This was really helpful. I've been following you and Bart's work for awhile and it was refreshing to hear everyone clear up some fog regarding total accuracy, historical reliability, and the distinctions that fall under each. Bless you guys!

god bless Mike Licona

Thanks for uploading this. I find it fascinating and really informative when we have to think about and wrestle with these issues. Iron sharpens iron!

@Nemija

4 жыл бұрын

Mark Norman Ha ha, exactly what was on my mind! A man dies of a single flu if he doesn't get tempted (so to speak) almost every season. The same goes for christianity.

@marknorman8588

4 жыл бұрын

Hi Nemija. Thanks for leaving a reply to my comment but I'm not really sure what you mean. Can you clarify for me please? Many thanks. 😁

@Nemija

4 жыл бұрын

Mark Norman Oh, I meant it in the same context as that "iron sharpens iron". In other words, if one doesn't get his beliefs seriously challenged once in a while (like a flue to a body), then one gets too lazy and unprepared to deal with various problems that arise. And once problems kick in, one can get seriously damaged (depression, loss of common ground...even it can lead to suicide).

@marknorman8588

4 жыл бұрын

Nemija - yes I'm totally with you now! Thanks for that. Every blessing to you.

Ehrman "spent 2 years studying memory" and still comes to conclusions that are not really widely accepted by people who studied oral traditions. I guess by study he means "cherry picking"? Now as many scholars have observed, oral tradition (OT) might not be perfect and fine details might get lost, but in general it has been shown to have high signal-to-noise ratio and high fidelity regarding the core elements. So yeah the OT might get confused about how many women exactly went to Jesus' tomb, since it's not an essential detail, but it would not get confused on the core apparitions of Jesus since they are essential. This also reflects on the example Ehrman himself makes: sure minor details in the Homeric poems might change over time in the OT, but the overall plot and meanings stay coherent over time. Again the typical error of Ehrman is using premises like "oh look a detail is problematic" or "look some copier made some typos here and there" and come to the non-sequitur conclusion "then everything must be false.". .. Now rant aside, Ehrman does on occasion raise excellent questions and challenges and I would consider him an excellent addition to the discussion.

I don't think many layman understand unless you know scholarship, but keener is the scary smart out of those people. His work is tremendous ND that's no downplay to Mr. Licona at all!

@johnsonjohnnyjohn787

2 жыл бұрын

I totally agree! He is truly a gift for us all. Praise God!

Bart was letting the evidence inform his views, the other 3 were attempting, badly, to shoehorn the evidence into their views. One was intellectually honest, the other 3 less so.

Also, Bart seemed surprised that his definition of inerrancy is now considered out of date among 21st-century scholarship. His might be true in some evangelical circles here and there, but in general the other three have it correct: the Bible is inerrant in what it intends to convey, not in every single detail. Even Vatican II (1960s) has language suggesting this same definition of the three.

@neill392

2 жыл бұрын

So, you are saying the definition of inerrancy was changed, because the bible wasn't inherent by the conventional definition. So the definition was changed so it now is. I think it's worth stopping a moment and pondering on that.

The discussion about taking an innocent-until-proven-guilty approach vs guilty-until-proven-innocent at around 38:00 was really telling. If you assume that God doesn't exist and then go to work, many Biblical writings look implausible, whereas if you assume the opposite, they look plausible. So much of this debate, then, is really about philosophy of religion, which is why understanding the philosophical arguments for/against God would be really useful before we talk about probabilities. I also liked Bowman's point right after this about thinking about how informative texts are, and not get into stuck in either/or thinking. Great discussion!

@legron121

9 ай бұрын

It's not a matter of whether "God" in the abstract exists. You have to assume that the God of Israel, Yahweh (who is consistently described as a physical being in the Jewish Scriptures) exists. The existence of the God of the philosophers would not be sufficient to make the NT miracles plausible.

I’ve been listening to Bart for some time. It just seems to me with his views he sees the whole thing as a house of cards already there and picks at the foundations to try to topple it from bottom to top almost. Whereas most other scholars take the base level- ground- up approach where the evidence seen this way actually builds a case for the positive. The missing element here though is the spiritual aspect. It shows that Intellectual ascent only goes so far. It’s because we have the surmounting evidence AND the faith that makes it ironclad.

@simonodowd2119

2 жыл бұрын

If Islamic scholars took the ground-up approach and combined the evidence and their faith, do you think they'd view their evidence as ironclad?

I'm here because this was an _ad._

I have given Ehrman a hearing several times and its becoming aparent he allways out talks others with sheer amount of words, talks out of both sides of his mouth bigtime, holds others from current and past generations to a standard he couldnt possibly live out himself, and by his own many words and definitions tells me that future generations should accurately conclude that most everything he says couldnt possibly be truthful if he applies his own standards to himself.

10:10 LICONA: What’s going on with the different chronologies between Luke and Matthew? I really don’t know.

I think they were writing history and interpreting it at the same time.

I am certainly no expert but it seems to me that the NT should be treated the same way that historians treat other ancient sources. The mundane claims about a figure are the most likely to be accurate. The rough outline of Jesus as a Jewish prophet and healer who taught about the coming kingdom of God and taught in parables is probably fairly accurate. The miraculous claims are simply not taken seriously in historiographical reconstruction as is the case with any historical figure from Alexander the Great to the Caesars, most of whom have these elements in their biographies.

I find it interesting that one of these men is overwhelmingly more popular than the others, there's a cultural fascination with deconstructing these stories rather than understanding them.

It would've been interesting to have Lydia McGrew in on this conversation.

Concerning the ideas about the dead of Judas, I am amazed about the missing link in the opinions, because we can find here one of the greatest apparent contradictions of the bible. John 20:24 says: now Thomas one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 1 Corinthians 15:5 says: …and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. This was the situation before Matthias was chosen. That can mean only one thing: Judas was with the twelve. How can this happen if Judas had hanged himself. The answer is simple: Judas didn’t hang himself. The phrase …hanged himself is nowhere in the text. The famous Dutch Statenvertaling (a 17th century translation like the King James) reads: …verworgde zichzelf. The word zichzelf is written in italics wich means that it is added by the translators. As far as I know, ap agchoo means literally something as his throat is been cut off, or closed, or has been strangled, but not: strangled himself. The google translator gives: anxious. This mistranslation explains the confusion about the other place in Acts. There is a lot to say about this. That his bowels gushed out is a Hebrew way of saying (see David Flussers Jesus), it means a deep sort of affection. The same word splagchna is been used at several places in the New Testament: 1 John 3:17; 2 Cor. 6:12, 7:15; Col. 2:12 etc. Another weird thing is the translation ‘ Judas betrayed ...’ in the Gospels. The Greek paradidonai’ means: to hand over. Notice the last sentence in the Gospel of Judas: He received some money and handed him over to them. A Dutch theologian, Frank de Graaff wrote a lot about this in Jezus de Verborgene (Jesus the Hidden One). He translates ap agchoo as benauwd, wich means anxious or worried. He (not a gnostic but a normal scholar) explains the misunderstanding about Judas, because the early church understands that he is Juda (the Jew) and depicted him as the bad betrayer. The horrible contribution of Papias is telling about the anti-judaistic feelings in that time.

Thank you Bart. You are amazing again.

@thomasglass9491

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for lying? Nope!

Stay on point pls so I can keep up

Soo If I was at the twin towers on 9-11 and 50 years later I tell the story and talk about how the first plane hit the first tower on the 50th floor and then another guy was also there and he tells the story that the first plane hit the 55th floor. How does this make either of the stories unreliable. It does not discredit one or the other, just because they are slightly different does not make them untrue in itself. Maybe the plane hit the 53rd floor. But we would never know for a fact. Unless we had photos, videos, scientific evidence, I just don't see a problem with the differences in the Gospels. Especially when you take into account how poetic and metaphorical much of the Bible is, difference in authorship, although inspired by the Holy Spirit was still written by man. I do not see many contradictions at all, if a friend told me 30 stories and most of them were true but a few were found out to be not true , but not intentional, I would still find him reliable.

I personally think if someone really dreaded a horrible decision and wanted to hang themselves in the worst and fastest way they would get on a hill attach the noose to a tree and jump head first. Thereby snapping the neck quickly ending their misery without suffocating. It’s also a cowards way out which suites Judas’ character. Don’t see why it’s made to be so irreconcilable. Inspiring philosophy has a lot of videos on supposed contradictions in the New Testament that handles a lot of Barts complaints pretty easily.

Why no one is mentioning that Luke stayed with Mary interviewing her and probably got her genealogy. Mathew was a tax collector, an eye witness and got Joseph’s genealogy. I see so many protestants are so (PC) about her.

@osr4152

3 жыл бұрын

No one is mentioning it because there is no evidence for it at all. How can you possibly say you know anything about how Luke got his information??

@albaniancrusader01

3 жыл бұрын

@@osr4152 There is evidence but your sect misses it. We go back to the Church Fathers and there is written evidence which you will refuse because it goes against you.

@osr4152

3 жыл бұрын

@@albaniancrusader01 my sect? What would that be?? I didnt say anything about my beliefs. I cant think of any serious evangelical, Catholic or atheist scholar that has evidence that Luke interviewed Mary. Can you tell me where that is and I will look it up? As an aside, just cos a church father makes a claim doesnt mean it is true. You need to evaluate it. Anyway, which church father presents evidence that Luke met Mary?

@albaniancrusader01

3 жыл бұрын

@@osr4152 Luke, a Syrian from Antioch, was the inspired author of the third Gospel. A physician by profession, a man of culture with perfect Greek, he was a disciple of Paul and was an early Gentile convert, from about the year 40. He accompanied Paul on his second journey (49-53) from Troas to Philippi (Acts 16:10-37), remaining there for some years, until he again joined Paul toward the end of his third journey (53-58). He stayed with the apostle when he was imprisoned in Caesarea; he was with him on his adventurous trip from Caesarea to Rome and during his first Roman captivity (Col. 4:14, Phil. 1:24). We can be sure that Luke wrote his Gospel after the Aramaic original of Matthew and definitely after Mark, but it is not so easy to establish the precise date. Luke was not an eyewitness of our Lord‘s life. Therefore, when he refers in his introduction to the sources he has used, he includes those “who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (1:2), among the most outstanding of whom was the Blessed Virgin Mary. It must have been she who provided most of the information Luke gives in the first chapters of his Gospel. Luke liked to get order and chronology right-not just to satisfy his own or anyone else’s curiosity, but to pass on to others precisely what the Lord wanted him to write, that is, “the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed”(1:4), the true history of our salvation. That is what his Gospel contains-and the same is true of Acts; although these two books are independent they do form a perfect doctrinal and literary unity.

@albaniancrusader01

3 жыл бұрын

@@osr4152 With reference to his literary style we can notice (Jerome, for example, points it out) that Luke has a much better grammatical grasp of the Greek language than any of the other Evangelists. Conscious that he is addressing people with a Gentile background, he usually avoids expressions which they might find jarring, and whenever possible he uses Greek equivalents for Aramaic terms. This is one reason why he is silent on some subjects which might have sounded indelicate to his readers. And remember, he is not writing anything extra to make it look better, he could have done it very easily, but when you fear God you don’t tempt him.

Nice

When will Bart Erhman debate a Muslim.

@creatinechris

3 жыл бұрын

He has stated his expertise is not in Islam so it wouldn’t be a very valuable debate for anyone

@thetannernation

3 жыл бұрын

Why would a New Testament scholar debate a Muslim? Bart said in his debate with James white that he knows “nothing” about the Quran

Oral tradition has flaws but writing tradition is flawless? Hmmmm🤔

Just as Jesus discarded the teachings of Judaism, Jesus would also discard the teachings in the Bible. Too much of the Bible has been distorted, misunderstood and incorrectly reported; why put new wine into old wineskins.

It's simple, you are interviewing four men and if they hung around you for 3 and a half years like the disciples did with jesus, they will not tell the story the same way.

@thecloudtherapist

2 жыл бұрын

More so - whether they were eyewitnesses, disciples or writing accounts of eyewitnesses - when has any two accounts of the same event ever been exactly the same? Just ask any crime detective. Unless they were copied off each other, one would expect to see exactly what BE complains about. Different points of view, different recollections, different emphasis and different highlighting of significant events of a particular account. This is so academic and is more common sensical than claiming they're inadequate, contradictory and hopelessly inaccurate with very little to go on or at least, that view being more unlikely, statistically speaking and in all probability.

Jesus walking on water is historically accurate? Yes! ...okey dokey...

Christians have a way of talking dribble, and at the same time sounding like they know what they're talking about.

The Gospels are reliable like a Stephen King novel is reliable.

@atomicnolxix

3 жыл бұрын

Unlike a Stephen King novel, there weren't printers to mass produce the novels, they needed to be orally passed by people and then ending up to what we have now.

@michaelharrington75

2 жыл бұрын

@@atomicnolxix No, things were written down during the apostles times, and copied by hand. Things weren't passed only orally.

boy, way to limit GOD. to think our father in heaven could not inspire simple men to write down his words.

"Take a staff" "Don't take a staff" Yup, no contradictions whatsoever.

@justinsankar1164

4 жыл бұрын

Take an umbrella Dont take an umbrella A contradiction without context but if i say take an umbrella cause its raining or dont take one cause its good weather then itll make sense

@thetannernation

3 жыл бұрын

@@justinsankar1164 nice