If the body was hanging or a few days in the sun and was swaying in the wind before the rope snapped he could of easily ended up on his head and burst open because he was decomposing in the sun
Very weird to think that in only 40 years Bart thinks the story gets so distorted. Not even a life time of one person. Oral tradition isn’t your dad telling you what we saw.
Rembrandt972 didn’t mean to post under unbelievables thread. So I’ll answer one time as to not ruin his thread. The gospels don’t tell us who saw his body burst. That’s information collected by Luke. Here is what happened to Judas: Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Felt remorseful and tried to return the silver. They didn’t accept it so he threw it to the ground. Judas went and hung himself. This is around a holiday and the sabbath so Judas body was hanging for a couple of days in the sun before anyone noticed or anyone cared to take it down. With the holiday, sabbath and commotion of Jesus tomb empty early Sunday they probably didn’t tend to Judas until Monday/Tuesday. Judas body eventually fell down wether the branch or the rope broke it caused him to fall in a way that he appeared head down. He could of been swaying in the tree also from wind and after decomposing for a few days in the sun from hanging his body burst from the fall when it hit the ground. The elders could not keep the 30 pieces of silver since it was blood money so they purchased a field in Judas name since it was his blood money and it became known as the field of blood. That is why in Mathew he records Judas died and the elders bought a field because he was an eye witness. Luke after doing research saw that Judas bought the field because it was purchased in his name. So it is not irreconcilable like Bart says. Mathew was an eye witness and saw Judas killed himself and saw they used the money to buy a field for burial. Luke did research and finding that the field was in Judas name assumed it was bought before his death but it wasn’t. He just didn’t know the full story because he was not an eye witness.
Hey Justin, atheist viewer here. Just wanna tell you that I’m very impressed with your unbiased and skillful moderation of these debates. I’ve watched several and never see you show your “team colors” so to speak. I know you’re Christian yourself but you seem like a real lover of truth and healthy debate. Hats off to you.
@@urfriend919 Even if this is the case I don't think that's really an appropriate response to this guy's comment. Should have written this as your own standalone comment. Weird reply.
Yeah I did the same. This is a very thought out and well done debate. And though I am not convinced by Peter in the least, I do respect his approach and knowledge. I disagree with him, but we disagree honestly. And I do appreciate how both Bart and the moderator did work to keep to the core relevant features of the discussion.
I agree. Justin seemed unable to express himself in a rational, logical way. He MUST be able to think logically since he has a PhD, but I couldn't follow his arguments.
Justin and the people that create the Unbelievable? show... as an atheist, I thank you for being able to create a format where people discuss things rationally and kindly. Justin, you do a fantastic job of moderating.
I always get a smile and sigh of relive when I see him as moderator for a debate, not only is he good at keeping biases in check but he knows how too comprehend both sides and ask good questions and lead the conversation to great places.
R u really truly an atheist tho? U believe that there is no higher power or spiritual realm? I mean life can only come from pre existing life.. so how did life begin without someone creating it? Do u truly believe deep down in ur heart that life spontaneously generated from dirt or “primordial soup” for no apparent reason and without a cause? Even tho science tells us that is impossible? Do u also not believe in science? Bc science surely points to a God. I think science will vanquish atheism someday soon.
@@amandacarmel6084 as an atheist "I don't believe in god " rather than "believe that there's no god ". My stance is that the gods that humanity claim to exist do not have substantial and in some cases, rational evidence. Evidence that can be observed, tested, questioned without the threat of burning in a fiery pit and evidence that can be falsifiable. In regards to science, if god did in fact create science then he's created the one tool that might just actually disprove his existence. Reason being? There's a lot of pseudoscience in the bible which doesn't comply with the natural laws of science as we know it. Case and point, god is quoted in Leviticus when he's talking about clean and unclean animals, as classifying bats as birds. This isn't true bats are not birds and god who supposedly created them would know better.
@@proculusjulius7035 that’s terrible I’m sorry u have to go through life like this. I can’t imagine living and not experiencing a relationship with God and feeling His presence and knowing He’s there. And seeing evidence of his existence in every aspect of nature it’s overwhelming!! I can’t imagine believing that when I die I will cease to exist. I don’t just believe in God I know He exists bc there’s so much more to life than the “material” there’s a whole other realm out there for u to experience. It’s indescribable unless u experience it yourself. I can’t imagine not being able to look forward to dying and moving into eternity. I’d be terrified of death and would feel like I have no purpose in this life and it’s all just gonna end one day so what’s the point?? We’re all just animals and star dust so why would anyone even care?! There’s so much more to life and love to experience in life. U will never know true love unless u know God, the author of love. What even is love is there’s no God and we’re all just one big accident? Why are things evil or wrong if there is no God? Who’s to say hitler was evil? Who says?? Why is anything beautiful or pure? Everything is meaningless truly without God. There’s no rhyme or reason for existence so why are we even having this conversation
@@amandacarmel6084 why your God though? Why not one of the multitude dreamed up before and after Yahweh? Is it possible that it's the time, place and parents you were born to? That's not good enough reason to believe in the preposterousness of the old and new testaments, think about it.
Excellent conversation, thank you! I’m an atheist, and I love respectful conversations with theists who don’t straw man their debate partner. That’s my biggest pet peeve.
@@kelrogers8480Im an atheist myself but not anti theist, or against religion. To me it cuts both ways and I have seen very confrontational debates and also podcasts which clearly play to a crowd by both atheists and christian apologists. The internet and podcasting / youtubing etc just creates camps and many atheists and Christians play provocateur and attempt to "destroy" the opposition and their arguments while usually just trying to score points with their tribes and hardcore followers. In fairness Justin only invites the more civilised Christians and sceptics onto his show and he keeps it civil and also moderates extremely well and doesnt let his own Christianity overshadow the atheists points or elevate the Christian points. These are very well thought out debates with well chosen debaters who aren't there to score points or "destroy" anyone but to discuss interesting points of view on a deep basis with lots of nuance on both sides. They are very enjoyable, entertaining and thought provoking. I actually have a lot of respect for many of the Christian apologists who come on and debate and many of their arguments are very well constructed, deeply researched and passionately delivered...the same with the sceptics and their points of view. 👍
@@drzaius844 if you read my comment properly without projecting, you will see I say it is common for atheists to strawman in debates. I don't accuse Ejrmamn here specifically. It is however std aetheist practice. They are not neutral nor open minded, and thoroughly convinced they're right and everyone else is an idiot!
Really amazing conversation. I tend to find Erhman a lot more credible because he's more analytical, but I think it's important to note that he's not saying he's an atheist because of his view of scripture. It's entirely possible to believe in God without thinking the Bible is a historical document. This video should have far, far more views.
@@michaelnelson3652 well sure I agree, he may not intend to defend atheism or anything if the sort, but the argument that the Bible isn’t historical and the resurrection isn’t a true event is at least an obstacle for Christianity, if not incompatible. It may not directly defend/support atheism, but it can certainly raise questions about the religion
@@jonr9467 It's important to understand the context. Ideas change and develop over time, and religion is the same. For a set of ideas or principles to be valid, doesn't require a text to be accurate in the same way a history book has to be accurate to be of value. As Michael points out in his comment above, it does raise questions, and that's good. People should question their ethical positions on many things, as well as their religious or cultural beliefs. Whether or not that means they ultimately abandon those beliefs is up to the person, after a period of reflection.
Ehrman is more credible and analytical? Man , you have NO idea! Read Misquoting jesus and his scholarly work he did with his mentor Bruce Metzger in the same frikkin year!!! He contradicts himself a lot in the same year!!! Watch David Wallace vs Bart Ehrman debate
@@strive4252 no evidence? He loads up for PJW to give him a scaffolded question that is geared towards generating a response that he would like to hear. He also used language like "you like to rattle off examples of contradictions and disparities in the text..." Best moderator lol. Just how many debate moderators have you observed?
@@AbuYusha01 That’s better, be sure to give examples and evidence before you attack a comment on RUclips. I would still like more specification as you have not yet convinced me. In my personal experience as both a religious studies and politics inquisitor I have found that every moderator reveals a bias. Though I watched this video four months ago and barely remember it’s contents, I remember the feeling of refreshment after listening to what I believe was a fair moderator. I was so satisfied by his performance that I left a comment showing my subjective joy at his work. You can subjectively think otherwise, but if you would like objective evidence to show his failures, the burden is on you for concrete specific evidence.
@@ethtt she’s commented several times on this video just complaining about Bart being rude and interrupting. She’s just butt hurt that he laid the smack down in the most cordial way it can be delivered in a debate.
@@hawt_fiyaHe didn’t though. It’s sad when Believers fall away and trust in man’s understanding and not Gods. You have to trust and have faith in God. I know that seems crazy to most. With all that said even in man’s world he didn’t lay a smack down at all in this debate. I wish you the best in your search for truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life!
Dr. Ehrman himself has pointed this out many many times, in both his books and his speaking engagements/interviews. The Bible does in fact have both, with the former being _far_ more numerous throughout its developmental history.
@@kvjackal7980 It's almost always contradiction of terms as like words and descriptions can be used to portray totally different context so it almost always ends up being different context so not actual contradiction it just looks like it at face value without bothering to understand it.
Whenever I need to share a fantastic example of intellectual dishonesty, I point people to this conversation so they can hear Mr. Williams's erudite, ludicrous attempts at coherent arguments. Just .... well, Dr. Ehrman is certainly blessed with the gift of patience, lol
@@jjroseknows777 judging by most of Bart's debates they need to quickly book Wright, but I don't think he's willing to potentially tarnish his legacy because he will struggle with some of the Christian claims that require one to have faith when logic would be equally supporting.
As organizer of these debates and as their moderator Justin is brilliant. The way he can bring together scholars of the caliber of P.J. Williams and Bart Ehrman to discuss such deep subjects is amazing
@@TheHaqtivist "Muslims believe that Jesus js a prophet and the promised Messiah" - Muslims believe in Isa the counterfit Jesus of the qu'ran who is merely a prophet. Muslims do not believe in the Historical Jesus of the bible who is the promised Messiah. Also nowhere in the qu'ran does it say why Jesus is the Messiah or what Messiah mean. "This video proves the islamic christolgy" - firstly there is no christology in Islam and furthermore how did you come to that conclusion based on this video?
@@Thanos-kp5jr Exactly quite literally the Jesus of the bible is their anti-Christ and their messiah is Christianities anti-Christ and Islams Jesus is the false prophet described in the bible. It's freaky how much Islam took from the bible and reversed it, quite satanic indeed.
That was brilliant. Thank you to all involved in producing this debate. It makes a refreshing change to the (unfortunately) usual mudslinging. Subscribed.
I'm a follower of Jesus, and I think its safe to say Peter was horribly outmatched and lost this debate. I appreciate Barts candor in admitting that his arguments don't really have much more to do with anything outside of the biblical inerrancy claim. American Christianity is so badly plagued with thumping inerrancy to the point that many of them apply it as gospel, which its not. The bible can have errors and Jesus can still be absolutely everything he said he was. That may muddle epistemology a bit, but thats a different story altogether. I enjoyed this conversation a lot.
If you don't believe the Bible is God's word and inerrant, then you're not a Christian and you will fall away. You've been deceived by the liars of our time, of which bart is simply one of many. His book the introduction to the new testament, which I took at a secular college, it's full of so many lies, that I did an oral presentation for 30 minutes refuting it. I got a standing ovation from a giant room full of mostly non-Christian people. They wanted to arrange a debate between me and bart, and I said if you can do it go right ahead. Bart's a liar, plain and simple
@@kingjames5527 you just proved my point. the gospel does not include the necessity of believing in biblical inerrancy. Of course a Christian has good reason and ought to believe in inerrancy; it would be foolish to think otherwise, but it is not a prerequisite belief to receiving salvation. As a Christian, I whole heartedly believe the Bible is the word of God without error. The thief on the cross probably didn't, largely because he was likely unfamiliar with Hebrew scripture, but he recognized the authority of Christ and placed his trust in him. Many non-Jewish who did not even know about scripture saw Christ for who he was, and Jesus himself proclaims that their faith it's what saved (heals) them. There's a reason why the bible does not expand the simple gospel message to include the belief in inerrancy. It would behoove you to follow the Bible's lead on this. Again, I believe in inerrancy. And Bart may be everything you say he is. These are not the argument here. The gospel proclamation does not include inerrancy.
Just curious, why did you say you are "a follower of Jesus"? Why not just say you're Christian or Catholic or Protestant? I myself, like you, am a follower of Jesus, and refused to call myself Christian.
I totally disagree. I saw Bart making leaps just as often, if not more so than Peter. For instance, Bart says the Judas accounts are irreconcilable because all explanations are implausible. That simply isn’t true. There are explanations that are perfectly plausible. On another case, Bart uses a fallacious argument that Jesus did *say* He was God in certain books, so His divinity must have been a later view. This is silly, obviously. I think Bart has several other very strong arguments where Peter’s faith is clearly coloring his analysis, but I don’t think Peter was soundly defeated.
Another intelligent, well moderated discussion. As a former fundamentalist Christian that is still fascinated with the topic, I always look forward to the next exploration on this channel. Thank you Justin.
@@timediverx I'm just eager for scientific discussions about God's existence with anyone who knows enough science for an intelligent discussion. You didn't do well when we chatted.
I'm a muslim, and I enjoyed this discussion. Hope it was longer and delved deeper into the topic. Also, hope all who debate, including myself, are as sincere, gentleman-like and respectful as these two. Great moderation too.
Indeed this debate was wonderful. an atheist vs a christian..This debate iwas focused on the text in the bible about what the bible claims that 4 witness of Jesus life wrote about Jesus. and it was done in a really professional way , noone was interrupted ,everyone allowed to give his point of view.. But i can show you other ways to proof Jesus words was real as life is. Through real life experiences. There are many muslim who have convereted to Christianity with amazing stories ,to tell.. and also there are Jews too who converted to Chistianity and so HIndus and Budist. if you are interested to know more about JESUS , just ask. will be happy to help. because even though the scriptures testimonies are 2000 years old.. today in the present.. there are millions of witness of Jesus doing still today , the miracles that appear in the bible. So jesus miracles and Jesus teachings continues today. it did not stop with the bible.
@@technoartfest8708the stories of the prophets are all better in Quran. Quran never told ill stories about the prophets. Jesus Christ's story was told beautifully, given miracles by God to spoke as a new baby born, etc.
@@adralia23 The Quran cannot be Right because use lots of stories from the Bible as their own , most things in the bible are wrong.. It means that the atheist guy is partially right , half Right when it comes to the Bible being made up ,and not real. So if the QUran use stories of a Half Wrong Bible ,then the Quran own text contains mistakes of things that never happened. Jesus never claimed to be just a prophet. he claimed to be the Son of GOD initially and they later in his life on this world admit he was GOD the father too. So you need to start from there. Jesus ressurected , in the same way he resurrect lazarus from death. And Mohammad nobody resurrected him. His Death Body is in Saudi Arabia Al Madinah and Muslim can visit his Tomb waiting for resurrection. While Jesus is not death anymore ,he rise his own body to life.. So who is more powerful? the one that his body is death and needs resurrection? or the one who is alive and ressurect death people? When Jesus was on mission preaching the word of GOD , what you know as the Bible did not exist. The bible was a creation of humans and not of GOD. Hundreds of years later ,Christians decided to change Jesus teachings and COmbine 2 Religions in One. COmbine Judaism religion teachings with Jesus teachings and in the end you got a Book that was going to be the manual of Christians. And the Major mistake was the Judaism GOD Yahveh is not the Same GOD of Jesus. Jesus was not Yahved ,was not the GOd of Moises the God that lead wars against Egypt.. Jesus did not believed in Violence or war.. Jesus instead promoted forgiveness of enemies , seventy times seven.. In other words to allways forgive your enemies and pray for them. So This is the major mistake that Muslim have. that All 3 major religions like Judaism ,Christianity and Islam have the same roots and this is not the case. IF Jesus believed in Jews yahveh GOD and Jews religion ,he will have not converted jews into christinity , and will have demanded everyone to use only the TORAH that is the book of Judaism religion. But he didn;t do it.. Why Jesus promoted a brand new religion with brand new God personality and new Laws. ? Why Jesus promoted a new religion that it wa going to compete with Judaism religion? because Jesus disagreed with Judaism religion and with the GOD of the Jews. thats why. and So Islam cannot be right when it use parts of the torah as the Truth. and Jesus instead created a totally new religion , his own religion ,his own way. Christianity the Jesus one , in not an abraamic religion , Jesus did not banned alcohol for example , did not endorsed wars ,did not justified violence as a way to solve problems. Jesus did not banned Pork meat. Jews and muslim prohibit pork meat . Jesus did not condemn Prostitution on womens.. he forgave a prostitute that was going to be killed to death , by stones. . Jesus promoted the NO JUDGEMENT on people. To not point fingers at others sinners. and i can go forever on why Islam canot be the Truth , because it follows more closely the Jews rules ,on about everything. Jews religion was highly political religion ,that interfere in almost everything in people daily life , What to eat, which clothing , Beard. the role of women in society ,the time of praying , of fasting, Islam use moon cycles , as a guides for their activities.. this is similar to pre Islamic religions in the middle east.. that worship the Moon as GOD. In Short Jesus did not created a new Religion. He was the Way ,The Truth and the life , Jesus Was and IS God . Moses and neither of the Torah prophets were GOD , Mohammad was NOT GOD, Jesus in the other had told he was the SAME as GOD. So conclusion < Muslim copied Jews religion and created a new One to try to lure Jews and Confused Christians into their ISlam religion. Jesus was not a prophet , he was GOD , he was much bigger than Abram ,Moises and bigger than Mohammed. No one is greater than GOD. and Jesus was GOD.
EDIT: timestamp 1:22:20 Bart: "I can come up with a hundred examples [of irreconcilable contradictions in the bible]" Petter: "Well, you can come up with other examples..."; Bart "But you didn't address them in your book!" Petter: "Well, it is a short book" 0.o' That sounds convenient...
Wait, you do realize that "it's a short book" is NOT all he's pointing out right? He could have gone through so many valid points but Bart already cut him off. And repeatedly at that. We can't discredit someone without allowing them to give their side of the story. But that's what happened here because nga Bart was acting very rude, cutting Peter off every time. Is that a fair debate? I thinks not.
@@shiroganeadventurer1574 Come on, it was cross examination time. By that point they had plenty of time of their own to get their arguments across. Peter also interrupted Bart at other moments and that is ok, because they were engaging in a back and forth. There is no point in letting someone continue with long argument if you have an issue with the premises, for example. Or if the person committed an error, it is useful to correct it promptly. It is not rude, it is common in conversations. It would be different if it was during opening statements or rebuttals. In this particular moment, Peter was trying to squirm and stutter his way out of answering Bart's questions. So he was pressing Peter, that's all.
Peter can't answer definitively Ehrman's simple question: Do you believe the Bible is inerrant? Peter obviously does. Thus Peter is disingenuous, and hypocritical. He need say yes and be done with it. Ultimately, imo, he sounds confused, uncertain about his position.
@@chrislanglois3598 The serious problem with literal interpretation of Scripture is that it neglects and suppresses all truthful understanding of what the authors were saying to their specific communities at specific moments in their history. Literal interpretation also seriously denies the many errors obviously made over millennia through redaction and transcription.
@Stefan Urban Please demonstrate how you're smarter than desert people, my anti-Semitic little friend. Also which old book? Current year current year current year!
All you have to do to get to the heart of the hypocritical nature of a Christian "examining" their own book is to ask them to do the same thing with the Quran. They'll immediately put on their common sense helmet and say that flying horses don't exist and that the Quran is full of errors. Ask them to keep their common sense helmet on and perform that same level of skeptical scrutiny to their own scripture and you get a person like Benjamin. Someone who is certainly intellectual enough share a seat at the table, but his standards of evidence have completely shifted when talking about his own house, and he dismisses his otherwise very useful and healthy skepticism. This is the hallmark of indoctrination. It's this simple: ask Bart to examine the Bible. Then ask him to examine the Quran. His methodology and standards will be the same for each. Ask Benjamin to do the same exercise. His standards for examining the Bible are different than his standards for examining the Quran. That is how you tell someone is not being intellectually genuine. They hold different set of standards depending on the subject matter. This is hypocrisy defined. Bart doesn't carry this obviously hypocritically-charged baggage with him, theologians/apologists do. So when they are talking about the "subtle naturalist bias" that exists in academia and that Benjamin wants to stay away from that, that is simply him trying to give a pass to his non-skeptical examination. Sorry, but this is the fundamental issue. One person values skepticism in all cases, while the other person only values skepticism when it suits them (again ask Benjamin to examine the Quran and he'll happily rattle off the errors within). Sorry, but being a skeptic means we try to maintain a consistent set of standards and apply those universally. Ask a Christian to apply their set of standards, that they use to dismiss the Quran, to their own holy book and you'll see that these guys are not out for truth. They are out for confirmation (as Bart put it perfectly in his closing statement).
John Bagget I wish I had the intelligence and the eloquence to put forth a statement as astute, accurate and TRUE as you just did. Whether I'm skeptical or not, about any subject, I do my best to examine it with the same "common sense helmet", I just can't explain it as intelligently as you just did. I couldn't agree with you more! So many Christian apologists "change their tune" (or switch helmets) , when it comes to "attempting/ PRETENDING???" to explain their beliefs. I, personally, do not even question the Bible stories anymore. For me, they are simply OUT OF the question. IF, (and that's a BIG "IF") there is a God, He is NOT to be found in the Bible myths, unless that God is an absolutely immoral monster. Thanks for your comment. I got a lot out of it. It'll help me to analyze and inquire about things I'm skeptical of, AND help me to explain my motives and my honesty to others, while I'm doing so!
John Baggett On the contrary Im perfectly open to accepting the claims of the Quran. However when it comes to the topic of Jesus the evidence clearly favors the Bible and it’s historical account of Jesus (life,death, resurrection) over the Qurans description. It’s seems that your quarrel is with the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. I can tell you One does not accept Christ as lord and savior via the doctrine of inerrancy. One comes to accept him by examining the evidence. It’s good to be skeptical, but there comes a time when you have to accept the truth.
@@jamesveerdog2723 then provide some evidence that leads to the truth and then maybe you have an argument I note that this is a Christian channel - yet a lot of the comments are pointing out the evasiveness , fallacies and doing view theology on show by Ben who would normally get a warm welcome ?
Poor naïve Williams, he was completely outshined by Ehrman. Ehrman made total sense whereas Williams was reduced to huffing and puffing, avoiding answering questions directly, throwing multiple red herrings around and hedging and parsing words. Williams really fell apart at 51:30 and onwards. "Coherent worldviews" are not tantamount to truth. There can be perfectly "coherent" systems or views that are completely false. But Ehrman's point is that the stories in the Gospels are *_not even coherent_* because they have inconsistencies in them. Williams seems blind and deaf to this and continues to obfuscate to salvage his priors. At 53:11, Williams admits that he *_"is not doing history,"_* and is actually going with his beliefs. He's done at this point. But Williams digs himself even deeper and at 53:53 Ehrman squashes Williams like a bug: *_"What Peter [Williams] is saying is that Christian History is not the same as History..."_** OUCH!!!!* Williams looked deflated. Then Williams goes on to try to discredit the science of History itself, apparently unaware that he is *only discrediting himself!* It's pretty sad to see... At 1:04:12 Williams again goes on a tirade against the scholarship and historical methodology itself instead of addressing head on the powerful point that Ehrman made in the preceding couple of minutes. This is a dodge and another wasted opportunity for him to tackle Ehrman's points head on. At 1:05:00 Williams pretends to engage Ehrman's arguments, but leaves them entirely unscathed, by addressing something entirely different, which Ehrman did not claim. Ehrman's point is that Jesus was not portrayed as *claiming or portraying himself to be divine* in the early gospels, *not* that the writer of Mark didn't think that Jesus was divine. More bait and switch from Williams. From 1:10:31 through 1:11:06 Williams goes completely "non-sensey" and self-contradicting. At 1:11:41 through 1:12:45, *Ehrman comes down like a hammer and squashes Williams again.OUCHIE!* The moderator is clearly biased, and tried to throw some bones at Williams, but overall did a decent job at letting both sides express their points.
One is a non believer and one is a believer in miracles. Hence the view describe won't be the same. But all the same ending , for example Judas Isacriot died . How he died is not clear. Science cannot agreed as to what really happened , if it happened ,becasue science cannot accept miracles but only hard facts. That is what Erhman is pushing against WIlliam. . So the question is , can science explain every happenings, like for example all humans grows up to be similar in appearence but how is the mechanics that it became like that? One can point to the DNA but till today no scientist one can trace the path of its flow or happening . Hence its call a miracle that science cannot trace and immitate. If scientists can , then we would be seeing new creatures created by scientists. All they can do is use part of the existing DNA and put them together to create a varieties of different shapes or colours, but never a new creatures or plants. They can only take what already exist but never will be able to create their own DNA and hence a new creature. Science is only trying to find out how God works and not to prove that God didn't exist.
@@stevenong7964 Notice the question in the debate refers to *historical reliability* not "miracles" or supernatural anything. Williams is trying to say that the gospels are *historically reliable.* He is not able to do this, and relying on "miracles" only disproves his point, because miracles are not "scientific" by definition. Also, you seem to misunderstand what "miracles" are supposed to be. You seem to think that if science or the scientific method does not *YET* understand something, then therefore it must be a miracle. This is an argument from ignorance fallacy: _"I don't understand A, therefore B must be true."_ But this is wrong. There are many cases in which science didn't understand something in the past and came to understand it later. It is possible that things we don't fully understand now will be understood later. It is also possible that there will be many things that we will never understand. But that does *NOT* mean that they are miraculous in anyway.
@@carlanderson2468 Call it what you will. My level of convinced-ness about any supernatural beings is very low, and I think Ehrman says roughly the same. I don't carry out my day as if there is an omniscient being watching me.
@@drumrnva Earth is a conscious living entity do you believe that??? Everything that makes us what we are comes from earth, Iron, dust, sweat that taste like salt water, calcium and that includes consciousness, it to comes from earth. But you don't see it. Whatever created all existence from the very beginning of whatever time was is god. It's not a male, it's not a female and for more respect, it's not an it. Earth connects with us consciously but god may have no connection, for all we know, god is the very first atom that expanded the universe therefore we are all connected energy, connected to a god we know nothing about.
Peter then goes on to say that in domestic violence cases for which there is no other witness, we should "jolly well believe the victim" --- an appalling statement. (I wish people were required to pass an exam on basic reasoning before they ware allowed to publish books on real-world issues.)
This wasnt a conversation or debate, this was a beat-down.... That Peter guy was no match for Bart, he mumbled & stumbled his way pathetically to the end when ended up grovelled up in a corner stuttering bs.
Peter was stuttering since the beginnig. Instead of reading your definition into it, maybe it is just that some people are just not good in speech and stutter their whole life. That seems more obvious to what you saying.
Bart repeatedly interrupted Peter, which possibly threw Peter off his train of thought, instead of showing Peter the same courtesy that Peter showed him.
What a great discussion. Bart is a great scholar that looks at NT from an academic point view detached from bias and brings real questions that requires honest reflections. Thank k you Bart.
Detached from bias? Pffffft. Bias exists in every man on this planet. Ehrman is just as invested as the bloke sitting opposite him (and quite a bit richer thanks to his bias).
thanks bart. convey the truth and falsehood of the bible. grateful you are an atheist or agnostic, if you are a muslim, surely the christians will criticize more severely. as usual
The alarming thing for me when watching this is how easy Bart dismantled Peter views on a number of occasions. Furthermore, Peter seemed rattled and unable to articulate a clear, convincing and sound argument. Meanwhile, Bart effortlessly spoke with conviction on his viewpoint.
Additionally, it's a credit to Bart to be so transparent about his views on Christianity given that religion thrives of predicating fear to validate its claims.
@@carsonianthegreat4672 Bro I'm a Christian and even I can see Bart was destroying Peter. Just look at Peter's body language and how many times he crosses his arms to defend seld sooth himself, and how often he struggles to make a point.
I think you’re mistaking calm eloquence for strong argumentation and the occasional fumbling nervous answering as weak argumentation. If you would read the transcript you’d probably find Bart constantly evading direct arguments to come back with a tangential point. Strong rhetoric competence, which may even win you the debate for audience / entertainment point of view. But I think he presented very weak arguments against the historic veracity of scripture.
Bart Ehrman is not to bright when it comes to the Bible, im a nobody and i would destroy him in a debate...He says that Jesus never said he is God..well if ur God in human form, would u tell anyone ur really God? ofcourse not, no one would believe you, so what would u do to infront of people to have them figure out who u are? hmmm i dont know maybe for starters ill go to someones funeral and raise that person , u cant argue with that kind of miracle ..and also all humans sin, but if u was God in human form would u ever sin once? would u ever break any of ur own commandments? well did Jesus ever sin? duuuhhhhhh
@@freddytorres4573 i agree with bart that jesus was not God what he did was power pf faith as jesus said if u have a little faith and say to a tree to walk it will if a tree starts walking on ones order will he be a God???? and yes a God has many more attributes and power and glory he can say every thing openly without any fear whether people believe or not first of all u should learn the definition of miracle that is impossibility of happening of something simply and so many prophets performed miracles like as u know moses Pbuh performed more than this when he hit his stick on the ground and divided the sea into 2 parts and made a way for his people this is impossible to think even ! did not moses also raised the dead person after 3 days of his death was he God???or silently trying to prove himself God??? as bible say Moses was God to pharoh ! and all prophets do not committed sins just a very much little error bcz of human nature if God commit sin there is no problem bcz no one can punish him these things are not sufficient to prove a man to be a god first learn who is God His attributes His power His glory His Grace then go ahead
freddy torres freddy torres but you do realize you’re projecting your own thought processes onto why Jesus wouldn’t say he was god? The question wasn’t “what could be the reason Jesus didn’t say he was god” but if there were ever any kind of record saying that he confirmed that. At any rate, it would only be beneficial for Jesus to say he was god because people believed that even demons could do miracles, so wouldn’t it be good to clear things up so there wouldn’t be a chance of misattribution? His whole ministry counted on whether or not he was god sent to earth to cleanse people from their sins, so why wouldn’t he proclaim this? And not even to his disciples? Also in other writings Jesus is portrayed to kill the people that opposed him during his childhood, so was he actually totally free of sin?
I’m not sure knowledgeable and big brained are synonyms. Peter certainly is intelligent but he openly admits the circular reasoning of his presuppositions as a basis for his argumentation, and funny thing is you can almost hear the second guessing and wavering in his voice as he does so before the moderator changes the topic. That’s not a very big brained move. Bart remains honestly analytical.
I am in the minority here, but I thought Peter did just fine. Ehrman doesn't concede points even though some good ones were made by Peter. He just drones on, even to the point he "hears" things Peter never said like the dating of Mark. One example that Ehrman would not acknowledge is the local accuracy of Luke lending credence to an earlier date rather than a late date. The information that Luke supplies strongly suggests a living eyewitness before the Destruction of the Temple. Local details supplied would be lost after the Temple's Destruction. Ehrman deflected this argument saying the writer could have the details right and the story wrong. But, he refused to acknowledge that accurate and precise details points to a contemporary witness rather than a witness post AD 70. He attacked the veracity of the story rather the argument for an earlier dating of the Gospel. He pivoted to avoid a good and solid point. Bart also did not like Peter's answer regarding the divinity of Jesus in Luke. Bart claimed Jesus never spoke of himself as divine. However, in Luke 18:19 Jesus asks the rich man this rhetorical question, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." Or, in other words, you are calling me, God. Or, to the thief on the cross Jesus proclaimed his divinity, " Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 24:43 This shows at least three things: 1) He had the power to forgive sins thereby equating himself with God. 2) He had the foreknowledge that he would resurrect. 3) He had authority in Heaven/Paradise to welcome the redeemed. Then, Bart would not let Peter finish his argument on the time that Jesus healed the blind man in Luke. So, let me pick up where Bart so rudely interrupted: Nowhere in the O.T. is a person healed of blindness. Bart, himself, admitted that. In Isaiah, one of the signs of the coming Messiah is that he would open the eyes of the blind. When this happened, the crowds realized that the Messiah had come. Healing the blind was evidence of divinity. But, Bart would not hear of it. He was only interested in his own argument. He might say he is pursuing truth, but he really isn't. He just wants to shut the other guy up to make his own points. I don't see Bart as a genuine Truth-seeker. I see someone still trying to convince himself that he is not wrong.
I think a lot of people are convinced more by Bart's rhetoric, even when he doesn't actually make a good point. He is a good debater, speaks confidently, and doesn't stammer or struggle to find a good comeback, but when you read him in print, it's clear that his arguments are just as open to questioning as that of someone like Williams.
@@ombandajeanpaul7117 the messiah was never meant to be “divine” the Hebrew Bible is pretty clear on that. This is why Jews struggle to see Jesus as that figure.
@@izrealtruefelicis3309 Either they are in bad faith or they are unable to read and understand what is written. The MESSIAH (Psalm 110:1-5) is the Lord (Adonaï) of king David. The same is sitting at the right hand of Adonaï Yahweh. The SON of Man that Jesus is referring to is a divine Figure as he is worshipped (PELACH) by all the nations and all people (Daniel7:13-14). PELACH is used 10 times in the Bible and it is used to mean ''Worship'', ''Serve God'' or ''achieve a service to God uniquely ". This Word is used in Daniel 7:13-14 in relation to the Son of Man.
@@izrealtruefelicis3309I have read a few Jewish scholars who wrote books about Jesus and from what I remember it was rather that the messiah was expected to be a political leader supposed to bring peace to the world not to be crucified. Not so much the question of his divine nature (which they wouldn't accept of course). I once read that a lot of the misunderstanding between ancient Israelite religion and Christianity comes from the process of "hellenization", the Greek influence that led to the problem that the metaphorical thinking was translated to the ontological thinking of the Greek philosophy which already began BC. So "son of man" became ontological and not metaphorical. It might be a oversimplification but it does explain some of the problems.
As a Christian who has rejected fundamentalism for a fuller faith in Jesus and not in the box I believe he must fill, I appreciate Bart Ehrmen’s scholarship on this. For those who’s faith may be shaken by Ehrmen’s comments, listen to the “Ask NT Wright Anyting” podcast on the Infallibility of Scripture. Ehrmen said he was a Christian for many years still after learning all of this stuff, but what really took him from his faith was theodicy, or the problem of evil.
I didn't know this about Bart. That's interesting. I always thought he turned from the faith after further study of the NT Also thanks for the headsup on NT Wrights podcast episode
@@orangecountyrealtor Bart turned away from Christianity because it fails to explain why there is so much suffering in the world. He covers this topic in his book, God's Problem.
@@clinchleatherwood1012 That is so very odd as no one is a Christian because such reasons like it just makes sense or even that it's true. It's because of personally knowing Jesus. So such people that so easily claim to lose their "faith" makes me wonder if they ever knew Jesus to start with and this "faith" of theirs if it was just their own or from Jesus like it's supposed to be. We have faith from not ourselves but from Jesus because we know him. He is the source. To deny the tangible reality of Jesus a Christian has because of a theological issue one might have is unfathomable to me. Makes me question if Christ was ever part of someones Christianity.
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep that's something you'll need to take up with Bart. But, a lot of us find it "so very odd" that people will blindly follow something that they don't care if it "makes sense" or "even that it's true" and who claim to know someone who's been dead for 2000 years, never met and never spoken to. (You can claim you've spoken to and met Jesus but if you can't prove it is merely a claim). Not everyone's brain functions like that. Like me, I need facts or I will not accept it as true. Peace be with you!
@@clinchleatherwood1012 I can help it make sense for you. Christianity is indeed an evidence based and not blind faith. Faith is the product of truth, and truth is ultimately a person Jesus Christ who said I am the truth. Faith not from truth is blind faith, an aberration of the fundamental concept of faith which unfortunately has been popularized as the standard definition which is absurd. Paul wrote test everything and hold fast to that which is true. Being a Christian isn't about blind faith. Hebrews 11:1 Paul wrote the Greek "hupostasis." It means an internal unseen tangible substance of assurance, of the person of Jesus he gives as an "elegchos" which basically means like a clinical evidence like given in a court of law. It is the most important evidence one can have to give ones life to Jesus. Ultimately nothing else is or can be sufficient. Jesus, God could appear infront of you right now and do miracles and that wouldn't be enough for you or anyone to give their lives truly to him. It wasn't enough for the disciples. All the disciples denied Jesus on the cross. All the miracles and evidence Jesus was God like walking on water raising the dead, hearing God from heaven speak and say this is my Son was not enough. So why would it be enough for you? It wouldn't. Christianity should have died on the cross with Jesus. But Pentecost happened. God the Holy Spirit came and his promise is to reveal Jesus and make him real to you. That is when all the disciples would rather give their lives for Jesus than deny him, hundreds of thousands would die as martyrs in the Colosseum than deny Jesus who was then made real to them more real than walking on water or raising the dead infront of them in person. Just a reminder the apologetic case of the resurrection is based on the historical evidence and it uses the same method of reasoning mainly inference to the best explanation that Darwin uses in the Origin of Species. The New Testament shows with the physician Luke telling that they knew and understood and had the same objections we do today that a miracle goes against the laws of nature and addressed it with the story of Zechariah that a God that created it all with those laws of nature and intervene into them. To assume miracles can't happen is to wrongly assume this universe is a closed system, science does not tell us that. You are hindered by a philosophical presupposition that thinks that is the way it must have happened. That is a big issue for a scientist, am I going to stick with what the science is saying or with my philosophical presupposition? Richard Lewontin a geneticist was very honest in stating; "The methods of science do not compel us to accept a materialistic explanation. What does? Our apriori conviction." Atheists aren't following where the evidence leads, because they are self limiting the extent of their own rationality. It's irrational in the strictest sense. Atheism and science do not mix. If the mental is purely physical, then we have no reason to have any confidence in anything our brain produces. -Thomas Nagel Atheist Having no belief in God undermines the very rational mind you use to argue with. So there is nothing in genuine science to stop the belief in God, there is everything in genuine science to support the belief in God, and there is only one ultimate type of truth that you or anyone can accept to not just belief of God but accept and give your life to him and know him, and that's from him giving that evidence personally as he promises and does for all those that seek him.
@@sagebias2251 apparently Ehrman is now an expert on the history of hangings. No doubt he has spent 5-10 years reading all of the “scholarly” literature on the “physics” of hangings; and all the “authorities” agree that hangings never result in unexpected injuries,…
@@josephstrauch8116 Was he hung over a set of spikes or something? How could you fall headfirst? Why didn't the Bible authors mention this? What is wrong with thinking one of the bible authors heard a different account of the death?
Erhman needs to make the point that the Jesus miracles, aside from the blind man from birth and the miracle at Cana, are simply reprises of miracles performed by Elijah and Elisha as reported in 1 and 2 Kings. The Cana miracle (water into wine) is simply a rehash of what Dionysus did on a regular basis. Being schooled in Greek, the Gospel writers were totally familiar with the Septuagint and with Greek mythology, and they do not claim to be witnesses nor do they name their sources. There is no legitimate reason to assume that the Jesus miracles are historical.
Aren't all of the miracles done by the prophets in the name of God/The Father? I just went through them and found all where done in God's name/after prayer/on God's authority. Jesus does them in his own name, as he claims to be God (ex. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?). There is no record of him praying to the Father for a healing. He simply states the healing and it happens, right? I just went through them all and that was true as well. I was surprised that this distinction wasn't made, but maybe it is my own ignorance that is prohibiting me from seeing why that distinction wasn't made. I am very open to showing why that might be a moot point :)
@@calypzo9361 My point is raising the issue of miracles is to indicate that the Jesus miracles were not reported by eyewitnesses. The gospel authors located them in the Septuagint and Greek mythology and applied them to the ministry of Jesus. This is not to say that the miracles of Elijah and Elisha and Dionysus are historical. They are no more historical than those of Jesus.
I’m watching this video for the third time and am only now noticing how tense things were between Peter and Bart at the beginning. You can see it on their faces.
Please, can some Christian explain this to me: this Peter guy is hanging on the gospel authors knowing names of trees... while knowing the gospels don’t align (“they were written for different audiences”)... how is that any different from any other literary work? How can You believe that’s the word of God if you yourself acknowledge it has been written by people with a goal of convincing other people.
Hebrews was written for law abiding Jews. Romans was directed more towards gentiles who would not necessarily have been familiar with Jewish customs and law. The bible is a compilation of many books. Can elaborate on the assertion that "it was written by people with the goal of convincing other people"?
Then you cannot believe any of the stories about ancient Egypt or Alexandria, or anything about Alexander the Great for that matter. All of history is a lie, using Bart Ehrman's methods.
@@DrMayte You're right, you can't. Egyptian kings are notorious for erasing the history of those that came before them and recording their failures as victories. Thankfully, we have the technology to see behind their erasures. But most historians say things like "the text says, though we're not sure about this, that..." or "this is obviously a mythological augmentation of..."
@@deluxeassortment Whether Egyptians lied or not we atleast know who they are. Who is Luke? Who is John? Who is Mark? Who is Matthew? We dont even have there last names, you cannot even have a driving licence without a last name.
Though I am a believer, I absolutely love Bart. Over the last year or so, I've absolutely fallen in love with biblical scholarship and Bart has been one of my principal guides. In my (very) humble/ unprofessional opinion, he is one of the finest scholars on the scene today. Great job!!
Bart is educated , but he lacks of logic and reason.. He don't understand , that just like in present times , you don't need 100% irrefutable evidence smoking gun evidence to solve a Crime Scene today ,, with credible testimonies of at least 1 witness can be more than enough to get a strong CASE in a Court.. At the same time the 4 modern testament witness and the hundreds others witness not included in the bible but that their scriptures do exist.. like Pilates letter to Caesar for example , that exist of JESUS life.. 4 in the new testament and many others NOT included in the bible. are an overwhelming mountain of evidence that at the very least the Jesus story and Jesus life and jesus miracles had to happen . based on the strong similarity of all their witness stories. means that the bible testimonies alone of MARC ,LUCAS ,MATHEW AND JOHN , their testimonies alone are in reality a strong evidence that Jesus story at least most of it is real and not fiction. . But even if those ancient testimonies not trusted ,something he can do , that he cannot Dismiss is the Millions and millions of testimonies of people christians and not christians ,that at present day exist. That Jesus did for their lives.. Because there are so many stories outhere ,that overwhelmingly claims that Jesus miracles still happen today. stories ,testimonies that you can easily find today on the internet. So to be a healthy skeptics is not bad.. But BART is not a very logical or reasonable person to assume ,that just because there are some small inconsistencies here and there, that the thousands of pages of the gospel have to be dismissed only because they disagree at rare time about the exact hour they saw Jesus one day on his life or the people who visited the tomb in resurection day.. What i see is that BART have so much to lose for being proven wrong.. ie.. an EGO thing.. that he tries very hard to attach into any small thing ,to claim that Jesus Gospels scriptures are unreliable. when is completely the Opposite.. Having 4 ancient story telling scriptures by 4 different sources ,,that even though their wording is different , they all tell the same thing about Jesus.. is nothing but remarkable evidence of the truth in Jesus story.
God's side is the truth, not simply what is shown to you. The truth will side with evidence. So learning & analyzing the evidence, doing textual criticism, is one way to achieve the truth, achieving God. If some of the Bible was indeed made up, we would like to know the authentic original one. You, in the other hand, seem like someone siding to whoever it was that had made up the gospels.
@@adralia23 sorry for you ,that you can not or will not accept scriptures as GOD's truth . as to original scriptures ,,,therec are many almost 3/4s of the bible found ...and that is very close to what was written as to what we read now . you other hand need help is understanding the truth . its there in the bible ...niv...nasb...king james ...
One guy has had his foot in both camps and approached the subject with an open mind. The other has been in one camp all his life and will never change from his presupposition. Which one is more intellectually honest?
Bart left the faith cause he had an issue with suffering and how the Biblical God sees it. But that is pretty much every unbelieving man that believes that God must be his genie. I have seen many children throwing a tantrum and their parents are not just non-plussed but perhaps a little critical following such event. Jesus suffers just like us because of evil men. However He fully trusts God in his suffering unlike Bart. Just like children should when things go wrong or when they get told 'No'. God is worthy of worship not me.
@Niko Bellic pretty sure suffering was what I heard. Spelling mistakes sounds very trivial as it is clear that men were used to write/copy the manuscripts by God and therefore small mistakes were made. What is amazing is that for those who seek, the message of the Bible remains intact throughout the millennia ...
@Niko Bellic I don't think of Bart as a reliable trustworthy man as none of us truly are anyway. So whatever he says against Christ"s testimony would be flawed (Heb 1:1). As for the Bible being inerrant, well, it takes a special kind of stupid to think that the message is not inerrant (2 Tim 3:16-17). The fact that men were involved makes it pretty impossible for mistakes not to creep in but what is amazing is that the message never wavered. Little mistakes that can be easily explained... Most of his arguments therefore fail.
@Niko Bellic : It's not just "spelling errors". It's the fact that there are many textual errors, insertions and deletions in the bible, as it currently exists, and the earliest manuscripts which we still have. We don't know what the original authors said and we don't even know who the original authors were for the gospels. And then there are the myriad contradictions...
@Niko Bellic : I've read several of his books. But I never claimed, unlike you, that he abandoned Christianity because of"spelling errors". There were several factors. Some of which I pointed out.
Bart is a combination of intellectual kindness and toughness that I really like. By the second half of the debate Bart had Peter so against the ropes that it was difficult to watch. Bart pressing the point home and getting to the details unrelentingly is what caught Peter off guard.
45:00 it’s interesting that Peter focuses on harmonizing the specifics of Judas’ death, ignoring the additional fact that two different people buy the field in each story. Either the priests bought it or Judas, not both.
@@jamesgriffin5739 Only it doesn't SAY that, so once again...... ad hoc. I understand that believers, the actual words don't matter, but in reality, they do.
@@vincebuckley1499 It is a logically possible explanation. Nothing from either story contradicts the other to exclusion. Just like trees before the sun, easily and logically explained. A light source is required for plant life, the sun is not the ONLY light source. God created light first, before plants or the sun. Therefore the first plants had a light source other than the sun and survived quite well.
@@jamesgriffin5739 Now you're just being stupid, light source. This kind of idiocy is how people think other people get up from being dead and wooden sticks can turn into living snakes. Easily and logically explained to someone with no capacity for reason or a bias that simply prevents it. Just stop, you're embarrassing yourself.
Interesting to hear that BE didn’t lose his faith due his his scholarly work. I missed the previous episode where he discussed this. I will get round to watching it. In the meantime I would appreciate if someone could up date me 😊
It wasn't the contradictions that finally broke the camels back re his faith - it was the realisation that an "all loving god" simply couldn't exist whilst there was so much suffering in the world, the tsunamis , rape, babies with cancer, poverty, hunger etc etc so he now identifies as an agnostic atheist.
2k plus yrs after his proclamation that "the Kingdom of God is nigh," it remains an unfulfilled, vacuous claim. Indeed, to paraphrase Sir Walter Scott, "what a web of self-deception he weaves as he practise to self-deceive."
1:27:50 does anyone have a confirmation on who was right, Bart Ehrman or Peter WIlliams? Seems like this one should be easy to check IF you have access to the book.
There is a pretty simple explanation for Judas's death. In the original Greek the word used in the Acts description that is translated into "headfirst/headlong" in English can also be translated as "swollen/distended"...which makes sense if you consider Matthew describing how Judas died (i.e hanging) vs Luke describing the process of his death (body being swollen & intestines coming apart when the body likely struck the group as no Jew would have touched his dead hanging body in order to avoid missing the Passover festivities). This matches medically-speaking as a body hanging for a few days would start to rot and could break apart with any significant force due to the build up of internal gases via bacterial activity. Further on, it nicely ties up another aspect: It is Luke (author of Acts) who provides the medical breakdown of the after death process, who is the physician and not Matthew.
@@woutercom The church tradition attributes the Gospel and Acts to Luke. While he himself is never mentioned by name in these bookse, he is thought to be a companion of Paul on his second trip (the text switches in the first person here). Paul mentions him in 3 of his letters, Colossians, 2Timothy and Philemon (in Colossians he says he is a phisycian).
.. so sad for Judas if they did it, if for the reason that he betrayed Jesus..?, if the story is true, Judas was like a "sacrificial lamb" for the sake of the story to unfold. But according to most scholars, probability that Judas never betrayed Jesus, maybe the story teller created it as part of a plot, a drama to make believe. other story, according to scholars, Judas was asked by *someone during last supper to go ahead and tell whereabout(after dinner/last supper wth disciples) of Jesus to Roman authorities. For that, Judas went to meet Roman authorities and executed his mission, as been told, for that, he was given a token of Roman officials with 30silvers in return of his information.. (*someone - none other than.... Jesus, so everything in the story about betrayal, arrest, crucifixion will be unfold😮
Correct me if I am wrong - if Peter agreed to the question: Are the Gospels historically reliable? and then proclaimed he doesn't care if they are, they are 100% true as the word of god, what is the point of this debate?
@@rationalsceptic7634 Bart Eherman is a genious , Richard Carrier is a dogmatic fellow. Idk but it seems to me that american ppl have a problem with debates and extremism. Im not talking even about the very book but even about the epistemology at the time to go into the book. Saludos amigo
@@rationalsceptic7634 A completely false statement that probably is based in blind faith. NT Wright, like EP Sanders, Craig Evans and others are among the most important historians of The New Testament. Bart Ehrman is also a respected scholar, but some of his opinions are not embraced by the majority. Richard Carrier is, according to Ehrman, "amateurish", "wrong-headed", and "outlandish". I understand you are an atheist, but i don't think that is synonymous with irational.
Yup. If only the bible is as reliable as the most unreliable hadith category, it will be a much more reliable source of information than it is currently
@sue badunas You do realize that if it were demonstrated TODAY we'd have some precedent that we can then use to go back and analyze EVERY mythology right?
@sue badunas I think youve misunderstood my point. My point is not that "these things cant happen", my point is that we have ZERO good reasons to accept certain things that we do not have a precedent for. For example, before the discovery of bacteria, it would be unreasonable to believe that microscopic organisms exist that are in and around the environment as well as inside the bodies of other organisms and that these microscopic organisms interfere with biological processes which causes the other organisms to become ill. Once this was proposed, TESTED, AND DEMONSTRATED, it then became reasonable to interact with the world with this understanding.
@@oprophetisfake9482 Yeah, most of John Lennox arguments is just him admitting that he desperately wants Christianity to be true and that he would be very sad if it wasn’t.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 No. Most of John Lennox is him talking about evidence that unguided evolution and even the beginning of life by pure chance in the time since the scientifically estimated time since the big bang is scientifically untenable. What is sad is that you are still trying to pass the same argument from 70 years ago. Very very sad.
Can you also see that the exercise of his brilliant mind brings him into spiritual limbo because the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Analysis of words vs subjective experience of the eternal life of and in Christ.
I agree I think he was great work in the field in Texell criticism and the historical Jesus especially historical Jesus, but not when it comes to Christian theology, I think his understanding Christian theology is quite bad especially his theory of how Jesus became God it’s not good.
I am not of the same opinion. Please read my statement. His arguments are in no way proofs. He carries himself as more pragmatic but, is merely creating a preferential argument.
If one thinks that repeating 50 year old theories about the gospels that have been utterly debunked dozen times over is "excellent" then yes, I guess Ehrman is excellent. I mean honestly - this is all first semester stuff when studying theology. I know because I had to read those books, too 😊.
Or we could applaud Christ-followers in the January 6 ,2021, fascist coup in U.S.; I think God says nothing about 'Faith' but 613 statements about 'Doing'.@@jimhealy4890
Ehrman at approx 1:39: "I ended up leaving Christianity all together, for reasons unrelated to my scholarship". Uhhh, then why do so many atheists think that his scholarship is convincing to disprove the claims of Christianity, when it didn't even convince him? He fully admits, it was for entirely different reasons that he lost faith. I think whatever these "other reasons" are would help shed light on his almost schizophrenic views, on one hand brilliantly and methodically using Scripture, their accuracy, their proven historicity, to lay waste to those who don't recognize that Jesus even existed, or that he is the greatest figure in human civilization. On the other hand, when it comes to the claims of Jesus, and the fact that He believed He was the Son of God, and that the disciples DEFINITELY believed this, and so did all of the early Church, and he fully admits they believed that within approx 2 years of Jesus' death; despite agreeing with that, all of a sudden "the Gospels just aren't reliable", and "they can't be trusted, because they occur decades after the fact" (as opposed to the other most reliable manuscripts in history, that were authored decades centuries after the fact). I agree with Ehrman, any scholarship he has done is not a good reason to leave Christianity. Maybe he could open up about the emotional or other reasons he left, because his intellectual ones fail.
There are plenty of Christian scholars who are definitely believers, that know there are issues with scripture and it didn't change their minds. Bart had issues with suffering. Christian scholars know that the Bible is not inerrant but they still believe in the Resurrection. Bart does not believe in the Bible because he could not get past God allowing the amount of suffering we see in the world.
Of course. But you missed the point. Most of the critical scholars has not left Christianity. They either have reshaped their understanding of Christianity or come to terms that their belief is almost entirely faith based and they can never achieve the level of verifiable evidence that the epistemology of history demands or warrants. It doesn’t, however, changed the fact that his (and critical scholarship) discoveries makes the claims of Christianity highly unlikely to be true. You then have to reinvent the wheel or just admit that your belief matters more than proving the claim in a historical and rational way
@@krampus3901 There is absolutely nothing they have "reshaped". They believe the exact same thing as Paul taught the Corinthians, and the early Church believed, that Jesus was incarnated as the Son of God, lived, died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. The only thing that some may have changed their views on is if the current translation we have of the Bible is "inerrant". You have no idea whatsoever as to Christianity "unlikely" being true lol. You've gone Ehrman on us here, and are citing things as facts out of your a$$. What probability did you calculate, and how? Let me see your formula. Once again, it's the same ole story. The 5,800 Greek manuscripts are more than any other individual in ancient history, including Julius Caesar. The contemporary texts are on par with Tiberius Caesar and Julius Caesar. The manuscripts from the early church are in excess of 1 million. You have no basis whatsoever to say what you just stated, and have no idea if it is "unlikely true". It's fine if you don't believe or don't want to , but please don't try pulling probabilities out of your a$$ and invoking them authoritatively. Obviously if the claims of the texts are true, and Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true.
True believer ......he has , and on many occasions, you just haven't bothered to seek them out. It is the problem of evil. He looks at the injustice in the world, and mentioned a walk around a children's hospital would concentrate the mind , or watching good things happening to bad people, or being around war zones, the homeless etc and says a loving god that he used to believe in, would not just stand by and watch it all unfurl. His de-conversion happened whilst going through the various academic houses until he was taught by Bruce Metsger at Princeton University, and he worked out that his beliefs in the inerrant words he once believed in, were very unsound.
True Believer lmao you’re a joke. We have way evidence (actually artifacts) for the emperors that we don’t have for Jesus or anyone in the NT. Saying that there are over 5k manuscripts tells us nothing because they are copies. They are not on same level of reliability and level of depth as the evidence we have for Julius and other emperors. Stop talking out of your ass. Furthermore, the critical scholars all agree that the gospels are not history. Sure they may be agree on the death and resurrection, but they do not agree that the gospels tells history as we know it. Again stop talking out of your ass. You have no knowledge of the subject. Ah yes, probability theory is math and you should know the formula (or maybe research Bayesian). I am sorry that you lack education in math
John 5:30 NLT I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.
@@timediverx You're right to be afraid of a science discussion, Heath -- I'll prove you have no basis for your lack of belief in God, and I won't use the Bible to do it.
@@20july1944 As a child I was not indoctrinated in any religion and apart from the lack of evidence I have never been convinced by any of the arguments that have been presented to me in order to demonstrate the existence of any god (because so far all of those that I have heard are grounded in some kind of fallacy). Nevertheless, I have cared to understand the religion of my environment and I am the only one among my childhood friends (mostly Christians) who has read the Bible and studied its history. What about you? I have read that you are probably a Christian. When was the first time you remember to actually believe that the Christian god was real and what convinced you at that time? By the way, sorry in advance, my English may not be as accurate as it should be. I live in the Netherlands but I was born in Spain.
A very good discussion, but there was one important issue which they didn’t address. The traditional Christian view is that God oversaw the writing of the Bible, so that it teaches true morality and true history. But if that’s the case, why does it contain so many apparent contradictions e.g. the four accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, or the two accounts of the death of Judas? Of course, the traditionalist will argue that the contradictions are only apparent, and that scholars can explain them away. But, if so, why put the scholars to such an enormous amount of trouble? Surely, it would have been easy for an omnipotent and omniscient God to have avoided the apparent contradictions in the first place, and to have left the scholars free for more important and productive work? The alternative view that the Bible is a human production and contains human errors seems obviously to be preferable.
In terms of the eyewitness accounts of the Gospels (I believe that they are, you’re welcome to disagree, I just think the evidence stacks up), contradictions are to be expected in eyewitness reports and perhaps the Holy Spirit knew what it was doing by letting those contradictions go in so that they’re more reliable, and people when they do their proper unbiased research can realize that they in fact help. However, there are those that aren’t actually contradictions at all. One example, the women at the tomb, InspiringPhilosophy did a video on a technique called “spotlighting” when it comes to the witnesses. Check it out.
@@Nameless-pt6oj Just one example of the many discrepancies: how did Mary Magdalene learn about the resurrection? When did she hear about it, and who told her? The synoptics say one thing; the 4th gospel says another. Something for you to ‘check out’, perhaps?
25 minutes in. This is one of the better handled and informed PooTube vids any of them have participated in. Both are educated and make there points on ' real ' agreements and disagreements of scholarship and or vs beliefs. Good stuff And Good work.
Ehrman's argument starting at 42:42, that irreconcilable differences prove falsehood, is ridiculous. Ever heard several witnesses describe a car accident? There are always contradictions, but that doesn't prove there was no car accident; if anything, it proves there really was something dramatic that occurred that gave rise to their stories. The contradictions, if anything, shows that no editor cleaned it up.
Did he say it proved falsehood? The question is whether the individual stories are reliable at a significant level of detail. For both the Bible and the hypothetical car accident, they are not. *The contradictions, if anything, shows that no editor cleaned it up.* That doesn't help any. We're still left with significantly conflicting stories and no external verification to tell us which, if any, has the details right. And while research academics may be willing to reluctantly say, "oh well, we just don't know what actually happened," many fundamental Christian claims depend on the details in the gospels actually being true, in both the events and words of Jesus's life. What the contradictions and debates like this do show is that there is no divine "editor" who authored it all and wants to be sure we all get the same story the same way.
He's arguing against inerrancy, which is a real problem in Christianity - falsehood naturally comes with that, though that's not his main point. He's written entire books about how he believes Jesus existed. But your own words prove there are errors in the Bible, just as there are with different testimonies in a courtroom. & Ehrman has basically dedicated his life trying to figure out what's right & what's not.
This debate DEVOLVED into majority jargon and arguing over semantics. I find it much more productive when we hear examples of discrepancies rather than the process of how we reached those discrepancies. Judas was a good one but they didn’t go into any others except when Ehrman brought up Peter walking on water and didn’t claim to be GOD.
Well said. Also, they just went from right to left, left to right, barely staying on topic etc. These kind of debates barely get to the heart of the actual topic.
Peter walking on water was not “initiated nor empowered” by himself. Hence there’s no way he could claim to be god on that basis. Bart’s argument regarding that was weak. You cannot compare Peter walking on water to Jesus walking on water. The two were totally different. Hence, Jesus’ divinity following His walk on water cannot be compared to Peter who couldn’t even complete the water-walk on his own
As far as I'm concerned, the most important point made during this discussion was when Dr. Ehrman highlighted that some do research to confirm their preexisting beliefs while others do research (with an open mind) to decide what they ought to believe. We all should all aspire to the latter group.
@@thejdogcool Firstly he has said so, not only in this video but on numerous other occasions by highlighting that the right way to do science/history is by utilizing available facts and interpreting them without special pleading. On a more personal level, I find the views of people who have converted to or de-converted from a given religion to be more credible than those who simply believe what they were thought as a child.
@@thejdogcool Who said anything about Ehrman being objective? He is being subjective but using facts and logic in the process. On the other hand Williams is also being subjective but using his faith and dogma. I guess you'r a fan of faith and dogma, I got it too.
It seems to me that Bart Ehrman didn't get the fact that every time Jesus would forgive sins he was claiming himself to be God (Luke 5:21). So it means the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke also mention Jesus considering himself as God. (Matthew 9:2, Mark 2:5, Luke 5:20, Luke 7:48).
Jesus doesn’t claim to be God by virtue of forgiving sins. He did not concur with the Pharisees’ reasoning. Quite the opposite. He agrees that God can forgive sins, but he then also says in Luke 5:24 that aside from God, the Son of man Jesus *too* can forgive sins
@@Peter-wp5vb John 1:1 says that the "Word" (capitalised) was God. We know John here was referring to Jesus, and in the same chapter John says that " the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Now, notice something quite interesting: When Jesus dwelt among us he had two natures (He was 100 % God and 100% man). He never used his divinity to benefit himself but others during his ministry (Philippians 2: 6-11). That's why his sacrifice is so praiseworthy; all the miracles he performed were a consequence of his relationship with his own Father (John 5:30). So, every single time Jesus referred to himself as the "Son of man", the word "Son" is capitalised as an indication that He was 100 % man but without sin (Matthew 20:28/ 1 Peter 2:21-22), and when the Scriptures talk about Jesus as the "Son of God", the word "Son" is also capitalised because Jesus is also God (Matthew 3:17), even demons knew he was God (Mark 5:7). Why do you think Jesus allowed people to worship him if ONLY God can be worshiped? (Matthew 4:10/ Matthew 14:33). On the other hand, we read in the Bible that when it refers to "us" (mortal sinners) as "sons or children of God", the words "sons" or "children" aren't capitalised simply because we aren't God (Matthew 5:9/Romans 8:14).
I feel like they missed the primary point on the naming of the field of blood. Yes, you can potentially say there was a hanged man and that somehow he fell head first and lost his guts. It's a stretch, but it could technically happen. What seems to me to be the irreconcilable part is the cause of the naming of the field. Was it named 'the field of blood' because it was bought with Judas' blood money, or because that's where his blood was spilt? I am surprised this was not the point of contention Bart pressed on.
@@Lala-me6no The field was purchased with Judas's money so was technically his. But really it's just a distraction from the main point of the story. There are different ways of seeing the same event.
You know I am hearing subtle thumps during the broadcast and I keep taking off my headphones thinking it is the people up stairs doing exercise or something and every time I take off my headphones it stops. So, now I think it's in the recording every time one of them bumps the table the mics pick it up.
The more I listen to Bart Ehrman and read his books, the more it draws me towards Christianity and cements my belief in the Bible and faith in God. The issues I have with Ehrman’s arguments is that, First: it takes more faith to believe in his doubts and the “contradictions”, as he labels them, than it does in the scriptural texts. The response I would give would be the same that Jesus gave to the Jewish leaders in Mark 2, at the healing of the paralyzed man, in which He asked them “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? That is to say: what is easier and more acceptable, to write and make statements about Jesus’ deity in the book of John, or to write about His miracles in the other gospels, and the miracles of the apostles later on? You either accept the whole Bible or you reject it all - and unfortunately, I think Peter should have come out and acknowledged this as the only option. You can go ahead and set aside John’s gospel, but you’re still going to walk away with the same conclusion about Jesus from the rest of the NT - that He is God. Second, he’s basically criticizing the content, language and methods used in these historical accounts rather than looking at the big picture and asking the important question, which is: what is the message and point of the Bible/NT accounts? These are historical texts written by various individuals (which naturally gives you different perspectives and shows there’s no conspiracy), with their own context, experiences and cultural influences of the time - it’s not reasonable to be 2000 years removed and assert that you don’t like the way they were written, and unless they are written in a certain manner of your preference, then they are no longer valid. This applies to any historical work/account, and the only way to resolve this problem is to time travel, and to experience and write the accounts yourself. Taking the example he used about the 2 “contradicting” accounts of Judas’ death in Matthew and Acts/Luke - so you basically have 4 options to consider: either Matthew is telling the truth and Luke is lying/false, or Luke is correct and Matthew is false, or both Matthew and Luke are false, or both Matthew and Luke are telling the truth. The first 3 options deal with lies/false accounts from either of them or both, so then the question should be: why would they lie or make a false claim about something that is totally insignificant to the story? I acknowledge that they are different, but it doesn’t make any sense why either would falsify their testimony, and to widely share their testimony with living witnesses - if they were false, they would have been called out, and would have to correct the text or stop its distribution. Which leads to the last option, which is: instead of approaching it only from a negative narrative, why not consider a positive narrative (if you are truly being objective and seeking the truth), that both could be correct, and perhaps one saw Judas hanging and the other saw his condition post-hanging, at which point his guts were spilled out (for whatever reason). These are the types of arguments that really calls into question Ehrman’s perspective and analysis of the scriptures, and as I stated previously, it takes more faith to believe in his doubts than the truth of the Scriptures.
@Nathan Cleary's Chin Maybe not….but I’m a tool in God’s hand - a God that I love, and He loves me and gives me my identity: an identity that doesn’t depend on anyone’s approval or opinion, including yours. So tell me, what is it that you believe in, and in what do you base your faith and purpose in life on?
@@LordJagdGood question. Simply put, the Bible is either the inspired word of God or it’s not - and if it’s not, or certain sections are not, then it would be of human origin, incapable of affirming the truth. If you believe that it is the inspired word of God (with the exception of textural corruption due to repeated copying), I would argue that the Bible doesn’t distinguish between inspired/inerrant and uninspired/errant accounts, and actually does the opposite, by confirming their reliability and legitimacy in how they were written for our instruction (Acts 24:14, Luke 24:25, Romans 15:4, 1 Cor. 10:11, 2 Tim. 3:16). For this reason, I personally support Complete Inerrancy of the Bible. Also, it becomes a slippery slope as people start to discount parts of the Bible based on their own reasoning, justification and selfishness, as it pertains to difficult and counter-culture teachings. Lastly, Jesus instructed His disciples/followers in Acts 1:8 to be “witnesses”: i.e. to state what they saw, heard or experienced. Luke 1 opens with this standard, and although we may not be certain in our ability to connect the dots between some differences in the accounts, at the same time, there is no evidence or reason to think that they are untruthful. Some still struggle with this topic, and have arrived at the compromise of “Limited inerrancy”, which pertains to the Salvation-purpose of the Bible: i.e. the account is inerrant as long as it fulfills its purpose for making us wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:15).
Your "paradox", that it requires more "faith'" to "believe in" Ehrman's doubts than to believe the "truth" of the Scriptures, is a nonsense -- it doesn't mean anything. It is nothing but an assertion about yourself, which I regard as misleading, though surely you "believe" it. Doubts are not "beliefs". They are questions. You say you are a nice guy, I raise doubts about that, citing some evidence which I find convincing, you say that the evidence I use is not convincing, and, in fact, is false, the result of a misunderstanding, slander, or some other thing. For someone to claim he is god, or a god, is a claim to immortality, supernatural powers, and many other characteristics that we mortals don't possess. It is natural to question such a claim, especially when made by a person who appears to be mortal, who ages, eats, defecates, sleeps, and forgets where he left his reading glasses. To question such a claim is the same thing as doubting the claim. The "faith" you are talking about in regard to doubting the divinity of Jesus is not a "faith" at all. It is something else: the use of reason to determine the validity of claims. You may say that "faith in reason" is what that really mean. This is an argument used by many religious people -- they say that rationality is simply another kind of religion, with no more claim to belief than a religion. Thus, we are told that all humans are religious, though some -- probably out of sinful pride, deny that they are. The person who uses Reason to decide on the validity of claims (and all humans do that every day) is not practising a religion, but using a tool. That tool can be used well, even brilliantly; it can be poorly used and yield worthless results. Euclid used Reason to lay the groundwork of a science, geometry, which has stood the test of time as a useful, some would say beautiful way of looking at some aspects of reality. No doubt most people who use geometry "take it on faith", rather than do Euclid's work all over again. But if they have doubts about his conclusions, they can easily find out how he arrived at them, evaluate them, criticize them, and choose whether to agree with him or not. But Euclid's conclusions are so well explained, based so firmly on previous conclusions, and so applicable to reality, that few people actually decide that Euclid is wrong. (I know there are other forms of geometry, but they have been developed using the same kind of process as Euclid used.) There is no need to explain away Euclid's illogical conclusions by saying that those who deny him need to "look at the real message", not at the details. No need to make the lame argument that two different people saw Judas's corpse in two different stages of deterioration -- a point not dealt with in the Gospels. No need to explain how it could be that a carpenter from a pretty rustic part of Palestine was able to "walk on water", to convert water into wine, to produce loaves and fishes to feed thousands of people, and to debate the Torah with men who spent most of their time studying it. In fact, the message of Jesus comes through much more clearly and movingly when this kind of nonsense is ignored, and attention is focused on his preaching. In the times when Jesus lived, people would not pay attention to a wandering rabbi who was not a miracle worker. There were many miracle working rabbis, and they were much respected by the people. Jesus understood this. He used miracles to win the people's attention, and to give himself the authority that made people want to hear what he had to say. Your idea of "faith" seems to be nothing but believing stuff when there is no evidence for it. Stuff you want to believe, for whatever reason. Unfortunately you are plagues with doubt -- you are a human being! That is why you looked at this debate -- you were looking for reassurance that your religion was capable of standing up to the questions and doubts expressed by someone who is very well informed about your religion, but does not believe in it. Your conclusion is a cute paradox, but it doesn't impress me as a declaration of faith. It impresses me as a dismissive comment by a person who has decided what he thinks before listening to the arguments. And it is completely unconvincing, a simple expression or preference, bulked up by a flood of pointless words to give the impression that you actually though seriously about what you heard in this video.
@@leezaslofsky4438 Thank you for your feedback, however I think you’re missing the point. My point is that Dr. Ehrman, yourself and other skeptics are going around nitpicking frivolous differences between the texts, and not addressing the purpose of the texts - which is very short sighted. The question that’s not being discussed or answered is: why do we have these books/The Gospels in the first place? Dr. Ehrman is skeptical, and thinks that they are nothing more than legends, and that the material has been fabricated or embellished. Ok, fine, let’s go with that. So that would mean that the authors of these books were lying to us. So what was their motive? Usually when someone lies or fabricates stories about an event, it would be for some sinister or criminal purpose, perhaps to gain power or wealth or political status etc. None of this is found in the content of the Gospels, and they/Jesus consistently speak against it. Additionally, almost all of Jesus’ disciples (except for John), and not to mention Paul, Jesus’ brother James, and many of their companions and followers, were martyred, and died a horrible death to defend these accounts, and the teachings and content of the Gospels. They didn’t gain any status, wealth, power or political advantage. These first century Jews went around telling people that a man named Jesus was God, that He died and rose from the dead, and that you can only be saved through Jesus and no one else. They could have easily just stated that Jesus was a good man, and taught us how to be nice to each other, etc. - maybe start a new sect, and that’s about it. At some point, prior to facing their violent death, they would have retracted their statements, and saved their skin - but they didn’t - so why would they do that? That’s the question you, and Dr. Ehrman need to answer.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:45 📖 *Bart Ehrman's interest in the Bible began during his teenage years with a born-again experience, leading to academic pursuits in Greek manuscripts and eventual realization of biblical mistakes.* 01:55 🔄 *Ehrman stresses the importance of examining evidence impartially, regardless of religious affiliation, emphasizing the need to assess what seems right based on available evidence.* 03:43 🙌 *Peter J. Williams, a Christian, discusses his faith journey, beginning with a Christian upbringing and academic pursuits in languages, leading to a strengthening of faith through scholarly engagement.* 05:05 🤔 *Williams acknowledges biases but emphasizes the importance of self-testing and presenting arguments from various perspectives, highlighting Christianity as the worldview that makes the most sense to him.* 07:46 📚 *Ehrman explains that the Gospels draw from oral traditions passed down from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John likely not being the only written accounts of Jesus's life.* 09:35 📅 *Ehrman dates Mark, the first Gospel, to around 70 CE, followed by Matthew and Luke in the 80s, and John toward the end of the first century, estimating a time gap of 40 to 65 years after Jesus's death for the writing of the Gospels.* 11:01 📝 *Williams suggests that the names attached to the Gospels indicate authentic authorship rather than anonymous composition, proposing an earlier dating based on internal textual evidence and the authors' familiarity with the geographical and cultural context.* 16:29 🧐 *Williams challenges the reliability of archaeological data and suggests a discrepancy between archaeological and literary accounts regarding population estimates, emphasizing the need to critically evaluate ancient sources and modern methods.* 18:38 📜 *Peter J. Williams finds signs of reliability in the Gospels, such as predicting the fall of Jerusalem.* 20:16 💡 *The authorship of Luke and Acts is debated, with Peter J. Williams attributing them to Luke based on internal evidence.* 21:53 📚 *Bart Ehrman discusses the uncertainty around the authorship of Luke and Acts, questioning the traditional attribution to Luke.* 27:39 💬 *Peter J. Williams argues that the detailed knowledge of geography and customs in Luke suggests close proximity to the events described.* 29:42 🧐 *Bart Ehrman challenges the relevance of geographical accuracy in determining the historical reliability of the Gospel narratives.* 33:41 🔄 *Bart Ehrman emphasizes that accuracy in geographical details doesn't guarantee the historical accuracy of the stories themselves.* 36:01 📝 *Peter J. Williams points to the consistency in names used in the Gospels as evidence of the reliability of the oral tradition.* 37:52 🤔 *The discussion revolves around whether it's rational to trust stories that diverge from historical criteria.* 38:32 🔍 *The presence of names in a story doesn't necessarily guarantee its accuracy or reliability.* 39:27 📚 *Scholars have extensively researched oral traditions, showing they often change over time, raising questions about the accuracy of later accounts like the Gospels.* 41:29 💬 *Discrepancies between Gospel accounts, like the number of women at the tomb, raise questions about their accuracy.* 43:17 📖 *Example of conflicting Gospel accounts: the death of Judas Iscariot, highlighting irreconcilable differences.* 45:27 🔄 *Different perspectives on the importance of historical accuracy in religious texts: theological belief vs. scholarly inquiry.* 51:11 🤔 *Discussion on the possibility of errors in Scripture and the approach to reconciling conflicting accounts.* 56:55 📜 *The reliability of the Gospels and the authenticity of Jesus's words are pivotal for Christians and skeptics alike.* 59:29 📚 *Determining the authenticity of Jesus's sayings involves discerning which ones likely originated from him versus those that were modified or fabricated over time.* 01:00:10 🧠 *Evaluating Jesus's divinity claims in the Gospels requires examining the chronological development of his portrayal across different texts.* 01:02:56 🔍 *The Gospel of John presents Jesus with explicit divine claims not found in earlier sources like Mark and Q, indicating a developmental understanding of Jesus's identity.* 01:06:35 💬 *Scholarly interpretations of the Gospels often reflect underlying philosophical and theological biases, influencing how Jesus's identity and message are perceived.* 01:11:26 🏰 *Developmental views of Jesus's portrayal in the Gospels suggest that earlier texts lay the groundwork for later, more explicit divine claims attributed to Jesus, as seen in John.* 01:14:51 📜 *Peter argues that the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, like the Good Samaritan and the prodigal son, demonstrate early genius and integrity, suggesting they originated from Jesus himself.* 01:16:37 📚 *Bart Ehrman asserts that his approach to studying the Gospels isn't based on a priori assumptions about oral tradition but rather on comparing accounts for discrepancies, which led him to question their reliability.* 01:19:29 🗣️ *Peter highlights the importance of examining the text of the Gospels themselves rather than relying solely on theories of oral tradition, emphasizing the need to assess the quality and consistency of the text.* 01:21:08 📅 *The discussion delves into the dating of Luke's Gospel, with Peter suggesting it was likely written during the lifetime of eyewitnesses, challenging the notion of a long oral tradition.* 01:25:41 🧠 *Bart discusses confirmation bias in biblical scholarship, highlighting the challenge of objectively evaluating evidence and the emotional difficulty of changing deeply held beliefs.* Made with HARPA AI
10:52 is slightly misleading because several of Paul's letters, written to churches about 10-20 years after Jesus' death, include details of Jesus' life and ministry. The gospels yes were compiled from testimonies and recollections over many years later than the Paul letters were written. That's my understanding anyway.
The only things Paul brings up about Jesus’s life in his authentic letters is that Jesus was born of a woman, had a brother named James, was crucified, and performed the Eucharist.
@@ballshaver773 Well also that he descended from the family of David (Romans 1), that Jesus brings peace with God (Romans 5), that he rose from the dead and appeared to people afterward (1 Cor 15), and Jesus' divinity/oneness with God (Phil 2)... off the top of my head. Probably some other things but I'd have to research more. But quite a lot of fundamental beliefs expressed right there to the churches not that long after Jesus.
Look at the historic picture of people becoming Christian. Dr. Ehrman could say, "If Jesus really said these things AND then also healed and performed miracles as it states, surely everyone within 1000 miles would have praised God and become believers." If the narrative is ultimately theologically false, and the writer is placing lies, whether as a first source or otherwise, you might think more grandiose claims would have been added to the text. And that the less flattering details would have been kept out. Because if the writer is adding hyperbole from witnesses who developed Jesus into God we might expect more unbelievable grandiose claims. Similar to what we see in those writings which indeed came later and were rejected early on by the leaders in the church. Bart's argument can be thought through to substantiate some other ideas which points to the gospels reliability and historicity through the common historian's criteria. Such as examining motivations, embarrassment, and the seemingly contradictory nature of details in the various gospels.
"If the narrative is ultimately theologically false, and the writer is placing lies" Why is "lies" the only alternative? They could just be mistaken. Or credulous.
Bart Ehrman's assumptions are simply wrong: 1. Luke does not say that he received this information from people who heard it from others. He says "they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. " When you read the rest of Luke-Acts these eyewitnesses are identified as the apostles of Jesus who are the leaders of the Jerusalem church. That is, Luke says he spoke to the apostles at the Jerusalem church. 2. Barts claims there was 40 years of oral tradition. This is based on the assumption that the apostles gave the teaching straight after Jesus and then were absent till the gospels were written. This is untenable. The apostles did not ascend with Jesus but were active in ministry throughout the entire period before the gospels were written. They are the first generation of oral tradition. For the types of changes that Bart claims you need many generations of oral tradition and this takes hundreds of years. 3. Bart claims that the different gospels demonstrate how the oral tradition changed over time - but they don't - that is why they are called 'synoptic' (a common view) they are highly similar. The evidence actually shows the opposite to what Bart claims. For Bart to use the manner of the death of Judas as an example of oral differences is misdirection because this difference is exceptional and unrepresentative of the overwhelming similarities that we find. 4. There is no evidence for the assumptions of form criticism.
About Luke, why he speak about census in the whole Roman Empire at Jesus birth ??? We know now that Roman empire in its history never had census of the empire itself ??? Moreover, he speaks about Jesus birth time is 10 years after what Mathew says when Jesus born. Synoptic are just first three Gospels, but not Gospel of John which is not considered synoptic ???
Death is coming for us all! No matter what we believe. As a Christian, I 100% trust in the scriptures and see Jesus as my God and savior. I sleep well at night. I can't wait for my time to be over on this world. You can't argue with someone who doesn't want to believe. They made their choice, so it will be.
That wasn't what Bart said. In John's gospel Bart recognises that Jesus claimed to be God. But Bart thinks the gospels have made up parts - I think. I have not read his books.
That’s right. He never claimed to be God and would be horrified at the idea. If anything is true, it’s that Jesus understood his union with God, the all in all, which is different than saying you are God. He always deferred to the father as greater than he is and the source of everything he is. In this respect, he comes across as an eastern mystic, I and the father are one, when you see me, you see the father, does not mean he was calling himself God. He was acknowledging his surrender to father the source of all.
Ehrman is spot on in saying different details (1 vs. 2 angels) are not an indication of inaccurate retellings of a story. The problem is whether there are irreconcileable differences and how many and how imporant are they are to the events. But then irreconcileable bears a lot of weight and will not be so easy to demonstrate in many circumstances. His example of Judas’ demise is a worthy candidate
What Ehrman is not spot on about though is the relevance of the irreconcilable claims. It is outright admitted in the Catholic bible in the comments that the accounts don't align perfectly, and that there are various historical doubts regarding who wrote what. Peter hasn't studied his Catholicism strongly enough, Catholics are not required to believe the bible is inerrant in all ways, just in the things that are relevant to salvation. The fact that Judas killed himself is present in both gospels, regardless of how it happened. It has literally no importance of how it happened to anything of relevance in the bible message, it's just trivia. If anything, it helps to establish the independence of the gospels. So no, it's not a worthy candidate, it's an absolutely terrible example that works against his case.
@@Pietrosavr I think it's actually good evidence in a way for the accuracy of the bible in this account of Judas we see unlike the accounts of Jesus and others this one of Judas is second hand, no one was there when he did it so the accounts not perfectly lining up show exactly what could be expected to be said minor differences. This is a good evidence that the Gospels weren't made up. One could argue it was almost put there for a reason.
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep Yeah, you know, no one is purely rational and a purely rational debate doesn't exist, it's just that most scientists don't realise that. It's a fact that there are a million religions, but one person could take that fact and say that therefore I won't believe in any of them and another will say that they hope they will find the right one. The problem is not with the evidence but with your attitude towards it, are you going to be sceptical or hopeful. This is not related with science and knowledge but with life. Sometimes you have to be hopeful even in the face of small odds, like when trying to save your child from a burning building that might collapse. This is about subjectivity and not objectivity, with pure scepticism no one would try and fail a thousand times to invent anything, no countries would exist. If you are purposely sceptical of religion, first of all, the more intelligent you are the more likely you are too affirm your bias and never believe, and secondly, you end up with nothing. Scepticism is a stopping measure, it generates nothing, you need faith and hope in the first place to move your forward, and then scepticism to trim the edges.
@@PietrosavrNot trying to dispute or dishonor the beliefs of Catholicism. With that said, I wonder if Ehrman’s point was that Luke and Acts are written by the same author, and have totally different stories about Judas. Not to say it’s imperative to the faith, but I wonder if that was the point.
This is the real Bart in the intellectual sense. In contrast, he is totally different when speaking in the pop culture sense. I enjoy the scholarly Bart rather than the pop culture Bart. If you read some his academic work you will see what I mean.
“...On your willingness to accept the supernatural” well there you have it. It’s a faith based position and not an evidence based one. I wish Bart was the kinda guy to press him on that comment.
I’ve seen Erhman press this issue with others. I think he didn’t in this case because it wasn’t the debate topic. He stopped himself from going down those rabbit trails several times.
Around 19:10 - 1. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem before it happened. 2. Therefore, it was recorded _before_ it happened. 2 does not necessarily follow from 1 as a genuine prediction can still be written down _after_ the fact. Thus, a genuine prediction by Jesus does not support evidence of early dating.
Jesus also predicted the end of the world and the establishment of heaven on Earth within the lifespan of his current generation. We're pretty sure that one didn't happen.
@@1974jrod Matthew 16:28 Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
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If the body was hanging or a few days in the sun and was swaying in the wind before the rope snapped he could of easily ended up on his head and burst open because he was decomposing in the sun
Very weird to think that in only 40 years Bart thinks the story gets so distorted. Not even a life time of one person. Oral tradition isn’t your dad telling you what we saw.
@@robertbethel4341 Who saw the body bursting or whatever?
Rembrandt972 didn’t mean to post under unbelievables thread. So I’ll answer one time as to not ruin his thread.
The gospels don’t tell us who saw his body burst. That’s information collected by Luke. Here is what happened to Judas:
Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Felt remorseful and tried to return the silver. They didn’t accept it so he threw it to the ground. Judas went and hung himself. This is around a holiday and the sabbath so Judas body was hanging for a couple of days in the sun before anyone noticed or anyone cared to take it down. With the holiday, sabbath and commotion of Jesus tomb empty early Sunday they probably didn’t tend to Judas until Monday/Tuesday. Judas body eventually fell down wether the branch or the rope broke it caused him to fall in a way that he appeared head down. He could of been swaying in the tree also from wind and after decomposing for a few days in the sun from hanging his body burst from the fall when it hit the ground. The elders could not keep the 30 pieces of silver since it was blood money so they purchased a field in Judas name since it was his blood money and it became known as the field of blood. That is why in Mathew he records Judas died and the elders bought a field because he was an eye witness. Luke after doing research saw that Judas bought the field because it was purchased in his name. So it is not irreconcilable like Bart says. Mathew was an eye witness and saw Judas killed himself and saw they used the money to buy a field for burial. Luke did research and finding that the field was in Judas name assumed it was bought before his death but it wasn’t. He just didn’t know the full story because he was not an eye witness.
@@robertbethel4341 Bollocks.
Hey Justin, atheist viewer here. Just wanna tell you that I’m very impressed with your unbiased and skillful moderation of these debates. I’ve watched several and never see you show your “team colors” so to speak. I know you’re Christian yourself but you seem like a real lover of truth and healthy debate. Hats off to you.
Bart Erhman is doing a deception clearly here compare : 1:03:43 onwards and what he says about 1:09:15
@@urfriend919 Even if this is the case I don't think that's really an appropriate response to this guy's comment. Should have written this as your own standalone comment. Weird reply.
@@vinchinzo594 I replied here so that all who liked this comment could see it
@@urfriend919 It's very inconsiderate.
@@jestes7 of what
This is SUCH a better conversation than Ehrman's debate with Justin Bass. Peter J Williams is a worthy opponent.
Yeah I came here from that debate... That was such a poor showing from Justin Bass it was honestly embarrassing, this on the other hand is excellent.
Yeah I did the same. This is a very thought out and well done debate. And though I am not convinced by Peter in the least, I do respect his approach and knowledge.
I disagree with him, but we disagree honestly. And I do appreciate how both Bart and the moderator did work to keep to the core relevant features of the discussion.
Same here! The other debate was awful. This one is much better.
lol, lmao
I agree. Justin seemed unable to express himself in a rational, logical way. He MUST be able to think logically since he has a PhD, but I couldn't follow his arguments.
Justin and the people that create the Unbelievable? show... as an atheist, I thank you for being able to create a format where people discuss things rationally and kindly. Justin, you do a fantastic job of moderating.
I always get a smile and sigh of relive when I see him as moderator for a debate, not only is he good at keeping biases in check but he knows how too comprehend both sides and ask good questions and lead the conversation to great places.
R u really truly an atheist tho? U believe that there is no higher power or spiritual realm? I mean life can only come from pre existing life.. so how did life begin without someone creating it? Do u truly believe deep down in ur heart that life spontaneously generated from dirt or “primordial soup” for no apparent reason and without a cause? Even tho science tells us that is impossible? Do u also not believe in science? Bc science surely points to a God. I think science will vanquish atheism someday soon.
@@amandacarmel6084 as an atheist "I don't believe in god " rather than "believe that there's no god ". My stance is that the gods that humanity claim to exist do not have substantial and in some cases, rational evidence. Evidence that can be observed, tested, questioned without the threat of burning in a fiery pit and evidence that can be falsifiable.
In regards to science, if god did in fact create science then he's created the one tool that might just actually disprove his existence. Reason being? There's a lot of pseudoscience in the bible which doesn't comply with the natural laws of science as we know it. Case and point, god is quoted in Leviticus when he's talking about clean and unclean animals, as classifying bats as birds. This isn't true bats are not birds and god who supposedly created them would know better.
@@proculusjulius7035 that’s terrible I’m sorry u have to go through life like this. I can’t imagine living and not experiencing a relationship with God and feeling His presence and knowing He’s there. And seeing evidence of his existence in every aspect of nature it’s overwhelming!! I can’t imagine believing that when I die I will cease to exist. I don’t just believe in God I know He exists bc there’s so much more to life than the “material” there’s a whole other realm out there for u to experience. It’s indescribable unless u experience it yourself. I can’t imagine not being able to look forward to dying and moving into eternity. I’d be terrified of death and would feel like I have no purpose in this life and it’s all just gonna end one day so what’s the point?? We’re all just animals and star dust so why would anyone even care?! There’s so much more to life and love to experience in life. U will never know true love unless u know God, the author of love. What even is love is there’s no God and we’re all just one big accident? Why are things evil or wrong if there is no God? Who’s to say hitler was evil? Who says?? Why is anything beautiful or pure? Everything is meaningless truly without God. There’s no rhyme or reason for existence so why are we even having this conversation
@@amandacarmel6084 why your God though? Why not one of the multitude dreamed up before and after Yahweh? Is it possible that it's the time, place and parents you were born to? That's not good enough reason to believe in the preposterousness of the old and new testaments, think about it.
Excellent conversation, thank you! I’m an atheist, and I love respectful conversations with theists who don’t straw man their debate partner. That’s my biggest pet peeve.
And aethists never strawman? 😱 They do it all the time! Your bias is clearly evident.
@@kelrogers8480Im an atheist myself but not anti theist, or against religion. To me it cuts both ways and I have seen very confrontational debates and also podcasts which clearly play to a crowd by both atheists and christian apologists. The internet and podcasting / youtubing etc just creates camps and many atheists and Christians play provocateur and attempt to "destroy" the opposition and their arguments while usually just trying to score points with their tribes and hardcore followers. In fairness Justin only invites the more civilised Christians and sceptics onto his show and he keeps it civil and also moderates extremely well and doesnt let his own Christianity overshadow the atheists points or elevate the Christian points. These are very well thought out debates with well chosen debaters who aren't there to score points or "destroy" anyone but to discuss interesting points of view on a deep basis with lots of nuance on both sides. They are very enjoyable, entertaining and thought provoking. I actually have a lot of respect for many of the Christian apologists who come on and debate and many of their arguments are very well constructed, deeply researched and passionately delivered...the same with the sceptics and their points of view. 👍
@@kelrogers8480 where does Ehrman strawman Williams here? Give me a time stamp.
@@drzaius844 if you read my comment properly without projecting, you will see I say it is common for atheists to strawman in debates. I don't accuse Ejrmamn here specifically. It is however std aetheist practice. They are not neutral nor open minded, and thoroughly convinced they're right and everyone else is an idiot!
So why are you here? Still have doubts?
Really amazing conversation. I tend to find Erhman a lot more credible because he's more analytical, but I think it's important to note that he's not saying he's an atheist because of his view of scripture. It's entirely possible to believe in God without thinking the Bible is a historical document.
This video should have far, far more views.
Yep, Bart has said on his blog many times that his work in no way defends atheism, but is more about history and methodology.
@@michaelnelson3652 well sure I agree, he may not intend to defend atheism or anything if the sort, but the argument that the Bible isn’t historical and the resurrection isn’t a true event is at least an obstacle for Christianity, if not incompatible. It may not directly defend/support atheism, but it can certainly raise questions about the religion
Why being a Christian at all if your own holy book is unreliable about the very same things it preaches?
@@jonr9467 It's important to understand the context. Ideas change and develop over time, and religion is the same. For a set of ideas or principles to be valid, doesn't require a text to be accurate in the same way a history book has to be accurate to be of value.
As Michael points out in his comment above, it does raise questions, and that's good. People should question their ethical positions on many things, as well as their religious or cultural beliefs. Whether or not that means they ultimately abandon those beliefs is up to the person, after a period of reflection.
Ehrman is more credible and analytical? Man , you have NO idea! Read Misquoting jesus and his scholarly work he did with his mentor Bruce Metzger in the same frikkin year!!! He contradicts himself a lot in the same year!!! Watch David Wallace vs Bart Ehrman debate
I love the subtle tension hovering beneath the surface. Battle is a deep metaphor.
completely agree. you can tell they both wanna toss on the gloves and duke it out
For real tho! I thought I was the only one who noticed lol
This moderator is the best I’ve ever seen.
Sorry no. The moderator used loaded language on multiple occasions in support of one side over another.
@@AbuYusha01 sorry but you have no evidence and therefore thy opinion has no credibility. But thanks for the comment
@@strive4252 no evidence? He loads up for PJW to give him a scaffolded question that is geared towards generating a response that he would like to hear. He also used language like "you like to rattle off examples of contradictions and disparities in the text..."
Best moderator lol. Just how many debate moderators have you observed?
@@AbuYusha01 That’s better, be sure to give examples and evidence before you attack a comment on RUclips. I would still like more specification as you have not yet convinced me. In my personal experience as both a religious studies and politics inquisitor I have found that every moderator reveals a bias. Though I watched this video four months ago and barely remember it’s contents, I remember the feeling of refreshment after listening to what I believe was a fair moderator. I was so satisfied by his performance that I left a comment showing my subjective joy at his work. You can subjectively think otherwise, but if you would like objective evidence to show his failures, the burden is on you for concrete specific evidence.
@@strive4252 you just contradicted yourself. It's all good I choose to disagree subjectively. Bye.
That table is pretty small.
Amen
It keeps the conversation close and intimate 😁
The good ole days before Covid 😁
First thing I noticed when they pulled the cameras back
Report it...it is not covid compliant!!! 😂😂😂😂
Bart's posture is something to aspire to.
Yeah just interrupt everyone to prop oneself up. Forget basic courtesy that out mothers taught us.
@@shiroganeadventurer1574 hm?
@@ethtt she’s commented several times on this video just complaining about Bart being rude and interrupting. She’s just butt hurt that he laid the smack down in the most cordial way it can be delivered in a debate.
His posture actually worries me. Intellectually it’s good of course but I wonder if he has some back problems from the way he sits
@@hawt_fiyaHe didn’t though. It’s sad when Believers fall away and trust in man’s understanding and not Gods. You have to trust and have faith in God. I know that seems crazy to most. With all that said even in man’s world he didn’t lay a smack down at all in this debate. I wish you the best in your search for truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life!
what a wonderful discussion. I think there's a big difference between discrepancy and contradiction. I wish we had another hour at least.
Dr. Ehrman himself has pointed this out many many times, in both his books and his speaking engagements/interviews.
The Bible does in fact have both, with the former being _far_ more numerous throughout its developmental history.
@@kvjackal7980 It's almost always contradiction of terms as like words and descriptions can be used to portray totally different context so it almost always ends up being different context so not actual contradiction it just looks like it at face value without bothering to understand it.
I second everyone who said that this conversation was way too short. I could listen for another two hours!
Whenever I need to share a fantastic example of intellectual dishonesty, I point people to this conversation so they can hear Mr. Williams's erudite, ludicrous attempts at coherent arguments. Just .... well, Dr. Ehrman is certainly blessed with the gift of patience, lol
Love listening to Bart Erhman and N.T. Wright, please make a debate between them happen!
Read their books.
@@TreBrickley I did. But you can say that with everyone whom they had on this podcast, all of them had books one could read.
@@strynevanzelk4944 Wright would win
@@logans.butler285 I agree; I think his mind is sharper than Bart's.
@@jjroseknows777 judging by most of Bart's debates they need to quickly book Wright, but I don't think he's willing to potentially tarnish his legacy because he will struggle with some of the Christian claims that require one to have faith when logic would be equally supporting.
As organizer of these debates and as their moderator Justin is brilliant. The way he can bring together scholars of the caliber of P.J. Williams and Bart Ehrman to discuss such deep subjects is amazing
As a Christian first time seeing Bart Erhman in a debate. This was a great discussion thou. Very insightful and something to think about.
@@TheHaqtivist "Muslims believe that Jesus js a prophet and the promised Messiah" - Muslims believe in Isa the counterfit Jesus of the qu'ran who is merely a prophet. Muslims do not believe in the Historical Jesus of the bible who is the promised Messiah. Also nowhere in the qu'ran does it say why Jesus is the Messiah or what Messiah mean.
"This video proves the islamic christolgy" - firstly there is no christology in Islam and furthermore how did you come to that conclusion based on this video?
@@TheHaqtivist no it doesn't. Islam is a stupid death cult full of one lie after another. You follow a lying false prophet who was a pedophile.
@@Thanos-kp5jr Exactly quite literally the Jesus of the bible is their anti-Christ and their messiah is Christianities anti-Christ and Islams Jesus is the false prophet described in the bible. It's freaky how much Islam took from the bible and reversed it, quite satanic indeed.
@@Thanos-kp5jrlol that guy says christology as if any Muslim knows anything about the term Messiah right?
That was brilliant. Thank you to all involved in producing this debate. It makes a refreshing change to the (unfortunately) usual mudslinging. Subscribed.
I'm a follower of Jesus, and I think its safe to say Peter was horribly outmatched and lost this debate. I appreciate Barts candor in admitting that his arguments don't really have much more to do with anything outside of the biblical inerrancy claim. American Christianity is so badly plagued with thumping inerrancy to the point that many of them apply it as gospel, which its not. The bible can have errors and Jesus can still be absolutely everything he said he was. That may muddle epistemology a bit, but thats a different story altogether. I enjoyed this conversation a lot.
Peter doesn't know anything.. he just doesn't want to lose. What a shame
If you don't believe the Bible is God's word and inerrant, then you're not a Christian and you will fall away. You've been deceived by the liars of our time, of which bart is simply one of many. His book the introduction to the new testament, which I took at a secular college, it's full of so many lies, that I did an oral presentation for 30 minutes refuting it. I got a standing ovation from a giant room full of mostly non-Christian people. They wanted to arrange a debate between me and bart, and I said if you can do it go right ahead. Bart's a liar, plain and simple
@@kingjames5527 you just proved my point. the gospel does not include the necessity of believing in biblical inerrancy. Of course a Christian has good reason and ought to believe in inerrancy; it would be foolish to think otherwise, but it is not a prerequisite belief to receiving salvation. As a Christian, I whole heartedly believe the Bible is the word of God without error. The thief on the cross probably didn't, largely because he was likely unfamiliar with Hebrew scripture, but he recognized the authority of Christ and placed his trust in him. Many non-Jewish who did not even know about scripture saw Christ for who he was, and Jesus himself proclaims that their faith it's what saved (heals) them. There's a reason why the bible does not expand the simple gospel message to include the belief in inerrancy. It would behoove you to follow the Bible's lead on this. Again, I believe in inerrancy. And Bart may be everything you say he is. These are not the argument here. The gospel proclamation does not include inerrancy.
Just curious, why did you say you are "a follower of Jesus"?
Why not just say you're Christian or Catholic or Protestant?
I myself, like you, am a follower of Jesus, and refused to call myself Christian.
I totally disagree. I saw Bart making leaps just as often, if not more so than Peter. For instance, Bart says the Judas accounts are irreconcilable because all explanations are implausible. That simply isn’t true. There are explanations that are perfectly plausible. On another case, Bart uses a fallacious argument that Jesus did *say* He was God in certain books, so His divinity must have been a later view. This is silly, obviously. I think Bart has several other very strong arguments where Peter’s faith is clearly coloring his analysis, but I don’t think Peter was soundly defeated.
Aside from great debate, i was equally amazed about the size of the table they choose to make this debate. Didn’t you?
Jesus the carpenter built that table in his workshop in Nazareth.
😂
@@dbarker7794 😂
@@dbarker7794 Really? Dumb comment
Another intelligent, well moderated discussion. As a former fundamentalist Christian that is still fascinated with the topic, I always look forward to the next exploration on this channel. Thank you Justin.
Are you a sophisticated atheist now?
Ignore 20july1944. He's a well known troll in the Unbelievable comment sections.
@@timediverx I'm just eager for scientific discussions about God's existence with anyone who knows enough science for an intelligent discussion.
You didn't do well when we chatted.
@@20july1944 No you aren't 😉 and I never argued any science with you.
@Christian Slayer My cosmology requires God.
What is your cosmology that does NOT require God?
Do you think there was a big bang? I do.
I'm a muslim, and I enjoyed this discussion. Hope it was longer and delved deeper into the topic. Also, hope all who debate, including myself, are as sincere, gentleman-like and respectful as these two. Great moderation too.
Indeed this debate was wonderful. an atheist vs a christian..This debate iwas focused on the text in the bible about what the bible claims that 4 witness of Jesus life wrote about Jesus. and it was done in a really professional way , noone was interrupted ,everyone allowed to give his point of view.. But i can show you other ways to proof Jesus words was real as life is. Through real life experiences. There are many muslim who have convereted to Christianity with amazing stories ,to tell.. and also there are Jews too who converted to Chistianity and so HIndus and Budist. if you are interested to know more about JESUS , just ask. will be happy to help. because even though the scriptures testimonies are 2000 years old.. today in the present.. there are millions of witness of Jesus doing still today , the miracles that appear in the bible. So jesus miracles and Jesus teachings continues today. it did not stop with the bible.
@@technoartfest8708the stories of the prophets are all better in Quran. Quran never told ill stories about the prophets. Jesus Christ's story was told beautifully, given miracles by God to spoke as a new baby born, etc.
@@adralia23 The Quran cannot be Right because use lots of stories from the Bible as their own , most things in the bible are wrong.. It means that the atheist guy is partially right , half Right when it comes to the Bible being made up ,and not real. So if the QUran use stories of a Half Wrong Bible ,then the Quran own text contains mistakes of things that never happened. Jesus never claimed to be just a prophet. he claimed to be the Son of GOD initially and they later in his life on this world admit he was GOD the father too. So you need to start from there. Jesus ressurected , in the same way he resurrect lazarus from death. And Mohammad nobody resurrected him. His Death Body is in Saudi Arabia Al Madinah and Muslim can visit his Tomb waiting for resurrection. While Jesus is not death anymore ,he rise his own body to life.. So who is more powerful? the one that his body is death and needs resurrection? or the one who is alive and ressurect death people? When Jesus was on mission preaching the word of GOD , what you know as the Bible did not exist. The bible was a creation of humans and not of GOD. Hundreds of years later ,Christians decided to change Jesus teachings and COmbine 2 Religions in One. COmbine Judaism religion teachings with Jesus teachings and in the end you got a Book that was going to be the manual of Christians. And the Major mistake was the Judaism GOD Yahveh is not the Same GOD of Jesus. Jesus was not Yahved ,was not the GOd of Moises the God that lead wars against Egypt.. Jesus did not believed in Violence or war.. Jesus instead promoted forgiveness of enemies , seventy times seven.. In other words to allways forgive your enemies and pray for them. So This is the major mistake that Muslim have. that All 3 major religions like Judaism ,Christianity and Islam have the same roots and this is not the case. IF Jesus believed in Jews yahveh GOD and Jews religion ,he will have not converted jews into christinity , and will have demanded everyone to use only the TORAH that is the book of Judaism religion. But he didn;t do it.. Why Jesus promoted a brand new religion with brand new God personality and new Laws. ? Why Jesus promoted a new religion that it wa going to compete with Judaism religion? because Jesus disagreed with Judaism religion and with the GOD of the Jews. thats why. and So Islam cannot be right when it use parts of the torah as the Truth. and Jesus instead created a totally new religion , his own religion ,his own way. Christianity the Jesus one , in not an abraamic religion , Jesus did not banned alcohol for example , did not endorsed wars ,did not justified violence as a way to solve problems. Jesus did not banned Pork meat. Jews and muslim prohibit pork meat . Jesus did not condemn Prostitution on womens.. he forgave a prostitute that was going to be killed to death , by stones. . Jesus promoted the NO JUDGEMENT on people. To not point fingers at others sinners. and i can go forever on why Islam canot be the Truth , because it follows more closely the Jews rules ,on about everything. Jews religion was highly political religion ,that interfere in almost everything in people daily life , What to eat, which clothing , Beard. the role of women in society ,the time of praying , of fasting, Islam use moon cycles , as a guides for their activities.. this is similar to pre Islamic religions in the middle east.. that worship the Moon as GOD. In Short Jesus did not created a new Religion. He was the Way ,The Truth and the life , Jesus Was and IS God . Moses and neither of the Torah prophets were GOD , Mohammad was NOT GOD, Jesus in the other had told he was the SAME as GOD. So conclusion < Muslim copied Jews religion and created a new One to try to lure Jews and Confused Christians into their ISlam religion. Jesus was not a prophet , he was GOD , he was much bigger than Abram ,Moises and bigger than Mohammed. No one is greater than GOD. and Jesus was GOD.
I can’t believe you guys, you spoil me! This is great
EDIT: timestamp 1:22:20
Bart: "I can come up with a hundred examples [of irreconcilable contradictions in the bible]"
Petter: "Well, you can come up with other examples..."; Bart "But you didn't address them in your book!"
Petter: "Well, it is a short book" 0.o'
That sounds convenient...
Gréât quote
Does anyone see that Bart is rudely not giving Peter basic courtesy to finish what he was saying?
Does anyone see that Bart is rudely not giving Peter basic courtesy to finish what he was saying?
Wait, you do realize that "it's a short book" is NOT all he's pointing out right? He could have gone through so many valid points but Bart already cut him off. And repeatedly at that. We can't discredit someone without allowing them to give their side of the story. But that's what happened here because nga Bart was acting very rude, cutting Peter off every time. Is that a fair debate? I thinks not.
@@shiroganeadventurer1574 Come on, it was cross examination time. By that point they had plenty of time of their own to get their arguments across. Peter also interrupted Bart at other moments and that is ok, because they were engaging in a back and forth. There is no point in letting someone continue with long argument if you have an issue with the premises, for example. Or if the person committed an error, it is useful to correct it promptly.
It is not rude, it is common in conversations. It would be different if it was during opening statements or rebuttals.
In this particular moment, Peter was trying to squirm and stutter his way out of answering Bart's questions. So he was pressing Peter, that's all.
moderator really done great moderator job ...
Not sure. Is this sarcastic?
I agree. He is great.
He's always amazing, underrated channel for sure just because he's a Christian.
Bart is always the fairest and most rational, he's balanced and generally polite.
He constantly interrupted and changed the subject before Peter had a chance to respond.
Peter can't answer definitively Ehrman's simple question: Do you believe the Bible is inerrant? Peter obviously does. Thus Peter is disingenuous, and hypocritical. He need say yes and be done with it. Ultimately, imo, he sounds confused, uncertain about his position.
I would rather see someone like James white having a discussion w Bart
Yes he really showed how dishonest religion can be but not answering that at least there are errors but I still have faith At the least
@@chrislanglois3598 The serious problem with literal interpretation of Scripture is that it neglects and suppresses all truthful understanding of what the authors were saying to their specific communities at specific moments in their history. Literal interpretation also seriously denies the many errors obviously made over millennia through redaction and transcription.
Yep thats the impression i got as well.
Christians don't like direct questions.
Good hearing these two guys talk this out.
Correction, didn't enjoy a shit listening to the fundamentalist Peter !
@Stefan Urban Please demonstrate how you're smarter than desert people, my anti-Semitic little friend.
Also which old book?
Current year current year current year!
All you have to do to get to the heart of the hypocritical nature of a Christian "examining" their own book is to ask them to do the same thing with the Quran. They'll immediately put on their common sense helmet and say that flying horses don't exist and that the Quran is full of errors.
Ask them to keep their common sense helmet on and perform that same level of skeptical scrutiny to their own scripture and you get a person like Benjamin. Someone who is certainly intellectual enough share a seat at the table, but his standards of evidence have completely shifted when talking about his own house, and he dismisses his otherwise very useful and healthy skepticism. This is the hallmark of indoctrination.
It's this simple: ask Bart to examine the Bible. Then ask him to examine the Quran. His methodology and standards will be the same for each. Ask Benjamin to do the same exercise. His standards for examining the Bible are different than his standards for examining the Quran.
That is how you tell someone is not being intellectually genuine. They hold different set of standards depending on the subject matter. This is hypocrisy defined.
Bart doesn't carry this obviously hypocritically-charged baggage with him, theologians/apologists do. So when they are talking about the "subtle naturalist bias" that exists in academia and that Benjamin wants to stay away from that, that is simply him trying to give a pass to his non-skeptical examination. Sorry, but this is the fundamental issue. One person values skepticism in all cases, while the other person only values skepticism when it suits them (again ask Benjamin to examine the Quran and he'll happily rattle off the errors within).
Sorry, but being a skeptic means we try to maintain a consistent set of standards and apply those universally. Ask a Christian to apply their set of standards, that they use to dismiss the Quran, to their own holy book and you'll see that these guys are not out for truth. They are out for confirmation (as Bart put it perfectly in his closing statement).
John Bagget I wish I had the intelligence and the eloquence to put forth a statement as astute, accurate and TRUE as you just did. Whether I'm skeptical or not, about any subject, I do my best to examine it with the same "common sense helmet", I just can't explain it as intelligently as you just did. I couldn't agree with you more! So many Christian apologists "change their tune" (or switch helmets) , when it comes to "attempting/ PRETENDING???" to explain their beliefs. I, personally, do not even question the Bible stories anymore. For me, they are simply OUT OF the question. IF, (and that's a BIG "IF") there is a God, He is NOT to be found in the Bible myths, unless that God is an absolutely immoral monster. Thanks for your comment. I got a lot out of it. It'll help me to analyze and inquire about things I'm skeptical of, AND help me to explain my motives and my honesty to others, while I'm doing so!
John Baggett
On the contrary Im perfectly open to accepting the claims of the Quran. However when it comes to the topic of Jesus the evidence clearly favors the Bible and it’s historical account of Jesus (life,death, resurrection) over the Qurans description.
It’s seems that your quarrel is with the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. I can tell you One does not accept Christ as lord and savior via the doctrine of inerrancy. One comes to accept him by examining the evidence.
It’s good to be skeptical, but there comes a time when you have to accept the truth.
@@jamesveerdog2723 Is it possible that the truth is people suffer from confirmation bias, special pleadings, fear of uncertainty and delusion?
@@jamesveerdog2723 then provide some evidence that leads to the truth and then maybe you have an argument
I note that this is a Christian channel - yet a lot of the comments are pointing out the evasiveness , fallacies and doing view theology on show by Ben who would normally get a warm welcome ?
Lawson Harrison Of course people suffer from those things, but that does nothing to prove anything false.
Poor naïve Williams, he was completely outshined by Ehrman. Ehrman made total sense whereas Williams was reduced to huffing and puffing, avoiding answering questions directly, throwing multiple red herrings around and hedging and parsing words. Williams really fell apart at 51:30 and onwards. "Coherent worldviews" are not tantamount to truth. There can be perfectly "coherent" systems or views that are completely false. But Ehrman's point is that the stories in the Gospels are *_not even coherent_* because they have inconsistencies in them. Williams seems blind and deaf to this and continues to obfuscate to salvage his priors.
At 53:11, Williams admits that he *_"is not doing history,"_* and is actually going with his beliefs. He's done at this point.
But Williams digs himself even deeper and at 53:53 Ehrman squashes Williams like a bug: *_"What Peter [Williams] is saying is that Christian History is not the same as History..."_** OUCH!!!!* Williams looked deflated. Then Williams goes on to try to discredit the science of History itself, apparently unaware that he is *only discrediting himself!* It's pretty sad to see...
At 1:04:12 Williams again goes on a tirade against the scholarship and historical methodology itself instead of addressing head on the powerful point that Ehrman made in the preceding couple of minutes. This is a dodge and another wasted opportunity for him to tackle Ehrman's points head on.
At 1:05:00 Williams pretends to engage Ehrman's arguments, but leaves them entirely unscathed, by addressing something entirely different, which Ehrman did not claim. Ehrman's point is that Jesus was not portrayed as *claiming or portraying himself to be divine* in the early gospels, *not* that the writer of Mark didn't think that Jesus was divine. More bait and switch from Williams.
From 1:10:31 through 1:11:06 Williams goes completely "non-sensey" and self-contradicting. At 1:11:41 through 1:12:45, *Ehrman comes down like a hammer and squashes Williams again.OUCHIE!*
The moderator is clearly biased, and tried to throw some bones at Williams, but overall did a decent job at letting both sides express their points.
One is a non believer and one is a believer in miracles. Hence the view describe won't be the same. But all the same ending , for example Judas Isacriot died . How he died is not clear. Science cannot agreed as to what really happened , if it happened ,becasue science cannot accept miracles but only hard facts. That is what Erhman is pushing against WIlliam. . So the question is , can science explain every happenings, like for example all humans grows up to be similar in appearence but how is the mechanics that it became like that? One can point to the DNA but till today no scientist one can trace the path of its flow or happening . Hence its call a miracle that science cannot trace and immitate. If scientists can , then we would be seeing new creatures created by scientists. All they can do is use part of the existing DNA and put them together to create a varieties of different shapes or colours, but never a new creatures or plants. They can only take what already exist but never will be able to create their own DNA and hence a new creature.
Science is only trying to find out how God works and not to prove that God didn't exist.
@@stevenong7964 Notice the question in the debate refers to *historical reliability* not "miracles" or supernatural anything. Williams is trying to say that the gospels are *historically reliable.* He is not able to do this, and relying on "miracles" only disproves his point, because miracles are not "scientific" by definition. Also, you seem to misunderstand what "miracles" are supposed to be. You seem to think that if science or the scientific method does not *YET* understand something, then therefore it must be a miracle. This is an argument from ignorance fallacy: _"I don't understand A, therefore B must be true."_ But this is wrong. There are many cases in which science didn't understand something in the past and came to understand it later. It is possible that things we don't fully understand now will be understood later. It is also possible that there will be many things that we will never understand. But that does *NOT* mean that they are miraculous in anyway.
Atheist in USA chiming in to say great discussion and TERRIFIC moderation. Thanks-
I agree. Good moderators are hard to find.
I think Bart is agnostic not atheist.
@@carlanderson2468 Call it what you will. My level of convinced-ness about any supernatural beings is very low, and I think Ehrman says roughly the same. I don't carry out my day as if there is an omniscient being watching me.
@@drumrnva Earth is a conscious living entity do you believe that??? Everything that makes us what we are comes from earth, Iron, dust, sweat that taste like salt water, calcium and that includes consciousness, it to comes from earth.
But you don't see it. Whatever created all existence from the very beginning of whatever time was is god. It's not a male, it's not a female and for more respect, it's not an it.
Earth connects with us consciously but god may have no connection, for all we know, god is the very first atom that expanded the universe therefore we are all connected energy, connected to a god we know nothing about.
@@carlanderson2468 Earth is a "conscious living entity"? How does consciousness come from earth?
Love this convo and channel!
This should have been longer! Great discussion :)
Petter: "I never tried to claim I'm doing history"
Debate about the historicity of the gospels. Smh eye roll.
53:00
He’s not acting as a historian. He’s just a theologian. That seems like a semantic issue. He’s claiming his focus isn’t history.
@@user-gx4wi4cv2m And the title of the video is not 'Is the Bible theologically true?'
Peter then goes on to say that in domestic violence cases for which there is no other witness, we should "jolly well believe the victim" --- an appalling statement. (I wish people were required to pass an exam on basic reasoning before they ware allowed to publish books on real-world issues.)
This wasnt a conversation or debate, this was a beat-down.... That Peter guy was no match for Bart, he mumbled & stumbled his way pathetically to the end when ended up grovelled up in a corner stuttering bs.
Peter was stuttering since the beginnig. Instead of reading your definition into it, maybe it is just that some people are just not good in speech and stutter their whole life. That seems more obvious to what you saying.
Bart repeatedly interrupted Peter, which possibly threw Peter off his train of thought, instead of showing Peter the same courtesy that Peter showed him.
Joan C ur braised
@AnarchoRepublican They simply copied each other, it's common knowledge.
@@GustAdlph HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
What a great discussion.
Bart is a great scholar that looks at NT from an academic point view detached from bias and brings real questions that requires honest reflections.
Thank k you Bart.
Detached from bias? Pffffft. Bias exists in every man on this planet. Ehrman is just as invested as the bloke sitting opposite him (and quite a bit richer thanks to his bias).
Yeaa he wants the bible to fit his logic only 🙄
thanks bart. convey the truth and falsehood of the bible. grateful you are an atheist or agnostic, if you are a muslim, surely the christians will criticize more severely. as usual
@@sembarangan7091 Surely, you should welcome criticism. Iron sharpens iron - don't be afraid of criticism...
@@killablooz maybe he can make more money as a secular scholar but Bart Ehrman was a Christian when he started his field of study
A good exchange. One needs to know one's stuff before coming up against Bart Ehrman, I have to say. Impeccable scholarship.
The alarming thing for me when watching this is how easy Bart dismantled Peter views on a number of occasions. Furthermore, Peter seemed rattled and unable to articulate a clear, convincing and sound argument. Meanwhile, Bart effortlessly spoke with conviction on his viewpoint.
Additionally, it's a credit to Bart to be so transparent about his views on Christianity given that religion thrives of predicating fear to validate its claims.
Did you even watch the video? Bart was bumbling back and forth while Peter was tripping him up constantly
@@carsonianthegreat4672 Bro I'm a Christian and even I can see Bart was destroying Peter. Just look at Peter's body language and how many times he crosses his arms to defend seld sooth himself, and how often he struggles to make a point.
@@carsonianthegreat4672 Really not the case! And I'm coming from a similar place to Peter.
I think you’re mistaking calm eloquence for strong argumentation and the occasional fumbling nervous answering as weak argumentation. If you would read the transcript you’d probably find Bart constantly evading direct arguments to come back with a tangential point. Strong rhetoric competence, which may even win you the debate for audience / entertainment point of view. But I think he presented very weak arguments against the historic veracity of scripture.
this man Bart Ehrman is more logical and looking intelligent and has good argument and knowledge
Bart Ehrman is not to bright when it comes to the Bible, im a nobody and i would destroy him in a debate...He says that Jesus never said he is God..well if ur God in human form, would u tell anyone ur really God? ofcourse not, no one would believe you, so what would u do to infront of people to have them figure out who u are? hmmm i dont know maybe for starters ill go to someones funeral and raise that person , u cant argue with that kind of miracle ..and also all humans sin, but if u was God in human form would u ever sin once? would u ever break any of ur own commandments? well did Jesus ever sin? duuuhhhhhh
@@freddytorres4573 i agree with bart that jesus was not God what he did was power pf faith as jesus said if u have a little faith and say to a tree to walk it will if a tree starts walking on ones order will he be a God???? and yes a God has many more attributes and power and glory he can say every thing openly without any fear whether people believe or not first of all u should learn the definition of miracle that is impossibility of happening of something simply and so many prophets performed miracles like as u know moses Pbuh performed more than this when he hit his stick on the ground and divided the sea into 2 parts and made a way for his people this is impossible to think even ! did not moses also raised the dead person after 3 days of his death was he God???or silently trying to prove himself God??? as bible say Moses was God to pharoh ! and all prophets do not committed sins just a very much little error bcz of human nature if God commit sin there is no problem bcz no one can punish him these things are not sufficient to prove a man to be a god first learn who is God His attributes His power His glory His Grace then go ahead
freddy torres freddy torres but you do realize you’re projecting your own thought processes onto why Jesus wouldn’t say he was god? The question wasn’t “what could be the reason Jesus didn’t say he was god” but if there were ever any kind of record saying that he confirmed that. At any rate, it would only be beneficial for Jesus to say he was god because people believed that even demons could do miracles, so wouldn’t it be good to clear things up so there wouldn’t be a chance of misattribution? His whole ministry counted on whether or not he was god sent to earth to cleanse people from their sins, so why wouldn’t he proclaim this? And not even to his disciples? Also in other writings Jesus is portrayed to kill the people that opposed him during his childhood, so was he actually totally free of sin?
@Papito Rey JESUS is GOD....AND KING OF UNIVERSE.
Papito Rey hey your ignorance is showing. Read the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and get back to me
55:15 Justin Brierley’s face accurately captures my feelings about Peter Williams’ argument
So sour
Lol
@@spellboundty Look of trying to work out what's just been said, not that he doesn't believe it! He's my brother.
LOL
Lol
I loved the conversation. Two big brained people talking about Christianity is great.
I’m not sure knowledgeable and big brained are synonyms. Peter certainly is intelligent but he openly admits the circular reasoning of his presuppositions as a basis for his argumentation, and funny thing is you can almost hear the second guessing and wavering in his voice as he does so before the moderator changes the topic. That’s not a very big brained move. Bart remains honestly analytical.
You need to watch a second time maybe you will get a clearer view
If Peter Williams had started off by saying he bases everything upon a credulous acceptance of the Bible nothing he said here would have to change.
I am in the minority here, but I thought Peter did just fine. Ehrman doesn't concede points even though some good ones were made by Peter. He just drones on, even to the point he "hears" things Peter never said like the dating of Mark.
One example that Ehrman would not acknowledge is the local accuracy of Luke lending credence to an earlier date rather than a late date. The information that Luke supplies strongly suggests a living eyewitness before the Destruction of the Temple. Local details supplied would be lost after the Temple's Destruction. Ehrman deflected this argument saying the writer could have the details right and the story wrong. But, he refused to acknowledge that accurate and precise details points to a contemporary witness rather than a witness post AD 70. He attacked the veracity of the story rather the argument for an earlier dating of the Gospel. He pivoted to avoid a good and solid point.
Bart also did not like Peter's answer regarding the divinity of Jesus in Luke. Bart claimed Jesus never spoke of himself as divine. However, in Luke 18:19 Jesus asks the rich man this rhetorical question, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." Or, in other words, you are calling me, God.
Or, to the thief on the cross Jesus proclaimed his divinity, " Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 24:43 This shows at least three things:
1) He had the power to forgive sins thereby equating himself with God.
2) He had the foreknowledge that he would resurrect.
3) He had authority in Heaven/Paradise to welcome the redeemed.
Then, Bart would not let Peter finish his argument on the time that Jesus healed the blind man in Luke. So, let me pick up where Bart so rudely interrupted:
Nowhere in the O.T. is a person healed of blindness. Bart, himself, admitted that. In Isaiah, one of the signs of the coming Messiah is that he would open the eyes of the blind. When this happened, the crowds realized that the Messiah had come. Healing the blind was evidence of divinity. But, Bart would not hear of it. He was only interested in his own argument. He might say he is pursuing truth, but he really isn't. He just wants to shut the other guy up to make his own points.
I don't see Bart as a genuine Truth-seeker. I see someone still trying to convince himself that he is not wrong.
I think a lot of people are convinced more by Bart's rhetoric, even when he doesn't actually make a good point. He is a good debater, speaks confidently, and doesn't stammer or struggle to find a good comeback, but when you read him in print, it's clear that his arguments are just as open to questioning as that of someone like Williams.
@@michaelnelson3652 Thanks, I think you are right.
I like these two. Both have their pros and cons. That is the way the knowledge can be moved on.
As a Christian, I agree wholeheartedly. This was just a great discussion as a whole.
@@TheHaqtivist
Saying Jesus is the Messiah is to claim his deity.
@@ombandajeanpaul7117 the messiah was never meant to be “divine” the Hebrew Bible is pretty clear on that. This is why Jews struggle to see Jesus as that figure.
@@izrealtruefelicis3309
Either they are in bad faith or they are unable to read and understand what is written.
The MESSIAH (Psalm 110:1-5) is the Lord (Adonaï) of king David. The same is sitting at the right hand of Adonaï Yahweh.
The SON of Man that Jesus is referring to is a divine Figure as he is worshipped (PELACH) by all the nations and all people (Daniel7:13-14).
PELACH is used 10 times in the Bible and it is used to mean ''Worship'', ''Serve God'' or ''achieve a service to God uniquely ".
This Word is used in Daniel 7:13-14 in relation to the Son of Man.
@@izrealtruefelicis3309I have read a few Jewish scholars who wrote books about Jesus and from what I remember it was rather that the messiah was expected to be a political leader supposed to bring peace to the world not to be crucified. Not so much the question of his divine nature (which they wouldn't accept of course).
I once read that a lot of the misunderstanding between ancient Israelite religion and Christianity comes from the process of "hellenization", the Greek influence that led to the problem that the metaphorical thinking was translated to the ontological thinking of the Greek philosophy which already began BC. So "son of man" became ontological and not metaphorical. It might be a oversimplification but it does explain some of the problems.
Bart is an absolutely brilliant and respectful speaker...
Except that he was refuted so many times. Watch Ehrman v Wallace or Ehrman v Licona.
@איתן ברוך lol… who exactly did he sell out to? He’s an educated thoughtful man snd i LOVE his lectures and the fact that he is true ti his beliefs.
Licona got bodied😂😂@@les2997
Brilliant from Mr Bart
So coherent and robust
And rude and interrupting.
@@shiroganeadventurer1574 you must not have watched many debates. This is about as cordial as it gets.
Bert has no God when he died he directly go hell
As a Christian who has rejected fundamentalism for a fuller faith in Jesus and not in the box I believe he must fill, I appreciate Bart Ehrmen’s scholarship on this. For those who’s faith may be shaken by Ehrmen’s comments, listen to the “Ask NT Wright Anyting” podcast on the Infallibility of Scripture. Ehrmen said he was a Christian for many years still after learning all of this stuff, but what really took him from his faith was theodicy, or the problem of evil.
I didn't know this about Bart. That's interesting. I always thought he turned from the faith after further study of the NT
Also thanks for the headsup on NT Wrights podcast episode
@@orangecountyrealtor Bart turned away from Christianity because it fails to explain why there is so much suffering in the world. He covers this topic in his book, God's Problem.
@@clinchleatherwood1012 That is so very odd as no one is a Christian because such reasons like it just makes sense or even that it's true. It's because of personally knowing Jesus. So such people that so easily claim to lose their "faith" makes me wonder if they ever knew Jesus to start with and this "faith" of theirs if it was just their own or from Jesus like it's supposed to be. We have faith from not ourselves but from Jesus because we know him. He is the source. To deny the tangible reality of Jesus a Christian has because of a theological issue one might have is unfathomable to me. Makes me question if Christ was ever part of someones Christianity.
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep that's something you'll need to take up with Bart. But, a lot of us find it "so very odd" that people will blindly follow something that they don't care if it "makes sense" or "even that it's true" and who claim to know someone who's been dead for 2000 years, never met and never spoken to. (You can claim you've spoken to and met Jesus but if you can't prove it is merely a claim). Not everyone's brain functions like that. Like me, I need facts or I will not accept it as true. Peace be with you!
@@clinchleatherwood1012 I can help it make sense for you. Christianity is indeed an evidence based and not blind faith.
Faith is the product of truth, and truth is ultimately a person Jesus Christ who said I am the truth. Faith not from truth is blind faith, an aberration of the fundamental concept of faith which unfortunately has been popularized as the standard definition which is absurd.
Paul wrote test everything and hold fast to that which is true. Being a Christian isn't about blind faith. Hebrews 11:1 Paul wrote the Greek "hupostasis." It means an internal unseen tangible substance of assurance, of the person of Jesus he gives as an "elegchos" which basically means like a clinical evidence like given in a court of law. It is the most important evidence one can have to give ones life to Jesus. Ultimately nothing else is or can be sufficient. Jesus, God could appear infront of you right now and do miracles and that wouldn't be enough for you or anyone to give their lives truly to him. It wasn't enough for the disciples. All the disciples denied Jesus on the cross. All the miracles and evidence Jesus was God like walking on water raising the dead, hearing God from heaven speak and say this is my Son was not enough. So why would it be enough for you? It wouldn't. Christianity should have died on the cross with Jesus. But Pentecost happened. God the Holy Spirit came and his promise is to reveal Jesus and make him real to you. That is when all the disciples would rather give their lives for Jesus than deny him, hundreds of thousands would die as martyrs in the Colosseum than deny Jesus who was then made real to them more real than walking on water or raising the dead infront of them in person.
Just a reminder the apologetic case of the resurrection is based on the historical evidence and it uses the same method of reasoning mainly inference to the best explanation that Darwin uses in the Origin of Species.
The New Testament shows with the physician Luke telling that they knew and understood and had the same objections we do today that a miracle goes against the laws of nature and addressed it with the story of Zechariah that a God that created it all with those laws of nature and intervene into them. To assume miracles can't happen is to wrongly assume this universe is a closed system, science does not tell us that.
You are hindered by a philosophical presupposition that thinks that is the way it must have happened. That is a big issue for a scientist, am I going to stick with what the science is saying or with my philosophical presupposition? Richard Lewontin a geneticist was very honest in stating; "The methods of science do not compel us to accept a materialistic explanation. What does? Our apriori conviction." Atheists aren't following where the evidence leads, because they are self limiting the extent of their own rationality. It's irrational in the strictest sense. Atheism and science do not mix.
If the mental is purely physical, then we have no reason to have any confidence in anything our brain produces. -Thomas Nagel Atheist Having no belief in God undermines the very rational mind you use to argue with.
So there is nothing in genuine science to stop the belief in God, there is everything in genuine science to support the belief in God, and there is only one ultimate type of truth that you or anyone can accept to not just belief of God but accept and give your life to him and know him, and that's from him giving that evidence personally as he promises and does for all those that seek him.
Compare Matthew 28 with Mark 16 Luke 24 and John 20. Major differences
And then what did the event happened or not?
A good debate and a very capable and fair and astute moderator IMO
Thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
"To reconcile it, you have to come up with a completely implausible scenario." - Ehrman
Ehrman is a genius
Or change your perspective
@@sagebias2251 it’s perfectly conceivable that a hanging gone wrong could end with disembowelment.
@@sagebias2251 apparently Ehrman is now an expert on the history of hangings. No doubt he has spent 5-10 years reading all of the “scholarly” literature on the “physics” of hangings; and all the “authorities” agree that hangings never result in unexpected injuries,…
@@josephstrauch8116 Was he hung over a set of spikes or something? How could you fall headfirst? Why didn't the Bible authors mention this?
What is wrong with thinking one of the bible authors heard a different account of the death?
I very much miss Dr. Ehrman - thank you for your work.
Why do you miss him. Isn't he still alive?
@@equinoxproject2284 Yes he is still alive, but I think such debates have not been active lately!
Erhman needs to make the point that the Jesus miracles, aside from the blind man from birth and the miracle at Cana, are simply reprises of miracles performed by Elijah and Elisha as reported in 1 and 2 Kings. The Cana miracle (water into wine) is simply a rehash of what Dionysus did on a regular basis. Being schooled in Greek, the Gospel writers were totally familiar with the Septuagint and with Greek mythology, and they do not claim to be witnesses nor do they name their sources. There is no legitimate reason to assume that the Jesus miracles are historical.
Aren't all of the miracles done by the prophets in the name of God/The Father? I just went through them and found all where done in God's name/after prayer/on God's authority. Jesus does them in his own name, as he claims to be God (ex. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?). There is no record of him praying to the Father for a healing. He simply states the healing and it happens, right? I just went through them all and that was true as well. I was surprised that this distinction wasn't made, but maybe it is my own ignorance that is prohibiting me from seeing why that distinction wasn't made.
I am very open to showing why that might be a moot point :)
@@calypzo9361 My point is raising the issue of miracles is to indicate that the Jesus miracles were not reported by eyewitnesses. The gospel authors located them in the Septuagint and Greek mythology and applied them to the ministry of Jesus. This is not to say that the miracles of Elijah and Elisha and Dionysus are historical. They are no more historical than those of Jesus.
Aren't Matthew and John eyewitnesses?
@@calypzo9361 no. Matthew Luke and John never met or spoke to Jesus. Mark may have seen him but only as a child.
Why do you say that? John and Matthew are both of the 12 Apostles.
I’m watching this video for the third time and am only now noticing how tense things were between Peter and Bart at the beginning. You can see it on their faces.
Please, can some Christian explain this to me: this Peter guy is hanging on the gospel authors knowing names of trees... while knowing the gospels don’t align (“they were written for different audiences”)... how is that any different from any other literary work? How can You believe that’s the word of God if you yourself acknowledge it has been written by people with a goal of convincing other people.
Hebrews was written for law abiding Jews. Romans was directed more towards gentiles who would not necessarily have been familiar with Jewish customs and law. The bible is a compilation of many books. Can elaborate on the assertion that "it was written by people with the goal of convincing other people"?
Then you cannot believe any of the stories about ancient Egypt or Alexandria, or anything about Alexander the Great for that matter. All of history is a lie, using Bart Ehrman's methods.
@@DrMayte You're right, you can't. Egyptian kings are notorious for erasing the history of those that came before them and recording their failures as victories. Thankfully, we have the technology to see behind their erasures. But most historians say things like "the text says, though we're not sure about this, that..." or "this is obviously a mythological augmentation of..."
@@deluxeassortment Whether Egyptians lied or not we atleast know who they are.
Who is Luke? Who is John? Who is Mark? Who is Matthew?
We dont even have there last names, you cannot even have a driving licence without a last name.
That is what I try to explain to people. They believe because they are empty one.
Though I am a believer, I absolutely love Bart. Over the last year or so, I've absolutely fallen in love with biblical scholarship and Bart has been one of my principal guides. In my (very) humble/ unprofessional opinion, he is one of the finest scholars on the scene today. Great job!!
you say you are a believer , but accept someone who denies the scripture ...there are no 2 sides .
you have to chose a side GOD or satan .
@@lesliematyas1921is accepting reason over myth is satan?😂😂
Bart is educated , but he lacks of logic and reason.. He don't understand , that just like in present times , you don't need 100% irrefutable evidence smoking gun evidence to solve a Crime Scene today ,, with credible testimonies of at least 1 witness can be more than enough to get a strong CASE in a Court.. At the same time the 4 modern testament witness and the hundreds others witness not included in the bible but that their scriptures do exist.. like Pilates letter to Caesar for example , that exist of JESUS life.. 4 in the new testament and many others NOT included in the bible. are an overwhelming mountain of evidence that at the very least the Jesus story and Jesus life and jesus miracles had to happen . based on the strong similarity of all their witness stories. means that the bible testimonies alone of MARC ,LUCAS ,MATHEW AND JOHN , their testimonies alone are in reality a strong evidence that Jesus story at least most of it is real and not fiction. . But even if those ancient testimonies not trusted ,something he can do , that he cannot Dismiss is the Millions and millions of testimonies of people christians and not christians ,that at present day exist. That Jesus did for their lives.. Because there are so many stories outhere ,that overwhelmingly claims that Jesus miracles still happen today. stories ,testimonies that you can easily find today on the internet. So to be a healthy skeptics is not bad.. But BART is not a very logical or reasonable person to assume ,that just because there are some small inconsistencies here and there, that the thousands of pages of the gospel have to be dismissed only because they disagree at rare time about the exact hour they saw Jesus one day on his life or the people who visited the tomb in resurection day.. What i see is that BART have so much to lose for being proven wrong.. ie.. an EGO thing.. that he tries very hard to attach into any small thing ,to claim that Jesus Gospels scriptures are unreliable. when is completely the Opposite.. Having 4 ancient story telling scriptures by 4 different sources ,,that even though their wording is different , they all tell the same thing about Jesus.. is nothing but remarkable evidence of the truth in Jesus story.
God's side is the truth, not simply what is shown to you. The truth will side with evidence. So learning & analyzing the evidence, doing textual criticism, is one way to achieve the truth, achieving God.
If some of the Bible was indeed made up, we would like to know the authentic original one. You, in the other hand, seem like someone siding to whoever it was that had made up the gospels.
@@adralia23 sorry for you ,that you can not or will not accept scriptures as GOD's truth .
as to original scriptures ,,,therec are many almost 3/4s of the bible found ...and that is very close to what was written as to what we read now .
you other hand need help is understanding the truth . its there in the bible ...niv...nasb...king james ...
One guy has had his foot in both camps and approached the subject with an open mind. The other has been in one camp all his life and will never change from his presupposition. Which one is more intellectually honest?
Bart left the faith cause he had an issue with suffering and how the Biblical God sees it. But that is pretty much every unbelieving man that believes that God must be his genie. I have seen many children throwing a tantrum and their parents are not just non-plussed but perhaps a little critical following such event. Jesus suffers just like us because of evil men. However He fully trusts God in his suffering unlike Bart. Just like children should when things go wrong or when they get told 'No'. God is worthy of worship not me.
@Niko Bellic pretty sure suffering was what I heard. Spelling mistakes sounds very trivial as it is clear that men were used to write/copy the manuscripts by God and therefore small mistakes were made. What is amazing is that for those who seek, the message of the Bible remains intact throughout the millennia ...
@Niko Bellic I don't think of Bart as a reliable trustworthy man as none of us truly are anyway. So whatever he says against Christ"s testimony would be flawed (Heb 1:1). As for the Bible being inerrant, well, it takes a special kind of stupid to think that the message is not inerrant (2 Tim 3:16-17). The fact that men were involved makes it pretty impossible for mistakes not to creep in but what is amazing is that the message never wavered. Little mistakes that can be easily explained... Most of his arguments therefore fail.
@Niko Bellic : It's not just "spelling errors". It's the fact that there are many textual errors, insertions and deletions in the bible, as it currently exists, and the earliest manuscripts which we still have.
We don't know what the original authors said and we don't even know who the original authors were for the gospels.
And then there are the myriad contradictions...
@Niko Bellic : I've read several of his books. But I never claimed, unlike you, that he abandoned Christianity because of"spelling errors". There were several factors. Some of which I pointed out.
Bart is a combination of intellectual kindness and toughness that I really like. By the second half of the debate Bart had Peter so against the ropes that it was difficult to watch. Bart pressing the point home and getting to the details unrelentingly is what caught Peter off guard.
45:00 it’s interesting that Peter focuses on harmonizing the specifics of Judas’ death, ignoring the additional fact that two different people buy the field in each story. Either the priests bought it or Judas, not both.
When you can harmonize trees being bearing fruit here on earth before there was a sun, everything else is easy.
The Priests bought it with Judas' money and in his name, which makes Judas the purchaser. Both are accurate depending on perspective.
@@jamesgriffin5739 Only it doesn't SAY that, so once again...... ad hoc. I understand that believers, the actual words don't matter, but in reality, they do.
@@vincebuckley1499 It is a logically possible explanation. Nothing from either story contradicts the other to exclusion. Just like trees before the sun, easily and logically explained. A light source is required for plant life, the sun is not the ONLY light source. God created light first, before plants or the sun. Therefore the first plants had a light source other than the sun and survived quite well.
@@jamesgriffin5739 Now you're just being stupid, light source. This kind of idiocy is how people think other people get up from being dead and wooden sticks can turn into living snakes. Easily and logically explained to someone with no capacity for reason or a bias that simply prevents it. Just stop, you're embarrassing yourself.
Interesting to hear that BE didn’t lose his faith due his his scholarly work. I missed the previous episode where he discussed this. I will get round to watching it. In the meantime I would appreciate if someone could up date me 😊
It wasn't the contradictions that finally broke the camels back re his faith - it was the realisation that an "all loving god" simply couldn't exist whilst there was so much suffering in the world, the tsunamis , rape, babies with cancer, poverty, hunger etc etc so he now identifies as an agnostic atheist.
@@jonfromtheuk467 thanks 👍
@@Ogdensnutgoneflake78 I wasn't going to reply at first given your name ........I'm a season ticket holder at St Marys -LOL
@@jonfromtheuk467 haha well I’m glad you did so thank you. My best mate is a Saints fan. I don’t buy into the hate part of it all
@@Ogdensnutgoneflake78 me neither - jesting is fine , hate/violence is pathetic and despicable.
This is so great, and inspiring. Will pass it on Justin.
And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-arba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.
Joshua 14:15 KJV
2k plus yrs after his proclamation that "the Kingdom of God is nigh," it remains an unfulfilled, vacuous claim. Indeed, to paraphrase Sir Walter Scott, "what a web of self-deception he weaves as he practise to self-deceive."
Being a Christian, if you're going to have somebody represent us, please make them qualified. This debate was cringe worthy!
Why would you say that? I thought Peter did a good job.
@@Pattycake1974 you a christian perchance ? :-)
jon fromtheUK No not anymore.
You should look up William’s qualifications..... he is one of the better scholars alive today.
Tyler Carrera spewing then ay?
1:27:50 does anyone have a confirmation on who was right, Bart Ehrman or Peter WIlliams? Seems like this one should be easy to check IF you have access to the book.
There is a pretty simple explanation for Judas's death. In the original Greek the word used in the Acts description that is translated into "headfirst/headlong" in English can also be translated as "swollen/distended"...which makes sense if you consider Matthew describing how Judas died (i.e hanging) vs Luke describing the process of his death (body being swollen & intestines coming apart when the body likely struck the group as no Jew would have touched his dead hanging body in order to avoid missing the Passover festivities). This matches medically-speaking as a body hanging for a few days would start to rot and could break apart with any significant force due to the build up of internal gases via bacterial activity. Further on, it nicely ties up another aspect: It is Luke (author of Acts) who provides the medical breakdown of the after death process, who is the physician and not Matthew.
where do u get the notion from that A) Luke wrote the part and B) he is a physician?
@@woutercom The church tradition attributes the Gospel and Acts to Luke. While he himself is never mentioned by name in these bookse, he is thought to be a companion of Paul on his second trip (the text switches in the first person here). Paul mentions him in 3 of his letters, Colossians, 2Timothy and Philemon (in Colossians he says he is a phisycian).
This is what YOU think happenend right?
.. so sad for Judas if they did it, if for the reason that he betrayed Jesus..?, if the story is true, Judas was like a "sacrificial lamb" for the sake of the story to unfold. But according to most scholars, probability that Judas never betrayed Jesus, maybe the story teller created it as part of a plot, a drama to make believe. other story, according to scholars, Judas was asked by *someone during last supper to go ahead and tell whereabout(after dinner/last supper wth disciples) of Jesus to Roman authorities. For that, Judas went to meet Roman authorities and executed his mission, as been told, for that, he was given a token of Roman officials with 30silvers in return of his information.. (*someone - none other than.... Jesus, so everything in the story about betrayal, arrest, crucifixion will be unfold😮
Correct me if I am wrong - if Peter agreed to the question: Are the Gospels historically reliable? and then proclaimed he doesn't care if they are, they are 100% true as the word of god, what is the point of this debate?
NT WRIGHT VS BART EHRMAN!!! WHENNN???
@@rationalsceptic7634 Bart Eherman is a genious , Richard Carrier is a dogmatic fellow.
Idk but it seems to me that american ppl have a problem with debates and extremism. Im not talking even about the very book but even about the epistemology at the time to go into the book.
Saludos amigo
@@rationalsceptic7634 A completely false statement that probably is based in blind faith. NT Wright, like EP Sanders, Craig Evans and others are among the most important historians of The New Testament. Bart Ehrman is also a respected scholar, but some of his opinions are not embraced by the majority. Richard Carrier is, according to Ehrman, "amateurish", "wrong-headed", and "outlandish". I understand you are an atheist, but i don't think that is synonymous with irational.
none have espically not richard carrier
They debated the problem of evil some years back. It was a good dialogue. I can't find it. :-(
@@Miguel-yc7qp Bart a genius? in what way?
Even if I may not agree with everything Ehrman writes about, he's an admirable scholar and much more intelligent than most evangelical scholars
Yup. If only the bible is as reliable as the most unreliable hadith category, it will be a much more reliable source of information than it is currently
The debate shows only one obvious truth-one chap is more knowledgeable and is able to put forward his argument better!
@sue badunas You do realize that if it were demonstrated TODAY we'd have some precedent that we can then use to go back and analyze EVERY mythology right?
@sue badunas I think youve misunderstood my point. My point is not that "these things cant happen", my point is that we have ZERO good reasons to accept certain things that we do not have a precedent for.
For example, before the discovery of bacteria, it would be unreasonable to believe that microscopic organisms exist that are in and around the environment as well as inside the bodies of other organisms and that these microscopic organisms interfere with biological processes which causes the other organisms to become ill.
Once this was proposed, TESTED, AND DEMONSTRATED, it then became reasonable to interact with the world with this understanding.
@@whatwecalllife7034 I think you should watch the John Lennox talks.
@@oprophetisfake9482
Yeah, most of John Lennox arguments is just him admitting that he desperately wants Christianity to be true and that he would be very sad if it wasn’t.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 No. Most of John Lennox is him talking about evidence that unguided evolution and even the beginning of life by pure chance in the time since the scientifically estimated time since the big bang is scientifically untenable. What is sad is that you are still trying to pass the same argument from 70 years ago. Very very sad.
Bart is smashing it!
Yes! He is
Bart Ehrman is not only an excellent bible scholar,he's also an excellent analytical person.
Can you also see that the exercise of his brilliant mind brings him into spiritual limbo because the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Analysis of words vs subjective experience of the eternal life of and in Christ.
I agree I think he was great work in the field in Texell criticism and the historical Jesus especially historical Jesus, but not when it comes to Christian theology, I think his understanding Christian theology is quite bad especially his theory of how Jesus became God it’s not good.
I am not of the same opinion. Please read my statement. His arguments are in no way proofs. He carries himself as more pragmatic but, is merely creating a preferential argument.
If one thinks that repeating 50 year old theories about the gospels that have been utterly debunked dozen times over is "excellent" then yes, I guess Ehrman is excellent.
I mean honestly - this is all first semester stuff when studying theology. I know because I had to read those books, too 😊.
Or we could applaud Christ-followers in the January 6 ,2021, fascist coup in U.S.; I think God says nothing about 'Faith' but 613 statements about 'Doing'.@@jimhealy4890
Ehrman at approx 1:39: "I ended up leaving Christianity all together, for reasons unrelated to my scholarship".
Uhhh, then why do so many atheists think that his scholarship is convincing to disprove the claims of Christianity, when it didn't even convince him? He fully admits, it was for entirely different reasons that he lost faith.
I think whatever these "other reasons" are would help shed light on his almost schizophrenic views, on one hand brilliantly and methodically using Scripture, their accuracy, their proven historicity, to lay waste to those who don't recognize that Jesus even existed, or that he is the greatest figure in human civilization.
On the other hand, when it comes to the claims of Jesus, and the fact that He believed He was the Son of God, and that the disciples DEFINITELY believed this, and so did all of the early Church, and he fully admits they believed that within approx 2 years of Jesus' death; despite agreeing with that, all of a sudden "the Gospels just aren't reliable", and "they can't be trusted, because they occur decades after the fact" (as opposed to the other most reliable manuscripts in history, that were authored decades centuries after the fact).
I agree with Ehrman, any scholarship he has done is not a good reason to leave Christianity. Maybe he could open up about the emotional or other reasons he left, because his intellectual ones fail.
There are plenty of Christian scholars who are definitely believers, that know there are issues with scripture and it didn't change their minds. Bart had issues with suffering. Christian scholars know that the Bible is not inerrant but they still believe in the Resurrection. Bart does not believe in the Bible because he could not get past God allowing the amount of suffering we see in the world.
Of course. But you missed the point. Most of the critical scholars has not left Christianity. They either have reshaped their understanding of Christianity or come to terms that their belief is almost entirely faith based and they can never achieve the level of verifiable evidence that the epistemology of history demands or warrants. It doesn’t, however, changed the fact that his (and critical scholarship) discoveries makes the claims of Christianity highly unlikely to be true. You then have to reinvent the wheel or just admit that your belief matters more than proving the claim in a historical and rational way
@@krampus3901 There is absolutely nothing they have "reshaped". They believe the exact same thing as Paul taught the Corinthians, and the early Church believed, that Jesus was incarnated as the Son of God, lived, died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead.
The only thing that some may have changed their views on is if the current translation we have of the Bible is "inerrant".
You have no idea whatsoever as to Christianity "unlikely" being true lol. You've gone Ehrman on us here, and are citing things as facts out of your a$$. What probability did you calculate, and how? Let me see your formula.
Once again, it's the same ole story. The 5,800 Greek manuscripts are more than any other individual in ancient history, including Julius Caesar. The contemporary texts are on par with Tiberius Caesar and Julius Caesar. The manuscripts from the early church are in excess of 1 million. You have no basis whatsoever to say what you just stated, and have no idea if it is "unlikely true". It's fine if you don't believe or don't want to , but please don't try pulling probabilities out of your a$$ and invoking them authoritatively.
Obviously if the claims of the texts are true, and Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true.
True believer ......he has , and on many occasions, you just haven't bothered to seek them out.
It is the problem of evil. He looks at the injustice in the world, and mentioned a walk around a children's hospital would concentrate the mind , or watching good things happening to bad people, or being around war zones, the homeless etc and says a loving god that he used to believe in, would not just stand by and watch it all unfurl.
His de-conversion happened whilst going through the various academic houses until he was taught by Bruce Metsger at Princeton University, and he worked out that his beliefs in the inerrant words he once believed in, were very unsound.
True Believer lmao you’re a joke. We have way evidence (actually artifacts) for the emperors that we don’t have for Jesus or anyone in the NT. Saying that there are over 5k manuscripts tells us nothing because they are copies. They are not on same level of reliability and level of depth as the evidence we have for Julius and other emperors. Stop talking out of your ass. Furthermore, the critical scholars all agree that the gospels are not history. Sure they may be agree on the death and resurrection, but they do not agree that the gospels tells history as we know it. Again stop talking out of your ass. You have no knowledge of the subject. Ah yes, probability theory is math and you should know the formula (or maybe research Bayesian). I am sorry that you lack education in math
John 5:30 NLT
I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.
word salad.
Time stamps would b good 💯
14:05 It is sad to see an educated person running away from the evidence on the grounds of his beliefs. It is just the opposite of how it should be.
Apologetics bro lol
Luis: Are you an atheist?
@@20july1944 *Troll Alert*
@@timediverx You're right to be afraid of a science discussion, Heath -- I'll prove you have no basis for your lack of belief in God, and I won't use the Bible to do it.
@@20july1944 As a child I was not indoctrinated in any religion and apart from the lack of evidence I have never been convinced by any of the arguments that have been presented to me in order to demonstrate the existence of any god (because so far all of those that I have heard are grounded in some kind of fallacy).
Nevertheless, I have cared to understand the religion of my environment and I am the only one among my childhood friends (mostly Christians) who has read the Bible and studied its history.
What about you? I have read that you are probably a Christian. When was the first time you remember to actually believe that the Christian god was real and what convinced you at that time?
By the way, sorry in advance, my English may not be as accurate as it should be. I live in the Netherlands but I was born in Spain.
A very good discussion, but there was one important issue which they didn’t address. The traditional Christian view is that God oversaw the writing of the Bible, so that it teaches true morality and true history. But if that’s the case, why does it contain so many apparent contradictions e.g. the four accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, or the two accounts of the death of Judas? Of course, the traditionalist will argue that the contradictions are only apparent, and that scholars can explain them away. But, if so, why put the scholars to such an enormous amount of trouble? Surely, it would have been easy for an omnipotent and omniscient God to have avoided the apparent contradictions in the first place, and to have left the scholars free for more important and productive work? The alternative view that the Bible is a human production and contains human errors seems obviously to be preferable.
then it is not the word of God. The word of God is flawless.
In terms of the eyewitness accounts of the Gospels (I believe that they are, you’re welcome to disagree, I just think the evidence stacks up), contradictions are to be expected in eyewitness reports and perhaps the Holy Spirit knew what it was doing by letting those contradictions go in so that they’re more reliable, and people when they do their proper unbiased research can realize that they in fact help. However, there are those that aren’t actually contradictions at all. One example, the women at the tomb, InspiringPhilosophy did a video on a technique called “spotlighting” when it comes to the witnesses. Check it out.
@@Nameless-pt6oj Just one example of the many discrepancies: how did Mary Magdalene learn about the resurrection? When did she hear about it, and who told her? The synoptics say one thing; the 4th gospel says another. Something for you to ‘check out’, perhaps?
@@willstevens4289 J C is too busy with his stacked fake evidence.
Go study the quran… eeeeeeeverything is perfect and preserved….. 🙄
25 minutes in. This is one of the better handled and informed PooTube vids any of them have participated in. Both are educated and make there points on ' real ' agreements and disagreements of scholarship and or vs beliefs.
Good stuff
And
Good work.
yes it was a polite discussion but - Peter seems completely oblivious of any scholarship
I don't share many of Justin's beliefs, but I think he is also a huge factor in why discussions on his prog seem to go so well.
Ehrman's argument starting at 42:42, that irreconcilable differences prove falsehood, is ridiculous. Ever heard several witnesses describe a car accident? There are always contradictions, but that doesn't prove there was no car accident; if anything, it proves there really was something dramatic that occurred that gave rise to their stories. The contradictions, if anything, shows that no editor cleaned it up.
Did he say it proved falsehood? The question is whether the individual stories are reliable at a significant level of detail. For both the Bible and the hypothetical car accident, they are not.
*The contradictions, if anything, shows that no editor cleaned it up.*
That doesn't help any. We're still left with significantly conflicting stories and no external verification to tell us which, if any, has the details right. And while research academics may be willing to reluctantly say, "oh well, we just don't know what actually happened," many fundamental Christian claims depend on the details in the gospels actually being true, in both the events and words of Jesus's life.
What the contradictions and debates like this do show is that there is no divine "editor" who authored it all and wants to be sure we all get the same story the same way.
He's arguing against inerrancy, which is a real problem in Christianity - falsehood naturally comes with that, though that's not his main point. He's written entire books about how he believes Jesus existed. But your own words prove there are errors in the Bible, just as there are with different testimonies in a courtroom. & Ehrman has basically dedicated his life trying to figure out what's right & what's not.
Here at ~19:15 Bart points out he believes Jesus actually did predict the fall of Jerusalem.
This debate DEVOLVED into majority jargon and arguing over semantics. I find it much more productive when we hear examples of discrepancies rather than the process of how we reached those discrepancies. Judas was a good one but they didn’t go into any others except when Ehrman brought up Peter walking on water and didn’t claim to be GOD.
Well said. Also, they just went from right to left, left to right, barely staying on topic etc. These kind of debates barely get to the heart of the actual topic.
Peter walking on water was not “initiated nor empowered” by himself. Hence there’s no way he could claim to be god on that basis. Bart’s argument regarding that was weak. You cannot compare Peter walking on water to Jesus walking on water. The two were totally different.
Hence, Jesus’ divinity following His walk on water cannot be compared to Peter who couldn’t even complete the water-walk on his own
As far as I'm concerned, the most important point made during this discussion was when Dr. Ehrman highlighted that some do research to confirm their preexisting beliefs while others do research (with an open mind) to decide what they ought to believe. We all should all aspire to the latter group.
Why do you think Ehrman is somehow in the latter group?
@@thejdogcool Firstly he has said so, not only in this video but on numerous other occasions by highlighting that the right way to do science/history is by utilizing available facts and interpreting them without special pleading. On a more personal level, I find the views of people who have converted to or de-converted from a given religion to be more credible than those who simply believe what they were thought as a child.
@@vbilgutay1 Ehrman is objective because "he has said so". Got it. You sure showed me.
@@thejdogcool Who said anything about Ehrman being objective? He is being subjective but using facts and logic in the process. On the other hand Williams is also being subjective but using his faith and dogma. I guess you'r a fan of faith and dogma, I got it too.
It seems to me that Bart Ehrman didn't get the fact that every time Jesus would forgive sins he was claiming himself to be God (Luke 5:21). So it means the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke also mention Jesus considering himself as God. (Matthew 9:2, Mark 2:5, Luke 5:20, Luke 7:48).
Jesus doesn’t claim to be God by virtue of forgiving sins. He did not concur with the Pharisees’ reasoning. Quite the opposite. He agrees that God can forgive sins, but he then also says in Luke 5:24 that aside from God, the Son of man Jesus *too* can forgive sins
@@Peter-wp5vb John 1:1 says that the "Word" (capitalised) was God. We know John here was referring to Jesus, and in the same chapter John says that " the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Now, notice something quite interesting: When Jesus dwelt among us he had two natures (He was 100 % God and 100% man). He never used his divinity to benefit himself but others during his ministry (Philippians 2: 6-11). That's why his sacrifice is so praiseworthy; all the miracles he performed were a consequence of his relationship with his own Father (John 5:30). So, every single time Jesus referred to himself as the "Son of man", the word "Son" is capitalised as an indication that He was 100 % man but without sin (Matthew 20:28/ 1 Peter 2:21-22), and when the Scriptures talk about Jesus as the "Son of God", the word "Son" is also capitalised because Jesus is also God (Matthew 3:17), even demons knew he was God (Mark 5:7). Why do you think Jesus allowed people to worship him if ONLY God can be worshiped? (Matthew 4:10/ Matthew 14:33). On the other hand, we read in the Bible that when it refers to "us" (mortal sinners) as "sons or children of God", the words "sons" or "children" aren't capitalised simply because we aren't God (Matthew 5:9/Romans 8:14).
I feel like they missed the primary point on the naming of the field of blood. Yes, you can potentially say there was a hanged man and that somehow he fell head first and lost his guts. It's a stretch, but it could technically happen. What seems to me to be the irreconcilable part is the cause of the naming of the field. Was it named 'the field of blood' because it was bought with Judas' blood money, or because that's where his blood was spilt? I am surprised this was not the point of contention Bart pressed on.
Also who purchased the field
@@Lala-me6no The field was purchased with Judas's money so was technically his. But really it's just a distraction from the main point of the story. There are different ways of seeing the same event.
Well and that also in each story different people bought the field
Bart comes across as super authentic and extremely knowledgeable
Not to me. Nobody knows when the gospels were written, they could be very contemporaneous with the events.
You know I am hearing subtle thumps during the broadcast and I keep taking off my headphones thinking it is the people up stairs doing exercise or something and every time I take off my headphones it stops. So, now I think it's in the recording every time one of them bumps the table the mics pick it up.
Maybe they were kicking each other under the table 😂.
As an areligious believer of God, these conversations are very insightful.
The more I listen to Bart Ehrman and read his books, the more it draws me towards Christianity and cements my belief in the Bible and faith in God. The issues I have with Ehrman’s arguments is that, First: it takes more faith to believe in his doubts and the “contradictions”, as he labels them, than it does in the scriptural texts. The response I would give would be the same that Jesus gave to the Jewish leaders in Mark 2, at the healing of the paralyzed man, in which He asked them “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? That is to say: what is easier and more acceptable, to write and make statements about Jesus’ deity in the book of John, or to write about His miracles in the other gospels, and the miracles of the apostles later on? You either accept the whole Bible or you reject it all - and unfortunately, I think Peter should have come out and acknowledged this as the only option. You can go ahead and set aside John’s gospel, but you’re still going to walk away with the same conclusion about Jesus from the rest of the NT - that He is God. Second, he’s basically criticizing the content, language and methods used in these historical accounts rather than looking at the big picture and asking the important question, which is: what is the message and point of the Bible/NT accounts? These are historical texts written by various individuals (which naturally gives you different perspectives and shows there’s no conspiracy), with their own context, experiences and cultural influences of the time - it’s not reasonable to be 2000 years removed and assert that you don’t like the way they were written, and unless they are written in a certain manner of your preference, then they are no longer valid. This applies to any historical work/account, and the only way to resolve this problem is to time travel, and to experience and write the accounts yourself. Taking the example he used about the 2 “contradicting” accounts of Judas’ death in Matthew and Acts/Luke - so you basically have 4 options to consider: either Matthew is telling the truth and Luke is lying/false, or Luke is correct and Matthew is false, or both Matthew and Luke are false, or both Matthew and Luke are telling the truth. The first 3 options deal with lies/false accounts from either of them or both, so then the question should be: why would they lie or make a false claim about something that is totally insignificant to the story? I acknowledge that they are different, but it doesn’t make any sense why either would falsify their testimony, and to widely share their testimony with living witnesses - if they were false, they would have been called out, and would have to correct the text or stop its distribution. Which leads to the last option, which is: instead of approaching it only from a negative narrative, why not consider a positive narrative (if you are truly being objective and seeking the truth), that both could be correct, and perhaps one saw Judas hanging and the other saw his condition post-hanging, at which point his guts were spilled out (for whatever reason). These are the types of arguments that really calls into question Ehrman’s perspective and analysis of the scriptures, and as I stated previously, it takes more faith to believe in his doubts than the truth of the Scriptures.
@Nathan Cleary's Chin Maybe not….but I’m a tool in God’s hand - a God that I love, and He loves me and gives me my identity: an identity that doesn’t depend on anyone’s approval or opinion, including yours. So tell me, what is it that you believe in, and in what do you base your faith and purpose in life on?
Why does the Bible need to be inerrant in order for it to be true?
@@LordJagdGood question. Simply put, the Bible is either the inspired word of God or it’s not - and if it’s not, or certain sections are not, then it would be of human origin, incapable of affirming the truth. If you believe that it is the inspired word of God (with the exception of textural corruption due to repeated copying), I would argue that the Bible doesn’t distinguish between inspired/inerrant and uninspired/errant accounts, and actually does the opposite, by confirming their reliability and legitimacy in how they were written for our instruction (Acts 24:14, Luke 24:25, Romans 15:4, 1 Cor. 10:11, 2 Tim. 3:16). For this reason, I personally support Complete Inerrancy of the Bible. Also, it becomes a slippery slope as people start to discount parts of the Bible based on their own reasoning, justification and selfishness, as it pertains to difficult and counter-culture teachings. Lastly, Jesus instructed His disciples/followers in Acts 1:8 to be “witnesses”: i.e. to state what they saw, heard or experienced. Luke 1 opens with this standard, and although we may not be certain in our ability to connect the dots between some differences in the accounts, at the same time, there is no evidence or reason to think that they are untruthful. Some still struggle with this topic, and have arrived at the compromise of “Limited inerrancy”, which pertains to the Salvation-purpose of the Bible: i.e. the account is inerrant as long as it fulfills its purpose for making us wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:15).
Your "paradox", that it requires more "faith'" to "believe in" Ehrman's doubts than to believe the "truth" of the Scriptures, is a nonsense -- it doesn't mean anything. It is nothing but an assertion about yourself, which I regard as misleading, though surely you "believe" it.
Doubts are not "beliefs". They are questions. You say you are a nice guy, I raise doubts about that, citing some evidence which I find convincing, you say that the evidence I use is not convincing, and, in fact, is false, the result of a misunderstanding, slander, or some other thing.
For someone to claim he is god, or a god, is a claim to immortality, supernatural powers, and many other characteristics that we mortals don't possess. It is natural to question such a claim, especially when made by a person who appears to be mortal, who ages, eats, defecates, sleeps, and forgets where he left his reading glasses. To question such a claim is the same thing as doubting the claim.
The "faith" you are talking about in regard to doubting the divinity of Jesus is not a "faith" at all. It is something else: the use of reason to determine the validity of claims. You may say that "faith in reason" is what that really mean. This is an argument used by many religious people -- they say that rationality is simply another kind of religion, with no more claim to belief than a religion. Thus, we are told that all humans are religious, though some -- probably out of sinful pride, deny that they are.
The person who uses Reason to decide on the validity of claims (and all humans do that every day) is not practising a religion, but using a tool. That tool can be used well, even brilliantly; it can be poorly used and yield worthless results. Euclid used Reason to lay the groundwork of a science, geometry, which has stood the test of time as a useful, some would say beautiful way of looking at some aspects of reality.
No doubt most people who use geometry "take it on faith", rather than do Euclid's work all over again. But if they have doubts about his conclusions, they can easily find out how he arrived at them, evaluate them, criticize them, and choose whether to agree with him or not. But Euclid's conclusions are so well explained, based so firmly on previous conclusions, and so applicable to reality, that few people actually decide that Euclid is wrong. (I know there are other forms of geometry, but they have been developed using the same kind of process as Euclid used.)
There is no need to explain away Euclid's illogical conclusions by saying that those who deny him need to "look at the real message", not at the details. No need to make the lame argument that two different people saw Judas's corpse in two different stages of deterioration -- a point not dealt with in the Gospels. No need to explain how it could be that a carpenter from a pretty rustic part of Palestine was able to "walk on water", to convert water into wine, to produce loaves and fishes to feed thousands of people, and to debate the Torah with men who spent most of their time studying it.
In fact, the message of Jesus comes through much more clearly and movingly when this kind of nonsense is ignored, and attention is focused on his preaching. In the times when Jesus lived, people would not pay attention to a wandering rabbi who was not a miracle worker. There were many miracle working rabbis, and they were much respected by the people. Jesus understood this. He used miracles to win the people's attention, and to give himself the authority that made people want to hear what he had to say.
Your idea of "faith" seems to be nothing but believing stuff when there is no evidence for it. Stuff you want to believe, for whatever reason. Unfortunately you are plagues with doubt -- you are a human being! That is why you looked at this debate -- you were looking for reassurance that your religion was capable of standing up to the questions and doubts expressed by someone who is very well informed about your religion, but does not believe in it.
Your conclusion is a cute paradox, but it doesn't impress me as a declaration of faith. It impresses me as a dismissive comment by a person who has decided what he thinks before listening to the arguments. And it is completely unconvincing, a simple expression or preference, bulked up by a flood of pointless words to give the impression that you actually though seriously about what you heard in this video.
@@leezaslofsky4438 Thank you for your feedback, however I think you’re missing the point. My point is that Dr. Ehrman, yourself and other skeptics are going around nitpicking frivolous differences between the texts, and not addressing the purpose of the texts - which is very short sighted. The question that’s not being discussed or answered is: why do we have these books/The Gospels in the first place? Dr. Ehrman is skeptical, and thinks that they are nothing more than legends, and that the material has been fabricated or embellished. Ok, fine, let’s go with that. So that would mean that the authors of these books were lying to us. So what was their motive? Usually when someone lies or fabricates stories about an event, it would be for some sinister or criminal purpose, perhaps to gain power or wealth or political status etc. None of this is found in the content of the Gospels, and they/Jesus consistently speak against it. Additionally, almost all of Jesus’ disciples (except for John), and not to mention Paul, Jesus’ brother James, and many of their companions and followers, were martyred, and died a horrible death to defend these accounts, and the teachings and content of the Gospels. They didn’t gain any status, wealth, power or political advantage. These first century Jews went around telling people that a man named Jesus was God, that He died and rose from the dead, and that you can only be saved through Jesus and no one else. They could have easily just stated that Jesus was a good man, and taught us how to be nice to each other, etc. - maybe start a new sect, and that’s about it. At some point, prior to facing their violent death, they would have retracted their statements, and saved their skin - but they didn’t - so why would they do that? That’s the question you, and Dr. Ehrman need to answer.
One thing is clear from this discussion: Peter can’t separate his scholarly research from his faith-based bias.
Yes I agree, and I'm the same way - it's based on faith, and I believe the Gospels to be true.
@@soulosxpiotov7280I wouldn’t be bragging about that.
@@grimknight1452 anything gift given by God's grace cannot be bragged about.
I really enjoyed this discussion. Thanks for the content!
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:45 📖 *Bart Ehrman's interest in the Bible began during his teenage years with a born-again experience, leading to academic pursuits in Greek manuscripts and eventual realization of biblical mistakes.*
01:55 🔄 *Ehrman stresses the importance of examining evidence impartially, regardless of religious affiliation, emphasizing the need to assess what seems right based on available evidence.*
03:43 🙌 *Peter J. Williams, a Christian, discusses his faith journey, beginning with a Christian upbringing and academic pursuits in languages, leading to a strengthening of faith through scholarly engagement.*
05:05 🤔 *Williams acknowledges biases but emphasizes the importance of self-testing and presenting arguments from various perspectives, highlighting Christianity as the worldview that makes the most sense to him.*
07:46 📚 *Ehrman explains that the Gospels draw from oral traditions passed down from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John likely not being the only written accounts of Jesus's life.*
09:35 📅 *Ehrman dates Mark, the first Gospel, to around 70 CE, followed by Matthew and Luke in the 80s, and John toward the end of the first century, estimating a time gap of 40 to 65 years after Jesus's death for the writing of the Gospels.*
11:01 📝 *Williams suggests that the names attached to the Gospels indicate authentic authorship rather than anonymous composition, proposing an earlier dating based on internal textual evidence and the authors' familiarity with the geographical and cultural context.*
16:29 🧐 *Williams challenges the reliability of archaeological data and suggests a discrepancy between archaeological and literary accounts regarding population estimates, emphasizing the need to critically evaluate ancient sources and modern methods.*
18:38 📜 *Peter J. Williams finds signs of reliability in the Gospels, such as predicting the fall of Jerusalem.*
20:16 💡 *The authorship of Luke and Acts is debated, with Peter J. Williams attributing them to Luke based on internal evidence.*
21:53 📚 *Bart Ehrman discusses the uncertainty around the authorship of Luke and Acts, questioning the traditional attribution to Luke.*
27:39 💬 *Peter J. Williams argues that the detailed knowledge of geography and customs in Luke suggests close proximity to the events described.*
29:42 🧐 *Bart Ehrman challenges the relevance of geographical accuracy in determining the historical reliability of the Gospel narratives.*
33:41 🔄 *Bart Ehrman emphasizes that accuracy in geographical details doesn't guarantee the historical accuracy of the stories themselves.*
36:01 📝 *Peter J. Williams points to the consistency in names used in the Gospels as evidence of the reliability of the oral tradition.*
37:52 🤔 *The discussion revolves around whether it's rational to trust stories that diverge from historical criteria.*
38:32 🔍 *The presence of names in a story doesn't necessarily guarantee its accuracy or reliability.*
39:27 📚 *Scholars have extensively researched oral traditions, showing they often change over time, raising questions about the accuracy of later accounts like the Gospels.*
41:29 💬 *Discrepancies between Gospel accounts, like the number of women at the tomb, raise questions about their accuracy.*
43:17 📖 *Example of conflicting Gospel accounts: the death of Judas Iscariot, highlighting irreconcilable differences.*
45:27 🔄 *Different perspectives on the importance of historical accuracy in religious texts: theological belief vs. scholarly inquiry.*
51:11 🤔 *Discussion on the possibility of errors in Scripture and the approach to reconciling conflicting accounts.*
56:55 📜 *The reliability of the Gospels and the authenticity of Jesus's words are pivotal for Christians and skeptics alike.*
59:29 📚 *Determining the authenticity of Jesus's sayings involves discerning which ones likely originated from him versus those that were modified or fabricated over time.*
01:00:10 🧠 *Evaluating Jesus's divinity claims in the Gospels requires examining the chronological development of his portrayal across different texts.*
01:02:56 🔍 *The Gospel of John presents Jesus with explicit divine claims not found in earlier sources like Mark and Q, indicating a developmental understanding of Jesus's identity.*
01:06:35 💬 *Scholarly interpretations of the Gospels often reflect underlying philosophical and theological biases, influencing how Jesus's identity and message are perceived.*
01:11:26 🏰 *Developmental views of Jesus's portrayal in the Gospels suggest that earlier texts lay the groundwork for later, more explicit divine claims attributed to Jesus, as seen in John.*
01:14:51 📜 *Peter argues that the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, like the Good Samaritan and the prodigal son, demonstrate early genius and integrity, suggesting they originated from Jesus himself.*
01:16:37 📚 *Bart Ehrman asserts that his approach to studying the Gospels isn't based on a priori assumptions about oral tradition but rather on comparing accounts for discrepancies, which led him to question their reliability.*
01:19:29 🗣️ *Peter highlights the importance of examining the text of the Gospels themselves rather than relying solely on theories of oral tradition, emphasizing the need to assess the quality and consistency of the text.*
01:21:08 📅 *The discussion delves into the dating of Luke's Gospel, with Peter suggesting it was likely written during the lifetime of eyewitnesses, challenging the notion of a long oral tradition.*
01:25:41 🧠 *Bart discusses confirmation bias in biblical scholarship, highlighting the challenge of objectively evaluating evidence and the emotional difficulty of changing deeply held beliefs.*
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10:52 is slightly misleading because several of Paul's letters, written to churches about 10-20 years after Jesus' death, include details of Jesus' life and ministry. The gospels yes were compiled from testimonies and recollections over many years later than the Paul letters were written. That's my understanding anyway.
The only things Paul brings up about Jesus’s life in his authentic letters is that Jesus was born of a woman, had a brother named James, was crucified, and performed the Eucharist.
@@ballshaver773 Well also that he descended from the family of David (Romans 1), that Jesus brings peace with God (Romans 5), that he rose from the dead and appeared to people afterward (1 Cor 15), and Jesus' divinity/oneness with God (Phil 2)... off the top of my head. Probably some other things but I'd have to research more. But quite a lot of fundamental beliefs expressed right there to the churches not that long after Jesus.
Look at the historic picture of people becoming Christian. Dr. Ehrman could say, "If Jesus really said these things AND then also healed and performed miracles as it states, surely everyone within 1000 miles would have praised God and become believers."
If the narrative is ultimately theologically false, and the writer is placing lies, whether as a first source or otherwise, you might think more grandiose claims would have been added to the text. And that the less flattering details would have been kept out. Because if the writer is adding hyperbole from witnesses who developed Jesus into God we might expect more unbelievable grandiose claims. Similar to what we see in those writings which indeed came later and were rejected early on by the leaders in the church.
Bart's argument can be thought through to substantiate some other ideas which points to the gospels reliability and historicity through the common historian's criteria. Such as examining motivations, embarrassment, and the seemingly contradictory nature of details in the various gospels.
"If the narrative is ultimately theologically false, and the writer is placing lies"
Why is "lies" the only alternative? They could just be mistaken. Or credulous.
Bart Ehrman's assumptions are simply wrong:
1. Luke does not say that he received this information from people who heard it from others. He says "they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. " When you read the rest of Luke-Acts these eyewitnesses are identified as the apostles of Jesus who are the leaders of the Jerusalem church. That is, Luke says he spoke to the apostles at the Jerusalem church.
2. Barts claims there was 40 years of oral tradition. This is based on the assumption that the apostles gave the teaching straight after Jesus and then were absent till the gospels were written. This is untenable. The apostles did not ascend with Jesus but were active in ministry throughout the entire period before the gospels were written. They are the first generation of oral tradition. For the types of changes that Bart claims you need many generations of oral tradition and this takes hundreds of years.
3. Bart claims that the different gospels demonstrate how the oral tradition changed over time - but they don't - that is why they are called 'synoptic' (a common view) they are highly similar. The evidence actually shows the opposite to what Bart claims. For Bart to use the manner of the death of Judas as an example of oral differences is misdirection because this difference is exceptional and unrepresentative of the overwhelming similarities that we find.
4. There is no evidence for the assumptions of form criticism.
About Luke, why he speak about census in the whole Roman Empire at Jesus birth ??? We know now that Roman empire in its history never had census of the empire itself ??? Moreover, he speaks about Jesus birth time is 10 years after what Mathew says when Jesus born. Synoptic are just first three Gospels, but not Gospel of John which is not considered synoptic ???
Death is coming for us all! No matter what we believe. As a Christian, I 100% trust in the scriptures and see Jesus as my God and savior. I sleep well at night. I can't wait for my time to be over on this world. You can't argue with someone who doesn't want to believe. They made their choice, so it will be.
Jesus is my Lord.
Selfissh
I agree with Bart that Jesus never claim he was God.
That wasn't what Bart said. In John's gospel Bart recognises that Jesus claimed to be God. But Bart thinks the gospels have made up parts - I think. I have not read his books.
That’s right. He never claimed to be God and would be horrified at the idea. If anything is true, it’s that Jesus understood his union with God, the all in all, which is different than saying you are God. He always deferred to the father as greater than he is and the source of everything he is. In this respect, he comes across as an eastern mystic, I and the father are one, when you see me, you see the father, does not mean he was calling himself God. He was acknowledging his surrender to father the source of all.
Ehrman is spot on in saying different details (1 vs. 2 angels) are not an indication of inaccurate retellings of a story. The problem is whether there are irreconcileable differences and how many and how imporant are they are to the events. But then irreconcileable bears a lot of weight and will not be so easy to demonstrate in many circumstances. His example of Judas’ demise is a worthy candidate
What Ehrman is not spot on about though is the relevance of the irreconcilable claims. It is outright admitted in the Catholic bible in the comments that the accounts don't align perfectly, and that there are various historical doubts regarding who wrote what. Peter hasn't studied his Catholicism strongly enough, Catholics are not required to believe the bible is inerrant in all ways, just in the things that are relevant to salvation. The fact that Judas killed himself is present in both gospels, regardless of how it happened. It has literally no importance of how it happened to anything of relevance in the bible message, it's just trivia. If anything, it helps to establish the independence of the gospels. So no, it's not a worthy candidate, it's an absolutely terrible example that works against his case.
@@Pietrosavr I think it's actually good evidence in a way for the accuracy of the bible in this account of Judas we see unlike the accounts of Jesus and others this one of Judas is second hand, no one was there when he did it so the accounts not perfectly lining up show exactly what could be expected to be said minor differences. This is a good evidence that the Gospels weren't made up. One could argue it was almost put there for a reason.
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep Yeah, you know, no one is purely rational and a purely rational debate doesn't exist, it's just that most scientists don't realise that. It's a fact that there are a million religions, but one person could take that fact and say that therefore I won't believe in any of them and another will say that they hope they will find the right one. The problem is not with the evidence but with your attitude towards it, are you going to be sceptical or hopeful. This is not related with science and knowledge but with life. Sometimes you have to be hopeful even in the face of small odds, like when trying to save your child from a burning building that might collapse. This is about subjectivity and not objectivity, with pure scepticism no one would try and fail a thousand times to invent anything, no countries would exist.
If you are purposely sceptical of religion, first of all, the more intelligent you are the more likely you are too affirm your bias and never believe, and secondly, you end up with nothing. Scepticism is a stopping measure, it generates nothing, you need faith and hope in the first place to move your forward, and then scepticism to trim the edges.
@@PietrosavrNot trying to dispute or dishonor the beliefs of Catholicism. With that said, I wonder if Ehrman’s point was that Luke and Acts are written by the same author, and have totally different stories about Judas. Not to say it’s imperative to the faith, but I wonder if that was the point.
This is the real Bart in the intellectual sense. In contrast, he is totally different when speaking in the pop culture sense. I enjoy the scholarly Bart rather than the pop culture Bart. If you read some his academic work you will see what I mean.
A much better "debate" than the one Bart did with Justin Bass. I admire Peter's contribution and personality.
Wow, Peter can't handle actually addressing the real issues!!
“...On your willingness to accept the supernatural” well there you have it.
It’s a faith based position and not an evidence based one. I wish Bart was the kinda guy to press him on that comment.
Your assertion assumes there is no evidence for the supernatural.
I’ve seen Erhman press this issue with others. I think he didn’t in this case because it wasn’t the debate topic. He stopped himself from going down those rabbit trails several times.
@@eamontdmas for some no evidence is necessary, and others no amount of evidence is enough.
@@adrianespinoza8016 Both are wrong. What's your point?
Around 19:10 -
1. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem before it happened.
2. Therefore, it was recorded _before_ it happened.
2 does not necessarily follow from 1 as a genuine prediction can still be written down _after_ the fact. Thus, a genuine prediction by Jesus does not support evidence of early dating.
Jesus also predicted the end of the world and the establishment of heaven on Earth within the lifespan of his current generation. We're pretty sure that one didn't happen.
Yes prophecy can be reverse engineered. Good point.
Any "prophecy" in history is either reverse engineered or a product of self fulfilment.
@@robertbrown569 Book chapter and verse of your assertion.
@@1974jrod Matthew 16:28 Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”