Bart Ehrmann's Video, Colin Ross, Peter Gaskin and Dennis Support him with Clumsiness

Dr. Bart Ehrman Destroys The Crucifixion and The Resurrection History
WISKI 308, 27 April 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEiFo0LbjI

Sam M.

Religion was disproved since Galileo

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am sorry?

(trying to get out earwax, then rub the eyes)

You did say / write this phrase:

"Religion was disproved since Galileo"

How?

1:31 Point 1) 20 or 40 years (if the dates are correct, which I would consider not, as depending on circular reasons), for sth that happened 2000 years ago, that's pretty close.

Yes, Caesar and Cicero and Plato wrote closer to events, but that's exceptional. Of Tiberius, we get more from Suetonius and Tacitus than from Velleius Paterculus - who was writing in the 16th year of Tiberius when his history stopped. Polybius wrote about the Second Punic War more than 36 years after it happened. Agricola (actually 1st C. AD) was written 21 years after Agricola arrived in Britannia, and 14 years after he was recalled from there. Staying with Tacitus, his Histories were written after Domitian died and started with the year of the Four Emperors, that's more than 25 years, and Annals was not entirely written by 116, and it started in AD 14.

Are you saying no historian would take Tacitus for Roman history of the first century, because his works are too late?

Dennis

"Are you saying no historian would take Tacitus for Roman history of the first century, because his works are too late?"

This kind of comment always fascinates me. The believer frequently uses it, but seems to miss the obvious; history that makes claims about magical events should naturally be subjected to more scrutiny than descriptions of real-world events. Though both can contain errors, only one defies all we know about reality, and thus would require far more confirmation than the simple passing on of stories.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Dennis You cannot rule out magical events are real world events.

Especially not from history.

What you are basically asking is, whatever bar of evidence the Christian has already met; you can always push it higher because it's "a magical event" ...

Have you asked yourself why you don't hear an actual Academic (these days) like Bart Ehrman (for all his dishonesties) use that approach overtly?

"only one defies all we know about reality,"

Neither does, but one defies some of what the Atheist THINKS he knows about reality.

Peter Gaskin

What if Tacitus was using written sources? There is no evidence that Tacitus only used only oral tradition as his sources.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl And yet, no living person has seen a verifiably magical occurrence. Not one, ever.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Peter Gaskin There is no evidence the Gospel writers used only oral traditions either.

St. Luke specifically mentioned written gospels, lost now, and which he would have been able to use as sources. As to his oral sources, he singles out people known to (or at worst pretended to) have been eyewitnesses.

You complain we don't have St. Luke's written sources? Fine, that's exactly where I point out we don't have Tacitus' written sources either.

@Peter Gaskin Oh dear ... not sure that the nun I heard about is dead or not, but she was dying in TB and she lay down on the tomb of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and she was totally healed - and after that became a Carmelite nun ...

"Not one, ever."

You are claiming divine omniscience, or guessing, and I have facts contrary to that guess.

Dennis

@Hans-Georg Lundahl "You cannot rule out magical events are real world events."

They don't NEED to be ruled out! They need to be "ruled in" with evidence, if we are to believe them. And since there is no such evidence, we dismiss the claim.

"Especially not from history."

My point exactly!

"What you are basically asking is, whatever bar of evidence the Christian has already met"

Whoa! Slow down there..... WHAT bar has already been met??

"Have you asked yourself why you don't hear an actual Academic (these days) like Bart Ehrman (for all his dishonesties) use that approach overtly?"

But they DO use that approach. When there is no evidence for magical claims, we don't accept them.

Now, what is Bart dishonest about?

"Neither does, but one defies some of what the Atheist THINKS he knows about reality"

So what do you know that the atheist doesn't? I eagerly await details! 😇

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Dennis "They need to be "ruled in" with evidence, if we are to believe them."

Well, the evidence is in loads of testimony to them, unless you beg the question by ruling out all testimony as suspect if it involves the supernatural.

"So what do you know that the atheist doesn't?"

That naturalism doesn't work - including for as basic a thing as out ability to speak.

"But they DO use that approach."

They DON'T use the approach "this is supernatural, therefore not testimony" or "this is supernatural, therefore we need ten times higher requirements than normal to accept a purported authorship. Or "this is supernatural, therefore a delay in reporting acceptable for 'real' events is inacceptable for these events" - they know it doesn't hang together philosophically.

That's the reason they use loads of secondary arguments to make the delay too long or the authorship too disputed - when in normal honest research it actually isn't.

1:53 They called them Matthew and John (eyewitnesses) because they recalled them as being written by Matthew and John. Much like they called Annals written by Tacitus, because that's what they recalled about the writing of Annals.

However, manuscripts for Annals are, even the earliest, second millennium, and as Bart knows, manuscripts for Gospels reach back to 2nd C.

Colin Ross

MMLJ didn’t write them, the authors are unknown, the use of MMLJ as the names of the books is not authorship but a matter of church tradition.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross The Church tradition is an example of tradition which is the way in which authors are normally known.

In 20th C. AD editing, you may find supplementary evidence in contracts between authors and editors, or court cases about copyright, but the most basic evidence we have for all periods of who wrote sth, it's tradition.

Colin Ross

@Hans-Georg Lundahl the point being that MMLJ are not the known authors of those books because the authors (likely multiple for each one) are not known and the names MMLJ have been ascribed to those books but they are not known to be the actual authors.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross The authors MMLJ are known to Catholic tradition.

The "multiple unknown" authors are "known" (as such) to modern reconstruction more than 1500 years after the actual facts.

It makes more sense to trust tradition from back then than reconstruction from 1500 years later.

Colin Ross

@Hans-Georg Lundahl you don’t know the authors because you don’t have the originals - authorship is unknown so whatever you think the Catholic Church know about authorship why not say who they are because they ain’t MMLJ

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross "you don’t know the authors because you don’t have the originals"

OUCH - you just destroyed ALL authorships from back then. Not just MMLJ!

"whatever you think the Catholic Church know about authorship"

MMLJ. Since Sts Papias and Irenaeus. And Clement the Stromatist.

Colin Ross

@Hans-Georg Lundahl not sure what you’re trying to say - you don’t know the authors and can’t demonstrate the truth of the claims made in the bible - you’ve left holding an empty sack really.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross You don't know any authors personally if they died before you were born.

In order to know who they are, you normally rely on precisely tradition, and you have not given any coherent argument why the Catholic tradition about MMLJ should be worse than the tradition behind Caesar writing Bellum Gallicum.

In any normal way of arguing, we know Caesar wrote Bellum Gallicum, and we also know MMLJ wrote the Gospels, with possibly a binary choice about the closer identity of J.

The empty sack is really on your side.

Colin Ross

@Hans-Georg Lundahl not really Hans, if you check at the front of your Bible it will likely confirm that the authors of MMLJ are not known and that MMLJ were ascribed them as part of church tradition as opposed to them being the known authors.

The difference is huge though in comparing A Roman Emperor to claims of God. The God claim is significantly extraordinary when compared to an Emperor and requires evidence to back up the claim commensurate with the claim. The other issue is there is countless contemporary accounts of Roman Emperors existing along with significant amounts of evidence.

Tradition doesn’t mean accuracy and oral tradition was relied upon hugely but it is open to wrong hearing, wrong telling, embellishment and faulty to human error.

It is a common misconception that people think MMLJ actually wrote those books and that they were eye witness accounts which they aren’t.

You don’t have the originals, they were written decades after the events they talk about, they are not eye witness accounts and the reality is you have had to rely on copies of copies of translations of copies where errors would be highly likely. On top of that even if the texts were unaltered it doesn’t prove the truth of the claims within those texts m, all it would prove is you have texts that have been preserved but you can’t even demonstrate that precisely because you don’t have the originals.

You still need to demonstrate the truth of the claims. Even if you are granted that an itinerant rabbi named Jesus said these things you are no closer to proving your claim. As Christopher Hitchens said even if we grant you a virgin birth you still are left holding an empty sack because we know that parthenogenesis can occur in some animal species (hopefully you agree we are an animal of the mammalian order).

You have all your work ahead of you, particularly if you care whether or not your beliefs are true.

I’m not very loved by your claims of authenticity by the Catholic Church, it’s history from long ago to now is severely tainted with dreadful immoral acts and ignorance of humanity for which it has not apologised anywhere near enough for.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross "part of church tradition as opposed to them being the known authors."

You still don't get it. Being known authors normally means being known only through tradition.

"The difference is huge though in comparing A Roman Emperor to claims of God."

Not a valid reason to have two measures about procedural questions, like deciding authorships in the 1st C AD.

"The other issue is there is countless contemporary accounts of Roman Emperors existing"

You are deluded. For Caesar's exploits, we have Caesar's words, and words from later authors.

Very little from Cicero. That's less than for Jesus. Not more.

"Tradition doesn’t mean accuracy"

It often enough does, especially if it is transmitted under controlled forms - which was the case within the Catholic Church from AD 33.

"You don’t have the originals,"

Neither for Julius Caesar.

"they were written decades after the events they talk about,"

Matthew 42, Luke 53, Mark, not sure when, John admitted on all accounts very late.

"they are not eye witness accounts"

Matthew - one of the twelve.
John, certainly a disciple and eyewitness, most say one of the twelve.

"and the reality is you have had to rely on copies of copies"

As with Caesar.

"of translations of copies where errors would be highly likely."

Spelling errors like "hily" for "highly" would be very likely. Or errors in word and phrase order, like "where it would be highly likely to get errors" instead of your phrase.

"even if the texts were unaltered it doesn’t prove the truth of the claims within those texts"

That was not the discussion here, and I didn't say that by itself alone would do it.

Tradition settles historicity versus fiction, but for obvious reasons cannot in and of itself settle truth.

However mistake is extremely unlikely if there is no fraud about the accounts.

Fraud is extremely unlikely due to what the followers of Jesus reasonably could foresee after the Crucifixion.

"You still need to demonstrate the truth of the claims."

Text is historic - as per tradition.
Historic texts contain truth, error, fraud.
Eliminate error and fraud as I just did, leaves truth.

"even if we grant you a virgin birth you still are left holding an empty sack because we know that parthenogenesis can occur in some animal species"

1) all species with parthenogenesis are non-mammals
2) all products of natural parthenogenesis give rise to clones of mothers, i e to females.

I checked the title of the video. It's about crucifixion and resurrection. I believe the miraculous virgin birth because of later miracles. Like, precisely, the resurrection.

"I’m not very loved by your claims of authenticity by the Catholic Church, it’s history from long ago to now is severely tainted with dreadful immoral acts"

I suppose you mean "moved" and not "loved" and "its" for "it's" - but to the point
a) your view of "its" history is flawed by seeing it through inimical views, which contain distortions (every community is better at keeping track of its own history than of the adversaries' histories)
b) even if the crimes as such were granted, doesn't affect Her capacity of correct transmission of historic facts
c) Her pretended history of crimes (excluding Jewish pretensions of fraud by black magic) does not extend back to Sts. Papias and Irenaeus.

I'm obviously no fan of demands for apologies.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross "if you check at the front of your Bible"

I use an online Bible, and an edition which obviously disagrees with you.

Colin Ross

@Hans-Georg Lundahl it’s an easy search Hans.

I’m not trying to play gotcha with it and it also doesn’t prove the god isn’t real but it does challenge the veracity of church teachings who have hoodwinked believers for years and avoided these issues because they could undermine what has been taught before.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Colin Ross I don't doubt the search is easy.

But YOU are the one hoodwinked.

Even if I believed NO supernatural teachings of the Catholic Church, I would believe the tradition on MMLJ - just as I believe Muslims on Mohammed speaking the Qoran to his followers.

The kind of "fact" you refer to is reconstruction over tradition, and that reconstruction tactically calculated to precisely challenge Church teaching, since the time of the Kulturkampf and Markan priority.

That's not the kind of lengths I would go to to challenge Judaism or Islam. I agree with Muslims that Mohammed spoke the Qoran. I agree with Jews that Rabbi Akiba was against Christianity and wrote the Talmud tractates attributed to him.

For some reason, Christianity is the only religion you need to challenge authorships on in order to challenge the religion.

Rami Gilneas

Unfortunately all of the claims that Papias makes about the gospels have been proven to be false.

He thought that Matthew wrote first… false.
He thought that Matthew wrote in hebrew… false.
He thought that it was a collection of sayings of Jesus… false.

So he was wrong about everything that we can test… but we should believe him about the claims he makes that we can not test?😂

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@ramigilneas9274 Let's take the three tests you use one by one.

1) He thought Matthew wrote first - and so did everyone else, until very very very much later : Clement Stromatist a few decades to a century later (not sure of the date) as well as St. Augustine. Marcan priority is not a proven fact, it's a Prussian fad. Got wind in the sails at the Kulturkampf.
2) He thought Matthew wrote in Hebrew and then translated to Greek - the fact we only have the Greek doesn't prove otherwise. Some scholars have even pretended to analyse the Greek and find traces of underlying Hebrew phrases, I am less confident about that, but the supposed proof is none such.
3) Papias specifically mentions the logia, or sayings, because the sayings of Jesus determined what was required of Christians, or in some cases Christians of a certain dignity, like bishops of hermits or martyrdom seekers. He doesn't say the Gospel was only sayings, that would be to misunderstand how language works.

So, given you are refuted on all three counts, how about changing your conclusion?

Rami Gilneas

1) Markan priority is one of the best attested facts that can actually be known about the gospels.
Whatever else you believe about the gospels… it’s less certain than Markan priority.

2) Textual critics can determine if a text was composed in greek or if it’s a translation.
And of course we already know that Matthew copied from Mark… with strings of up to 29 words that are identical, a statistical impossibility.

3) Believe whatever you want… but if Papias is correct about the gospel of Matthew then he was talking about a completely different gospel that no longer exists today.

Making ridiculous claims that don’t hold up to the tiniest bit of scrutiny isn’t a refutation.
The ironic part is that almost all Christian historians agree with me… your position is fringe even among religious fanatics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@ramigilneas9274 Point by point:
1) Allegation without an argument on your part. Very consensual all progressive and a majority of conservative scholars, but that doesn't make it a proven fact.
2) "Textual critics can determine if a text was composed in greek or if it’s a translation." - Only if it was a clumsy one, and not even then. Which is why I mistrust the critics who claim to have proven a Hebrew original. You seem to be taking Higher Criticism as the Oracle of Delphi.
3) You stand convicted of missing there is a figure of speech called "metonymy" - two versions of which are "totum pro parte" and "pars pro toto" - calling the Gospel of St. Matthew, as we have it, a collection of sayings is simply the latter.

"almost all Christian historians agree with me… "

Not conservative Catholic ones.

"your position is fringe even among religious fanatics."

Has no bearing on making it either true or false.

@ramigilneas9274 "And of course we already know that Matthew copied from Mark"

Or, according to St. Clement Stromatist, Mark from both Matthew and Luke, as Peter was reading both in parallell and adding own comments, Mark being a good sthenographer, and misunderstanding St. Peter's intention, the new text was in fact his initiative.

Rami Gilneas

@hglundahl
Come on… I am simply stating the academic consensus of the experts.
Just like you I didn’t present any evidence because it is very obvious that no amount of evidence could ever change your mind.

Everyone else should simply watch the videos of Ian Mills from Duke University about the Synoptic Problem. He explains in an entertaining way why all experts agree that Mark write first and that Luke and Matthew copied from Mark.

Of course Markan priority isn’t a fact, nothing in history is a fact, even the existence of Jesus.
But I would say that Markan priority is much more certain than anything we know about Jesus.😉

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@ramigilneas9274 You are simply "stating the academic consensus of the experts" - and what precise experts? They who subscribe to preferring Higher Criticism over Tradition.

The other experts who prefer Tradition over Higher Criticism somehow don't count in "the academic consensus" ...

In other words, you are treating, like they do, the believers in Higher Criticism, this method like the Pagans did with the Oracle of Delphi.

Rami Gilneas

@hglundahl
The experts who prefer verifiable evidence over tradition based on biased and questionable sources probably deserve my trust more than the Apologists who ignore evidence just because it contradicts their unverifiable traditions.😂

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@ramigilneas9274 It is in fact the traditions that are our verification for past events.

And you did not provide the evidence on which people purport to prove Marcan priority.

I can do so for you. Marc has common material with both Matthew and Luke, and two copying from one is a priori an easier hypothesis than one copying from two. Unfortunately for this argument we actually have a narrative saying Marc copied from both, via Peter reading from both. As Clement of Alexandria died in 215, this possible relative of Josephus was in a position of credible tradition from events. Especially as he was an Alexandrian and St. Marc was the first patriarch of Alexandria.

Marc is shorter, and certain people had the prejudice that longer means accretions were added. The circumstances accounted by Clement the Stromatist would explain why Marc is shorter too.

One manuscript of Marc lacks the resurrection narrative, so these guys have the prejudice that miracles are later additions. Equally compelling explanation, the manuscript was left as it was because the one ordering it was not desiring to read of the Resurrection - a Jew could have been trying to make an assessment of the purely doctrinal / moral teachings of Christianity, and have found the Resurrection account superfluous for that purpose. So, I gave three purported evidences, with appropriate refutations. That's more argument than you saw fit to provide. Except, of course, from authority.

Now, over and above the arguments there is also a prejudice - St. Marc says far less about Peter than the Gospel of Matthew does. To certain anti-papal theologians, both Protestant and to some degree Döllingerite, in Bismarck's Germany, this was a cue to boost Marc over Matthew.

BACK TO MY COMMENTS ON EHRMANN

2:21 "lower class men who were not educated"

Not true for the tax collector Matthew, not true for John either, if Jean Colson is correct he was a Cohen.

Presuming someone is not educated because of his situation is a bad idea (some suppose me uneducated because I'm homeless, I did excellent exams worth five years of university), and supposing all in a group uneducated because the majority are, is if possible a worse one.

2:27 In fact, in Acts 4, Peter and John (who were only two of the disciples) were perceived as illiterate according to the standards of the Old Testament priests.

I suppose saying "I'm Kepha" rather than "I'm Kaiapha" could have been enough to stamp St. Peter as illiterate - one who only masters Aramaic, not Hebrew. And note, in this context, it is strictly a question of literacy in the OT Scriptures according to the assessment of the Temple priests. This has no bearing on the fluency in Greek they had then, or on the fluency in Greek and in Greek rhetoric they could acquire later.

2:34 The vast majority of Jewish boys would have learned to read.

Certainly, the laws pertaining to it's being an obligation to go to Beth Sefer were only made by Joshua Ben Gamla who succeeded Hanan Ben Hanan - if the wiki page I read this on wasn't a bad joke given the rarity of people able to correct it, if wrong - but things are often available before becoming obligations.

3:06 Your reconstruction of the number of intermediates is on a far looser ground than a potential 2nd C reconstruction of the identity of the authors.

I didn't check how many intermediates you supposed, but that's totally your ideology of wanting the Gospels unreliable, not a realistic assessment on why they had their attributions of authors.

[replayed to check:]

I counted four "somebody" when replaying ... three intermediates.

3:46 I believe this is point three.

You are going to pull a parallel to the telephone game ... right?

3:49 Right ... you said "they get changed" ... well, not if the oral transmission is a well controlled one, with only those confided to hand it on who have shown themselves to master the content.

And that would be even granting you more than one should, as in "anonymity of authors" ... "not eye-witnesses" ... according to traditional author assignments, two were in fact eye-witnesses, two others has spoken to such (St. Luke to several different ones, St. Mark to St. Peter).

4:50 There are two solutions to point four, discrepancy on crucifixion day.

Testify mentioned, "the day of preparation" can refer both to the day leading up to the seder, and to simple fridays, days leading up to Sabbath evenings. Eric therefore solves it by saying Jesus died on a Friday, but the getting rid of the khamets had been done the day before.
I have long proposed another one, which is not impossible either. Jesus was not in Jerusalem when Nisan started. This means, he could have observed the new moon a day before the temple did, and had to rely on his own observation rather than that of the temple. In that case, he celebrated Seder 24 hours before Kaiaphas did.