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Here now is the third of Evangelical theologian and apologist Kurt Jaros’s videos supporting my views of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament against critiques leveled by fellow evangelicals. Watch, see, and enjoy!
Misquoting Ehrman – Part Three: Methods
“After describing how some Christian scholars have built a strawman out of Bart Ehrman’s view, I offer a theory as to why some Christian apologists and scholars have misunderstood Bart Ehrman’s position. It is not because they intentionally seek to destroy Ehrman, but because they conflate some ideas. One scholar in particular does a far better job at understanding Ehrman’s view from Misquoting Jesus than others. Also, the video ends on a cliff hanger, so watch all the way through!”
I wish I was as fair minded and erudite as Bart or this gentleman.
Thanks for your kind remark! One suggestion I try to live by is to operate with a first attempt of charity. Try to understand what the person is saying from their perspective. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with what they are saying, but in order for good communication to exist we have to know what each person is first trying to communicate.
Dr Ehrman,
If Paul considers Christ to be the only path to salvation (since we’re all enslaved to sin), then how did he think that those who died before Christ came were saved? For example how did he think someone like Moses would be saved?
Hi Dave, I’d be delighted to answer this question for you, but because you asked him, I’ll let Bart have the first go (if he pleases).
Oh my. I’d still love to hear your response please. I wasn’t really thinking about it like that when I posted the question. Your response is very welcome.
Hey Dave, you asked what Paul thought about OT persons being saved and brought up Moses as an example. In Romans 4, Paul talks about Abraham. 🙂 I suggest giving that chapter a read. Basically, OT persons’ faith in Yhwh and his promise is credited to them as righteousness.
Theologians and philosophers make a distinction on the atonement of Christ between the means of salvation and our knowledge of salvation. The atoning work of Christ is the means through which all persons are saved, but one’s relational knowledge of Christ is not a necessary condition for salvation (but it certainly is a sufficient one).
This is a very short answer to your question and I’m happy to go further if you would like. Cheers!
I never did understand – if faith in yhwh is credited as righteousness, why do we need blood? It just seems crazy that a loving god would create such a barbaric system of blood atonement in the first place.
Hi Matthew,
For concern over the necessity of atonement, see David L. Allen’s book The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ.
In some ways, the barbaric nature of societies continues to the present day.
Interesting. So the faith does not need to be faith in Christ per say, but faith in God?
If you have more to say on this, I’d be delighted to listen.
Dave, you’re asking good questions. Theologians have considered this question, especially as it pertains to the fate of the unevangelized (I just gave a paper on this at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society in November; video in my Veracity Hill YouTube channel).
I think the Bible teaches that faith in Christ is not a necessary condition for salvation, but a sufficient one. This means that people who never hear the Gospel could be saved, but only God knows what conditions are necessary for salvation. My view, here, is referred to as “Particular Inclusivism.” “Particular” refers to the position that there is only one way for salvation (through Christ), but “Inclusivism” refers to the position that that may be non-Christian identifying persons who might be saved. On my view, I think God judges persons based upon the knowledge that they do have, and how they act upon that knowledge (see Romans 2:5-16). This explanation accommodates OT persons (who have faith in YHWH and his promise) and those who have never heard the name “YHWH” but perhaps know Him by another name.
(1/2)
Hi Kurt,
I think you are doing a great service to your faith community by being honest about Bart’s view point. Thank you for doing that.
I believe I was a very solid Christian previously: I did missions overseas for a year, received a master’s degree from WTS, etc. I felt deeply grateful for God’s forgiveness and was committed to living a Christian life for over 40 years.
My deconversion was based on reading “Who Wrote the Bible”, “The Bible Unearthed”, “The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined” and then I found Bart’s blog and read all his books and many of the scholars he cites. After looking at the evidence, it seemed to fall short. I remember reading “How Jesus became God” and near the end the overwhelming realization that not only did I not believe, but now there was no heaven to greet me in the afterlife. It was a stunning moment.
It seems that there are reasonable causes to doubt, yet Christian doctrine condemns those who do. When the Bible says seek God and he will answer you, I did, but I don’t find answers that dissuade me from understanding the Bible as a very human book. (Continued)
Thanks for your comment(s), Truncated. I don’t find that Christian doctrine condemns people who have doubts. Perhaps you experienced some Christian telling you that doubting was a sin, but I don’t think that’s true, either. Perhaps you could refer me to some doctrine that touches on doubt as sinful?
Btw, were you in the Reformed tradition (the WTS reference)? I find that many of the deconversion stories coming out on the internet are from folks of the Reformed persuasion and as a non-Calvinist I find it intriguing given the Reformed conception of the sovereignty of God and predestination.
(2/2)
Passages that say that the gospel is “foolishness to those who are perishing” or “knock and the door will be opened” only cement my belief that the Bible is not correct that those who seek will find Jesus.
For me, it seems primae facie evidence that Christianity is not true if an honest seeker can’t believe the sun stood still or that Sampson caught 300 foxes and tied their tales in pairs. Similarly, the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel seem to be incongruent with today’s scientific understanding of the world in terms of genetics, archeology, linguistics, etc. Add in mysteries like what is a non-material being, the trinity, the incarnation and demons and you have to sympathize with a person who doesn’t view this as being common sense understanding of the world.
What I would like from you as a response is, how would the Holy Spirit reconvert me to believe things that my limited human reason views as unreasonable? And second, does it seem reasonable that an all powerful, knowing and loving God would damn me to eternal conscious torment for holding such a position?
(1/2) Hey Truncated,
Re: prima facie evidence examples, why should we think that ancient cosmology or hagiography is prima facie evidence against Christianity? Let’s just take one example: Suppose that “the sun stood still” were phenomenological language from the perspective of the Israelites, but what actually occurred on that day at that very moment in the late afternoon was a near-horizon solar eclipse around shortly before dusk. If this very plausible astronomical event took place at that very time, and the Israelites perceived it to be their god performing a miracle because the “sun stood still,” then that does not seem to discredit their experience.
At that point, we’re not talking about a historical impossibility, but whether what the Israelites believed about the theological interpretation of the event is true.
(2/2) To your questions: 1. The Holy Spirit would use multiple experiences (which includes engagement with your fellow humans) to open your mind to new ways of understanding the biblical texts. E.g. Ancient oral stories being written down into tablet form (e.g. Genesis toledoth accounts) does not mean we should expect ancient cosmology to line up with modern cosmology. The text simply tells us what the ancient people believed (and, for our purposes, what important theological notions to draw from the text). 2. You’d have to clarify what you mean by “holding to such a position.” My view of eternal conscious torment is nuanced from a medieval notion. First, I think that judgment includes one’s own on-going free choice not to have a relationship with the Creator-God. Second, I think that the torment is much akin to the already-existing existential torment that the existential philosophers of the 20th century wrote about (e.g. Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, etc.)
Perhaps that’s not the answer you’re looking for, but I hope you’ll find it more thoughtful than what you’ve experienced from Christians in the past. Feel free to follow up. Cheers!
If I may please: as much as I applaud your charitable understanding of “eternal conscious torment”, a majority of Christians and Muslims that I know personally, tend to hold the medieval understanding. So, as a non-believer, among several other differing understandings of scripture, to which understandings should I be inclined?
Calvinist, Lutheran, Methodist, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Church of England, Unitarian, Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Mormom, [choose your congregation] …
Turbopro, I take it you’re arguing that the existence of religious denominational diversity implies skepticisim of the issue altogether. That would be a non-sequitur. It implies intellectual humility (i.e. ‘I might be wrong’) but it does not imply skepticism (i.e., ‘There is no answer’). There are ample incorrect solutions to mathematical equations, but that does not imply there is no correct answer.
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood your comment. Let me know. Cheers!
Well, I am not sure that I was arguing anything related to religious denominational diversity. I am interested in understanding how should I as a non-believer address the differences in the understanding of scripture by those people that I know–friends, family, colleagues and the like. And I generally ask each the same question: to which understanding should I be inclined?
Is it that skepticism implies “There is no answer”?
Turbopro,
For what purposes are you, a non-believer, addressing the differences in understanding of Scripture? Is it to point out the variety of positions (and thus no certainty for an answer)? Or is it because you yourself is so many different types of conversations? If it is this option, then I would suggest you take each person’s views on their own merit.
KJaros I apologize for getting a bit off-topic but how can a book with clear mistakes, such as contradictions written by various unknown authors be trusted? I don’t wanna go into details but the Bible does contain contradictions. Is your view that it is OK to be so?
Hi Yaz79,
Let’s grant your claim about the existence of contradictions.
Suppose someone tells an account of some historical events they saw or heard from other sources, and 95% of what they say is reliable. But that remaining 5% seems inaccurate, and in some few cases even contradictory to what others claimed.
Does the existence of a few contradictions logically entail that the person is *entirely* unreliable?
Cheers.
Dear Kjaros. I have been mulling over your replies to queries to two comments (to Truncated and to Yaz79) and have found them difficult to take on board.
When replying to Truncated it is evident that you personally can accommodate biblical stories which appear to fly in the face of modern scientific understanding by interpreting them in light of today’s knowledge and understanding:- viz ‘the sun stood still’. I can accept the possibility of your explanation but the difficulty for me is twofold. Firstly there are many who would dismiss your account out of hand because they accept scripture totally literally and do not require you to explain away the miraculous. Since you would, I assume, all claim to be Christians how do you reach out to them? Secondly, as somebody who worked in education (in the primary sector in the UK) for over 50 years I wonder at what point you feel it appropriate to teach such stories to children as they are found in scripture and at what point (age) you would want to tell them that ‘it didn’t really happen like that.’? [to be continued]
Hi Silver,
I wouldn’t say the stories “fly in the face of modern scientific understanding” so long as we understand them to be phenomenological statements. For example, we say “The Sun sets in the west.” But does it really?! And, to your second question, at what point should we teach children that Earth is hurling through space at 1700 km/hr? Rather, both statement are true.
To your first question, I am interested in discussions with Christians who take everything literally, because I think they have a shallow understanding of faith. These are the persons with shallow theologies and, when push comes to shove, are the ones deconverting and leaving the faith altogether. So, given that I’m in a relation as a Christian brother, I raise objections to their views and give them reason to doubt. This is an exercise in order to get them thinking more deeply about the biblical text. (This likely wouldn’t happen in conversation with a non-believer, because the person would probably just get defensive.)
[continued from an earlier comment]
My other difficulty is with your answer to Yaz79. You replied, “Does the existence of a few contradictions logically entail that the person is *entirely* unreliable?”
Obviously I must grant that it does not LOGICALLY entail that a person is unreliable but it would definitely give me cause for concern and to question and doubt the rest of their pronouncements. That would particularly be the case if there was even a hint that what they were proclaiming was, in their view, the inspired, inerrant word of God.
I should appreciate your comments.
Hey Silver [cont’d],
“but it would definitely give me cause for concern and to question and doubt the rest of their pronouncements.”
Indeed, question and doubt, away! I’m of the position that a thorough vetting would indicate that the Gospel authors are generally historically reliable in what they convey, and I think the Synoptics have a stronger historicity than mere general historical reliability (with Luke being the strongest of the 3).
For the sake of discussion, I’d place aside inerrancy and inspiration and consider those doctrine points later. Those doctrinal points don’t follow if the Gospels are utter works of fiction.
thanks Kurt
You’re welcome, WM!