them from their Lord.
Conclusion:
Not be in hurry in raising equerries. We must read few verses in prefix and suffix to understand the verses in it’s complete context. Quran is word of Allah, free from any contradictions in itself.
@@feduntu In Surah 53:19-21 Allah has raised questions/objection (in respect to the malpractices at that time 1. appointing more gods other than one Almighty 2. burring alive the female child in the ground in the name of god) and He (Allah) Himself gives the answer to these questions in Verse 22-23
19 Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza?
20 And Manat, the third one, the other?
21 Are you to have the males, and He the females?
22 What a bizarre distribution.
23 These (al-Lat and al-Uzza And Manat) are nothing but names, which you have devised, you and your ancestors, for which Allah sent down no authority. They follow nothing but assumptions, and what the ego desires, even though guidance has come to them from their Lord.
Conclusion:
Not be in hurry in raising equerries. We must read few verses in prefix and suffix to understand the verses in it’s complete context. Quran is word of Allah, free from any contradictions in itself.
@@exolandarmyhowaboutthat6912 false here are the original verses
53:19 And do you know al-lat and al-manat
53:20 And al-uzza the third?
53:21 These are the high flying cranes who's interception is to be hoped for
Then mhmd went and prostrate with the pàģàñş and the jinns
According to Allah worshipping others beside him is an unforgivable sin(yet he calls him conduct of humanity)(clear contradiction), ergo mhmd shall go to hèĺĺ, why do you follow such a man? It was afterwards, there's no timeframe mentioned, chances are he had other revelations from şhàýtan that jibreel came to mhmd and "abrogated" *some* of the verses
And if you believe it's all fabrications then you have sura 22:52 to answer to
The difference with this ancient text is that humanity created a world view based on it
Is it dishonest to call something a “manuscript” when it’s a scrap papyrus with a sentence or two on it? I think so and also think saying there are “thousands” of manuscripts is completely dishonest as well - especially given the ages of the complete ones and the fact that most of them he is probably counting (that might be considered the most ancient) are scraps.
Fail by dishonesty and willful misrepresentation.
"manuscript" is a technical term.
@@offcenterconcepthaus The fact remains that the "thousands" of manuscripts Wright is talking about were written centuries later (copies of copies). They only thing they teach us is about medieval scribes.
Which copy is the correct one? If there just one mistake, that mistake is multiplied with the number of copies. How many mistakes are there? How many have missing texts or even sentences? How many additional texts were added?
The amount of copies is meaningless. Is Harry Potter more likely true because of the number of books in prints? What matters is how many original sources there are and how good those sources were.
You misunderstand the concept of having copies. The copies prove the original text. If you demand to have the originals, and someone modified them, how would you know, you now have a a problem. If you have copies of the original it's impossible to modify, because you could tell which copy is the odd one out. If my copy of Harry Potter said written by JRR Tolkien you would know there is something wrong, because none of the other copies say that.
@@CanadianLoveKnot the copies dont prove anything at all unless you have the original to compare them to. I could make a billion copies of Harry Potter saying it was authored by Tolkien and that doesnt add any authority unless theres an original.
@@Wesquire
If you had the originals, you would would be saying how do we know they haven't been modified, and all the copies were just copying the mistakes of the modified original. The originals are better preserved by having copies, since it prevents people from claiming to have possession/ownership of the original. The copies are not mass produced with a printing press, but are painstakingly copied over many years. You are looking for a conspiracy, where there isn't one. You should just do a simple google search and research the different families of the copies, and how we can isolate where different versions come from. There is ultimately very little differences among the copies we do have, against a reference text. What your stuck thinking about probably has to do with people like Bart Ehrman saying that the differences in the copies are in 100's of thousands, but he qdoesn't understand what a textual variant is. The textual variants that do exists are minute, lfor example one will say "Jesus Christ" "Jesus", or "The Christ". If you don't establish a reference text, you end up double triple counting each copy and copy and fragment that has that variant, when they are in fact counting copies from the same family of text.
@@CanadianLoveKnot again, without the original we have no idea how accurate the copies are. There's nothing that would prevent an early "copy" from being completely different than the original and maybe that "copy" is the basis that all later versions are based on. That doesnt even account for the fact that it was just oral tradition for decades. Theres absolutely no reason to believe any of it is accurate.
Are you saying Harry Potter is not true ?
Well how come it has real places in it ?
Was he saying that because the copies are consistent it's safe to assume they're an accurate representation of the original?
Why do old writings matter?
@@jerbib9598 I don't understand your question.
TreKater joh 17 17
People dying for something they believe is true ....
In no way ,shape ,or form has any bearing on its truth .
TreKater joh 17 17
No you didn’t ,
Christians were not persecuted until around 64 AD
it makes no difference
People who die for something they believe is true
Has no bearing on its truth
People have other faiths have died for it ,
That does not make it true
TreKater joh 17 17
It makes no difference when they died
Someone dying for something they believe is true .... has no bearing on its truth
What Bart says in his popular books and talks is a little different to what he might say or write in a scholarly setting.
Such as?
When discussing textual criticism in a scholarly setting, Bart is often much more careful with his choice of words and much more conservative in his claims than perhaps he normally would be when writing a popular book or giving a presentation before non subject specialists. The same, of course, is true of most other scholars.
Copies of copies ... aka more changes than all the worlds on the New Testament ... some of the critical ones being added later on etc
Reading Ehrman's work, I'd say the only thing I found problematic with his scholarship is his baseless assertion that Jesus existed at all. The gospels of Jesus are closely analogous to Homer's Iliad and odyssey, which reference places known to exist but are filled with fictional characters performing miraculous superhuman feats that seem impossible to replicate in an era of scientific explanations, video evidence, and a public that is not subject to executions for questioning this highly doubtful and improbable story
We have indication of Christs life outside of the New Testament from the same time he lived. Combined with the texts themselves, we have FAR more data on his life than almost any other ancient figure from that time period. If your going to doubt the existence of Christ with your standard of skepticism, why not take it to its logical conclusion and denounce the existence of people whom we have significantly less evidence of, like Confucius or King Tut?
As far as the text being analagous to the odysey, Im not sure what you mean. There might have been similar events and themes potrayed, but to imply that Greek myth played a role in the key doctrines is just patently absurd. The narrative originated within the confines of the Jewish teachings of the Sanhedrin, and was an extension of the fulfillment of the Old testament. Why would Paul, or the gospel writers who were almost exclusively jewish fabricate a story with hellenistic ideas when that same culture was persecuting them. That doesnt make sense.
As far as them performing miracles, thats not evidence its not true. It just tells me you dont believe in miracles, which im assuming is a stance predicated on anti theism. But thats a presupposition you have to prove to me at first. Otherwise your just making a baseless assumption.
Just plain dumb right there 🤦🏻♂️
How do you respond to facts?