Interesting at times but overall disappointing.  I love Derek’s enthusiasm but he got bogged down in minutiae of interest only to diehards.  Too many down in the weeds questions that could have been answered by reading ** you do not have permission to see this link **. (Which I highly recommend by the way.)  I understand he was beholden to his contributors and was obligated to privilege their questions but if you’ve only got ninety minutes with Dr Ehrman I think it would have been better to take a different approach.

Which of course simply means I would have asked different questions.  Fewer, more philosophical.  Subjects he occasionally refers to but doesn’t spend a lot of time discussing.  For example, in no particular priority, 

1. How have current hot button social issues on campus affected his teaching approach?  

2. Discuss the relative health of his field in academia.  (There don’t seem to be many jobs available.  What does the future look like?) 

3. Having been a believer and working with believers, does belief or non-belief have an affect on scholarship?  (I understand that believers can do excellent scholarship but my perception is that for each of them there is a point beyond which they cannot go, and that there are issues and concerns that do not seem to occur with non-believers.)

4. Discuss the New testament from a literary point of view.  If the NT wasn’t considered sacred scripture by so many just how much interest would it draw apart from specialists?  Is any of it “literature” in the sense that Genesis or the Book of Samuel (or Homer or Virgil) are?

5. Discuss the utter weirdness of the gospel of Mark.  

There are more.  These are just off the top of my head.  

Steefen said
A reply from Person A who watched the video:

It low key pissed me off how he acted about Dr bob and Richard carrier. I got the feel Derek didn’t really appreciate it either.

Steefen

It was an ouch moment.

Person B who watched the video replying to Person A:

Dr Ehrman does himself a disservice by dismissing other scholars with a minority view in an arrogant way.

Reply from Person A:

And his argument was “name one theology professor who believes mythicism” argument from authority and ad populum fallacy. Figured he could do better than that.

 

  

Poor Dr Ehrman is so old-fashioned.  He still believes in expertise.  He hasn’t fully absorbed the new order of things where everyone is allowed to freely bloviate and expect their imaginings to be taken seriously.  Ehrman commits no fallacy.  He simply states a fact.  The vast majority of critical scholars consider mythicism to be on the same level as evolutionary biologists consider young earth creationism.  They don’t take it seriously at all.  it’s not even wrong.

It’s odd how Carrier’s disciples get so butt-hurt because their hero is not taken seriously.  Never mind his hysterical personal attacks on scholars who critique his views.  And “Dr Bob” is a really nice guy and very entertaining to listen to but he holds some really really fringe ideas.