Loading...Over the years I’ve done a lot of public debates, and deep down I suppose I think they can do some good. Maybe not on a large scale, but at least for a few individuals in the audience who are open both to thinking about an important issue and to realizing that the view they’ve always held and simply assumed to be true may not be. If there are 300 people there and five of them are like that, OK, that’s great. Think Genesis 18:23-33.
On the other hand, even though I get enthusiastic when I do debates, I really don’t enjoy them. I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed one. As some of you have heard me say, in virtually every debate I’m in, part way through I start writing notes to myself: “WHY are you doing this??”
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This happens in science too. I won’t get into the very small number (mostly on the payroll of oil or coal companies) who can “prove” that there is no climate change or that the changing temperatures are not due to human activity! There are a few who claim they can prove Einstein wrong and Newton right. Physicists hear from them every so often. In science, the evidence is often massive, but still can be ignored or hand-waved away if one is committed to some other view. Evolution for example, a case closer to your Bible debates!
Then there are those of us who aren’t well-versed in the Bible and think, “If Bart says it’s so, it’s so.” I haven’t read it since I had to take Old and New Testament courses in the small Methodist school (Centenary) I attended and half the time didn’t read the assignments. You also throw a lot of history at us and your courses are great, so the whole package is really educational to me and you present it in a manner that makes it interesting, which says a lot.
I discovered you thru your book “Misquoting Jesus” and I think I got on your presentations very early and am better for it and much more educated on scripture and early Xtn history as a result.
Thanks for all you do.
Thanks! (I do tell my students, though, that they shouldn’t believe something just because someone you think is trustworthy says it — including your professor!!)
You write here ‘… virtually everything I debate about is something that I’ve changed my mind on in the past when I saw that the evidence pointed in a different direction from what I’ve thought.’
Do you recall ever changing your mind on an issue and then, encountering further evidence, changing it back again or, moving on, changing to a third option? If so, please could you give examples. Thanks
One big example is that for years I (naturally, as an evangelical) believed that the Synoptic Gospels portrayed Jesus as God; then as I moved into scholarsihp, I believed not; then years later I came to realize they actually did (but not in the way I originally thought).
Dr Ehrman, when you describe people who claim to have been objective about a subject but end up arriving at their original belief, I immediately think of something called the “backfire effect” which causes people to latch on harder to ideas that have been conclusively debunked. The folks you described have basically “backfired” themselves.
Also, another problem with any public debate is, the word “debate” itself implies a certain amount of equivalence. Put another way, one is dealing with two competing notions, both of which might be true. In a a lot of cases, this isn’t so, one of the sides of the debate has no chance of being true. Debates with flat earthers, moon-landing deniers, and creationists are examples of this.
People not already familiar with a topic might watch a “debate” under the assumption that both sides are coming at it with equal merit and sincerity, when in reality there is no equality and one of the sides is clearly wrong (and may even be duplicitous) about it.
I completely agree. Why should there be a “debate” about whether the earth was created 6000 years ago??? (But, alas, since people still think so, how else do you deal with it directly, without showing that the best arguments for it by the leading proponents are completely and hopelessly flawed?)
I get your point about debates almost being necessary in addition to also being (sometimes) fruitless in terms of giving unintended implied “support” for erroneous ideas. I can’t say I know of any way to handle that conundrum.
Dr Ehrman, is it true that Jesus was simply one of many Jewish preachers in the area in his time that preached about apocalypse and were persecuted or executed? If yes, is there any historical reason why only Jesus ended up inspiring such an influential movement that ultimately became Christianity?
Yes and yes. For some reason, in his case, his followers (unlike others) came to believe he was alive again. I.e., the “resurrectoin appearances.” Those who don’t believe Jesus really was raised from the dead can come up with reasons that he in particular was thought by some followers to have been raised — possibly something to do with their deep frustrations because he had assured them that he was to be the future king and they would be ruling under him when the day of judgment arrived.
Thanks. Even a regular death of a charismatic spiritual leader is a majorly tough pill to swallow for the followers because it forces them to acknowledge the leader as being flesh and blood and physically essentially the same as the followers, nothing special and supernatural. Can’t imagine how jarring an actual crucifixion (embarrassing) would be to their beliefs. Where I come from (India), there is a well documented mechanism by which followers of charismatic gurus/cult leaders manage to reconcile with the death of their leader. Usually it is some or the other politically smart apprentice of the leader claiming something to the effect of “the dead leader is not really dead, he came in my dream and told me to continue his work here while he continues the work in a higher realm.” And so you get a new leader. Sometimes even an itinerant newcomer manages to hijack the cult by claiming to be a reincarnation of the guru. I wonder if anyone in Early Christianity tried claiming to be a rebirth of Christ, or if the idea of reincarnation was a non-starter in that culture/milieu (Hindus have no theological problem with reincarnation)
Dr. Ehrman, everything you said above goes ditto for me, just not in scholarly debates. It’s
Why I don’t care what people ‘believe’
Why I think apologists are big-time intellectually dishonest
Why I think flat Earthers are breathtakingly lost in their heads
Why I think fact-based thinkers exist in a different universe than faith-based thinkers
Why I think faith-based thinkers all live in their own universes
Why I think politics is often so divisive (because there’s no small amount of what people ‘believe’ baked into most things political)
Why fact-based thinking is nicer in my head than when I was a faith-based thinker
Why I think there are a gazillion Christian denominations in the world
Why I don’t expect people to have to agree with what I believe
Why people should never expect me to have to agree with their beliefs
Why I actively try to avoid beliefs in general
Why I kinda sorta have disdain for beliefs in general
Why I think people with religious beliefs lose the ability to discern the difference between what they ‘know’ and what they ‘believe’
Why I’m an agnostic!
Ok. I think I’m done. That was actually fun.
Glad you got it out of your system! (But it’s hard to imagine how someone can literally be without beliefs of any kind) (I mean, hey, “I believe for every drop of rain that falls….”)
It doesn’t matter if I believe the sun will ‘rise’ tomorrow. If the sun is still burning and the Earth is still here in about 13 hours from when I’m writing this, then there will be sunlight tomorrow. If the sun goes supernova or the Earth is disintegrated by a huge object, then that tomorrow might not occur.
When I spoke about beliefs, I meant beliefs that exist only, completely only in people’s heads. No evidence. No way way to measure the beliefs, scan them, take their temperature, taste them, touch them, feel them….
Sorry for not making it clear, but I meant beliefs in things like you’re going to hell if you have musical instruments in your worship services. Or you’ll have a bunch of virgins in the afterlife. It if the Earth is flat. Or Jesus was raised from the dead. Or that he raised another person from the dead.
To your point, I don’t claim to live without beliefs. But I don’t like them. Here’s an example. I have been cheated on by a spouse. That said, I truly don’t ‘believe’ my current spouse would cheat on me. It’s s belief and I acknowledge it 😊
Even beliefs in true things are beliefs! Belief is an emotion. That’s why the scientific method is so powerful! It incorporates belief as a means towards finding the truth. To oversimplify: document why you believe something, share with others so they can put your beliefs to the test. If it works for them the same as you, they may then believe that your belief might actually be true! If it holds up through the decades, it becomes established science (like evolution). If it doesn’t hold up, it’s eventually no longer taken seriously (like phrenology).
These debates where your opponent (not necessarily adversarial; you and Dr. Licona appear to be very collegial) tries to prove something that is fundamentally a matter of faith seem upside down. You: the best evidence we have is [describe evidence]. Opponent: well, nuh uh, and I can *prove* it cuz the Bible tells me so [JenniferLawrenceOK.gif].
That’s why it’s called faith, non? If it could be proven then it wouldn’t be – checks notes – faith?
Debating if Paul was aware of the Gospel sources? Lesgo. What’s the latest on Q? That might be fun. Did Jesus AksHuALLy exist? Actually, don’t do that: non-Bible scholar ancient historians trying to shoehorn Bayes’ theorem into historicity is outright sophistry (paging Richard Carrier, obvi).
You call it dubious, but I’m not his friend and I’m not as gracious: it’s intellectually dishonest to claim you can *prove* an article of faith. HistoryChannelPyramidGuy: “I’m not saying it was aliens, but aliens” is dubious (and risible) . “I KNOW Jesus rose from the dead” is intellectually dishonest, definitionally.
Your lectures are wildly illuminating. Debating apologists? Meh, and selfishly, debating != writing. MOAR books!
My $.02
I agree. But Mike and others genuine think that past events are capable of historical demonstration even if they were caused by miraculous interventions of God. Their “logic” is that hey, if it happened, it’s susceptible of “proof” just as all other past events are. I obviously think that’s completely wrong…
Was there any occasion when you had to admit the other person was right?
Re: how weirdly coincidental it is…
Sooo…no rematch with James White, I guess?
Who would you say had the most personal charm? White? Or William Lane Craig?
It is disappointing that Mike Licona, as intelligent as he obviously is, still feels the need to hold on to apostolic authorship. Perhaps next time you could debate with him on the question whether personal faith hinders scholarship?
Whoa, on the charm scale, that’s tough…
Well stated, Bart.
I’ll reference Elle al Shamahi who, as a scientist and Muslim wanted to prove human creation but her maturation as a scientist led to understanding evolution as fact which upset her entire world. NOVA and PBS recently produced and broadcast with her the ‘Human’ documentary series. I recommend it highly. Here is a link to an article about her:
https://observer.co.uk/news/science-technology/article/people-can-change-their-minds-the-evolutionary-biologist-with-a-dramatic-story-of-her-own
However, I do not say I ‘believe’ in evolution. I say that I ‘accept’ scientific positions. Just a convention I’ve adopted.
That stated, poor Mike Licona. His categories of internal and external evidence seemed his way of creating some level of structure leading to objectivity and credibility. But these don’t get past the fact that the authors DO NOT identify themselves, nor did any people contemporaneous with the original writings reference the authors. He is left with ‘belief’ that his position is correct rather than credible evidence that can be ‘accepted’ as clearly identifying the gospel authors. Note that I stopped short of the issue – as you did during the debate – that many people added text to the gospels after the originals were written so authorship of the gospels we have can’t be singular.
Nice convention! And on Mike, yup, I totally agree.
And too, debates have rules and often judges…. you can be ‘right’ on the facts and still be judged as ‘losing’ the debate. So then you have people saying “see Bart Ehrman lost the debate…. he was wrong”. I remember one popular and well known from the pro-bible/pro-god side who basically just threw a lot of claims out with the audience mainly his supporters. He didn’t have to prove his claims, but his opponent had to try to disprove the claims but only had time to argue two or three. Then the claim was “see he couldn’t prove x y and z wrong so he lost the debate”.
Many of the debates are often set up unfairly with a predetermined outcome and hard to find a truly fair one…. at least in my opinion and occasional observation.
My colleague Jodi Magness, just this afternoon, told a lunch audience that she’s never won an argument with me, but that she keeps reminding me that just because you’ve won the argument doesn’t mean you’re right. 🙂 disabledupes{7585095ecda8a9e5068cda63eb9238dd}disabledupes
Someone like Mike Licona has a lot to lose if he conceded even a trivial point. He already got in hot water and was more or less fired for his Matthew 27 zombie comments back in 2011. As many have noted, Christian apologists must present 100% certainty with no wiggle room for nuance or doubt. There can’t be a single weak link in the invincible armor of biblical inerrancy/infallibility/inspiration.
As a secular historian, it isn’t technically your job to tell Christians how to think about biblical inspiration. Nevertheless, if your goal is to have more productive conversations with fundamentalists, it might help to offer a theological framework that makes certain admissions feel “safe.” People often need permission to see things differently.
I hold a high view of Scripture, but I don’t subscribe to the Chicago Statement. Releasing that rigid framework has actually deepened my understanding of God and enriched my engagement with the Bible. I believe God works through real, imperfect people while still preserving His message of salvation. Scripture is full of profound stories, inspired insights, and divine guidance.
I can hold all of that while also believing Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to carry a staff when they went out (even though Mark said he did). That discrepancy doesn’t trouble my faith at all.
In other words, show your audience they can remain faithful Christians while recognizing God has breathed life into the best (albeit imperfect) efforts of ordinary people, elevating their words the way Jesus turned water into wine. If you can give them that framework, you’ll find far more openness and curiosity in your listeners.
Yes, I try that a lot, but most Christians with a high view of Scripture don’t accept it from me because I’m not one of their own. In my case it was only when I worked with very devout Christians who realized there were possible contradictions in the Bible that I was open to agreeing — not with those crazy liberals I heard it from…. The irony is that they kinds of things I argue against Mike are things I learned while training to be a minister at a Presbyterian seminary!
Honestly, it’s their loss. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from your work, especially the way you highlight the unique nuances and theological emphases in each of the gospels. And when I first read your explanation of Paul’s “forensic model” versus his “identification model,” it was like Romans finally clicked for me. That was the interpretive key I didn’t know I was missing.
Fundamentalists are so worried they’ll somehow be “infected” by engaging with your scholarship that they end up depriving themselves of real insight. It says a lot about how secure they actually are in their own beliefs.
I personally find debates to be completely unhelpful and I tend to stay away from them in favor of just studying and looking at the data.
I understand why debates exist. I understand why people have them. The problem is, “Debate” itself is a skill that not all educated people have. If two people are debating, one of them could be completely wrong about their position while at the same time conveying their position in a more persuasive way, simply by being more skilled a debater than their opponent. On the flip side, you could have someone with all their facts in order, all their opinions correct and still make a terrible case for their side simply because they’re not skilled in the art of debate.
I personally don’t believe you have ever lost a debate. Whether or not you were right about every position you ever took is a completely different question.
Bart, you may not enjoy debates. I don’t blame you. But you do excel at communicating your points. You are gifted. And I think you’ve opened more people’s minds than you realize. Mine included. Those crowds may seem to be against you, but I bet far more than a few walk away with more questions and curiosity than they walked in with.
Thanks. I hope so. But then again, hope springs eternal!
While you may not enjoy public debates, you’re performing a public service. Your coherent, fact-based arguments help people like me deepen our understanding of these issues and reassure us that this position is grounded in real substance, not mere dogma or wishful thinking.
Without people like you, non-religious people like me would be trapped in a dogmatically religious echo chamber and left to question our sanity. (Paul Krugman performed a similar service regarding economics during the Bush years.)
Your work has been of great benefit to me and many like me. So thanks for helping to keep us sane!
Most participants—both debaters and audience members—approach debates with pre-committed identities. They do not come to evaluate evidence; they come to affirm who they already are.
Psychologically, this is tied to:
(1) Identity-protective cognition: People unconsciously reinterpret or reject information that threatens their group identity or personal worldview. (2) Belonging > accuracy: Human beings evolved for social cohesion, not for abstract truth. Losing a belief that ties you to your community feels like losing the community itself.
Because of this, debates rarely produce conversions. Instead, they reinforce existing group boundaries.
I’ve seen many of your debates, primarily on YouTube, and have enjoyed the interaction you had with your opponent and the audience when answering questions. Have you ever considered doing a debate and taking a side you didn’t agree with? I would love to see how you would defend the inerrancy of the Bible.
I had to do a few debates in a “Contemporary Issues” class in High School, and was usually assigned the a side I didn’t always agree with.
Oh yes. I’ve even debaed both sides of a controversial issue in front of large classes, where I give the Affirmative speech, then the Negative, then the Negative rebuttal and then the Affirmative, etc. (!)
I’ve learned to separate belief from plausibility. For me, belief is either an emotion, a doctrinal requirement, or both. Doesn’t mean the thing I feel is true or that I’m required to believe is true is actually plausible. I have no problem reciting the Nicene Creed: none of it is disprovable. But little of it is plausible (I think I heard you cover the plausible parts once: Jesus, crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered, was buried. That’s it. — the “buried” part implying death, not the actual form of burial, if any). I believe the Nicene Creed because I’m required to in order to maintain my membership, which I still value very much for personal reasons. Once upon a time, I had an emotional connection as well, but that’s long over.
Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
It’s immaturity. People like Mike Licona need to grow up.
I think Lee Strobel’s A Case for Christ falls in the same camp. This so called investigative journalist turns his investigatory skills towards the validity of the New Testament but interviews only those who have been predetermined to support the preferred conclusions. What do I say to someone who gave me this book as a new member of their church?! If only I could find someone locally who has the same intellectual inclination towards exploring matters of faith.
You should think about joining our Biblical Studies Academy (not connected with the blog). It’s for people just like you. (Just google biblical studies academy Ehrman)
I don’t enjoy listening to debates on religion for that reason. A person has to be seeking historical facts and be open to the possibility that facts might alter their beliefs or there is no real “debate”. The fundamentalists I know are not going there. I will say their way works for them. They have a community of like believers, and they are basically settled on the big questions. We are in a small southern town with very little religious diversity. It doesn’t work for me. So much in Christianity doesn’t sound right, make sense or sit right with me. So I guess that’s why I’m here. There is a book called “The Sin of Certainty” and that title rings true to me. To me it is better to be seeking and admit you don’t know, than it is to pick a set of beliefs, even the ones you were raised with, and say that’s that, it’s all settled.
I don’t think the question is of too much consequence for the truth of Christianity. It may reduce the likelihood of the Gospels being historically accurate but only slightly. I remember reading a question in which William Lane Craig was being asked about the authorship of the Gospels and his response was “who cares?” I think a more important question to debate is how far removed they are from the events of Jesus’s life.
And their consistency, etc. But if they *were* written by people who had never been in Israel and didn’t know Aramaic and didn’t know any of Jesus’s actual followers, that might matter some…
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you share Günther Bornkamm’s opinion here? “…wherever there were early Christian witnesses and communities, and however varied their message and theology were, they are all united in believing and acknowledging the risen Lord. Paul has expressed this with the greatest possible emphasis – and he speaks here for the whole of primitive Christianity: “Whether then it was I or they (i.e. the other apostles), so we preach and so you believed” (I Cor. xv. 11).”
Yeah, pretty much. All he’s saying is that followers of Jesus believed he got raised from the dead.
RE: Scientific evidence
It is also a big problem that most people cannot tell good research from bad research. It takes little effort to realize that most research is, at best, very weak — there is almost always not enough time, data, skill nor open-mindedness (e.g.; researcher bias controls) to come to many ‘clean’ findings – especially with marketing-funded research and grad students at universities (as I’ve seen first-hand having been a grad student for a long time at several research universities.) There is very little that can be demonstrably ‘proven’, but there is no shortage of fan clubs for certain research findings, no matter how dubious the research, on all sides of almost every popular argument. It is very important to always consider the source (for researcher bias) and question the data acquisition process (for quantity, quality and neutrality.) Most journalists today fail to do that anymore.
Nearly 13 years to the day since the world was scheduled to end according to the Maya calendar (which has been vouched for by Hidden Hand, as well as others), we are all going to be confronted with the reality that most of what we were told and believed was completely false. Unless, of course, we studied Lester Levinson and the Hindu and Buddhist masters.
Candace Owens is talking about the fact that the history we were taught was all a lie.
Marco Rubio admitted the government and armaments manufacturers have reverse-engineered ET tech.
Radu Cinamar has opened the door wide to knowing the genesis of the human race.
There are videos you can watch of greys and antigravity vessels.
Many have done extensive time travel.
But the most relevant discovery is the totalitarian nature of Luciferian control over our thoughts and beliefs.
I offer this observation: men who make false claims are not incompetent, but “committed.” Either they serve God, or they serve Lucifer.
Why not incompetent? Because under the “principalities, powers, the worldly governors, the princes of darkness of this world,” no one achieved fame or fortune unless he served Lucifer.
That is, until 2016, when the timeline changed.
It seems to me (whenever I’ve witnessed you in a debate that you always have the upper hand with your debating skills over anyone I’ve ever witnessed you debating.
As for converting others to your point of view, I tend mostly already to be on your side (perspective) so I don’t count.
On the other hand, there’s one thing you are Really Wrong about, though it is a confusion many may have. That is your insistence that Peter (or any other NT writer) could not have written in Greek only because at one time they may have been illiterate.
Neuroscience shows (and I earned my first degree in that field, and my second in Theology,) that an adult who already speaks a language has a much easier time to learn and write it even though they may have a great deal of difficulty learning to speak a second language. I happen to know my grandfather and his seven brothers and sisters all learned to read in their 60’s… and quite well.
It’s a point worth considering, but I’m afraid I have to disagree: no one in the ancient world could compose high level Greek without being thoroughly trained in it from childhood. We don’t have a single documented case of it.
Saying that someone in the modern world can learn to write a second language better after having spoken it is a very different phenomenon.
And learning to read in your 60s is simply not the same as being able to write a novel in your 60s after having been unable to read till then. Today it may be possible because we have adult education; that did not exist in Greek and Roman antiquity.
you’re debates meant the world to me, especially when I lived in Shanghai.
What I am interested in as I have said last few years is the external moderator- who would interview the attendees. There ought to be an update on their positions of the victor [not you].
I know what the Church I grew up in would say during the mid-late 70s & 80s: all else is false, they don’t have the devotion to GOD we do.
Well I talk to my AUNT & they have changed. Are they gonna ask for repentance for screwing up people’s lives?
Thank you Dr Ehrman, enjoy your retirement!
but as I heard on NPR of former MORMANS- I just can’t change my morality in living. & what a shock moving back over from atheist China!
Finally Dr Ehrman: how did you feel when the 3 or 4 other debaters all gang up on you [like a mob]- who is debating the truth?
“just because you’ve won the argument doesn’t mean you’re right”
“most Christians with a high view of Scripture don’t accept it from me because I’m not one of their own”
you were/am totally right!
TRUTH DOES NOT SET US FREE