(19 votes, average: 4.68 out of 5)
Loading...I can completely understand why some people choose not to believe in the Christian tradition, since I too am not a Christian. But I find it a bit dismaying when people reject aspects of the Christian tradition for (literally) illogical reasons. Or even worse, attack it for illogical reasons. This often involves drawing unfounded religious conclusions from historical findings. I’m sensitive to the issue because these findings are often ones that I myself talk about (findings of others that I subscribe to after looking into them).
My view is that there are good reasons for some people to hold on to their faith, and there are good reasons for other people to decide to leave the faith or never to come to faith in the first place. But why do we need Bogus Arguments for Disbelief? (Acronym: BAD)
I’ll give here three examples, knowing full well that many people will object to them, especially the first one (since people regularly do, here on the blog!). I don’t mean to be slamming anyone or their beliefs; I simply mean to say that these arguments don’t work, and if they’re ones that you’ve been using on yourself or others, maybe you should rethink them.
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Dr. Ehrman
With all due respect didn’t you leave
christianity for similar line of reasoning?
It’s my understanding that it was the
problem of suffering that led to
your deconstruction,so could one have
said to you that if you find out that your
parents have less than a perfect sense
of justice and fairness, does that mean
your parents don’t exist?
For clarity, I’m not a Christian. I am a
hardcore atheist mostly thanks to you
but I have never been able to wrap my
brain around the problem of suffering
as a reason for disbelief.
For me the problem of suffering does not prove that there is no God. It makes me wonder what grounds there are for thinking there *is* a god, and when put in those terms, it seems unlikely to me. So I don’t think it’s a leap of logic, as in these other cases.disabledupes{3f86d160124f9398c58d30a9e7d5db5c}disabledupes
Right. Reducing the question of God’s existence to an abstract intellectual one is missing the point. If something exists that meets an abstract list of criteria for being divine, yet does not have the qualities that make it meaningful to _relate_ to that entity in a worshipful, prayerful, devotional way, then to all intents and purposes that entity is not God. Just like a parent who abandons you is to all intents and purposes not your parent. The issue of suffering pertains directly to those qualities, and therefore to the existence of God as such.
“For me the problem of suffering does not prove that there is no God. It makes me wonder what grounds there are for thinking there *is* a god,”
It seems to me that this argument only applies to a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good; and this description only applies to the Christian god. This makes me wonder, though, if there is anything in the NT or the OT that specifically ascribes these attributes to him? Jesus, for instance, is specifically not all-knowing because he does not know the hour or the day (although he may know the week…). And, if it is not in the NT, when did God acquire these attributes?
Yes, that would be a decent description of the NT God I’d say. Jesus, as a human (even if a God made human) had human limitations. And yes, the problem is a suffering for that kind of God, the God of Jews and Christians and Muslims. For me to think there’s some *other* kind of god or gods, I guess I’d have to have reasons (and I can’t think of any!)
What about the argument from empiricism? I.e., Christianity (and many other religions) makes statements about the observable world that observation fails to bear out and frequently contradicts.
Yes, it does. Many Christians say that this is an anti-supernaturalist bias, that if God does miracles, then the observable world is not evidence.
Sure, people can still find a way to be Christian, no matter what. But is that really the best conclusion for them to draw?
To say, “Yes, all these details are wrong, but the original assumption that there is still a Christian God can still be correct,” really does not add up, in my humble opinion.
After reading your work, people should be asking themselves the obvious question:
“If I was wrong about so many things in my beliefs, what else might I be wrong about?
Perhaps I should be questioning whether there is even a god, or if He’s at all the way I envisioned.”
You should be encouraging people to have that mindset, rather than telling them that it’s fine to still find a way to believe in God.
I also think it’s a bit disingenuous that you belivee the ENTIRE reason for your disbelief is the question of suffering.
That may have been the straw that broke the cammel’s back for you, but there was a long progression away from the faith, before you took that final step. It was all a part of the journey and the final outcome.
OK, fair enough. But since we know almost nothing about strangers about what happens in their minds I don’t think you can really have a strong opinion about when they are (I am) being ingenuous or disingenous! I encourage people to seek out the truth for themselves rather than insisting they see the things the way I do, even though I absolutely think I’m right about how I see things (as do so many other people, including those who disagree with me!!)disabledupes{155a439656b347abcd0d147c4875047e}disabledupes
“ If you want to say Jesus didn’t exist, you have to have better arguments than that no Greek or Roman pagan author mentions him. There could be tons of reasons no one mentioned him. .”
I would say quite the contrary.
If you want to say Jesus DID exist, you have to have better arguments.
Why to use only George Washington as an example?
Jew authors mention Moses, did Moses exist? Well , maybe somebody led the Jew people sometime three thousand years ago although probably he did not split the sea, but you have to prove he DID EXIST.
Did Achilles exist? Well, maybe some very skilful warrior fought in a war between the Greeks and Troy,but you have to prove he DID EXIST.
Why would it be different in the case of Jesus?
There could be tons of reasons no one mentioned ANYBODY.
So choose any character from antiquity and since nobody can demonstrate he DID NOT EXIST your conclusion is that he DID EXIST?????
For Jesus, see my main comment below.
As for Moses, the evidence for his existence is much more problematic, since all the archeological evidence shows that the exodus never happened (there may have been a small group of Semites who left Egypt at some point, and their story evolved into the Exodus). Using a historical standard of proof, some will say it is possible or probable that some person named Moses did exist, and did play some role in Israelite history, though we can never be certain exactly what that role was. We can make some highly educated suggestions, and debate them.
If you’re expecting certainty, you’re not going to get it. That’s life.
How disappointing. 🙂
Well , I have certainty about Jesus’ existence !
Again:
(btw , I think he DID EXIST because I have the definitive proof !!!! )
Of course , it is not a 100%certainty .
Take for instance Paul, he clearly speaks about Jesus a human being and he wrote maybe two decades after his death.
But this does not change the fact that the proof of his existence falls on the ones who say he DID exist.
Did Bart demonstrate Jesus WAS NOT buried in a tomb? No, and it is not necessary for him to do it, the burden of the proof falls on the ones that say he WAS buried in a tomb, no matter how many scholars have worked on the point before and the consensus they achieved.
Apparently Craig understood it took the burden and produced (what he thinks was ) the proof.
After that Bart completely demolished those “proofs”.
That is what mythicists have to do with the proofs about Jesus’ existence, until now they failed.
But … .for me these proofs are, say 95% convincing, about the 4% , well that’s my own “definitive proof” !!!
There is religious certainty and there is historical certainty. I certainly agree that we can be historically certain Jesus did exist, and was crucified. Everything else about him is far less certain, which is where religious and historical certainty start to clash. Also, despite what some militant atheists say, accepting that the man Jesus did exist does not mean accepting the gospels’s versions of his life.
This is a slippery slope, because you could land at saying we have to prove the existence of everyone ever. In which case, we use the evidence we have. Jesus and the life of Jesus are at least attested in the gospels (and by Josephus), which is better attestation than we have for a lot of figures in antiquity. Beyond that, Paul met people who knew Jesus. I think that’s pretty solid. At least more solid than a lot of figures in antiquity that we assume the existence of. I mean, this is more solid evidence for the existence of Jesus than I have that you’re not just ChatGPT.
No, that is not what Dr. Ehrman is addressing in this post. It is about BAD reasons to NOT believe rather than about GOOD reasons TO believe. He wrote a book to address that issue, Did Jesus Exist? You are right that it makes no sense to argue that failure to disprove someone’s existence is proof of existence, that would be a BAD reason TO believe, but that is not at all the direction of the post.
I understand what you say but the point is that you do not have reasons to NOT BELIEVE, you simply don’t find reasons TO BELIEVE.
In the case of Jesus’s existence, take for instance the following quotes from Bart in Did Jesus Exist? :
“The burden of proof belongs with whoever is making a claim.” That is, if Price wants to argue that Jesus did not exist, then he bears the burden of proof for his argument.”
“…since no scholar who has ever written on it, except the handful of mythicists, has ever had any serious doubts, surely the burden of proof does not fall on those who take the almost universally accepted position.”
This is something like beginning John’s trial by saying “ since everybody thinks John is guilty he have to proof he is innocent “
Jesus’ existence HAVE TO BE PROVED no matter how many millions have taken it for granted, the burden of the proof falls on those who say HE DID EXIST.
(btw , I think he DID EXIST because I have the definitive proof !!!! )
It gets complicated when discussing faith elements. Christianity (and most all religions) have numerous ‘unprovable’ elements that are critical to their faith and theology. These faith areas are supported by both ‘reasons to believe’ (have faith) and ‘reasons to oppose disbelief’ (a logical basis allowing room for their faith). Nobody has ever universally and conclusively ‘proved’ that God exists but yet there have been many logical reasons stated to support a claim of some God entity creating our universe. Nevertheless, you are accurate in claiming that many in antiquity believed they had ‘proof’ of God and of a resurrected Jesus, based on their specific proof criteria, and that level of proof was essential to their ability to persevere through their many hardships despite all the nay-sayings of a vast majority of non-Christian jews and gentiles arguing against Jesus with their counter-views. I don’t think Christianity would have survived without disciples holding ‘workable proofs’ of Jesus’ divinity.
You write: “This is something like beginning John’s trial by saying “ since everybody thinks John is guilty he have to proof he is innocent “”
No. This is like saying: “Since almost every scholar who has seriously examined this question is in agreement on this point, and has laid out their reasons for doing so, and their arguments have been critiqued by other scholars who have now accepted them, the burden of proof now falls on those who disagree to show where and how the scholarly consensus is wrong.”
I acknowledge your viewpoint, but the burden of proof remains unaltered, irrespective of scholarly consensus. To establish the validity of your assertion, you must furnish convincing evidence and persuasive arguments. While it’s permissible to reference credible authorities to support your position, the fundamental requirement for making a case remains unchanged.
The “convincing evidence and persuasive arguments” have been supplied by scholars, and critiqued and accepted by other scholars. Anyone who wants to challenge that conclusion must address the evidence and arguments. In other words, the burden of proof originally fell on the scholars, but now that a consensus has been achieved, the burden shifts to those who would challenge that consensus. That is not to say the consensus is necessarily right, of course.
In short, what I’m saying is that your analogy of “since everybody thinks John is guilty. . . ” misses the point. “Everybody” has examined the evidence and concluded that John is guilty. That shifts the burden of proof to John.disabledupes{643bb0443ee852a1fa2a324493868e39}disabledupes
good rhetoric, which makes people fall into disbelief.
“If you want to say Jesus DID exist, you have to have better arguments.”
But what arguments and evidence would you accept? There is literary evidence – Josephus and the NT – but if you reject that, what would you accept? Archaeology, perhaps? We do have statues of Roman emperors, and that is evidence, but how many people in the ancient world rated statues?
“Why to use only George Washington as an example?”
Probably because there are legends about him, such as throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River and chopping down a cherry tree.
The stress is not in the WHY but in th ONLY …
btw, outside the gospels, what do you think is the best proof about Jesus Existence?
Love it. Although for fundamentalists, I’d like to think too mental is more appropriate 😄
I see the issue as simple yet a mass of confusion. When you tell us Jesus exists but deny the supernatural Jesus it’s not entirely clear saying “Jesus”… which Jesus? The human? The Super Human? I feel Dr Ehrman creates a demand we learn historical Jesus is real and wants to pretend fake Jesus is now settled, no it’s not! The Christian hears Dr E state Jesus and conflation on superhuman Jesus ensues for example Paulogia vs Frank Turek YT short is misquoting Dr Ehrman. SuperHumans don’t exist and Jesus of the Bible, History and conscientiously in time and collective is supernatural the moment anyone says “Jesus”. This post imo makes it worse, so Dr Ehrman make a new name for real historical Jesus without using “real” or “Jesus” together because no matter how clear you attempt to be… that preacher heir apparent to John the Baptist that shall not be named is a regular human. Any mention of his known by name removes human narrative and evokes supernatural being.
I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. When I say Muhammad existed I don’t mean that Muslims are correct in thinking that he did miracles; or when I say that I think Romulus existed I don’t mean I think that he really ascended ot heaven and became Quirinus, one of the main gods worshiped by the Romans. Why would it be different when I say Jesus existed but don’t mean he did miracles or was raised from the dead?
Hello Bart
My students and I often contemplate the precise connotation of the assertion that “Jesus existed.” Diverse interpretations exist regarding the identity of Jesus, and this declaration appears to carry distinct implications for various individuals. It might suggest, for example, that Jesus existed as “the foundational influence behind the Christian faith,” or as “an individual named Jesus born in Bethlehem,” or as “the figure responsible for executing at least some of the deeds attributed to him in the New Testament.” What precisely do you intend when asserting that “Jesus existed”?
I mean something pretty precise. There really was a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazerath and we can say some things about him (he was Jewish; he was a teacher; he was crucified by the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, etc.) I mean the same think by “Jesus existed” that I mean by George Washington existed, the Baal Shem Tov existed, Apollonius of Tyana existed. They all have stories about them that people believe that aren’t true, but hte persons themselves did exist. But I don’t think that Adam and Eve existed, or Enoch, or Abraham, or lots of other people talked about still today.
Do you want to call him Joshua (the more direct translation into English) instead?
We all come loaded with preconceptions of people. Certainly, a goodly number of believers conjure up the supernatural on mention of his name as it reached us through the Bible. I suspect relatively few see a Galilean hillbilly turned preacher of doomsday. The challenge to a writer is to anticipate and carefully overcome a known lens at odds with his discourse. Readers are then expected to be responsible to set their preconceptions aside… no doubt an overly optimistic expectation….. since the supernatural Bible character and the Galilean hillbilly were derived from the same sources two names seem inappropriate. If pressed, I vote for the hillbilly.
Not really able to fix the confusion using Josh/Yosh instead of Jesus imo. A preacher Jesus is real, a human only Jesus is real. The Christian’s proper noun and adverb/verb Jesus is nonetheless unable to change in colloquial terminology. So to ask Dr Ehrman to make the change to a known term is exhaustive brainstorming. However this conversation needs a distinction so quote mining Christian apologists understand the separation. Hear one more time Bart says Jesus is real see here is the evidence… they won’t decipher the conflated facts.
Hi Bart you’ve previously stated that any naturalistic theory should be favoured over a supernatural one as miracles are the least likeliest explanation there should always be a more plausible naturalistic explanation for the event but I once heard Mike licona say (and demonstrate with a swimming pool analogy) that I don’t have space to type that he disagrees as nobody is saying Jesus rose by natural causes but by supernatural with the intervention if God who is omnipotent so providing there is evidence for a God like the argument from contingency and other Historical/external evidence to support a miracle like the ressurection (as most religions make claims for having an omnipotent God)
then surely shouldn’t there be quite a good case for the ressurection? So (providing I’ve not misquoted Mike’s argument) was wondering what your thoughts on this argument were?
You may want to watch my five-hour debate with him where I explain that he can certainly argue on theological grounds that Jesus was raised from the dead, but that is not a *historical* argument, and needs to stop claiming that it is. Historians never make claims about what God does in this world, when they’re doing history (whether it’s claiming the God defeated the Nazis or elected Obama or anything else). If you (or he!) would just read history books about the Roman world, or the Reformation, or the Civil War, or anything else, you (he) will see that historians never do that. To see more of why that is, check out that debate (you can find it at bartehrman.com)
Thanks for the response will definitely check that debate out as it looks super interesting apologies for making u respond to a question you no doubt get 1000 times a week!
To choose one example from what you wrote about to try to get to the core of point #1: how would you go about constructing a reasonable theology of the Trinity in light of historical criticism, if you had to play devil’s advocate? Would it be that even though Christ as a historical person did not go around proclaiming His divinity as in the Gospel of St. John, trinitarian theology still reveals the underlying reality of who He was? What are reasonable and unreasonable forms of trinitarianism?
This might be an unfair question for an unbeliever, but, as a philosopher of sorts, I am intensely interested in the connection between the historical and the theological as domains of knowledge and how truths in one might disrupt or forecloses certain aspects of the other.
P.S. Glad you are safe after the campus shooting incident at Chapel Hill.
There’s no way to construct a hisorical (or historical critical) argument for a theological view. Theological views have theological rationales and bases. Historical-critical work does not allow for the assumptoins of one form of belief in God over another.
There’s no way to construct a hisorical (or historical critical) argument for a theological view. Theological views have theological rationales and bases. Historical-critical work does not allow for the assumptoins of one form of belief in God over another.
I think part of the problem has to do with the difference between religious “proof” and historical (or scientific) “proof.” By that I mean that religious proofs start with the assumption that some revelation is true, and use deductive logic to prove a point. Historians try not to make assumptions, or to make as few as possible, and argue along inductive lines what the most likely or most reasonable explanation is. But they will never be able to “prove” (or disprove) something to the standard of religious proof.
Take the existence of Jesus. If Paul and the evangelists had invented Jesus, they would not have had him crucified since, as Paul himself admits, the crucifixion was a “stumbling block” to the Gentiles and foolishness to the Jews. The most reasonable inference is that Jesus was crucified (which in passing admits he did exist) and his followers had to somehow deal with that most inconvenient fact.
I agree!!
I thought that the notion that Christian faith should be based solely on the Bible went back to Martin Luther. His motto was “sola scriptura”, right? I understand that his intent was to reject faith based on Church traditions or on the authority of the Pope. Does “sola scripture” not at least implicitly assume that the Bible must be factually correct, to the point of being inerrant? Do we know whether Martin Luther believed in the literal inerrancy of the Bible? Or was that perhaps the view held basically by all Christians in 1500 AD, given that it was the time before the Enlightenment?
Yes, he did promote sola scriptura; and no, he did not accept the fundamentalist view of sola Scriptura (for one famous thing, he thought the book of James contradicted the teachings of Paul)
I think we all should use critical thinking, critical thinking help to see more clearly and what approach we should take in deciding if Jesus did or did not exist. We have Flavius Josephus, Flavius Josephus said somethings about a man who did good deeds and wonder and that this man was resurrected. Is that enough evidence to suggest that Josephus was talking about Jesus, not really.
Yes, a historical critical approach to Jospehus asks which of the words in his “Testimony” to Jesus were ones written by him, and which were added by later scribes.
There is this saying that says” once a liar always a liar. “ This was what the authors of the Bible was doing. They were making stories about what Jesus said and did. Who is to say if they didn’t invent Jesus.
I’d say that “lying” means “someone willingly saying something that they think/believe is actually not true.” With that definition, I myself don’t think there’s anything to suggest the biblical writers were lying — that is trying to decive someone by saying something they thought was actually false.)
As an atheist, I’m saddened to see so many online atheists succumbing to the same faulty logic and motivated reasoning they criticize in believers. In the emotionally satisfying rush to slam-dunk an opponent, the responsibility to subject your own arguments to skeptical examination is lost. I see this especially, but not exclusively, in the ranks of the mythicists, who entertain all sorts of wildly implausible and ahistorical scenarios just so they can deliver the ultimate slam, “Your Lord never even existed!”
So, a plea to my fellow atheists, if any are listening. Please, do your homework, get a thorough grounding in logic and critical thinking. Get a good grasp of the principles of historiography. Familiarize yourself with the classics (I’m saddened by how few are familiar with Hume’s Dialogues or his argument about miracles). And most of all, don’t advance arguments that haven’t been stress tested by a healthy dose of self-directed critical examination. It’s way better to spot a flaw in your own before your opponent does.
I hope we aren’t implying that the reasons discussed here are 50/50. If, by Bart’s admission, the Gospels are hugely exaggerated, then that diminishes reasonable arguments to state that Jesus rose from the dead. If the fact is that there are virtually no contemporary historical accounts of Jesus outside of the New Testament, that also diminishes my argument for what can be said about Jesus. If we agree that miracles are the least probable explanation for events, then that reduces all miraculous claims about Jesus. The argument cannot possibly be 50/50. It’s possible to believe despite the enormous difficulties; the honest assessment should be that faith is trust beyond what can be rationally and logically shown.
Argument 1 may overstate its case, but there’s a nugget of genuine concern lurking behind it. We’ve seen that the Bible contains contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and deep biases on points that are objectively demonstrable. It’s quite a strange view that holds that the Bible got various relatively ordinary facts wrong, but got its extraordinary claims right! How reasonable is it to look at a text that has clear reliability issues on mundane matters and insist that when it comes to claims that appear to be impossible, or at least unknowable, it gets those absolutely right? Is it not in every way more rational to suppose that when it comes to the virgin birth, walking on water, the resurrection, and the various other impossibilities attributed to Jesus, that the texts simply got those wrong too? It’s important to remember that all (or nearly all) human cultures have miracle stories. So the liberal Christian finds themselves in the strange position of insisting that the only believable miracle stories are ones that come to us from first century Greek texts that contain numerous factual errors. It’s hard to imagine how this could seem reasonable to anyone not indoctrinated from birth.
The first BAD reason is an intriguing one. I know it is common, but agree it is illogical.
Let’s say we have four ancient sources. Let’s call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Let’s suppose you only ever read one of them, and on that basis became to believe in the salvific effect of Jesus.
Then, decades later, you stumbled on a copy of one of the others. You find that it differs in certain ways, some differences seemingly contradictory.
Should this lead you to abandon your belief and faith based on the first exposure? Because you learned of a different story?
If that would be the proper logic, then it would require fundamentalists today to abandon their faith when they are shown the gospel of Peter.
[In fact what I am describing must surely have been the experience of many relatively early Christians from different communities as the movement began to cross-fertilize]
Arguments (fact based) make sense to me for questions like “Did Jesus Exist?” They don’t make much sense for whether a person should or shouldn’t believe in God or similar topics. My impression is that most people believe because they believe or they disbelieve because they disbelieve. I doubt many people chanage this because of a good debate points on one side or another. I also don’t think anyone should be expected to defend their belief or disbelief. A superior debater can turn into a terrible bully if this is the expectation.
Emotional Reasons
What the Catholic Church did to me was worse than being raped by a priest. When I was six years old back in the1950’s, I was told that I was going to be cast into an eternal lake of fire if I died with a mortal sin on my soul. The nuns seemed to enjoy saying things like: If every grain of sand on every beach were a million years, that would only be the beginning of eternity. Most people probably get over all that nonsense. (devils, pitchforks, Halloween) Intellectually, I’m over it. Emotionally, not yet.
These points are definitely valid and solid, and I do agree that, taken *independently*, they would not justify someone’s bashing belief in Christianity.
BUT: what happens when you combine them?
For example, suppose that I take a devout Christian friend of mine who has never heard of you, expose him to your work, and he ends up agreeing with your historical approach and findings.
What’s the most probable impact this will have on his faith?
I mean, when an unsuspected Christian finds out that the Bible is not the perfect book sent from God to us but actually a totally human book marred with all sorts of errors, egregious contradictions and ridiculous discrepancies, and that Jesus is not actually mentioned by anyone in the 1st century as if he was a nobody, and that he wasn’t buried by Joseph of Arimathea right after he died on the cross, but actually this Joseph dude is a madeup person, and Jesus’s body was left on the cross for several days, and certain parts of it were eaten by scavengers, I think that Christian will certainly have a pretty hard time holding on to his faith. (This last sentence was big.) But that’s my guess.
I did not know there was a right or wrong way to stop believing in God and Jesus.
There’s not. But as with everything else, there are sensible reasons and less sensible reasons and practically senseless reasons.
I’ve had several fruitless discussions with fundamentalists, typically evangelicals (who are virtually all fundamentalists in my experience), and they completely depart from reason when they need to believe that every word in the Bible is true. A vast amount of anti-science attitude stems from the fact that so many things in the Bible don’t stand up to reason. Noah’s ark would have been too large for a wooden boat. Catholic scholars were among the people discovering the fossil record that shows species going extinct and coming out of nowhere, and shows humans arriving as a microscopic sliver of the earth’s geologic record.
Nope, facts don’t touch them. EXCEPT– you pointed out that “the Bible is perfect” is a new idea. The Jews didn’t have it, the early Christians didn’t have it, the major church fathers didn’t have it.
When I make the point (which Bart has made before) that biblical perfection is a post-gutenberg idea, that actually gets some evangelics to start thinking.
I’d really like to see a full blog post from Dr. Ehrman on how American evangelicals came to equate believing in Jesus with believing that every word in the Bible is true.
I’ll go one further.
I’d love to see a post from Bart (or a guest colleague) demonstrating (hopefully by quotation) how early church fathers (yes, Jewish intellects as well, but less convincing to some audiences) make statements undermining any attempt to attribute the standard of inerrancy to their understanding at the time.
You won’t find any quotations like that, since there was no notion of inerrancy for them to try to refute.
Prof. Ehrman I agree with you. Regarding the existence of Jesus we have the gospels as a source. it doesn’t matter, in my opinion, that other sources do not mention them: we know well how they were drafted and their real validity as historical sources. It’s probable that when Jesus lived he was just one preacher among many and that everything else came later so I don’t feel like doubting his existence.
Regarding the first point, I understand what it means. Personally, I have a similar position of faith to yours and I prefer to consider the books of the Bible simply as documents to study and contextualize. To say that since the Bible is inexact Christianity is false is simply an anti-historical discourse (and in any case it is more theological than historical argument). so all those who read it uncritically (like Jehovah’s witnesses) make me smile
Dear Bart,
Off-topic, but have you seen this news? https://www.thedailybeast.com/scholars-publish-new-papyrus-with-early-sayings-of-jesus
It’s a claim that a 2nd C fragment from the Oxyrhynchus collection that was illegally sold to the Museum of the Bible has now been properly examined and found to contain sayings of Jesus found in Matthew, Luke, and Thomas.
The author of the article (Prof Candida Moss) asked Jeffrey Fish and Michael Holmes if this was Q, but they deny it, as it has Thomas sayings and slightly departs from Matthew and Luke. However, if Q contained material that Thomas used, but Matthew and Luke elected not to, maybe it is Q? Do you know anything more about this?
Yup, Candida and Michael are both very good friends. The fragment is definitely not Q and not Thomas. I’ve seen teh fragment (it’s really a small fragment, wiht text missing on both sides, but I haven’t translated or examined it yet.
I remember hearing your talk some years ago at FFR (Freedom From Religion) where right at the outset you posited to the audience that Jesus did exist. I respected your position,especially to a mostly atheist group. Interestingly, Dan Barker, the founder of FFR, and ex pastor, has mentioned several times that he doubts whether Jesus existed. My question Bart, in your first point you say,”Christianity is the belief in Christ as the way to God; it’s not belief in the Bible.” Isn’t that belief in Christ emerged, in some sense, from the Bible ? It is a reference to that belief ?
Good quesiton. But belief in Christ as the way of God was an established belief long before there *was* a Bible, so it doesn’t come from the Bible.
While I agree that these are “BAD” reasons to reject Christianity:
1) Isn’t the fallibility of the Bible a good reason to reject fundamentalist Christianity?
2) Isn’t the paucity of 1st century sources for Jesus a good reason to carefully weigh the credibility of later sources? Not that they’re necessarily wrong, but that they are flawed and wildly exaggerated?
3) Isn’t the improbability (or implausibility) of Jesus’ same-day burial in a tomb, a good reason to reject the so-called “minimal facts” argument for the historicity of the resurrection?
Fundamentalists do a lot of damage in the world, for example in the areas of women’s rights, science education, and the safety of the LGBTQIA+ community. Aren’t all of these reasons useful as arguments against fundamentalism?
1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. Only one of the minimal facts. Yes, these arguments work against fundamentalism, but not against Christianity itself. They ain’t the same by any stretch of the imagination (except in the imagination of fundamentalists).
This is a great post! It brings me to a question that I’ve been thinking about and it has something to do with the first bad argument, contradictions.
I’m not sure it’s really a contradiction.
Q: if the author of Hebrews is quoting from the Greek Septuagint (I don’t know if he is or not that’s what I hear)
Does that mean whoever translated the Septuagint got Jeremiah 31: 32 wrong? Because in Hebrews 8:9 says that God said that he disregarded them, but when you look at Jeremiah says that God said although I was a husband to them. Something went wrong somewhere it seems. Thoughts?
Yes, Jer. 31:32 in the Greek says exactly what Hebrews 8:9 quotes it as saying, but yes, it is worded differently in the Hebrew. Either the Greek translator of Isaiah (for the Septuagint) had a different Hebrew text in front of him from we have or misunderstood it or changed it for some reason. I’m not sure which is nore likely.
On something that is, strictly speaking, untestable how does one distinguish good reasons from bad reasons? Logically speaking, if Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead would that mean that some form of the Christian religion is true? A rabbi could say that the Israeli God resurrected Jesus because he was angry at the mistreatment Jesus received and it is still the case that Jesus is not the Davidic messiah, and his crucifixion was not an atonement for the human race. On a case-by-case basis, how can untestable doctrines be evaluated? After reading this post about bogus arguments for disbelief, I browsed the web looking for good “reasons” for believing that some form of Christianity could be true. One website advocated a book titled “Evidence that demands a verdict” and that looked to me like propaganda. With some more searching, I found a counter response to that book at the link below. So, a couple more questions for Dr. Ehrman: what you think of these types of approaches, and do you think blog discussions along these lines are valid or appropriate?
https://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff-lowder-jury/
The Christian idea is not that Jesus had a near-death experience or was temporarily brought back to life, but htat he was exalted to heaven. I should think if that was *right* that it would be hard to argue that the Christian claim was false, since alternative explanations would only explain his resuscitation, not his exaltatoin.
Okay, if the doctrine of the ascension is true then that particular Christian claim couldn’t be argued with but (1) how could the doctrine of the ascension be tested? (2) even if it is true would it necessarily follow that some form of the Christian religion is true? (3) And if some form of the Christian religion is true then how could the correct theology for it be deduced especially in light of the fact that the biblical writings have contradictions and historical inaccuracies? But since this particular blog was focused on good reasons, what good reasons could be given to believe that the doctrine of the ascension is true? Or that it is false?
1. You mean historically? There’s no way to test a miraculous event for its historical probability. 2. No, not necessarily. He might have ascended to hell, e.g.; 3. Correct theology could certainly be deduced from a book that had contradictions. You’d just have to figure out which of the contradictory views were true. 4. Again, historians (take me, for instance) do not make judgments about whether any religious beliefs or supernatural events were true or not. We look at what we can established as probably happening in the human past.
I think it’s my bad here for not making clear what I was asking. The post is titled “Bogus Arguments for Disbelief”. What I’ve been trying to ask is: what do you think is a non-bogus argument for disbelief? And what do you think is a non-bogus argument for belief? It seems you must have some notion of non-bogus reasons for believing or disbelieving since you write “My view is that there are good reasons for some people to hold on to their faith, and there are good reasons for other people to decide to leave the faith or never to come to faith in the first place”. I’m just curious what those reasons could be. Thanks.
1. Non-bogus argument for disbelief: I think it is implausible that an all powerful and all loving God is active in a world like this, where there has been incredible and massive and pointless suffering for a long as there have been humans. 2. Non-bogus argument for belief: I think the world makes best sense if we think that an all-powerful being is active in it.
Neither argument is historical. That’s becuase historical arguments can neither prove nor disprove religous claims of faith.
How exactly do you decide if someone is christian or not? Is there a basic set of must-have beliefs or behaviours? I understand that even people who call themselves christians can’t actually agree on what a christian is or isn’t. So arguing about reasons for being christian or not depend on what kind of christian you are talking about. Two people having such an argument could have in mind two totally different concepts of what makes a person christian.
I usually don’t try to make a decision. If someone considers themselves a Christian, I don’t thnk I have the right to try to show them they’re wrong.
I can’t really understand how you can have good or bad reasons for not being a Christian if there is no consensus on what a Christian even is. Someone saying they have such and such a reason for not being a Christian in fact might be a Christian by someone else’s definition. You still look like a Christian to me in many ways! You don’t have to believe in God or that Jesus was God to follow many of his teachings and hence be a Christian of some sort.
Well, I see the question of Jesus existence it’s a hard one, I would try in 200 chars to expose my point of view:
a)Imagine a world without Paul letters, Josephus and Tacitus, just the gospels.
It is enough for you , Jesus existed,the gospels say it.
Ok, end of discussion, for me it is not enough , I need more, let’s go to b)
b)Our world
Paul’s letter
b.1 Myhicists claim – Jesus was a divine creature crucified somewhere between the earth and the celestial bodies. End of discussion.
b.2 Paul speaks about a human being.
I agree (see Bart vs Carrier on James the BROTHER of Jesus), but there are two problems
b.2.1 Paul did not know Jesus
b.2.2 The ones who told Paul about Jesus were waiting for him to return from the clouds before the destruction of the world by god.Not reliable people to me.
I need more, let’s go to c)
c)Josephus
As Bart says Josephus (probably) took his information from christian sources, again, not reliable people to me.
Let’s go d)
d)Tacitus
I personally think this is a really independent source. Briefly, he does not speak about Jews involvement in Jesus’ death, but … it is hard to prove it !.
Let’s go e)
e)The definitive proof
I tend to focus on the fundamental reasons no spirit world exists and why taking creation and other myths seriously can’t be true.
First, physics supports that four fundamental forces govern the universe. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. That is it. Oh, if you want to argue about dark matter and dark energy, these are measurement problems, just as demonstrating electromagnetism and gravity were 200+ years ago.
Second, mitochondria – the bacteria that formed a symbiotic relationship with a very early single-celled organism, exchanged DNA and now exists as an organelle in all animal cells. Very early is probably 3 billion years ago, but nobody can date it precisely. Mitochondria is the energy powerhouse in cells. Without mitochondria our brains would not have energy to think, contemplate god, or engage in debates such as on this site. Period.
I disagree,
1. A god in my mind would made a very clear message that even uneducated humans could understand easily clearly, When the stakes are so high, but humans like to make the Bible evolve as we get smarter.
2. I believe Jesus was real human nothing more.
3. I don’t believe he was resurrected.
4. But I mainly don’t believe the Bible god because god sounds just like a human, a god wouldn’t act or think like a human, a god wouldn’t be jealous, a god wouldn’t kill millions, a god wouldn’t order people to sacrifice animals, god wouldn’t tell humans to kill other humans and steal their lands and treasures, a god would have designed us much better, a god wouldn’t put the fruit he didn’t want us eat in a child’s reach lol
5. Then there is science!
6. I have no idea if there is a real god, but I’m 99.99999 percent sure none of 10000 gods are real.
7. I think humans have very hard time dealing with reality in our world, and idea of gods make it easier for people to cope with all the pain, suffering and misery of life.
Exactly, humans can’t understand divine.
I focused on this & fearing the Lord & I am worse off.
thank u for greatly blessing me Dr Ehrman
The Milvian bridge legend seems to be yet another Christianization of a likely Pagan event. Constantine, being a sun worshiper, probably looked at the sun for divine intervention before battle — from Sol Invictus, with whom he identified [on minted coins] or Mithras, the Sun god whom the Roman legions brought back from Persia who became extremely popular, especially with the military. The cross that Constantine supposedly saw was likely a solar cross, not a Christian cross and the words “In this, conquer” make no reference to a Christian God. The Chi-Rho symbolism from the first two letters of the Greek word “Christos” (“Anointed One”) could easily be a reference to Sol Invictus, Mithras or even Constantine himself. The Arch of Constantine has no Christian iconography, but does have Roman Pagan iconography including the Sun, Apollo, Hercules and Diana. One writer claims that two panegyrics written right after the event make no mention of any “celestial manifestations” and a Pagan historian Zosimus “ignores” the whole story. What does seem clear is that Constantine began around that time to promote Christianity — not from religious conversion, but from political necessity to unify Rome. No?
I have an extended discussoin of Constantine and his conversoin in my book Triumph of Christianity. There I show teh complications of knowing what actually happened at the Milvian Bridge, and at his conversion, whenever and wherever it was (our three primary sources are impossible to reconcile); but I do argue that he genuinely converted and became an avid follower of Jesus. Of course, “political” and “religious” were not distinct categories in antiquity, but intimately interwoven.
I can’t really understand how you can have good or bad reasons for not being a Christian if there is no consensus on what a Christian even is. Someone saying they have such and such a reason for not being a Christian in fact might be a Christian by someone else’s definition. You still look like a Christian to me in many ways! You don’t have to believe in God or that Jesus was God to follow many of his teachings and hence be a Christian of some sort.
Each individual who decides whether they are Christian or not has a definition of what they mean by it. It is possible to see if their reasons for not being a Christian by their definition make any sense or not. For example, if someone were to say, “Being a Christian means believing in the literal virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus, and I don’t believe in either because my great-grandfather on my mother’s side didn’t believe it” I would say that’s not a very good reason.
True! But it can get very confusing talking about christianity when there is no agreement as to what a christian is.
It’s true of many terms, I’m afraid. What is “religion” for example? Who is a “Jew.” Can a Christian also be an agnostic? Or a Buddhist? Depends whom you ask!
I’ve given some (non-systematic) thought to why many of my fellow Atheists, who are otherwise reasonable and generally pride themselves on logic, read the Bible like Fundamentalists. Some of it is just easy point scoring. But I think that there are two other things contributing to it.
The Christians who seek out Atheists (and our online communities) to debate with are almost always Fundamentalists. This both distorts our view of Christians, and it also gives us an easy way to make them go away. Finding contradictions in Scripture, even trivial ones that are or likely scribal error is an effective counter-argument when dealing with such people.
The other reason why Atheists may be drawn to that BAD argument is that many of the most vocal (and angriest) Atheists were raised in Fundamentalist churches. It is the Christianity they know.
None of this makes the Fundamentalist reading of scripture by Atheists any less BAD, but the combination of easy point scoring with the kinds of Christianity we end up arguing with and with the same kinds of Christianity many escaped from makes it a little easier to understand why some reasonable people can get sucked into advancing BAD arguments.
I have to disagree with Dr. Ehrman on this first point, in a way. I think he is creating somewhat of a straw man, saying that there are only Fundamentalists who believe in the sayings and history of the Bible who would reject Christianity if they find out the Bible – was not what they thought it was. Just because a person comes to realize that the major stories in the New and Old Testaments contain false information, and this leads them away from Faith in Jesus/God, etc, this does not mean they were a Bible pounding Fundamentalist. It is not either/or. I discovered that the Bible was not true, as in factual, in it’s claims regarding Jesus. It was not history in the sense that we do history today, and that’s the World in which I was raised.
The Problem of Pain … I’m from the US. We firebombed most Japanese cities and dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. I never was in a state where I did not realize the desperate evil that existed in the World. The fact that this would be surprising to someone is odd to me.
OK, thanks. If someone doesn’t have a fundamentalist view that the Bible has to be completely accurate or Christianity can’t be true (that’s a fundamentalist view, even if the person doesn’t know it and doesn’t consider herself a fundamentalist), why would an inaccuracy make you think God didn’t exist? What would be the logic of that? (I’m genuinely asking)
I can’t imagine how Jesus could have collected any followers if he said he was divine. I think just claiming to be the messiah would have been a bridge too far for most.
Still happens today, with religious leaders claiing to be divinities.
I’m probably too late with this question to draw much attention, but I’m interested in an issue outside of Bart’s expertise but inherent in many of the issues he addresses, to wit:
Can we choose our beliefs?
In my opinion we cannot choose to believe something. Rather, beliefs are the culmination of a process wherein the individual weighs and assesses what he or she considers to be relevant evidence.
First, am I right? Second, if so, does this not undermine the fundamental basis of Christian doctrine, that belief in Jesus as the savior is essential to salvation?
If your belief is what you truly believe inside, it does seem hard to imagine how you can force yourself to believe something you don’t. You can certainly pretend to yourself you do, and I think a lot of people do that (let alone pretend to others).
After reading your account of Constantine’s conversion in your book, it seems that the so-called “conversion” was really just a “realization” that Christianity, with its inclusivity of every sector of Roman society – from the slaves, who made up almost half the Empire, to the Emperors — was the ONLY way to unify his newly won Empire. None of the other religions included the slaves; they were still property, not humanity. It was said that originally, he wanted to make all Romans Mithraic, as Mithras [Sol Invictus], was popular with the military, which, was Constantine’s career going back to his father, also a military hero. The only problem was that Mithraism was emphatically a man’s religion – no women. As far as his own “conversion”, you can make a good case that what Constantine was praying to at the Milvian Bridge was his Sun God, Sol Invictus [or Mithras} as the Arch of Constantine has no Christian iconography, even though as you state he may have had little to do with the construction, which is hard to believe, since he was newly installed as Emperor and would have cared about his Imperial image. ….?
That’s a view I argue against in my book Triumph of Christianity, where I try to show why his conversion was almost certainly genuine. I’m not sure where you’re getting the sense that he wanted to make all Romans Mithraic? I think that’s demonstrably not true.
I agree that we cannot say that Jesus not being buried on the day of his execution PROVES that the resurrection never happened, but it makes the already very small probability that it happened decrease even more.
To accept such a flagrant violation of the natural laws we know as a resurrection from the dead would constitute, requires extraordinarily strong evidence, and of course we do not have that, whether Jesus was buried on the day of his execution or not.
But the most common evidence the believers invoke is that Jesus’s body was put in a tomb which later was found empty. The Gospel stories of this are very far from sufficient to establish the resurrection, but if this can be proved to be wrong, then even this very poor evidence for the resurrection fails, and this means that the already very small probabilty of the resurrection decreases even more.
So, if we reformulate #3 into this much weaker sentence, then it holds, and can have a value:
“If it can be shown that Jesus was not buried on the day of his execution, then the already very small probability of the resurrection decreases even more.”
I’d say the flagrant violation of the laws of physics is as impossible on third day as on the thirtieth, and there’s no such thing as “more impossible.”
I have read the conversion chapter in the “Triumph” and am still not convinced that Constantine genuinely converted at the Milvian Bridge in 312: 1. Why was Constantine looking at the Sun for divine inspiration? To find Jesus or Sol Invictus? 2. Constantine was a career military man, like his father, and the military venerated Sol Invictus. 3. The Arch of Constantine has no Christian iconography — if Christianity/Jesus had been Constantine’s Savior, he would have included Christian iconography. 4. Coins issued after the battle show clearly his identification with Sol Invictus, not Jesus. 5. The Chi-Rho symbol could have been the Egyptian Ankh of sun worship — the two are similar. 6. The “conversion” of Constantine seems to be more from Emperor to Politician, than from Pagan to Christian. The Edict of Milan seems more from strict political necessity than religious fervor. On his deathbed in 337 his conversion appears to be more genuine, evidenced by his baptism. But any previous “conversion” seems to be a Christian recast of likely pagan events, probably by Eusebius, a Christian apologist writing about Constantine’s life after he died.
Well, as you know, I deal with all those issues in the book. Most of them have simple explanations.
But of course what is convincing to me may not be convincing to you! disabledupes{b57cbcbddc0cf901ac642c2db26d0dd1}disabledupes