Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

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DOC

You tell us that
Respected archaeologist Sir William Mitchell Ramsay called gospel writer Luke a great historian
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Luke makes crude errors as I have shown, but equally Ramsay was not an impartial scholarly witness.
Eventually Ramsay changed his mind, and had a change of heart. He came to believe that the Gospel of Luke was actually written by Luke, and that the account there in was historically accurate. Having come to this conclusion, Ramsay's only rational alternative was to surrender his life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When Ramsey returned to England from Greece, Turkey, and the Holy Land, he was a changed person. Before leaving on his archeological expedition he was a mocker of the Gospel and a persecutor of believers. When he returned he was an informed and outspoken advocate of Gospel truth!
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http://www.phenomi.net/millfever/studies/index.php?williamramsay

I wonder what he previously did to persecute believers.
 
eight bits said:
DOC



As has already been established in this thread during your absence, Ehrman later clarified his claim in an interview selling this book, so that now Jesus "almost certainly" did exist.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/b...nventing_jesus__an_interview_with_bart_ehrman

"Certainty" that Jesus existed is a lot like his mother's "virginity." Nearsies only count in horseshoes.
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Ahem.
That'd be "horse shoes and atom bombs", IIRC.



maximara said:
pakeha said:
Hi, DOC.
Could you post up a source for your claim about the over 5,000 NT manuscripts, please?
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I already provided a reference to this in an early post
: Robert Stewart, The Reliability of the New Testament: Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace in Dialogue p17 as well as why this argument is rubbish:

"But note this is talking about New Testament manuscripts which could refer to any of the 27 books; for the purposes of any meaningful check regarding a Historical Jesus only the Gospels really concern us.

More over as Earl Doherty noted in Challenging the Verdict all 24,000 manuscript copies are hundreds of years younger then our oldest complete Bibles, the Codex Siniaticus and Codex Vaticanus. For example, the 2,865 Greek minuscule text manuscripts all date from the 9th century or later. This inflated count of manuscripts is in essence a cheap trick apologists play on the flock to confuse textual and historical reliability. The printing press from 1436 on allowed the production of perfect copies but this textual reliability doesn't alter the originals historical reliability.

Finally, one must remember that Christians were the ones were doing the copying and in many orders copying the New Testament in general and the Life of Jesus (Gospels) and history of the Church (Acts) in particular was regarded as an act of veneration even worship and so tended to be the most copied works. One extreme example of this view is the Codex Gigas (nicknames Devil's Bible) completed 1229 which is the world's largest medieval manuscript. As documented in National Geographic: Devil's Bible the work looks to that of one man over 20 years and addition to the entire Latin Bible the work contains many historical documents. "



“Therefore, the fantastic claims found in the missionary and apologetical literature are dealt a heavy blow when we understand that slightly over 6% of the more than 5,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts hail from before the 9th century! With no shortage of claims ascribing 'ancientness' to the manuscripts, given that around 94% of the Greek manuscripts (Greek being the "original" language of the New Testament) can be dated in excess of 800 years or so after the birth of Jesus, shows the sheer desperation of the missionaries. It is well known amongst the textual critics that the great majority of the primary witnesses to the text of the New Testament, (i.e., Greek manuscripts) are overwhelmingly from the medieval and late medieval periods.” ("Textual Reliability / Accuracy Of The New Testament" Islamic Awareness)

In fact, according to that piece only 48 manuscripts supposedly predate our oldest intact Bible. I say supposedly because these are nearly all dated via paleographic dating which is regarded as a last resort dating technique that under the best of conditions has a 50 year range. (Nongbr, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:24.)
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All very true, maximara, your post is a model of putting the "E" in JREF and I've book-marked it.
However, I wanted to see what DOC was going to answer, to see what they'd use as a source.
 
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eight bits said:
DOC As has already been established in this thread during your absence, Ehrman later clarified his claim in an interview selling this book, so that now Jesus "almost certainly" did exist.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/b...nventing_jesus__an_interview_with_bart_ehrman

"Certainty" that Jesus existed is a lot like his mother's "virginity." Nearsies only count in horseshoes.
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Bart Ehrman knew in advance of writing "Did Jesus Exist?" that his claim was entirely baseless, without any actual evidence, yet he wrote it.

This is why Richard Carrier has claimed Eheman's Did Jesus Exist? is a failure of logic and facts.

Ehrman knew that he had no evidence to support the claim that Jesus certainly Did Exist.

Bart Ehrman's argument for his supposed HJ is based purely on Faith.

Ehrman believes Paul is a pre-70 CE figure of history and believes Paul spoke about Jesus.

Essentially, Ehrman believes the NT--the same source that he admits is riddled with historical problems, discrepancies and events about Jesus that almost certainly did not happen.


http://www.religiondispatches.org/b...nventing_jesus__an_interview_with_bart_ehrman

I look at the Apostle Paul. His writings were 20 years after Jesus’ life, but Paul himself converted to be a follower of Jesus within a year or two at the latest of Jesus’ death—which means that people were telling enough stories about Jesus for Paul to convert a year or two later.
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Bart Ehrman's claims about Paul are mere assumptions, highly illogical, and cannot be proven or demonstrated to be true. The Entire Pauline Corpus as pre-70 CE writings is without corroboration in the NT itself.

Ehrman also failed to show that there is an ON-GOING Quest for hundreds of years which have yielded no actual evidence.

The HJ argument in the ON-GOING Third Quest appears to be a farce using logical fallacies and sources of fiction as evidence for HJ.
 
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dejudge said:
Bart Ehrman knew in advance of writing "Did Jesus Exist?" that his claim was entirely baseless, without any actual evidence, yet he wrote it.

This is why Richard Carrier has claimed Eheman's Did Jesus Exist? is a failure of logic and facts.

Ehrman knew that he had no evidence to support the claim that Jesus certainly Did Exist.

Bart Ehrman's argument for his supposed HJ is based purely on Faith.

Ehrman believes Paul is a pre-70 CE figure of history and believes Paul spoke about Jesus.

Essentially, Ehrman believes the NT--the same source that he admits is riddled with historical problems, discrepancies and events about Jesus that almost certainly did not happen.


http://www.religiondispatches.org/b...nventing_jesus__an_interview_with_bart_ehrman




Bart Ehrman's claims about Paul are mere assumptions, highly illogical, and cannot be proven or demonstrated to be true. The Entire Pauline Corpus as pre-70 CE writings is without corroboration in the NT itself.

Ehrman also failed to show that there is an ON-GOING Quest for hundreds of years which have yielded no actual evidence.

The HJ argument in the ON-GOING Third Quest appears to be a farce using logical fallacies and sources of fiction as evidence for HJ.
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Say, dejudge, why do you neglect to mention that it isn't just Ehrman who thinks that there was an historical personage, but the vast majority of all academic New Testament scholars? Why have you never given us any reason why we should accept your poorly written opinions over those of university professors?

Why do you keep mentioning Carrier, but never actually present any of his arguments? Have you actually read any of his work?

And lastly, why do you keep lying about there being no evidence? We've explained the difference between evidence and proof to the point that a child should be able to comprehend it, yet you keep repeating that there is no evidence supporting the conclusion that there most likely was an historical Jesus. Has this just become a lie that you have to repeat to yourself so that you can avoid ever having to admit being wrong about anything? The funny thing is that that's exactly the sort of reasoning that DOC is infamous for.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Say, dejudge, why do you neglect to mention that it isn't just Ehrman who thinks that there was an historical personage, but the vast majority of all academic New Testament scholars?
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Why are you constantly relying on Chinese Whispers? You were asked to produce the data, the survey, the poll about the vast majority of all academic New Testament Scholars but FAILED to do so.

1. When was the poll conducted?

2. In which country was the survey carried out?

3. How many NT scholars participated in the survey?

4. How many NT Scholars are practicing Christians in the survey?

5. How many NT Scholars are theologians and are pastors of Christians in the poll?

6.How many NT Scholars worship Jesus?

Please, stop your Chinese Whispers game immediately and present actual data.

Your Chinese Whispers propaganda has been exposed once more.


There is an ON-GOING Quest for an HJ after hundreds of years and NO HJ has ever been found.

This is the Third Quest--nothing has changed.

The HJ argument has collapsed and died.
 
dejudge said:
Why are you constantly relying on Chinese Whispers? You were asked to produce the data, the survey, the poll about the vast majority of all academic New Testament Scholars but FAILED to do so.

1. When was the poll conducted?

2. In which country was the survey carried out?

3. How many NT scholars participated in the survey?

4. How many NT Scholars are practicing Christians in the survey?

5. How many NT Scholars are theologians and are pastors of Christians in the poll?

6.How many NT Scholars worship Jesus?

Please, stop your Chinese Whispers game immediately and present actual data.

Your Chinese Whispers propaganda has been exposed once more.


There is an ON-GOING Quest for an HJ after hundreds of years and NO HJ has ever been found.

This is the Third Quest--nothing has changed.

The HJ argument has collapsed and died.
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What a pathetic dodge. You are no different than a creationist demanding to see a list of every biologist and his/her stance of evolution in order to avoid admitting that the vast majority of biologists support evolution theory. If those scholars I referenced are lying, then prove it. If this study even exists, then present it. But you won't, because you have no argument as to why you, someone who can't even compose a simple paragraph, is more authoritative on this matter than the great majority university scholars.
 
pakeha said:
All very true, maximara, your post is a model of putting the "E" in JREF and I've book-marked it.
However, I wanted to see what DOC was going to answer, to see what they'd use as a source.
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And I wanted to save everybody a lot of time as the 5000 New Testament manuscripts in existence claim is a load of misleading garbage. As such it doesn't matter where it came from it is still a load of misleading garbage. :D

The reality at best only 48 New Testament manuscripts predate our oldest intact Bibles and some of those are not the Gospels...which is the part we would be interested in regarding a history of Jesus we can actually crosscheck (ie not any of Paul's visions)

Furthermore the portion of those manuscripts that are the Gospels over all have a staggering 45.5% variation ie nearly HALF of the verse text is NOT in agreement between versions!
 
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dejudge said:
Why are you constantly relying on Chinese Whispers? You were asked to produce the data, the survey, the poll about the vast majority of all academic New Testament Scholars but FAILED to do so.

1. When was the poll conducted?

2. In which country was the survey carried out?

3. How many NT scholars participated in the survey?

4. How many NT Scholars are practicing Christians in the survey?

5. How many NT Scholars are theologians and are pastors of Christians in the poll?

6.How many NT Scholars worship Jesus?

Please, stop your Chinese Whispers game immediately and present actual data.

Your Chinese Whispers propaganda has been exposed once more.


There is an ON-GOING Quest for an HJ after hundreds of years and NO HJ has ever been found.

This is the Third Quest--nothing has changed.

The HJ argument has collapsed and died.
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Foster Zygote said:
What a pathetic dodge. You are no different than a creationist demanding to see a list of every biologist and his/her stance of evolution in order to avoid admitting that the vast majority of biologists support evolution theory. If those scholars I referenced are lying, then prove it. If this study even exists, then present it. But you won't, because you have no argument as to why you, someone who can't even compose a simple paragraph, is more authoritative on this matter than the great majority university scholars.
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Please, please, please!!! Get the data that we asked for. You are the one spouting your "vast majority" claims without any supporting evidence.

Come on!!

You have nothing for your obscure dead preacher but Chinese Whispers.

Your dead scarcely known criminal is NOT Plausible.

Jews and Romans of antiquity do not worship dead Jewish criminals as Gods especially when they carry out criminal acts at the Temple of their God.

An obscure dead Jewish criminal cannot be considered the impetus for the supposed Pauline writings and preaching about the Christ since 37-41 CE in the time of King Aretas.

HJ was a crucified criminal based on the assumptions of HJers.
 
carlitos said:
Which book is that?
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It's in Ehrman’s latest book Did Jesus Exist, published only less than a year ago in 2013. Where he repeatedly says -


"He certainly lived", repeated twice on p37.

"Jesus really did exist", p34.

"Jesus himself was not a myth, he really existed", p14.

" I agree with Schweitzer and virtually all scholars in the field since his day that Jesus really existed". P14.

"But there was a historical Jesus, who was very much a man of his time", p13.

"Schweitzer himself knew full well that Jesus actually existed", p13.

" Jesus was a Jewish man, known to be a preacher and teacher who was crucified ... this is the view of nearly every trained scholar on the planet", p12.
 
Elagabalus said:
You can't handle the "vast majority"!

http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/the-jesus-process-c/
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Vast majority has been wrong before:

Continental drift - proposed by Abraham Ortelius in 1596; accepted in 1958. In fact Scheidigger (1953), "Examination of the physics of theories of orogenesis", GSA Bulletin 64: 127—150 was the last formal rejection of the theory. In Carey, S. W. (1958), "The tectonic approach to continental drift", in Carey, S. W., Continental Drift—A symposium, Univ. of Tasmania, pp. 177—355 the scientific community finally got with the program. Time of acceptance of incorrect theory: 362 years.

The existence of Troy - proved by Schliemann who was a total amateur in archaeology. Later professionals have complained about the quality of his work equating it more to treasure hunting then true archaeology.

Heliocentrism - proposed by Philolaus (d. 390 BCE); accepted as a "mathematical convenience" by the Catholic Church during the Council of Trent (1545–1563) but when Galileo Galilei proved it in 1600 the Catholic Church couldn't suppress the information fast enough. The Catholic Church didn't accept heliocentrism as a reality until 1835. Only in 1992 did the Church finally admit it totally botched the handling of Galilei. Time of acceptance of incorrect theory: 1934 years if one is generous; 2224 is one is not.

The Norse colonization of the Americas - known nearly from the beginning through the "Eirik the Red's Saga" and the "Saga of the Greenlanders" both written about three centuries after the events happened. Dismissed largely because the experts saw it as harkening to the Imperial Synthesis Era of the 19th century. Finally accepted in the 1970s. Total denial time: about 900 years.

Big Bang theory; suggested or implied by John Philoponus (6th century), Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (9th century); Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon (9th to 10th century) Abū Ḥāmed Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (11th to 12th century) and Immanuel Kant (19th century); dismissed as crackpot as late as 1963! Total denial time: about 1300 years.

The acceptance of Homeopathy which even by the standards of 1796 made no scientific sense is still practiced despite study after study showing it does not work. Total denial time: 218 years and counting.


"It is not possible to compare the above with what we have, namely, that there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived." (Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness. Dec 1994, Vol. 5, No. 4: 16)


That Vast majority really knows its stuff...NOT :p
 
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dejudge said:
Please, please, please!!! Get the data that we asked for. You are the one spouting your "vast majority" claims without any supporting evidence.

Come on!!

You have nothing for your obscure dead preacher but Chinese Whispers.

Your dead scarcely known criminal is NOT Plausible.

Jews and Romans of antiquity do not worship dead Jewish criminals as Gods especially when they carry out criminal acts at the Temple of their God.

An obscure dead Jewish criminal cannot be considered the impetus for the supposed Pauline writings and preaching about the Christ since 37-41 CE in the time of King Aretas.

HJ was a crucified criminal based on the assumptions of HJers.
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Dejudge, asking for that list is a stupid argument, and every time you repeat the demand you just look more dishonest and evasive. (But then you did just say that no one in antiquity would ever give up their established gods to worship Jesus, even though that is exactly what happened.) You know that no one has ever made such a list, but by braying for its presentation you think that you can distract from the fact that you cannot demonstrate that what those scholars have said is true, and that you are just an uneducated monomaniac against the vast majority of university professors who are experts in the subject.

The sad thing is that you gave up your supernatural dogma only to replace it with another dogma. You have a new sacred idea that must be true because it appeals to you emotionally, and you engage in the same sorts of apologetics and mental gymnastics to defend it against rational criticism.
 
IanS said:
It's in Ehrman’s latest book Did Jesus Exist, published only less than a year ago in 2013. Where he repeatedly says -


"He certainly lived", repeated twice on p37.

"Jesus really did exist", p34.

"Jesus himself was not a myth, he really existed", p14.

" I agree with Schweitzer and virtually all scholars in the field since his day that Jesus really existed". P14.

"But there was a historical Jesus, who was very much a man of his time", p13.

"Schweitzer himself knew full well that Jesus actually existed", p13.

" Jesus was a Jewish man, known to be a preacher and teacher who was crucified ... this is the view of nearly every trained scholar on the planet", p12.
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Does this highlighted part include Russian and Asian trained scholars?

The Christ Myth theory was (and perhaps still is) a major doctrine in Communist Russia and according to Refuting Missionaries "In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus, and Osiris."

Also as I have noted before not all Christ Myth theories say Jesus didn't exist

Some say the Gospel Jesus is a composite character of which a real Jesus was only a small part

Others argue that Jesus lived c100 BCE and the Gospel story was written to make him seem a more recent person and agree with Paul's vision.

Still others argue that there was a pre-existing Messiah myth into which a barely remembered teacher named Jesus was plugged into and then was given a totally fictitious life and death.

All these variants accept a Jesus existed but they deny he had anything to do with the founding of Christianity.
 
maximara said:
Vast majority has been wrong before: <snip>
That Vast majority really knows its stuff...NOT :p
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This is exactly the sort of stuff you can find in "free energy" sites, where scammers and lunatics try to sell absurd theories to idiots.
 
Craig B said:
This is exactly the sort of stuff you can find in "free energy" sites, where scammers and lunatics try to sell absurd theories to idiots.
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Non sequitur. The majority of people believe something "strange" is going on in the area called the Bermuda Triangle. Doesn't mean there actually is.

The "evidence" for Jesus has been used to "sell absurd theories to idiots"

Theories like a census that require people to return to their ancestor's place of residence

Theories like commanders who are such wonderful multitaskers that they can run a a census while fighting a war...two Roman provinces to the east.

Theories that try to explain why nobody recorded a three hour eclipse.

And speaking of no body how about the theories of the undead jamboree of Matthew 27:52-53 that no one else saw?

I'll see your free energy site and raise you are the goofy theories by hardline apologists who say the ENTIRE Gospel account is actual history. :p

You want to talk total off the wall nonsense? Read Jack Chick some time. That is fundamental Christianity at its best...makes Revelation look sane by comparison. :p

"For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes." Luke 6:44

Only with Christianity it seems we get cashews, pecans, almonds, pistachios, macadamia, mongongo, etc. :)
 
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Belz... said:
Indeed, and you know what ? In each instance they were PROVEN wrong by people with a better theory.
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Which proves the point regarding the whole HJ position: it has required numerous ad hoc tweaks to keep going and she more of the Gospel one take as history the worst it gets.

The latest effort is basically minimize Jesus to the level of minor nobody that no one other then his followers would notice...which raises the issue of is anything in the Gospel historical?

We have a real world example that shows the Christ Myth is not off in tin foil land: John Frum.

What does the majority of the HJ position have?

Misrepresentations like Pliny the Younger writing about Jesus (he doesn't), the 5000 Greek manuscripts (over 14 freaking centuries), Suetonius talking about Jesus (he doesn't), and the list goes on and on.

Then you have the ad hoc theories for those who are trying to say the Gospels are history...which get more and more off the wall the more they try say is history.

I ask you if the evidence for Jesus is so good why do we have all this kind of nonsense, hmm?

You don't see this with good theories; you only see this kind of insanity with questionable-nonsensical theories like creationism or Homeopathy or concepts that have long gone past their shelf life but people can't or won't admit it because there is too much invested in the old version.

If you really look at the current tack it is basically minimizing Jesus to the point he might as well not have existed. It is the Christ Myth theory in all but name.
 
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maximara said:
Which proves the point regarding the whole HJ position:
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I think you missed my point entirely: one has to prove the consensus wrong by providing a better theory. No one has yet done this. I'm not quite in line with the consensus, myself, but there's quite a bit of work to do on the MJ side than just fling tomatoes at the historians.

i
t has required numerous ad hoc tweaks to keep going and she more of the Gospel one take as history the worst it gets
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I'm sorry but I'm reminded of creationists who find it suspicious that science adapts itself to new evidence. Or did you mean something else ?
 
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