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Bart Ehrman

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by gb93433, Nov 30, 2011.

  1. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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  2. JesusFan

    JesusFan Well-Known Member

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    Also check out the blogs made at Bible.Org by Dr Daniel Wallace regarding Bart and his "misuse" of Textual criticism!

    Problem with Bart view is that even IF we allow him the small number of "mistakes" in the Greek NT , that the vast majority of renderings as "correct" still allowed would prove Christianity is true!
     
  3. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    Ehrman was annihilated by Dan Wallace in a debate they had at SMU back in October. I believe the DVD of event is available at Wallace's website. (I forget the name and don't have time to look it up)

    It's very good.

    Also check out Misquoting Truth which is a DMin project (a suprisingly good one) that turned into a book which replied to Ehrman via synthesizing most of the scholarly material out there and presenting it in, mostly, laymen's terms. It is pretty thin but also robust.

    Ehrman has been pretty thoroughly refuted by this point in scholarly literature. Bock and Wallace (among others) have left him bereft of actual objections. One example is when, during Q&A at the Wallace debate, someone asked Ehrman what it would take for him to believe we have an accurate manuscript of Mark he replied (something like this) that he would have to see 10 copies written within a week of the original with .000005% margin of error in all of them combined. At that point Wallace jumped all over Ehrman and basically noted that he is just a radical skeptic who will never be satisfied with anything presented to him.

    Whenever someone in our ministry is confused by Ehrman I believe it is an opportunity to sit down, his texts open, and walk them through a complete response to his erroneous claims. :)
     
  4. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    What is sad is that Ehrman was a gifted biblical scholar, but he got caught up in the whirlwind of radical textual criticism akin to that of the German Tubbingen School that gave us classical Christian Liberalism (and of note, that school had utterly failed to investigate most, if not all, of the claims that they made against the Scriptures) and eventually became a radical skeptic and virtual atheist instead of a God-fearing student of the Word.
     
  5. JesusFan

    JesusFan Well-Known Member

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    What is interesting is that IF bart was able to "prove" his points, still left with the historical evidences that there was an emtpy tomb, historical eyewitnesses to risen Christ, paul/James converted, and church giving birth to of from Judaism...

    What caused all of that to historically happen?
     
  6. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    It seems to me that pride is involved too. It also seems that he is like some who think they have a corner on something and want to prove their point at any cost. I get the impression that he had not studied the historical context of Judaism much.
     
  7. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    I assume the website is http://www.csntm.org/News/Archive/2011/11/5/DebateDVDsonSale
     
  8. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    About two years ago I met a young college student who had read some of Ehrman's books and other information and as a result decided to be an atheist. After meeting with him twice for a total of about five hours he decided to follow Jesus and has continued to do so. After meeting with him he began to notice how deceived he was and how easy it was for him to be influenced even though he is very intelligent.
     
  9. SolaSaint

    SolaSaint Well-Known Member

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    I haven't studied Bartman a lot, but he was a student of Bruce Metzger and wrote some very good textual criticism back in the day, but it seems when Bruce passed away that he became radical. He is a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar so that should be enough to know he is out in left field. He actually takes it upon himself to get Christian students to leave the faith. He needs to be critiqued by solid apologists.
     
  10. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    He has been... But he is SO far out these days that any critique is really unneccesary. Most solid biblical scholars also don't bother to critique cultists either. We just know that their take on things is off the wall and unworthy of the effort. So it is for Ehrman.

    His current work is on par with Dan Brown and his fictional writings.
     
  11. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    It seems that he has been left to his own devices and has in essence become stupid. It will be interesting to see how low he stoops over time. Perhaps he will eventually be eating grass.
     
    #11 gb93433, Nov 30, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 30, 2011
  12. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    It seems to be the same way to me as well. I listened to him on the internet and he definitely claims to not be a believer.
     
  13. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    It is true that Dr Ehrman did study with Dr Metzger's at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was Metzger's brightest student. I've been told by some of my peers in SBL that if you had asked Metzget who the best Greek scholar in the world was he would have said Ehrman.

    To my knowledge Ehrman made his shift while Metzger was still alive.

    Oh and I've heard Ehrman say, numerous times, that he isn't a Christian.
     
  14. JesusFan

    JesusFan Well-Known Member

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    Just wondering if he had to face a health/relationship something crisis, which caused him to "lose his faith?"

    Would he be a case of one who professed Christ, looked the part, but when pressure of life hit, his true state was revealed?
     
  15. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    I'm not the person you directly asked this question to, but...I do know that Dr Ehrman has said (and written) that the problem of evil, ultimately, began his turn away from his beliefs. After that we had several encounters with prominent liberal scholars who pushed him farther down the path.


    If you read God's Problem, which is his worst written text ever, you'll see a little but of his development with this.

    I don't know if we can ever evaluate something like this for someone.
     
  16. JesusFan

    JesusFan Well-Known Member

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    It is ironic that IF he was really saved by Grace of God at the start, he would still be a Christian even after his attacks upon cause of Christ, just would not want to be in his footsteps if having to give an account before Lord for doing Apostasy?
     
    #16 JesusFan, Dec 1, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 1, 2011
  17. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    I came to a similar point myself years ago. There was a time when I felt as though I had few answers and began to get more and more frustrated with the answers I was given. I read my Bible regularly and began to ask a lot of questions and asked pastors I knew. It seemed that not one of them had answers other than what I found out was that a number were uncomfortable with my questions. I came to the conclusion that God existed and that he answered my prayers. Eventually I got very frustrated and visited with the associate pastor of the churhc I attended. He suggested that I attend seminary. I did and still as I asked questions I got a lot of blank faces staring back at me until I met up with my Greek professors . He had answers that made sense and were a result of his study over the years. He changed my life. What I came to realize is that so much of what is written in scripture has a background of the practices and understanding of Judaism in that day. Since that time I have spent a lot more time trying to understand the gospels and the historical context of the gospels.

    That what makes me wonder how much Ehrman really understands the historical context of scripture and is able to exegete passages rather than just deal with words only. I would wonder if his focus would be on basic word studies rather than historical context and the use of those words in other documents of the time. I have dealt with several people who were big on word studies who also came out of dispensationalism. There was a time when the dispensationalists I knew were big on proof texting.
     
  18. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    What Ehrman did is consistent with what most people do if they get beyond God's revelation with arguments based in logic (or lack thereof) and philosophy instead of sticking to what God says IS.

    While it is permissable and even good to search the Scriptures for God's patterns, types, shadows, etc., beyond mere proof-texting, in order to get the "big picture" of God's actions and God's will, Ehrman and others with him have gone FAR beyond that point. They search "between the lines" (argument from silence) to discover what cannot be known, then publish as if what they have "discovered" is truth.
     
  19. humblethinker

    humblethinker Active Member

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    Wallace and Ehrman Debate: On Probability
    I heard this was a very good debate!
    Check out this blog posting about the debate.

    This might be interesting also:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7NEFj3Mq8F8

    also this page has more info about it... http://www.csntm.org/
     
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